House

I'm living in a little gray house on a corner lot.

My room is actually the original living room of the house but all the rooms are now converted into bedrooms and mine is the largest (and more expensive but I didn't get to choose this room). A set of doors lead out to a little patio that will see plenty of use in the spring and summer, I imagine.

I'm paying heavily for the location of the house. It's across the street from Århus University so it takes me only a few minutes to go to class. It is also closer to the city center than where many other study abroad students live. I generally walk there, though sometimes when it's cold, windy, and late I take the bus.

The kitchen leaves much to be desired and the lack of common living space puts a damper on housemate bonding and my bathroom doesn't have a radiator, but it beats the dormitories I have lived in for the past three and a half years because I've been able to have friends over for dinner. We cook in my cramped kitchen where the oven makes a strange humming noise. 

Then we sit down together at a table with a non-matching top. (The original glass top was broken before I arrived.) But we got a piece of ... something that looks like a cross between plywood and cardboard. All the housemates and visitors have signed the table top and draw their flags.

And after we eat, we drink tea and chat.

Unfortunately, five of my housemates will be leaving soon. We just found out that people cannot live in the basement or in the addition built to the first floor. I'm not sure if the landlord just needed a permit or if those rooms are entirely illegal. Either way, we were all angered when our housemates got word of this. Even though I'm not affected by this, I felt that all of us as students are easily taken advantage of. We're unfamiliar with the university, the city, and Denmark.