Can you feel it in your nose?

More pictures

2008-12-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

First, some pictures of Tivoli, the big theme park in the city. Right now is 'Jule i Tivoli' (Christmas in Tivoli), but it's more like "Tivoli goes Asian!"

Dragon!!

Pretty paper lanterns

Pretty lamps

Trojan Reindeer

Christmas tree!

More cool lamps

Fun with color settings. Pagoda and roller coaster...and handrail

Statue outside of the Glyptotek (museum in Copenhagen) Free admission Sundays!

They get into Christmas at the Glyptotek

These were all over. Also some statues were holding Christmas Hearts

AWESOME Egyptian exhibit. With mummies and lots of gods.
Most important discovery: This 4000 year old statue HAS MY FEET.

Yes those are babies crawling all up in this lady's grill.

Found this in Norrebro, the more 'ethnic' neighborhood where a lot of students also live. I think it's awesome.

Classes are OVER

2008-12-14T09:25:00.000-08:00

so I thought I'd share some quotations I've jotted down from my professors over the course of the semester:

Danish Class

"She looks like a royal" We were discussing the Danish royal family, and our teacher was boasting about how diverse the Danish one is (the reigning queen and both of her children have all married outKingdom), which makes them much more beautiful than other royal lines who kept marrying within the family. "Looking royal" was used as a euphemism for "looking inbred"

Gender, Body, and Sexuality

"I feel like I am slowly killing you" Professor was trying to get us to talk about readings nobody did.

Nordic Mythology

"The richer you were the less probably it was that you were a slave"
"I am particularly pleased with stuff"
"The goddess of death is called Hel, and she is a woman. (pause) That was a stupid sentence"
"Generally, babies died. You're so used to not dying you probably don't think of it"
"Women have this tendency - and we all know this - to steal"
"I have no knowledge of horses except that they taste good"
"and he realized that his opponent must have a spell on him - a kind of World of Warcraft protection type thing - (pause and giggle) sorry, but where do you think they got the idea?!"
"And, uh, she's a bit of a whining bitch 'cause, um, she will only marry a chieftain"
"fierce looking, troll like man...this is no complement"

"something I like to think about it: If the gods were alive today, what would they do for a living" This was followed by a 20 minute conversation about Thor owning a fitness empire.

Hans Christian Andersen and the Danish Golden Age

"If he [HCA] knew of the Freudian approaches, he would probably, um, rotate in his tomb" Prof in reference to how people read a lot of sex and death into HCA's stories

(referring to course evaluations) "I won't see it for quite a while, so it's not like I will be able to take revenge...I think"

"I know! ____, I think you said something about the bourgoisie...well, maybe I dreamt it"

I love my professors.

Sunset + Vertical Advantage

2008-12-12T04:20:00.000-08:00

I found myself with my friend R. at sunset (so like 3:30 ish) near the Round Tower, which neither of us had yet climbed. So we did. And it was FANTASTIC.

missed the boat

2008-12-07T05:18:00.001-08:00

I was wrong about year round ice cream.

The fab place near my school literally packed up and left - it was an outdoor setup operating out of a wagon.

And another one switched to freshly made dessert waffles.

DAMN.

New Diet Craze

2008-12-07T05:02:00.000-08:00

So without going into too much squishy detail, I'll just say that some creature moved into my stomach and was forcefully rejecting everything I put in. I named it Mary Kate, which I suppose wasn't very nice of me.

Thanks to Mary Kate, I didn't eat a solid meal between Wednesday night and Saturday evening. I practiced with rice, a bagel sandwich, and an egg, but for three days? Blargh. SO thanks to Danish Christmas lunch #2, my first real meal consisted of:

laks (pronounced roughly like 'lox) which, I found out, is actually RAW salmon with herbs around the edge. It's eaten on bread with dill dressing as a starter, and is quite tasty.

roasted ham

potato

'brown potato' = baking potatoes (but small) cooked normally but then set to glaze/dwell in a suger/butter/caramelly concoction that tastes wonderful, but pairs interestingly with the starchy whiteness of potatoes. I don't quite know that it was my favorite way to do potatoes, but it was really neat to see them done sweet. It was like sweet potato without the sweet potato. Also: they looked kinda like sweet and sour chicken pieces.

Gravy

Risalamande - traditional Danish christmas dessert. It's a kind of rice pudding with chopped almonds - a really neat interaction of textures! You top it with tart cherry sauce. Yum!

AND I kept it all down! That, in itself, was an accomplishment. I also would bet that I've lost weight, but probably not healthfully. Although thanks to all the fluids that I was shooting through my system, I'm probably a little more flushed now than I was Tuesday. Not that I'd recommend MK as a diet or cleanser.

Pictures from London

2008-12-07T04:21:00.001-08:00

Demon Barber, check.

This is soo much better than "Pardon our dust. We are self improving for your future enjoyment."

Muffin man, double check.

Fucking awesome.

These cranes are all over the city, and make me think of giant robot claws reaching up through the earth to devour the unsuspecting citizenry...or to claw its way out of imprisonment. Help! Captain Planet!

The hands of famous people:

YESSSSSS!

Um PLEASE let this be intentional.

SHINY HATS!

I don't quite know how to feel...

I think this is pretty.

The Royal Court of Justice. This is only the front door. Yikes!

Mother of pearl! It happened when I was out looking for dinner! It was enchanting AND infuriating.

Sign in the kitchen at my hostel. I couldn't get over it. There may be one in my apartment when I get home.

The original Twinings tea shop!!! Since 1706!

I really want this to be a Banksy. Which is probably isn't. And also probably negates the whole point of his work? Also shows my total ignorance of art.

UPDATE is Banksy WIN.

Freaky exhibit at the Tate Modern.

I saw this man on my first day in London. PLEASE take at least 10 minutes to zoom in and deconstruct his outfit. It's worth it, I swear.

Attend the tale

2008-12-02T03:38:00.001-08:00

Back it up about five weeks.

Travel break - London edition!

So I was in London for about a week, split into two nights and the four nights, with a weekend in between.

London is fantastic. I say this as a homesick American traveling to a very Americanized city. One of my friends who also visited got into a debate with someone about who stole which culture from whom, and we both agree that essentially, America took global stuff and bastardized it...then London took it back and essentially let it be. So it's this interesting fusion of historical British-ness and contemporary British culture that smells strongly of Americana, which was kind of exactly what I needed at this point. Also, all the signage all over the UK (and Dublin) is, for the first time all semester, in English, which is also lovely, and the British are NOT on the metric system, so I had an easier time with distance.

My hostel was absolutely fantastic. I stayed at the Astor Hyde Park (Astor has a group of hostels distributed throughout London and potentially beyond), and it was a little pricier than other London hostels I saw online, but it was absolutely worth it (I think. being my first hostel experience I may have been fooled) - it was clean, the free breakfast was filling, there was omnipresent tea and hot chocolate, and they had free wireless internet. The staff was extremely happy and helpful, and while I was there there were two hostel sponsored events - a party and a pub crawl. I thought the first was actually pretty funny, 'cause it was a pretty loud party, and at some point during the craziness, a family of four or five checked in. Best part about the hostel was the location: a two minute walk from Queen's Gate at Hyde Park, and a five or ten minute walk from two different Underground stations. SMACK DAB in central London. I walked ALL OVER and it was soooo good.

I was alone in London (except for one day when I met up with N and his friend L, which was fantastic!!), and it was entirely new to me to get to explore a city that I didn't know without the aid of a guide or a parent. I figured that being London it was huge and expensive, and I'm one person who is also a college student, and so there was NO WAY that I'd be able to do and see everything that I wanted to. So I picked a destination and promised myself that before dark, I'd get there, and then just wandered in its general direction. I picked the Tate Modern, which was a good 5 miles away or so, and spent a fantastic time meandering through Picadilly, Soho, and the West End on my way there. Given that I was staying at the hostel I was, I made it a point to never pay more than 5 pounds (give or take 7-9 dollars, depending on the day), on a meal. Most restaurant meals cost at least 10 pounds for a sit down dinner, so it was fun finding cafes and such that let you make the most of it. I sampled a fair amount of London style fast food (but NEVER an American chain or the ubiquitous 'Pret' that is literally everywhere), but also found some really cool local worker and student centered places. 'Hot Gossip' is a nifty cafe with lovely coffee and soups that is situated near the London School of Economics.

I also stumbled, entirely by accident, upon the Freemason's Museum. This seems apropo. They had a really cool exhibit up about the history of women in Freemason organizations, as well as their permanent collection of vestments, documents, and assorted jewelry, chalices, and artwork from Freemason lodges and personal stashes on loan/gifted to the museum. The building itself, I believe, doubles as the Freemason's HQ, or at least a major administrative office for the London (UK?) lodges, and it's appropriately impressive and intimidating. I imagined men in jeweled aprons lurking about waiting for secret signals from their compatriots.

