Quickly alienated from the world we live in

Last night when I turned on the radio, I suddenly felt a wave of comfort sweep over me. Ok that is a bit strange, but there was something so lovely about hearing a good Australian accent, on ‘702’ as I tuned in to midnight talk-back radio. Usually I wouldn’t care less about the radio, in actually fact, I usually avoid listening to it. In the car, I have an extensive list of cds just to avoid having to listen to ‘gardening on a Sunday’ or trivial topics like ‘what was your first job and where did you first get the sack?’  I spent my child hood listening to James Valentine with my mum as we came home from school. When you are overseas, despite the cringe factor, there couldn’t be anything better to remind me of home and those countless hours spent in the car with mum laughing over the random topics.

The reason I actually started listening to the radio in the first place was actually to get an update on what was happening in the world. It came to my attention earlier this week, that I actually have no idea! No longer do I sit down to read the newspaper on the weekend, or watch the 6pm news with Mum whilst we wait for Dad to come home. It frightened me how little I know about what is going on in the world. So  I decided to listen to the radio, however unfortunately the news never came on…

I think when you are living abroad it is so easy to fall into the trap I have fallen into. I have become obvious to both my mother country, as well as world affairs. It is something that should keep one connected to their country, and without remaining connected you quickly become very distant from where you once lived. Originally I thought ‘oh if anything important happens, mum and dad or a friend, or even Facebook will tell me’, but I am quickly coming to realise that that isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to be just concerned about the little minute portion of the world you live in at one particular time, but rather we need to be aware of what is around us. Why? So that we can pray about events happening in the world. So that we can pray for those suffering in war, poverty and trauma. In James 1:27 we are told to “look after orphans and widows in their distress”. Sometimes it isn’t always possible to provide immediate care to everyone, but we can always pray! In the past 6 weeks, I have definitely learnt the power of prayer.

 

Just a little uni, and exploring the sites of Denmark

I have now been in Copenhagen for over a month, and I am definitely settling in to my new life here. Here is just a glimpse of my past week, which was a little crazy…

I started uni, which turned out to be not quite as I had expected, and I visited these famous cliffs called Møns Klint.

So basically, I thought uni would be pretty chill. I was only doing one subject for the first few weeks of semester, and only had class for 6 hours. Sounds pretty chilled right? Well think again…basically Danish students (well the ones in my class anyways) are basically super humans. Before the first lecture, they had read all the notes, done all the questions, and knew every detail about the lecture material. That’s right – BEFORE the FIRST lecture. Me on the other hand turned up having done nothing, which resulted in me being rather lost and confused. This was before I realised the difficulty of the course that I was in, resulting in me having to negotiate if I could change subjects (still to be decided). Also riding 10kms to be at uni by 8am  (about a 45 minutes bike ride  due to bicycle traffic – yes it is a thing exclusive to Copenhagen) isn’t what I would call fun. On the positive side though, I met some Danish people who were really nice!!

This week was also meant to be my debut in ‘spring gymnastics’, however due to flooding in Copenhagen on the weekend my class was cancelled. Basically we had a lot of rain on Saturday night, and as I discovered early Sunday morning, the Copenhagen drainage system couldn’t quite cope. The metro near my place didn’t run for a week due to the flooding, and as I was trying to ride my bike on Sunday morning, this is the small obstacle I came across…

Life has continued to be busy, especially with the arrival of my two new housemates. Most nights turn into a gourmet cooking fest, where we cook, eat and talk for about two hours. We even decided to name our apartment ‘bat cave’. Please don’t ask where the name came from, we don’t actually know ourselves. But it works, and a few nights ago the ‘bat cave’ hosted it’s first dinner party, complete with lasagna and homemade danish candles.

 

Yesterday I went on an amazing day trip to a place called Møns Klint,  It is about 2 hours south of Copenhagen, and was absolutely beautiful. Upon arrival we walked down to the beach to have lunch. The sun was shining, and the air temperature was a balmy 20 degrees. It was probably warmer actually. After lunch we decided that we had to go swimming. Despite the rocks being very sharp, and the water being a little cold, we did it – that’s right, I went swimming in the ocean in Denmark!! We spent the rest of our day walking along the  pebble covered beach, trying to find fossils. Møns Klint is famous for having many fossils, however unfortunately we didn’t come across any – well not that we noticed anyways. The cliffs at Møns Klint were amazing!! They were so white, due to their high calcium content, and against the bright blue sky, they were gorgeous. I don’t think I have said ‘wow’ so many times in one day whilst looking at the one thing. It was really a lovely day, and we couldn’t have been more blessed with the weather that we got!

     

On a side note, I received some marmite this week from a friend and it reminded me a lot of home. It isn’t quite the same as vegemite (so if anyone feels inclined to send me some over feel free :P),  but put it on bread with cheese, and I was one happy girl!

Hope you have a fantastic week!!