By Way of Introduction

Danish Sailor
Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He’s no more afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!
–Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

I will keep this inaugural post short, as I am busy preparing for a long plane journey that will hopefully be less stressful than the one described above. This blog will report my journey to Copenhagen for the next four months, where I will be studying at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS). As a Philosophy major at Northwestern University, I am especially excited to be studying Kierkegaard while abroad; I will also engage in a St. Petersburg excursion, live with a Danish host family, and likely sample a fair bit of Europop (chief Danish exports remain Toy-Box and Aqua).

As a sort of mission statement, this blog will aim for a hermeneutic assessment of Denmark through the eyes of someone wholly unqualified to provide such a thing. I will be learning the Danish language, eating Danish food, absorbing Danish lifestyles, and joyfully spreading American miasma all the while.

Please do not expect something bubbly. As conversation topics go, I prefer Mitterand to microbreweries. I will, however, most definitely be under the influence of both. Expect puns on the Danish Prime Minister’s name and a certain political polling firm stateside.

Consider these as much recommendations as warnings. Following a new blog, after all, is a lot like studying abroad: you don’t know what to expect; you feel excited and nervous; the first days leave you with eddies of amusement and disappointment; you learn something cool inadvertently; you inevitably reach that middle period a few weeks in when you ask yourself ‘oh god, why did I sign up for this’; and you finally leave in disgust, never to return, or you curse the heavens wishing for just one…more…visit…

And years later, you wish you’d read the disclaimer.

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