Also, St. Paul's Cathedral is, I feel, a MUST even if you've been churched out. It's stunning and spectacular and mind blowingly monumental. Every evening they perform the Evensong service. Note that services are free to the public, so if you are so minded, you can attend, be spiritual, and bask in the church all free of charge. Which is, of course, what I did. I got to sit under the big center dome and listen to the St. Paul's choir sing. It was absolutely surreal, and looking at the massive scale and intricate work done along with the music really drove home how some people are willing to put so much energy into a faith, and also helped me understand a little more of the why.

I also found both Drury Lane and Fleet Street, as well as my personal favorite, Goodge Street.

Also: if you're into tea and ever had Twinings, I went to the original Twinings tea shop, from 1706! It was really neat. Got some delicious tea, and just had fun browsing tea where people have browsed tea for 300 years.

I didn't go out as much as I would have liked due to an unfortunate mix up with airplane tickets and thus my bank account, but that just means I have to go back. It also means that I was very well rested by the time I returned, and was able to get up early to explore the city and meander.

Also saw the National Gallery and National Portait Gallery as well as Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, and another museum, the name of which escapes me. Also, the Royal Court of Justice is, for me at least, terrifying. It's probably about the size of a city block, and it's built like a palace fortress. Imagine being a guilty criminal back in the day, being escorted in by constables, knowing that you will probably be hanged (hung?). GAH. Fun story: the National Portrait Gallery had a special Annie Liebowitz exhibit, which I saw this summer in San Francisco! It made sense to go to London, given a) she's fantastic and brilliant and b) she did several photographs of the Queen, and the theme of the Portrait Gallery, at least when I was there, was 'iconic faces of Britain.'

The Tate Modern is impressive and gigantic. I probably spent a total of seven hours in there, split over two days, and I only saw the free exhibits. They had two floors I didn't go to. TWO FLOORS. They have a lot of older 'modern' art, but very little contemporary modern art. For me, who is totally unfamiliar with art in general, it was a great overview of artists, movements, and styles, but for someone more in tune with the art scene, I can imagine being disappointed to a degree. I REALLY liked some of it, and was thrilled by the room on Viennese Actionism. Thrilled in the manner of the Hungarian performance art I saw in Budapest, not necessarily thrilled in a totally pleased way.

OH OH OH exciting:
So I met up with my friend N and we walked around and enjoyed the Underground, ate omelettes with chips (fries, y'all), and he mentioned that he was staying with his friend L and invited me to go out with them. Sure! We ended up at L's flat (coincidentally not five minutes from my hostel), and hung out for a while, during which time it was explained to me how it was that we knew where to go. L had been accosted by a young British man at the Underground stop, and he told her he was a party promoter and encouraged her to go to the party he was promoting. It was apparently at a swanky lounge and we would probably get free drinks. He said the people throwing the party really wanted women to go (L is a very sweet person who looks like the kind of cool person you'd want at your party, so it makes sense that he'd pick her out of the crowd). So she got his cell number.

That evening, through extensive text messaging and phone calling, we found out that it was a HARPER'S BAZAAR party and so there was a good chance of celebrity sightings. I was thrilled. I know it's not actually real and doesn't mean anything to meet a celebrity, but I get a big kick out of being connected to famous people even if it's through four degrees of separation, like my friend dated someone who dated the sibling of a famous person. So the prospect of actually meeting famous people for realz had me pretty much drooling in my seat. I ran back (with N for moral support, and to help me get back to L's place) to change into something more appropriate (read: dressy), and we all spent a substantial amount of time making ourselves pretty for the celebrities, and around 11, went out. We arrived, and were met at the door by our contact (who turned out to be remarkably good looking and was rocking a bomber hat), who seemed pretty upset. The reason, it turned out, was that the people in charge were only admitting women...so needless to say, N and I were not eligible, and L, understandably, didn't want to leave us/go it alone.

Our apologetic friend directed N and me to the Shadow Lounge, a gay club he said was pretty nice. L bowed out, so N and I went. I was offered illegal things for the first time when we were trying to find the place...and when we got there it quickly became apparent that British men (or at least these British men) are not perhaps the most graceful movers. Although there was one gentleman who looked astonishlingly similar to George Clooney who was WASTED and dancing around in a fedora, getting tangled up in the dangly silver streamers that sat near the DJ's station. He was great to watch. Overall it was a fun night, even though I didn't meet any fashionistas or celebrities.

Some photos from around Copenhagen

2008-11-30T12:20:00.001-08:00

YO it SNOWED early last week!!

This is a pølse-wagon. Yum.
This is Nyhavn, the site you see on pretty much every postcard or touristy advert for Copenhagen. Note the colored buildings. More interesting: the wooden shacks on street level - they're setting up for the Christmas Faire, so you can wander around and buy/sell regardless of the weather. Hot mulled wine!

I found this lying in the front room of my program's building. I thought it meant literal mice - like the animal - but it only has computer accessories inside

Found this pre-election when I was on a bus. It says, if you can make it out, "Obama," graffiti style

Pretty neat railcar at Central Station

I found these people by accident. I was doing work and stepped outside to pick up a falafel for dinner, and saw three OLD, torch-wielding ladies meanderng down the street. Of course I followed them. I found over a hundred such people, although mostly younger than the three who led me there. We marched, or they marched and I followed, to the headquarters of Politiken, the big newspaper in Copenhagen, at which point they went inside and I left. It was, I found out, a Krystalnacht memorial rally that over time has also become a leftist/anarchist (socialist?) march.

More strollers. I visited some friends in the burbs and the next morning, at the bus stop, I found a herd (flock?) of moms with strollers and children.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA I don't even know what schwanger means and I think it's hysterical

Note in one building we have McDonald's, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Cruelty. Welcome to Copenhagen! Although given Europe's food standards, it's probably a safe bet that it's not actually fried cruelty here.

table set for Christmas Lunch (julefrokost, pronounced vaguely like "yool-uh-frohkuhst" with the 'r' gurgled). Lunch is the wrong word. Event ran 4 pm to circa 5 am. Delicious traditional Danish food, including pickled herring in curry sauce, as well as Danish meatballs (frikadeller, I think), and various other picked, fried, and smoked fish. Also sauces and beets. And lots of Christmas beer and snaps, which is sort of like Danish vodka in strength, but totally unique in taste. And by unique I mean horrifying. In the nicest, most culturally sensitive way possible, though. But in all seriousness, that stuff will fuck you up. Afterwards, when my hallmates asked me if I liked the snaps, I replied that I respect snaps.

Anyway, these hopefully show a little more of Copenhagen and how awesome it is, and how bizarre I find it to see Americana here. Which is, I suppose, a symptom of the ridiculous position of privilege I find myself in as an American (although if I were studying in somewhere like, oh, say, Venezuela, I don't know if I would term it 'privilege').

Finals are fast approaching (as in tomorrow) and I'm definitely weirded out by how quickly this semester has gone. I don't know if it's because everything seems new and so it's sort of difficult to fall into a boring routine that eats up time or if it's because I'm getting older (AAHHHH) and so three months is a smaller portion of my total time spent alive and aware so far.

Jeg skal have en fransk hotdog med ketchup

2008-11-30T12:11:00.000-08:00

As you may have guessed, that means "I will have a french hotdog with ketchup"

Which I successfully said! And then I got a french hotdog with ketchup!

Dotting Copenhagen are these things called "pølsevogn" or "sausage wagon." They are, basically, hot dog trailers, but very Danish and traditional. Or at least a trademark of the city. You can get a variety of hot dogs, some wrapped in bacon, either sans bread, in a bun, or fransk-style. This is basically if someone decapitated and then disemboweled a pig-in-a-banket. You have a hotdog-sheath made from bread, which is heated, and then you order your dog and topping. The topping is squirted into the sheath, and then the pølsevogn person (each wagon has a specific person attached to it - they're real businesses!) slides the sausage in and voila! Delicious treat!

Traditionally, I am given to understand that they come with mayonnaise, ketchup, spicy ketchop, remoulade, and fried onions, but I may be missing some or making up some key ingredients.

Bottom line, I'm really happy because I ordered one in Danish and the man responded in Danish without batting an eye!!! Now given that these wagons are plastered throughout guidebooks, I would imagine that he gets all sorts of people butchering Danish and so is probably more used to it than the average Dane. Regardless, it was reassuring to attempt Danish and get a positive response.

Although, I've noticed (and had this confirmed with other people studying Danish) that we are slowly rewiring our brains to privilege Danish over our other half-assed second languages. Specifically, Spanish. I find myself trying to think in Spanish and inventing a weird Danglish-Spanish hybrid.

Something rotten in my fridge...in Denmark

2008-11-18T13:27:00.000-08:00

Some more things I've noticed...

preservatives don't exist here, or at least not as we know them. I still haven't readjusted my food timer for real food, and so I'm still occasionally surprised to find that after a reasonable period of time, my food decays. Not so fun, but you can definitely taste and feel the difference. Products don't make me feel like my insides are turning into plastic.

Bolstered by Obama's win, I felt ok going to McDonald's. Once. It's an entirely new experience - everything is made with real food, so the chicken tastes and feels like actual chicken meat! This trend continues with other American products. M&M's, for instance, are made with not-awful chocolate.

