Right, well last night I had a really great evening spent at my International Marketing professors house with 15 of my classmates and his family. It was very "hygge", a danish expression which sounds nothing like it looks and means cozy, warm and inviting. We had pizza and friggadela (definitely not how it is spelled) and enjoyed getting to know each other better over the course of the evening. This of course was great and in part it reflects the danish teaching style as well. We have been told by all of our professors to use their first names only as well. It seems like a very flat system in which the professor in no way assumes the power role that at times we are accustomed to in the US.
That is really interesting of course but the real reason I am writing is to say that I've had my first run in with the law. Ok, before you get nervous and wonder if I have been deported or something to that regard ... not to worry ... What happened was that a group of three other girls and I decided to walk to the station together after class and head to the professor's house which was a fair distance from the city center. Two of the other girls and I had 5 zone passes so we figured that we would be perfectly fine to get on the train and make our way a few stops out from the city center as it would clearly stay within the allotted 5 zones. Turns out ... that really wasn't the case. Keep in mind that I have only taken the train from my house to the city center and back over the course of the last week as I haven't needed to really take it anywhere else. My general assumption (and that of the other two girls with me) was that the zones were distinguished like that of a dartboard (I'm sure there is a better way to explain this ...) and for each distance you crossed into the zones 1,2,3 etc. Not really the case.
Well on the last stop before we were to get off we had the transit authorities come onboard and ask to see our passes. They then proceeded to get off the train with us at our stop and write us our fines. Each of us tried to convince them that as American students having only been in the city one week we were still confused with the system and believed that we were in the right when we got onboard. We were seriously sure that we were right, having joked as we saw someone get ticketed the stop before that we didn't want to get the fine. If we had wanted to get offboard before they checked our passes we could have easily done that as well ... ok, too late for ifs ... Needless to say playing the "American" card really didn't stop these transit police from writing our tickets. We are allowed to appeal the ticket which I will do tomorrow but for now I'm not really worried or upset about it ... worse things could happen.
Of course now I will be extremely careful as to triple check anytime I leave my specific zones as to whether or not I have the right pass. I suppose these are the sort of things that happen in a new city in your first week. Live and learn.
Wishing you happy transit wherever you may be.
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