Jess-Viborg-Day 19

Three problems that I have had since coming to Viborg have been transportation, obtaining money, and communicating with people at home.

When we arrived in Viborg, we were under the impression that we would be traveling to Foulum each day by bicycle. We knew it was a long trip to get there, however we were not aware of the lack of roadside bicycle paths and how the people drive in Denmark. We ventured out the on the first Sunday we were here to see for ourselves how the bike to Foulum would be each day.

Shortly after beginning our trip we learned that the bike paths simply dwindle into shoulders along the road. You simply have to balance yourself down hills, across bridges and up hills again in such a manner that you do no cross the white line on the side of the road. Drivers of vehicles here do assume all responsibility for cyclists if they happen to hit one, but they do not drive as though they will be held responsible to the harm done to a person on a bicycle. I was lucky enough to experience the rush of a car traveling toward me, in the opposite lane, passing a large semi truck and coming so close to may hand on my handle bar that I could feel the wind and the whooosh of the car's rear view mirror!!

After that trip we decided to remedy this problem by spending money on a bus pass. Our parents were happy to hear that we had decided to be lazy Americans and travel by bus each money if only for their sound of mind. Each bus pass that is good for ten trips is 140 Dkk. There is a monthly pass, which I would suggest for people next year to buys as soon as they get here. With the month pass you can travel as much as you want on the bus in that period of time and it is only about 400 Dkk. We decided not to get this pass because by the time we learned of it, it was already going to be less than a month before we left.

We also were lucky enough to be given rides to and from work on occasion by the nice students who live at the Kollegium with us. This helps reduce some of the weekly travel costs. But, students in the future should not rely on this as a cheap source of travel because the students who live here are graduate students. So, a lot of them do not travel to Foulum at 8am every morning and back to Viborg at 4pm every night.

The second difficulty I experience since being here has been obtaining money. When I traveled over here, I had a large sum of cash (which I would not say to do in the future as it is very nerve wrecking to carry that much cash across the globe) and I had a credit card that I thought could be used as a credit card or atm. However, most of the shops in Viborg (basically all of the shops in Viborg) do no accept credit cards from outside of the country. There is a girl here just from Germany and she cannot even use her credit card that is only from one country away!

I knew that if I used my credit card to purchase anything here there would be a three percent additional fee added on to whatever I charged, but I did not know that to take money out of an atm machine using the card, there is the addition three percent interest, then a fee of about $10 to just use the card that one time, and then there is a 24% interest fee tacked on to the end of the monthly bill of whatever you charged while you were in Europe.

This missunderstanding was partially my fault and partially my credit card companies fault because when I contacted them before I left to let them know that I will be in Europe for a certain period of time (just like Dean Bohn suggested) they only spoke of a 3% interest fee for every transaction. So, being the naive traveler I did not think to ask about what it costs to remove money from an atm using the card.

I also checked into simply paying Inge (the woman who owns the Kollegium) my rent by transferring money from my parent's U.S. bank account to her bank account in Denmark. My mother checked with our bank and was told that it would only a $15 fee to send the money to Denmark. Inge said this would be fine to do, but that I would also be charged on the Denmark side at her bank. Inge promised me to check with her bank about this transaction and get back to me. While Inge did get back to me, she really did not provide me wiht any answers. She simply told me that I must pay in cash the remainder of my rent for June and July (I had already paid for May in cash) and that her bank only told her it would be very expensive to transfer money from the U.S. to her bank and they did not even give her a dollar amount!! This was a huge source of stress and frustration for me!

Luckily, Alanna's atm card does not have extraordinary charges to use it outside of the U.S. We are now planning on my parents sending Alanna's parents money to deposit in her bank account and then Alanna and I can withdraw the money we both need from her account from an atm here in Viborg.

The entire money situation here has absolutely been the bane of my existence in Denmark. I feel like I cannot enjoy my trip because I am constantly trying to figure out how much money I need to feed myself and get to work each week and still have enough left over to pay Inge and buy a few things to take home with. I suggest for future travelers that they open a bank account here and transfer money into it before even arriving, so that there is a surplus of money to spend and a lack of headache to spend it. And, that travelers truly understand the cost of spending just one week living here in Viborg. I am keeping all of my receipts from absolutely everything I have purchased here and I will have an exact dollar amount when I return home to offer to future students who would like to study in Denmark.

The last problem that I have run into in Denmark has been communicating with home. We were told prior to coming to the Kollegium that there is internet access. However, we were not informed that the internet access is not wireless, but rather you have to have an internet cable in order to use the internet.

This was stressful the first night we were here because we needed to email home to let our parents know that we have arrived safely. But, because we did not have internet cables here we could not do so. Luckily, one of the girls who lives here was nice enough to loan us a cable. The next day though we had to go into the shopping center in Viborg and send about $10 on a cable to use. We were told that we would be able to possibly use cables from Foulum, but there was a five day period during which we would not be traveling to Foulum and we wanted to be able to talk to home before then.

I also use skype to speak to my family at home. It has been a very reliable source of communication and I would recommend it to anyone who comes here in the future. The telephones here are not a good way of communicating. They rarely work and you cannot dial out to call home. They are basically useless. Nobody here ever uses them.

Beyond these three major difficulties, we have not had any problems in Viborg. I think the key for those who plan to travel and study here next year is that they have an atm with a good exchange rate (you should have this no matter what, even if you do not use one at home), have money to purchase either a monthly bus pass or multiple ten trip bus passes, and to have skype set up and ready to use on your computer when you arrive!