Makes me kind of bitter that as an American, I have to fly over a thousand miles to get quality American products...but. Enough of that! Speaking of Obama, his face was plastered on every major newspaper in the city November 5th. Hardly a surprise, given the importance people everywhere attached to the election. I saw a lot of Obama related facebook statuses written in Danish.

Cell phones are SO different! Not only are the vast majority of phones not flip phones, but I have heard only one ringtone that's a song! And when I heard it, the guy who picked up spoke English with an African-esque accent. So he probably wasn't Danish.

They have thin slabs of chocolate that you can melt over toast. WHY don't we have that in America?

I tried a beer called Beer Geek Breakfast. It's made by a Danish microbrewery, and it's so named because they put coffee in it! It's delicious!!! Dark and heavy and kind of roasty.

I have heard more trashy American pop music here than I ever did in the States. Granted I go out more here, but still. Stop it, America! And never have Katy Perri host an awards show again!

Lastly, there is an International Fair going on until Sunday in the sqaure near my building and it ROCKS. There are tons of free samples, and the following highlights:
-Dutch cheese stand. PESTO cheese, and Garlic and Nettle cheese. OMG.
-French bread stand. All sorts of pastries plus baguettes. Pair well with the Dutch cheese.
-Wurst people with a large circular barbecue, making it sort of like fat German Mongolian Barbecue. Curry Wurst is one of the most satisfying meals I've had.
-Burger people with the following options: Beef, venison, water buffalo, wild board, kangaroo!!!
-Candy stand the size of a small island featuring many fudges and gummi Smurfs
-numerous sausage people
-lots of freshly made cookies and cakes and goodies!

needless to say, I am not buying groceries this week and instead have decided to eat my way through the fair, spending entirely too much money in the process.

Back to the future!

2008-11-16T05:13:00.001-08:00

I do realize that I haven't covered London or Dublin, BUT.

Last night was Sensation White, a gigantic rave-thing housed in Parken, Copenhagen's stadium. Literally 25-30,000 people there, and due to the dress code, all wearing white. INSANE! Very exciting, especially since I haven't been to anything like it before.

Basically: take a stadium. put in a wood/plastic temporary floor. Bisect the field with a ten foot tall mirrored wall, the top of which is wide enough to walk or dance on and has fountains and fire shooters and launches fireworks. In the center, build a HUMONGOUS turning circular station that houses the DJ and climbs all the way to the ceiling in a bulbous, lit up extravaganza. Hang 20 foot tall white jellyfish all over. Make the jellyfish light up, rise up and down, and shoot lasers. Install lasers ALL over the place. Now fill it with 30,000 (coked out/rolling on E,) drunk, or just plain crazy people dancing to some wonderful and not so wonderful electro-type musics. SO much fun. Oh, and it runs for eight hours - from 7 PM to 3 AM.

There were dancers up on the wall sometimes, and for those of you into this kind of music, Rune RK played for about an hour and a half. I don't have a link to it, but he did the horn-esque song that you hear mixed into a lot of stuff. Even I recognized it :p.

Two dudes, at seperate points, got up on the wall and started dancing around, and were quickly taken down. One tried to jump down and was caught in the air, and then bodily carried all the way off. Security was pretty good at responding quickly to that shit.

Basically, amazing.

More Eburgh photos

2008-11-09T07:05:00.001-08:00

I reallly want to know what business is like.

cool reflection

fish and chips.

Edinburgh is a layered city. Fun!

LOOK IT'S A GIANT BIONIC HAND WITH A SCALPEL!

ALSO some observations:

a) In Denmark, I have seen very few flip phones - most everyone uses the candy bar style ones made famous by Nokia, although they are much more evolved and far sexier than the ones I remember.

b) iPod use differs from country to country! In Copenhagen, lots of people listen to iPods, and you'll always tuck the wires and iPod itself deep in some hidden pocket. In other places, such as London, I noticed fewer iPods (per capita, not total), and they're less discreet about it. I don't know if it's a security thing or a modesty issue, but it was a little weird at first to see people with their wires hanging out.

BUTTER and currency exchange

2008-11-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

So the first thing I learned about traveling on my own is that it is not enough to have booked all the travel steps and sleeping arrangements ahead of time. It is wise to research where you will be. Next time :p.

Jacob's Crazy UK (and Dublin!) Adventure, Phase one: Edinburgh!

Got my passport stamped! WHEE!

I arrived in Scotland, having recently learned that it is in fact part of the UK. I had always wondered why England thought that it was a united kingdom - wasn't that redundant? Not so! Got my pounds from the friendly Scottish ATM, hopped on the bus, and went to meet J., my lovely friend from Brandeis who had been gracious enough to let me crash at her flat. She is studying in Edinburgh, and living with four other lovely ladies who were extremely gracious and inclusive. One at least I hope to see again, as she studies relatively close to Brandeis. Hooray!

So J. got me, we went to her flat to drop of luggage, and she introduced me to tea. I've had tea before, but when I was growing up it was always something you had when you were sick. I've never associated it with leisure or fun or really, anything except for runny noses and sore throats. We had some tea, and decided to go climb Arthur's Seat, this beautiful gorgeous cliff/hill thing that's perhaps a ten minute walk from her flat. It was SO windy! On the way up we were blown sideways, at the top we were literally almost blown over, and at points you could jump and the force of the wind would move me at least six inches. Danger is now my middle name.

After we reached safety at the bottom, we decided to walk to the grocery store and pick up provisions, but got sidetracked by The Museum of Childhood! It's basically a toy store with context, but it had some really neat antique toys and examples of fun stuff. There was a piggy bank that was actually a human head. In blackface. And it ate your money. There were also some great larger, hands on displays:

And we went grocery shopping where J. bought something that would be the highlight of my experience in the UK: Scottish shortbread. Basically a brick of butter and cake that you dip in tea and eat. I need to learn how to make it.

By this time is was approaching the dinner hour, so we trekked back, J. pointing out landmarks and trying her best to give me a sense of how the city was laid out. I have all the directional savvy of a frying pan, so for the most part, it was in one ear and out the other, although I really appreciated both her attempt and the nuggets about the city she was feeding me. Edinburgh is a really cool place. And pretty.

We cooked some delicious meat for dinner, and given that it was Sunday, hung out. OH and saw a movie - Sweet Bird of Youth, from 1967 and starring Paul Newman, was playing at the local cinema, and it was wonderful! I am SO glad to have seen it, and it just drives home both how much we've changed since then, but also how much we like to think we've changed. Gorgeous.

I conked out on her couch in a sleeping back donated to the cause by the lovely F., and slept entirely too long. Although I did get to shock some flatmates whom I had barely met (or not at all) and who had the experience of coming into the common room for breakfast and finding a strange man on the couch.

Day two, J. got out of class in the morning, and we hit up the Surgeon's College Museum (or something like that). I had no idea that Edinburgh was such a center for medical innovation and research, and it was really neat. What I thought was coolest, though, was the corner dedicated to Burke and Hare. There was also a room full of pathological samples - gun wounds, diseased tissue, tumors, etc. Really fascinating to look at and freak out about - there was a skull from a baby suffering from hydrocephalus that looked literally like those giant freaky alien heads at Hot Topic or Spencer's. I cannot imagine the experience of passing it out of a vagina, even dilated. Wow. We also visited the Parliament, which is a modern building that people either love or hate, and was much more expensive than initially projected. Kind of like the Shapiro Campus Center. It's pretty nifty. There was a great exhibit inside - students who went to art high schools and had taken, essentially, their Regent's exams in art and placed extremely well had their work on display inside Parliament. Lots of paintings and drawing, but also concept and process pieces as well as sculpture and fashion design.

Given that is cost 10 pounds, or roughly 17 dollars, to get a tour of Edinburgh Castle, we peeked through the bars. It's impressive, but I didn't feel bad about not going in.

We ate a lot of hummus over the course of my visit, which was wonderful because for all of its effort, Copenhagen does not have really good hummus. It has chickpea paste, and it's labeled as hummus, but it's not quite the same.

We, along with some of J.'s flatmates and friends, went to get a delicious and cheap Indian dinner where I had wonderful curry and was warmed and got to walk around Edinburgh at night. We hung out for a while and got hygge.

Guesstimate on tea consumed: 2 litres.

Last day, J. was in class until lunch, and so I rose and took myself to the City Art Center, which is lovely because it contains four diverse and small exhibits. It is also free. Space exhibits, drawing exhibits, and a neat exhibit on treasured places in Scotland, done by Scottish artists or artists who spent a lot of their lives in Scotland. Met J. and we walked around the Royal Mile looking at touristy shops, and had delicious fish and chips. Then we split, and I went to the airport to go to London!

Card reader, check!

2008-11-09T05:52:00.001-08:00

YO I found out that the computers in the computer lab here have card readers so I can share more pictures and stories! WIN.

OK. SO.

