US Arrival


I have arrived in Eugene! After a nice 60 year birthday for my father on Saturday (September 13), I left Denmark at 6.30 in the morning on Sunday after about 1 hour of sleep. Very exhausting. About 18 hours later and a -9 hour time shift I arrived at Eugene and was picked up by the family which is hosting me for the first five days of my stay in the USA (a service offered by the Friendship Foundation of the University of Oregon, we could learn from that in Denmark). On the 10 hour plane ride for USA I sat next to a nice guy named Dan from San Francisco. My first American acquaintance. Excellent!

My host family is very hospitable and kind and have a mindset very close to my own which really helps when communicating. They are also helpful and a good source of information about Eugene. My English skills are — in my own opinion — not very good yet. My vocabulary is limited but it is not such a big problem. Dan (from the airplane) actually said, that I was almost fluent and even better than some americans. What a compliment but he was probably being polite :-)

I visited the University of Oregon campus for the first time today getting a lot of information. Too much actually… but everything can be overcome when you are walking among beautiful buildings with 25°C and the sun is shining from a cloudless sky — in September. The thing I found most interesting was that, during my short stay at campus, I noticed that it is quite different from a Danish university. Sure, you might have a super market and an ATM at most universities but here, there were about 5-6 places to eat and shop in one of the buildings and several ATMs. A Subway on campus, how perfect is that?!

Still, there is so overwhelmingly much information and practical stuff that needs my attention. I haven’t found a permanent place to stay yet, I need a Social Security Number, a bank account, a cell phone number and so on. The housing is the worst problem. Everything is filled up and the U of O does not have any suggestions but just a nice big board for putting up ads. I still have four days though… hope that’s enough.

I will probably write a lot of posts in the beginning because so much is happening. I haven’t really told everything in the above but who cares for all the details. Hmm, well if this is suppose to be a diary, I should perhaps be more precise for my own sake and later use. No, this is fine, I don’t want to remember every little detail. But then again… (My brain’s indecisiveness is quite irritating, you must know)

That’s it for today. By the way, thanks for the comments. See you later.