Abroad in Denmark: Denmark: First Impressions

I'm in Denmark now, I arrived at the Billund airport Saturday at about 10:35AM, or back in Texas, 3:35AM. My first host family is on holiday in Italy, so my club counsellor picked me up at the airport, and I'll be staying with him for the next week until they get back. It was cute that I thought I wouldn't get jet lag, I got off the plane energized as ever, but come 2:35 in the afternoon, that 7 hour time difference hit me like a truck. I fought it for a bit, because I was told it helps to wait until a normal time in the new country to sleep, but I gave in and had to take a two hour nap later on.
I will tell you this,
culture shock and language barriers are 100% REAL. Denmark is so different from the US, and I think I'm used to the new things I've encountered by now, but I'm sure there are more to come. It's very frustrating wanting to understand what someone is saying when they speak, and wanting to say something, but your head goes blank. In my few days here, I think the most successful Danish I've spoken was ordering ice cream. Sometimes I'll say something, even a word and the person I'm talking to will say "what?" like 3 times before I have to elaborate for them. I can type it just fine if I know the vocabulary. I think you can see how terrible it is for someone who corrects everybody on their spelling, grammar and pronunciation mistakes to speak like a two year old. The family I'm staying with right now uses English with me, and I'm grateful for that, but I don't want to use English, and I know that its normal for exchange students to have this kind of trouble at first, but something in my head makes me wish I could've stepped off the plane fluent. I saw a dog yesterday, and I was petting him and stuff, his owners thought it was cute and were saying things in Danish about it. Well me, having the big headed pride I do, didn't want them to know I was foreign, so all I would say to the dog was "hej". I wanted to tell the owners how cute their dog was, but my brain froze and I smiled at them like an idiot. I think that's one of my main motivations to learn the language at this point: Be able to talk to people with dogs. That sounds really dumb but I hate my lack of proper communication.
Also, it's cold here! For a Texan like me, summer is the equivalent to sweating your skin off, but here its rain and temperatures between the 60's and 70's in Fahrenheit. It isn't "cold" really, but I've had to put on a jacket before I go outside, or I'm shivering. I'm buying a new jacket today, I'm going to meet some other exchange students and a rebound and they're going to show us around Odense. Do you know how excited I am to actually be able to exchange my USD for DKK? Very.
I may buy some clothes today too, I don't know, as long as it doesn't cause trouble for anyone else. I only brought about a weeks worth of clothes, so I definitely need to shop for some. I start school next week, which is very exciting.
Jan took us to his summer house yesterday, and I took a ton of pictures on my camera. The scenery in Denmark is beautiful, the water at the beach is so clear, and the houses are so cute. They have types of flowers I've never seen in America before, and I'm wondering if we even have them.
In the past few days, I've eaten SO MUCH BREAD. Danes like to put different spreads and meats on their bread, so I've discovered that I enjoy rullepølse, and there are these two other ones I really didn't like. I don't remember the names, but one is like, apples and bacon in one sauce, so its sweet, and then meaty and my taste buds could NOT agree on it. The other is this meat spread with like, cow liver and pig fat I think, and it didn't taste so bad at first, but the after taste was killing me. I also don't like licorice, I knew I didn't like black licorice to begin with when I lived in the US, but I heard Danish licorice was different, and I've been doing a whole lot of, "I'm going to like this", lately so my pickiness won't kick in.
Also, before I end this post, if you're ever going to live somewhere with such a large bicycle culture as Denmark, get used to riding before you come because the seat will make you sore. Just saying.
I need to get ready now, so hej hej!