Phase two of my travel break gave me two nights in Copenhagen to recharge and do laundry and sleep. A lot. I also treated myself to a day in the city where I left for lunch and decided that I wasn't allowed to go back until dinner time. I walked from the metro stop west, just kind of meandering, until I found a really neat coffee shop, where I VOTED (fuck yeah!) and filled out some other paperwork for a few hours while enjoying hot chocolate and feeling happy. Then I meandered around, although thanks to the fact that I had meandered there without paying attention to where I was going, and to the fact that the sun was obscured by the clouds, I mistook north for east, and went essentially perpendicular to where I thought I was going. On the plus side I accidentally went to Nørrebro, one of Copenhagen's more ethnic neighborhoods and the site of the recent spate of gun related crimes that has put the city somewhat on edge. You can see a linear approximation of my route here, although bear in mind that since I walked and this is for driving, I was not nearly as efficient as Google would have me be. Total trip? closing in on 20 km, or about 12 miles. Hot damn!

Laundry followed, as well as frantic cleaning efforts. My last night before shipping out again happened to be the birthday of a girl in my building who is on the Party Committee with me, and we went out to dinner at a restaurant across the street from my kollegium. I ordered what was described to me as a kind of smørrebrod, or open faced sandwich, featuring fish and shrimp. It sounded sort of like a Danish fish and chips. I received absolute mounds of fried fish with an aeoli esque sauce, topped with those teeny shrimp and a spoonful of caviar. The bread portion of the sandwich was a lone piece of toast buried under this vast amount of seafood. All the meals were, I was informed by my table mates, far larger than is customary. It was delicious! I couldn't finish, and I couldn't get it to go because I was flying out early the next morning, but I was almost there. I have been avoiding eating out due to the expense, and in fact this was my second sit down experience in Copenhagen, and I am very glad I did it. So much fun, and I love spending time with the people in my building. One brave soul ordered dessert, and it too was gigantic - an ice cream dish the size of my head. Next plan: don't eat starting Thursday, come here Saturday for dinner.

Unplugged. Without consent.

2008-10-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

Skipping over some points of my holiday, I arrived in London for a reprise and my hard drive broke. Posts will therefore be less frequent and will probably lack photos. Sorry!

we'll see how much data recovery costs in kroner...

Waxy buildup

2008-10-29T04:40:00.000-07:00

Here's some things I've been noticing that I keep forgetting to say:

a) Here (being Copenhagen, Vienna, and Budapest) male dogs get to keep their balls. Dogs in Copenhagen are also MUCH better behaved than their counterparts, um, anywhere.

b) Toilets. Saw my first bidet in Dublin - it looked like a birdbath and I think washing your hoo-ha would be really awkward and uncomfortable (oh yeah, I went to Dublin. More on that later)

c) Toilets. Budapest and Vienna toilets are BACKWARDS. In a toilet in America, the UK, or Copenhagen, the bowl tapers down into a dark hole located towards the lowe rear of the unit. In Vienna and Budapest, all the toilets I used (all four of them :p) had a SHELF in the rear and a drop off to Hell in the front of the bowl. Seems sort of poorly conceived if you think about it.

d) Little kids being some of the cutest things in the world, Danish little kids are ADORABLE because they remind me of little blonde ducklings. Also, since I can't understand a word they're saying, I get to dub over their conversations in my head.

e) I have heard ONE baby fuss the entire time I've been in Denmark. One. And it made noise for all of ten seconds. Dr. Spock should've studied over here!

f) the term 'sandwich' is pretty subjective. It can mean a sandwich, or it can mean a full dinner piled on top of a piece of toast.

A Tale of Two Cities (no! I won't take it back!)

2008-10-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

A while ago, the city of Budapest (pronounced 'Budapesht') was actually two cities separated by the Danube River: Buda, and Pest (Pesht). Then they unified and built both literal and metaphorical bridges.

Phase Two of our study tour took us on a bus from Vienna to Budapest, arriving a little before midnight on the 13th. We were met on the bus by a cheerful woman possessing a high girlish voice and a cheerful disposition. I was still waking up and very confused, and so after she'd introduced herself and told us to follow her to the hotel, I made the mistake of owlishly wondering aloud, "who is this bitch?"

She was polite enough to pretend she didn't hear me. Or maybe she really didn't. Or if she did, it didn't translate. Whatever.

This hotel was noticeably more cramped than the other, but size aside, there were two major differences between our Vienna lodging and our room in Budapest, and they were both in the bathroom. We were back to a hose-shower, this time connected to the bathtub, and perhaps more importantly, we had no shower curtain. WET FLOOR was the order of the stay. BUT there was a super cheap internet cafe/bar attached to the lobby. Technically, almost everything was cheap because Hungarian currency, the forint (or HUF, for HUngarian Forint) runs about 160-200 to the dollar. So a beer listed as 400 forint actually costs around 2 bucks. Thank goodness!

After we'd gotten vaguely settled in, S., A., L., M., and J. (plus myself) went bar hunting. We had been told that our hotel was near a great street for nighttime bars and cafes. We walked, apparently, away from that street. It took us a while, and we passed some adult theatres and other porn related businesses on the way, but we found a bar. Right at the same time we found a lady getting slapped around in the street. Well, more to the point S. saw her get slapped; the rest of us saw her get up off the ground and start yelling. We hustled inside and enjoyed both flavorful Hungarian beer and peeping through the window and spying on our new friend. She flounced into our bar a few minutes later and started talking with some bearded men who looked like regulars as if they were old chums, so maybe this isn't totally out of the ordinary for her. If that's the case, sad. She should learn Kung Fu.

OH! Whomever is in charge of Budapest PR knows how to do lights. The city has a bunch of really gorgeous buildings that have absolutely fantastic night lighting - almost a little eerie, in fact. When I saw them I was in the bus, unfortunately, so no pictures.

Day One (Two?)

Hungarian hotel breakfast does not, sadly, live up to the stellar example set by its Austrian neighbor. It did the job though.

We were staying in Pest (I found out), and spent our morning in Buda. We bussed up to the wall/old buildings overlooking the Danube and had a few minutes to look around. The view was FANTASTIC.

We had a walking tour of the area by a Danish professor who is on research leave in Budapest. He speaks not only Danish and English, but Hungarian and German too (and potentially French?). SUPER smart dude. The walking tour was really neat, although in a group of 26 it was hard to always be in a position to hear what he was saying. We walked around some official buildings and some official ruins - it's still weird to hear, "And the Americans bombed this building in 1943." We just don't get that side of the story in our history classes. Also, a lot of the walls sported bullet or shrapnel related damage - before I left, one of my mother's professors told me she loved Budapest because the walls could talk, and now I believe her. You could feel the history oozing all around you, even more than in Vienna or at the Viking ruins in Denmark.

Then we went to the Center for Advanced Studies and ate lunch. It's a center for post graduate research and thinking. Based on the desserts we had, of which there were three, I'm getting the feeling that a lot of Hungarian sweet includes fruit of some kind. We had a chocolate cake with grapes in it, as well as a different chocolate cake with orange filling. Hmm...

After lunch we had a lecture. On what I don't know. Given the stress of the trip, the turkey we had had for lunch, and the professor's monotonous voice, it was all I could do to remain awake for most of the time.

Following the lecture we were free for four glorious hours, and several people and I went to the SPA that was listed as an optional visit in our pamphlet. Optional my ass. It was GIGANTIC and yellow. For all that Hungarians try to distance themselves from their previous oppressors' cultures (or so I've been told), there's a lot of Turkish influence in the city. This bath, for example. Its big spired self boasted three outdoor heated pools, two of them heated. One had a raised fountain that you could stand under for a quasi massage, and the other had concentric hot tubs. The center had inward directed jets, and the ring around it had sideways jets that turned it into an itty bitty lazy river, but much more powerful. SO much fun. Indoors there were six other pools heated to various temperatures. That's all we had time to see and enjoy. The place also boasted two regular saunas and a UV Sauna that glowed blue and smelled like skin disease. Needless to say we didn't go near that shit. There was also a wing of specialty pools that I was dying to get to, but it turned into "you can go there, or you can eat, but you don't have enough time for both." I chose food, opting out of mud baths and carbon acid baths. Next time :p. OH and it's true what people say about Europeans and modesty. I have never in my life seen more overweight people in one space, not even in the states, and if I had seen them at home, they would NOT have been wearing Speedos. One large old man had his gut tucked into his Speedo. Culture Shock!

Even planning for time we were running late for the show our program had bought us tickets for, and so M., J., L., and I ended up running into a grocery store and getting random bits of food for dinner. I spent three dollars on:

Bread.

Cheese.

Beer.

We arrived at the theatre early and sat on a stoop munching while we waited for the rest of our group. Yum!

