A funny thing about time...

Background information for this post is that there is currently a "lockout" in effect in Danish public schools. The kommunes (who employ teachers) have effectively "locked them out" of the buildings because of a disagreement over working hours for the coming school year. The lockout will be the subject of another post, but for now all that you need to know is that school children (like Kasper and Mira) are home for the week while negotiations take place.

Now the story: I got up this morning when my alarm went off at 8:10am. I washed my face and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Kasper and Mira were dutifully sitting at the dining room table, each doing schoolwork that they had agreed upon with Helle last night. I smiled as I poured juice: the sun was shining outside and it looked like it would be a beautiful day; it was only a 4-day week since we had Monday off; I was proud of my host siblings for being so responsible. This is nice, I thought to myself.

It was a minute later that I looked at the clock on the stove. For some reason it read 9:15am. I blinked. It still read 9:15am. I whipped around in my chair and looked at the clock on the wall. It also read 9:15.

the time on my phone (on the left) versus
the correct time as displayed on my ipod (on the right)

"Why does the clock say 9:15?" I called out to Mira.
"Because it is 9:15," she said. "You told me last night that you going to get up at 8:10, but you did not get up until 9:10."
It took me about 3 seconds to realize what had happened: my dinky little cellphone did not automatically switch times when our clocks jumped forward this weekend.
"Oh my god!" I said, jumping up and lunging into my room at full speed. "I was supposed to leave 10 minutes ago! I'm not even dressed!"

The next 45 minutes went by in a blur. I usually leave my house at 9:10am to make my 10:05am class, but today I got up at 9:10am, realized my mistake at 9:20am, miraculously got packed up/dressed/washed/out the door by 9:35am, and jumped on my bike. I did not know that my legs (/body/mind) could move that fast so soon after waking up.

It is nothing short of a miracle that I arrived (bright red, pretty much drenched in sweat and having bowled over many small children and tourists who were in my way on the streets) to my 10:05am class at 10:06...literally it is a miracle. It took me 31 minutes to make it door to door, a commute that Danish mapquest insists is not possible in less than 48-52 minutes. Ladies and gentleman, I have defied the laws of commuting! The funny thing is that my professor was late (10 minutes, in fact) so had I taken it more slowly, I still would have made it on time. Still, I thought the whole thing was hilarious.

My Danish class: classmates enjoying tea/coffee, my prof
and sunlight streaming in through the windows on the right

The rest of the day was great! The weather was BEAUTIFUL and it was like the Danes underwent an overnight transformation. The streets were more packed than usual (with more bikers). We had the windows open in my Danish class and songs of street musicians filtered in with fresh air and an abundance of sunlight. I sipped on tea and conversed with my Danish partner about our weekend adventures thinking to myself, "Ain't life grand?"

It is now 8:33pm and the last of the day's sunlight is only now fading away. Daylight savings time is definitely an awesome thing... it's only a problem when technology (or memory) fails you!

Photo on the left: taken behind my house at 8:10pm today
Photo on the right: taken in front of DIS at 4:08pm on my first day of class