OMG I'm EXHAUSTED

TODAY was my first real day at the Vraa hojskole (folk high school) and despite drinking maybe five cups of coffee I am completely totally worn out. I will try to explain. First, I got up at 8:20 this morning, about four hours earlier than I have been getting up for the past, um... three or four weeks? Then I had breakfast with Soren and Pia (for those of ya'lls who ain't in the know: Soren= my dad's friend, teacher at the school, married to... Pia= headmistress of the school, both of them played a big part in convincing me to come here) so right - breakfast. Also at breakfast were two former students spending the holidays with Soren and Pia, one named Tina and one who I spent a lot of time with named Sofia from Hungary. I like Sofia a lot - she is learning to play the tin whistle and just got back from visiting her boyfriend in Iceland (some Islander she met at the hojskole) with a really nice Icelandic sweater, and we watched The Notebook and Enchanted together. Oh yeah, and then we shoveled some snow. Most of the students were arriving today and to pick the one guy who flew in to Alborg today up from the airport, the school borrowed a limo from a wealthy benefactor, which apparently has a low bottom, so we were 1) shoveling snow off the roof of the art building 2) attacking a lump of ice in the main entry gate so that the limo count make it in. After this I rode the limo to the airport and met/got to talk to some five of the other students returning from last semester. When more people started arriving, we had what I will call a fika, (coffee and cookies) in the "living room" in the main building of the school. This is when I drank all the coffee that is now making my mouth dry and legs twitch... and met more students. Considering the most socializing I have done in weeks consisted of one or two people that I already knew or wandering around in an unfamiliar neighborhood in Germany asking where I could buy hair dye, this was eventually quite exhausting. So luckily, Sofia wanted to watch a movie, so I went back to Soren and Pia's house with her and began to knit a hat - BECAUSE ITS REALLY REALLY COLD and I can't believe I forgot to bring a hat to Europe. At six it was dinner time, and we arrived in the dinning hall to see the most delicious looking, lets say "feast", laid out in the middle on a table. There was roast pork, baked potatoes with herbs, and then probably twenty or some bowls of things to make salad with - olives, bean sprouts, corn, nuts and seeds, tomatoes, greens DELICIOUS. And there was desert too, some kind of berries with whipped cream on top. Then we had the whole evening of 1) everyone meeting in the living room and introductions of teachers 2) singing songs out of the special folk high school song book (looks like a hymnal) we sang "It's a Wonderful World" and then a Danish song, and then that song that goes "winter spring summer or fall, all ya gotta do is call, and I'll be there yes I will... you've got a friend" 3) introduction to the five or six different main subject lines 4) and probably most importantly, a BIG DANCE to some CRAZY SCANDINAVIAN FOLK MUSIC! They were calling it the "porn polka" because you line up in two lines, and then run out and link arms with your partner and spin and then, well its hard to explain, but you spin once with everyone else in succession and between each one you swing back with your partner, so its a bit like an infidelity dance - that's what they told us at least. But it was really really good fun. Apparently Soren has been telling the other students about me, that I was coming and, unfortunately, that I was really crazy/fun/interesting. This means that people already have a positive opinion of me (Yay!) but it also means I have something to live up to. And I'm the sort of person that takes a bit to warm up to people and really be myself - so I hope they can wait for the crazy. Now I'm in bed - its been a wonderful day, there is wireless internets at the school so I checked my email/facebook for the first time since I've been here, I have a nice dorm, and a nice roommate incidentally with an AMAZING singing voice - her name is Line (pronounced "Lean-eh") Tomorrow morning I get up at 7 (!!!!!!!) so now I must must must go to bed. But wow this will most likely be a great semester.