THE PERFORMANCE

what. the. fuck. We knew that we were seeing some sort of performance involving electricity and dance, but beyond that we were clueless. Here's what we got:

Stage is black. Spot fades up on the female soloist, lying spread eagle on floor. Floor is black. Soloist is clad only in flesh toned dance panties. Plastered all over her body are electrodes; their cables all gather into one strand that rises into the air, presumably to a catwalk. Cue white noise - base thrumming sounds. Dancer starts to move almost imperceptibly, rotating her body on the stage like the hands of a clock so that eventually, her head and feet will have switched places, and then she'll be back where she started. Very controlled, fluid movement. Except for the spastic twitching that happens as the electrodes fire. She rolls around the stage, twitching, for maybe forty minutes before the music changes. Now we have beeping - long tones in thirds and fifths. As she undulates across the stage, different lights come on. Rarely is more than one on at a time. Eventually, she returns to her starting position, and the rope of wires become taut. Slowly, audibly, the electrodes are ripped off until the dancer is free of their twitchy embrace. Now she is free to roll about as she pleases, which she proceeds to do, although she does occasionally indulge in some voluntary shivers. One set looks like the yoga pose, "cockroach" as I learned at Brandeis. Basically you lie on your back with your hands and feet in the air and shake them violently. Finally, after almost two hours, the lights come up and the dancer bows. Twice.

There existed in this routine some really cool elements of light and sounds and movement, not to mention the sheer athleticism the dancer exhibited, but overall I was too overwhelmed by the weirdness of the experience. I'm really glad to have seen it because it's a fabulous taste of contemporary Hungarian fringe theatre, but damn.

Afterwards: bar! They don't have Kahlua and soda's in Budapest. How do I know? I ordered one. The waiter (bless his heart) quadruple checked what I had said to make sure he got it right. "Kahlua and soda, please, with lime" "what?" "Kahlua and soda with lime please" "what" "May I have kahlua. Soda. and Lime." "kahlua, soda, lime?" "Yes please." The drink as I know it comes in a tall glass over ice, and when I've ordered it in Copenhagen, that's gone without saying. What I received in Budapest was a tumbler containing kahlua, soda, and some floating bits of lime. Oops. Now I know!

Day Three (Two?)

Morning excursion: National Museum!

Beautiful. Collection of works by Hungarian artists past and present, so you get a kind of walk through of the evolution of Hungarian art. I noticed something: in the mid-lateish 1800's, the paintings are very pastoral and happy. Once you hit the late 1880's --> early 1890's, you start getting extremely drab color palettes and depressing images. Seems like either life started sucking or there was some kind of artistic movement to paint real people and not propaganda. Or something. I spoke with my professor and that's what she suggested, although she admitted she's not exactly an expert on Hungarian art history. ALSO really cool dome at the top with hanging human-sculptures. If you stand in the middle of the dome you get fantastic acoustic echoes and tap dancing is a treat. Thankfully for the other patrons, you can only hear it if you're standing in the center, so I wasn't blasting out obnoxious foot noises for everyone to deal with.

Lecture at the Theatre Museum!

This lecture (our last) was absolutely fabulous. The lecturer was the director of the museum as well as a professor of theatre at the University as well as a producer/director/writer. He was brilliant and SO knowledgeable about both his subject and almost everything else. This is because in Hungary, theatre and art were basically the only mediums for social or political expression during its various lengthy occupations, and so theatre interacted with literally almost every facet of Hungarian life. It gave a great perspective to the crazy we saw last night, and made me want to fetch this man to Brandeis to lecture. Also, he sounded a little like Mr. Bean's character from the movie Rat Race.

Free time!

A. and I went for some Hungarian goulash, which we'd been advised to try. And I say the same to you! It's a beef and vegetable soup in a tomato based broth involving lots of paprika. Ours had jalapenos. You get a big ole bowl and bread, so a simple bowl of soup is easily a filling meal. It's super delicious! Then shoe shopping - boring, but necessary. I wanted shower shoes for my upcoming visit to London (hostel), and A. wanted cheap, serviceable dress shoes for when he was with his parents so they could go to nice restaurants, etc. Neither of us were successful, so I'm going to either laminate my feet or find some other solution.

We went to the Terror Museum. AAHHHH. It's dedicated to the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Hungary, and what makes it especially creepy is that it's in the same building that served as the headquarters of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party (the Hungarian Nazis). Back then it was called the House of Loyalty. Soviet Tank on the ground floor:

Victims of said occupation (people who disappeared or were otherwise disposed of):

We weren't allowed to take pictures after that room, but there was a great display of various Arrow Cross and Soviet artifacts. The museum focused mostly on the Soviet occupation, which irritated some people ("how could they be so inconsiderate of the Jews! Six million!") but when you consider that the Soviets killed over 20 million and occupied Hungary for much longer than the Nazis did, it makes sense. There was also a great recreation of a changing room with old uniforms and lockers, as well as a nifty video showing people from various Hungarian walks of life being forced to get rid of their old clothes and change into "good communists" for their new jobs at the factories. Creeptastic.

Also: re-creations of prison cells and torture chambers. The brutality present, even in phony cells, was revolting.

We walked out, feeling "whew! At least that ended! The last Soviet left in '91; we're moving towards a better future. Never forget!" when some people walked up, maybe eight. They were mixed military-ish personnel and gothed out figures. They formed two ranks and began singing. Umm...what? None of us spoke Hungarian. They finished, SIG HEILED, and their leader put up a wreath on the museum! WHAT!!!!! They were either Fascists or Neo Nazis or something doing a remembrance of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, we think. AAAAHHHHH. SO weird that people like that still exist! And are my age!

Then: DINNER!

Our final, DIS sponsored event (aside from the return trip to Copenhagen) was a dinner cruise on the Danube. SUPER touristy, ya, but also reallllly fun. Swanky boat, buffet dinner and dessert, as well as champagne and wine. We got some really great views of Budapest at night!

this lady, unfortunately blurry due to long distance and zoom, is one of the last communist relics still standing.

Also, there was a string trio that played stuff from Mozart to traditional Hungarian melodies to The Girl From Impanema...and beyond! They were a lot of fun.

It ended all too soon, and we stumbled our collective selves out around town. I lost S. and A., whom I'd been sitting with, and found myself with a largish collection of students. That kinda sucked, because in a large group it's hard to escape feeling loud and American and, well, obvious. BUT there were some great people I hadn't had the chance to hang out with much, and that excited me. After two dud bars, we found an AMAZING hole in the wall. You walk through the door and immediately down a steep staircase into red light and cigarette smoke. It's bricky and run down and smoky and the walls are covered in writing and scribbles and images, and the patrons look run down or crazy hipster or just plain weird. It's totally where I imagine people come to plot revolutions. SO GOOD!

Then bed. Early up next morning (GROSS), flight to Malmo in Sweden; bus to Copenhagen; make giant bowl of pasta and crash. Here's some other pictures I got in Budapest:

Mozart? Is that you?

2008-10-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

Travel Break Week one

Logistical note: there is SO much to talk about and so I'm going to do one post on our itinerary in Vienna, one post on our itinerary in Budapest, and one on my reflections/feelings so as to provide some sort of organization to the jumbled mass that is me processing the trip

This was the 'academic' portion of our travel break - paid for almost entirely by our tuition fees! We were flown, bussed, museum'd, wined, dined, and housed by DIS. Fantastic. First stop: Vienna!

My core class is all about Memory and Identity - cultural production, history, politics, etc. The trip, then, focused a lot on giving us very cultural experiences so as to give us a better understanding of the culture, both past and present, of the places we visited.

Which means eating really awesome food.

We flew to Vienna (hooray!), arrived, checked in to our hotel, and had maybe a half hour before dinner. Shower! A REAL SHOWER!! The showers I've seen so far have all been the kind where they're a shower hose/head attached to the bathroom sink. To have a standing head shower was absolutely wonderful. Anyway: Dinner!

Mixed green salad with pumpkinseed oil dressing and absolute MOUNDS of goat cheese -->
Boiled beef with some kind of pumpkiny sauce and a hemisphere of hashbrowned potatoes -->
Hungarian-style trifle - basically layers of whipped cream, sponge cake, and custard with chocolate sauce. And some wine. Absolutely fantastic!

Also: incredibly good looking waiter. Sorry, no pictures.

After dinner: Concert! This was by a group that specializes in recreating Mozart. They wear period costumes and perform in the style that you would have seen back in the day. The concert is thus not one giant, multi-movement piece, but rather several arias, duets, and non-vocal parts of Mozart's various compositions. Superb! Also, they perform in one of the original concert halls - we saw Mozart performed where people performed his compositions originally!!

Afterwards, I conked out. Long day and we had breakfast at 7:30 the next morning.

On our first big day in Vienna, we had a walking tour of the city (The Vienna Boys' Choir performs every Sunday at mass!! AAHHHH). Pictures at the bottom. We also went to Schonbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Hapsburgs, starting, I believe, with Maria Theresa, but maybe earlier? Incredible. It is GIANT and full of sumptuous gold leafing, rococco furniture, and paintings. Most of the art deals with the imperial family - there are many pictures of Maria Theresa's children. We took an audio tour of the palace's first floor, which was informative and efficient. The palace also has extensive gardens, including a humungous fountain, a labrynth, and lots of trees.

We were on our own for lunch and dinner, although DIS provided 10 euro to help pay for food. Two of my friends and I found a WONDERFUL Asian place that served large amounts of food for relatively good prices. Finding food with spice and flavor was a welcome change from eating Danish food.

That evening, S. and myself bought standing room tickets for the Vienna Opera. Here's how it works:

Show up early (like an hour and a half early) and buy a standing room ticket for three (3!!) euro. Go up into the statosphere of the nosebleed section and rope off some space with your scarf. The honor system is very much in effect, and people respect space reserved with scarves. Get dinner after you've secured your spot - we didn't and while we were lucky enough to get ledge space on which to sit, we couldn't see anything. That didn't entirely matter, because:

it's the Vienna Opera. Duh. Their orchestra is pulled from the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the best in the world, and the singers are also of absolutely top calibur. I didn't understand a word that was being said (Oh, the opera was "Capriccio" in case you're curious), and I didn't care. I hunkered down and immersed myself in the utterly perfect music that was happening below me. I fell asleep twice due to the complete trance the music put me into, and it was wonderful, because you just float around in this sea of wonderful sound. I would spend all my money on this if I lived in Vienna. Never mind bars or eating.

The opera house:

HOLY CRAP.

Afterwards, some friends and I went to Cafe Hawelka, one of Vienna's most famous coffeehouses. Up until a few years ago the original Frau Hawelka was still serving at age 94. She isn't now only because she's dead. It's totally authentic feeling, and you get served your coffee or hot chocolate in real porcelain cups on a silver tray with a silver spoon and sugar cubes. So cool!

Next Day:

Breakfast at 7:15. Damn! Oh, Austrian/Viennese hotel breakfasts are the shit. Bacon, eggs, a boil-your-own-egg station, toast, pastries, fruit, granola, yogurt, juice, coffee, tea. Also overeager, stern Asian waiters, but that was probably just our hotel.

Tour of the University and a lecture with a professor there on Austrian identity and memory. The university is absolutely spectacular:

After this we went to the KunstHaus Wien, a museum dedicated to the life and work of Mr. Hundertwasser. He was a super intense artist and architect who was all about living in total harmony with nature. He also designed some pretty awesome flags for Israel-Palestine and New Zealand, as well as an eco friendly waste plant and housing development. SO AMAZING! He remodeled his house's floor to be irregular and wavy, a 'melody for the feet.' The whole place is this incredible explosion of creativity and plant life. It's fascinating and very rejuvinating to be in.

Then: free time! A., S., and I went to the Leopold Museum, which has one of the largest collections of Egon Schiele around. I wasn't familiar with his stuff, but DAMN. It's fantastic. Apparently he's famous for his self-portraiture. If I knew about art, I'd comment more, but since I don't you can see for yourself here.

Then we went back to Cafe Hawelka. Yum! Coffee!

Bussed to Budapest that evening, arriving prior to midnight.

I'm increasingly fascinated with European advertising. Their billboards and flyers I find to be somewhat hysterical and odd. It's great! I've also been hunting for good graffiti. Haven't found much, but. Here's some photos of Vienna that I like:

Hiatus

2008-10-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

MIDTERMS ARE DONE!

I extruded a bunch of papers and exams that would have NEVER flown at Brandeis but here will hopefully garner decent grades. We'll find out! I also accidentally proposed a paper topic for a term paper that has me reading two different versions (Danish and Germanic) of the same myth and then listening to/reading the libretto for the FIFTEEN HOUR opera Wagner composed based on this myth. Fuck.

Also: leaving tomorrow for my long study tour to Vienna and Budapest. SUPER EXCITED and will hopefully have tons of fun pictures and stories. THEN going to UK and Ireland to see wonderful people!! And wonderful things. Like culture.

Glucose

2008-09-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

Some quick notes on sweets and sugar in Denmark:

a) these people have a massive sweet tooth. In terms of size, the sheer volume of candy Americans produce and consume is probably far in excess of what the Danes do, but when you talk about frequency of candy-store appearance and the quality of candy, Denmark, I would guess, comes out ahead.

b) Gummi candy is very popular here. Kiosks, which are sort of like corner gas station food marts but everywhere, often have whole walls dedicated to gummi products. There are a variety of texture and flavor available to choose from.

c) ICE CREAM. if you like ice cream, come to Denmark! People eat ice cream ALL THE TIME and it's super delicious high quality ice cream and it comes in all sorts of flavors. I'm trying to try as many as I can without developing diabetes, and here's some highlights:
green apple
creme caramel (paired with green apple! Yum!)
chocolate. A vanilla flavor (hah!) but incredibly dense and satisfying
Straciatella - an italian version of cookies and cream. Fantastic.
Tiramisu

I am still waiting to check raspberry, watermelon, lemon, kiwi, and some others off of the list.

d) The Danish people have an affinity for licorice, one variety of which is made with, I believe, ammonium phosphate (Chloride?). For those of us unfamiliar with this chemical, it's a deadly cleaning agent. There are upwards of 40 Danish deaths each year from incidents involving consumption of this licorice.

e) Soda: All year is Passover in Denmark. What I mean by this is that they only sell Passover Coke/Pepsi/Soda here. Passover Coke is slang for soda/coke that is made the old fashioned way, with cane sugar instead of corn syrup. It is, in my opinion, far more delicious than the sodas that use the syrup.

f) there are bakeries spread all over and it's a little dangerous for me and my girlish figure.

Burgeoning addictions: gummi candy. Crap.

OH and I learned that red meat stays in your colon or some scary stuff like that. You can get it cleansed out (purged? Vacuumed? flushed?) but to think that a portion of every hamburger you eat doesn't ever leave is a little creepy to me.

BABIES! BAAAAABIES!!!!

2008-09-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

I few posts back I mentioned that they use massive Baby Carriages here, as opposed to the small strollers we're more used to in the States.

Amendment: most people use carriages. I have, to date, seen three baby backpacks/papooses and a handful of strollers. BUT the overwhelming majority of parents or people in charge of babies use massive contraptions that could probably shield their infants from nuclear fallout.

I've been super sketchy with my camera, lurking near people who have baby carriages trying to get pictures, or using the super zoom on my camera from across the street. It honestly feels a little creeptastic, but I feel it's worth it to get the pictures. And here you go!

Some of these, needless to say, are not the best quality pictures, but I think they show how large and intricate the baby carriages are.

ALSO FANTASTIC SHIT THAT HAPPENED

Before we left for Bornholm, I was chilling in one of the squares near the bus stop, and suddenly a police motorcyle roars around the corner. What?

It was followed by literally hundreds of yelling people on rollerblades. WHAT?! I was SO happy. Got some pretty crappy pictures. At night with no flash = should've filmed it. oh well.

When Feminism Goes Too Far

2008-09-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

So at Bornholm, I was in a hostel (an hostel?) room that held 8 people and was right next door to a bathroom.

The girls' bathroom.

The little boys' room was clear across a very cold quad, and it was pretty consistently blustery. SO a few male bodied individuals who happen to also be heterosexual men (not to out them or anything) decided that it was more practical to use the ladies' room for their business.

I was in the room when they were done, and started talking about the massive dump they just laid in the girls' room, etc. At first I got all indignant and was thinking "do they realize the implications of their actions and conversation with regard to gender politics and power dynamics?" and then promptly thought

Get a grip, Jacob. They're straight boys who like talking about poop.

Thanks, Brandeis.

Lance Armstrong ain't got nothing on us

2008-09-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Bornholm Bike Trip.

You take an overnight ferry to the island of Bornholm, arriving at 7 AM. Check into the hostel, eat breakfast, grab a bike, and you're free until 7 PM, at which point you eat dinner. Day two: repeat, and leave at 8:30 for the overnight ferry back to Copenhagen.

Details:

I was with a largish group, which was made up of:

Myself
A., a triathlete
A., who is Navy ROTC
L.,
N.,
C.,
and A.

We had biked for maybe an hour and a half when it was realized that we were following the triathlete and the ROTC-er, who had us set to bike 65 km. Uh-uh, Helllllls no.

So we split, with the triathlete, ROTC, and N. going one way, and L., A., C., and myself heading back into town for lunch. Mind you, it's about noon, we've been biking for over an hour, and we spent the night on a boat. I had slept decently, but none of the others had. Exhausted! After lunch, L., A., and C. wanted to nap, but I was recharged, so I biked around by myself for about three hours. Bornholm is BEAUTIFUL! Pictures below.

I can't even begin to describe how excited I was when I saw her. I almost crashed my bike.

I also saw these really neat, itty bitty module homes. IKEA-esque module homes. Check it out!
"Little boxes on a hillside" indeed!

Bornholm, by the way, is a small island that is criss crossed by bike trails like Cher should be criss crossed with wrinkles.

Also, it has so many birds it was a little like Hitchcock and Little House in the Big Woods exploded all over the place.

DAY TWO

Biked maybe 25 km very at a very leasurely pace, just taking in the good vibes and enjoying having a sore ass. Here's the other thing about Bornholm: it's hilly as all hell. When the Danish students in my kollegium told me that I thought, "yeah, but you think a three hour drive is a long trip. How hilly can it be?" The anser: very. Bornholm is the product of undersea volcanic activity, so it's damn bumpy. Thankfully, it's highest at the north end relative to where we were staying, and we biked mostly north, so it was downhill almost all the way home.

Met some animals:

We got sidetracked by this FANTASTIC antique shop, specifically old records, and then suddenly it was three in the afternoon. In Denmark, nearly everything closes by three on Sundays. Restaurants, shops, all closed. So there we were, starving, and all the places to eat were shutting their doors. Then it started to drizzle.

Thankfully, the grocery store was open, so we (oh! I was with N. and the triathlete) got a half loaf of bread, peanut butter (fuck yeah!), jelly, juice, and a Danish Little Debbie esque dessert. We found a nook in the building to shield us from the wind. Catch: it was by the recycle vent, so there was a nine foot tall pile of bags. Plus: there was a tiny table for people who came to drop off loads of stuff, and it was EMPTY!

Lunch was delicious.

OH we also saw one of the Round Churches - in fact, we saw the oldest Rouch Church in Denmark! Hooray! It was large, white, and round.

Lastly, I made a new friend: Ferdinand, the THREE LEGGED SWAN/GOOSE

Observations:
1) Danish lasagna does not include cheese. Seriously, Denmark. What?
2) White carrots exist, and taste like orange carrots
3) Bikes are rad

Danish phrase of the day:

"Jeg kan lide kartofler" (yai/ya cn li kahtohfluh) = I like potatoes. Actually, it translates more to "I endure potatoes" or "I tolerate potatoes" but it's the closest we can get.

USA! USA! USA!

2008-09-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

I FOUND PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!

Yes, it's super American and yes, it totally marks me, but it's
a) delicious
b) a balanced part of a breakfast or snack
c) a terrific source of protein

and so I don't entirely care. YUM!

BEER.

2008-09-15T08:58:00.001-07:00

Quick heads up: I am not a beer person. For those of you who don't drink with me, I generally prefer mixing something sweet up or just taking some shots of something and going dancing. Beer culture is not something familiar to me.

Denmark is inundated with beer and beer culture.

To help bridge this culture gap, and because I haven't yet been able to find tequila or limes, I signed up for a beer tasting event that my program put on. For 50 dkk (about 10 USD) we got to try six different beers and were walked through the process by one of the program's staffers, a self identified beer connoisseur. To date, he has tasted over 3000 beers. That's a lot of beer!

I found out that I liked the beers that he said most people wouldn't like, and I didn't like the beers he thought would be popular. I have no idea what this means, since beer people are a little like wine people. Beer can be described to be "bitter, with fruity, oiled overtones" or possessing "an emergence of dry wood [that] finishes off the nutty taste of this fine lager." A picture below shows the six that we tried:

And here below are the two that I liked:
Quick disclaimer: This blog does not represent, nor is it affiliated with, any of the breweries whose products are featured above. Moving on!

It was exciting that I liked some of the beer, 'cause when I've tried it in USA, it all tastes equally awful to me - it really hasn't mattered who brewed it. I guess it could be argued that I just hadn't tried a good beer, but since I have no conception of relative beer quality, I wouldn't know one from the other. Except Keystone. That shit's nasty. (nor is this blog affiliated with, nor does it represent, whoever brews Keystone beer.)

That was my first baby step into Danish beer culture.

This weekend was the European Beer Festival 2008. Beers, Ciders, and beer themed stuff from all over Europe was concentrated in Copenhagen. It was really exciting, I met some wonderful people, tried some wonderful beers, and don't have pictures to put up. SORRY! Some highlights:
1) hot beer served with whipped cream on top. It was strong, sweet beer, and was sort of like a warm blowjob shot. Although you sipped it.
2) Beer ice cream. YUM! I went for Guinness but they were out
3) Figuring out the taste difference between light and dark beer. I can't actually explain it, but I probably know more now than I did before the festival.

Low lights:
1) banana beer. It tasted like someone filtered a beer through a loaf of banana bread and poured it into my cup. Good in theory? BAD in practice.
2) I was seduced by a beer that contained hibiscus for a floral aroma, fig for a fruity flow, and something else for a silky finish. It was significantly less than floral, fruity, or smooth.

I gotta say, even the beers I didn't like showed an impressive array of creativity. There was beer brewed with champagne yeast, sour cherry beer, super sour cherry beer, beers with old wood, beers with birch tree, beers with all sorts of fruit, vegetables, and spices, and I wouldn't have been surprised if someone brewed a batch in a tractor or a limo to see how it came out. There was definitely a beer for everyone.

My favorite? Hoegaarden, but that may change. Oh, and it's true that you can be walking around at 11 AM and see someone biking around with a beer in hand.

Ribe

2008-09-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

I had my first Study Tour this weekend. We bussed out of Copenhagen and westward, ending at Ribe (the oldest town in Denmark).

The entire trip, from one side of the country to another, on a bus, took less than four hours.

On the way we passed through a town which was at one point the center of the European lace industry. There, we ate fish. Honestly, I would have to say that cold pickled herring is not really something I'd want to eat more than once.

Ribe, being the oldest town in Denmark is also home to the oldest cathedral in Denmark as well as the oldest street. NOT, however, the oldest houses. Denmark suffered through a lot of fires in the fifteen hundreds (Ribe and Copenhagen, at least) and so most of the architecture from earlier than that burned to a cinder.

Fun Ribe facts:
-The smallest home in Ribe is 25m square. It was, when it was built, home to seven people.
-If you buy a home in Ribe, you have to live in it. This is so the town will not become a time-share tourist town or a vacation town.
-The night watchman in Ribe carries a mace and sings to you.
-The Cathedral building has some of the most wonderful churchy insides I've ever seen. Pictures below. The man who did the work at the front studied with Chagall.
-Bits have been dug up/found lying around in Ribe that date back to the 700's.

Observations:
1) Denmark being so small makes it much more sensical that many Danish people consider a one hour car ride to be a long trip
2) Rollerblades may be making a comeback. Or, for some people, perhaps they never left.

If perhaps you would be so kind as to maybe make me the falafel which you are selling?

2008-09-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Danish language reflects the egalitarian nature of their culture. Like Spanish and other Romance languages, Danish is gendered. It is not, however, divided into a masculine/feminine binary, but rather words are marked as being either gendered or neuter. That's it. Neat!

Also, formal conjugations and terms of address, such as the Ud. in Spanish, are vanishing, and some more 'polite' structures are being phased out. At least, that's what it seems like. "Skal" translates essentially to "will" and as far as I can tell after a whole two weeks of Danish class, is sometimes to indicate future tense as well as to indicate immediate desire/future, as in "Jeg skal have en koppe kaffe" or "I will have a cup of coffee." "Gerne" carries a more polite, formal tone to it, although it translates essentially to the same thing. I suppose you can think of it as "would like to," but I probably haven't wrapped my head around the word yet. I have heard many more people use "skal" as opposed to "gerne" and one of my friends was told that "no one uses 'gerne' because it puts people above others socially" or something to that effect. I have no idea if this comes from an authority on Danish culture or a flesh eating zombie, but if it's true, it fits in with the overpowering egalitarianism that seems to motivate a lot of Danish culture. Or at least how I've interpreted what's been presented to me. Anyway, it's part a relief to realize that people aren't being rude, and I'm not if I use it, and it's also funny to me as another example of how textbook language teaching falls somewhat short in the real world.

Adventure update:

I went to the forest by Bakken, which is the oldest amusement park in Denmark. I missed the season, sadly.

The forest began life as where a bunch of rural farmer people, etc. lived. However, King Christian IV wanted some private hunting grounds, and so he offered everyone living in the woods land and houses on the coast. Then he put up a fence around the forest and declared it the Royal Hunting Grounds. And that's where we went as a Field Study for my Danish Language and Culture class! It's huge and old and amazing and what noticed primarily was that unlike forests in, say, California, there's virtually no undergrowth. Just grass and big old trees. Oh, and it's deer mating season, so there's bucks with big scary racks making their mating calls, which sounds like a cross between the biggest belch ever and a moo. Try it, and see if any lady deer come running.

We played what was billed as a traditional Danish game that was also very BDub (Breakaliscious for all you folks in Miami):

It's sort of baseball - there is a place of hitting, a first base, a second base, and a third base. Once you round third, though, you automatically go home. The pitcher stands to the side of the person at bat, though, and the pitch is vertical rather than horizontal (so the pitcher throws the ball up and then the batter hits it as it descends). Also, the person at bat has the option of self pitching. If they get it, they have to run/go to 1st, etc. Of note is that there are only two pitches, and even if you 'strike out' you still get a walk.

The team in the field has a pitcher, and then everyone else is scattered around the field to help catch. There is no official infield or outfield.

There are no points. You don't keep score, and there are no official winners and losers.

If you hit the ball and someone catches it (on the fly) or if the pitcher touches home and shouts 'stop" while you are not on base, then you are out. Except they don't call it out, they call it "dead." In a game with no winners, losers, or score, you're supposed to kill people. Maybe a last remnant of their Viking roots struggling up through modern Danish culture :p

The object is to be the last team at bat when the time limit runs out. Play rotates when there are three people dead at the same time.

Overall? It's a lot of fun and I think it would be even more fun to introduce a noncompetitive baseball to my students!

After the game:

HOT CHOCOLATE. We were taken to this old house whose historical significance I cannot remember, but now functions as a place to get fantastic hot chocolate. It's similar to the places I've been to in Cambridge where they melt slabs of chocolate into your cup and mix in milk or spices. This place was adorable, and it's all-you-can-drink, and served with freshly whipped cream. The catch is that it's so unbelievably decadent that you can't even make it through one tiny cup without pausing for a water break. It was probably the best antidote to the grey, moist weather.

Word of the day:

Kartofle = potato

Observations:

Shout out to my lovely Aunt L. for her many questions! If anyone wonders anything by all means let me know and I'll see if I can find out for you.

Clothes: 'dressing down' is more dressed up than the US. For example: no one would ever go to class in sweats. You'd be super put together, and probably wearing skinny jeans. 'dressed up' though is more relaxed than in the USA. Business wear, for example, is more often than not jeans and a nice button up as opposed to a suit or chinos. That's not to say no suits, but fewer. Though those that I have seen have been a lot nicer than the majority of suits I've seen in the states.

Food: easy to find: beer, gummi candy, bread products (baked goods and bread, pita, etc). Hard to find: limes, tequila, peanut butter. Also: tupperware = absent as yet.

Lastly: My dorm has Mega-Washers. They have settings in celsius (of course) and one of them is 95!!! For those of you not familiar with celsius, that's almost boiling. I have no idea why I would ever need to boil my laundry in a power washer that could probably take over a small country by itself. Oh, and they're 'smart' washers - they can tell how many clothes are in them and adjust accordingly. Really impressive, but somewhat curious. Oh, and American students who think Brandeis/your school sucks for laundry: We have six washers and three dryers FOR MY WHOLE BUILDING of 5 floors each about 45 students...

Med venlig hilsen (with kind regards, which is how most of the emails from Danish people I've received have been signed)
-Jacob

Homeless...my ass!

2008-09-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

I'm still really conscious of being American, and so I get really excited when strangers come up to me and ask for directions in a foreign language. I usually assume they're speaking Danish, but it could be Tagalog for all I know. It's happened a few times now; one of my favorites was an American couple who told me, "you speak really good English! I couldn't even hear an accent!" when I gave them directions to the Metro stop. I dunno, I'm realizing how much of my identity is relationally established, and without those relations directly around me, it's somewhat validating to be taken for someone who knows what he's doing, even if it's a mistaken impression.

So when a rather disheveled man approached me this afternoon and started speaking Danish, I got really excited. When I responded, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Danish," and he started talking in English, however, I just got mad.

"I'm homeless. Do you have any spare money?"

Ok, I realize that he could be from another country, but since the language he was speaking sounded like Danish, I'm going to assume (making an ass out of both of us) that he's a Danish citizen. Which means he's full of bull.

Denmark, as you may know, is a welfare state. The government pays for literally almost all of your needs. Education, health care, if you lose your job they help you find one, if you don't want to work there are government established places to live. Essentially, the only reason you'd be without a roof over your head is because you made a conscious choice to live like that. OR you're hooked on heroin. This gentleman may very well be hooked, but given all that I've seen so far of Denmark, I have a hard time believing they let drug addicts roam around without being cared for and supported.

I don't really know why I got so upset. Well, actually I do. I was just starting to feel as if I'm getting the hang of this culture and was starting to be able to blend into the woodwork and not stand out as a tourist when this bloke comes up and starts treating me like some dumb, ignorant foreigner. I want to be compassionate and caring and feel bad for him and his situation, but I'm a little too upset with his behavior to do so at this moment.

Readers note: If someone panhandles you in Copenhagen and they are probably from Denmark, they're yanking your chain. If they're foreign, give them a sandwich.

P.S.

2008-09-03T13:50:00.001-07:00

New key phrase:

"Jeg tale ikke Dansk" = I don't speak Danish

OH and Danish has 28 vowel sounds. I think I may look into joining the choir because they sing all in Danish and I really wanna try a round, pure "æ" which sounds like the "ay" in "day" but more hard, forward, and stretched. You kind of make an orange slice with the inside of your mouth, I think. So basically the opposite of round and pure.

Obervations:
a) Gender difference (surprise): Danish male youth are much more willing to be physically expressive than the American male youth I've been exposed to. I don't mean huggy or touchy, but I have seen several young Danish males who involve their whole body with whatever it is they're saying. They jive, boogie, get happy with Jesus, gesticulate, and act out various parts of their narratives. It's great to see, and I bet it would be more fun if I could understand what on earth they're saying. They include in this noises that no American of similar age or gender identity would be caught dead making. I've heard falsetto singing, "vroom vroom" ing, noises that may or may not have been actual speech but were still in falsetto, and some other stuff too. Two kids, for instance, perhaps 12 years old, went from having rather adult posture and body language to sprinting past me on imaginary motor cycles. Brilliant.
b) No one has a stroller. Everyone takes their babies out, and they all have enormous Baby Carriages. High tech, hard core, could-probably-plow-a-field baby carriages. They're breathtaking and more than a little intimidating. I'm wondering if it has to do with being able to take your kids with you even when it's sleeting and blustery.

Ice Cream, Erotica, Barbar Bar, and Castle

2008-09-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

OK so I had my first weekend in Copenhagen and it was surreal.

FRIDAY

So DIS, my program, rented out this swanky nightclub called Luxx for our welcome party. In our welcome bag we got coupons for free entry and two free drinks from 8-11 PM. I got two coupons that had sneakily stuck together. Needless to say, I pretty thrilled. I spent Friday afternoon after classes hanging out with some friends from my program and seeing things in windows that I really want to buy, and we split up around 4:30. I went back to my kollegium planning on taking a nap, cooking dinner, and showering, showing up to Luxx around 8:30 and then going somewhere else with the people I'd been hanging out with earlier.

I slept through my alarm and didn't wake up until 10:49 PM. Remember, free drinks ended at 11. I swore a lot, changed shirts, and ran out the door to the Metro station...but even if the train was waiting for me, it wasn't physically possible to get to Luxx before 11. So I forked over 80 kroner (divide by five, so $16) for cover, and wandered around. Even though I was a little bitter about sleeping through the party, I had to admit that Luxx is pretty swank. Small, too. No pictures, sorry. I didn't bother bringing my free drink coupons...perhaps a mistake. I mosied around a little, of course the friends I was supposed to meet up with had left, but I ran into some other people I knew by the bar. They were schmoozing it up, and had gotten some 10 dkk shots of something they said tasted like menthol. Ok, so if a cheap shot comes out to $2...a Long Island Iced Tea comes out to...

250 dkk, or FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS!! WHAT?! This was the first time I really got slapped in the face by how expensive Denmark (and Luxx, too...) is. So no cocktail for me at Luxx. I got a shot of the mouthwash and left with the friendly peeps who'd been smooth talking the bartender.

SO we meandered around central Copenhagen a little bit. Bought a cheap bottle of wine from the 7-11 and drank it in a square with a fountain, which was incredibly surreal. Then we hit up two bars, I think one was called "Aussie Bar" and the other was "The Scottish Pub." One had really fun live music - Danes playing "Sweet Home Alabama," etc., and we met some neat locals hanging out. Quick thing: this was at like one in the morning, and in the bar, there were really cute old people dancing together!!! That's how I wanna roll when I turn grey and wrinkly. The other bar had more of the same, but it was maybe a little less grey and a little more female bodied and middle aged. The music there was a great selection of '80's dance hits. As far as I can tell, Denmark loves the American '80's. Having spent my money on the cover charge for Luxx (BLATT. WRONG ANSWER), I didn't have enough on my to buy any beer at the bars. Lame sause! So week one in DK and no beer yet. After the bars we split and I slept a lot.

SATURDAY

Morning tour: "The Other Copenhagen" Billed as a way to walk around and get exposed to trendy shops NOT on the major shopping thoroughfare, neat cafes and restaurants, and bits of Copenhagen culture that we probably wouldn't find on our own.

Ups: So you go to the remnants of Copenhagen's meatpacking neighborhood. Walk through this alley framed by big ugly warehousy buildings and bigrigs, and hang a right. Surprise! You're in a cafe courtyard! There's tables, chairs, umbrellas, and a fountain. Also some art galleries and shops and a cafe/bar that was all designed by local artist(s). Really neat.

This is the fountain. When you approach, the line perpendicular to your angle of approach (or the closest one to you, if you come at it from the side like a sneaky Viking) turns off, allowing you to lurk in the center and look like a tourist or a small child. As you can see, I opted for both. We also passed by this wonderful piece of street art:

When the tour was done, our guide took us into a cute, leafy nook off of the main street we were on, and said something to the effect of, "It's been nice getting to know you; I hope you had fun, and I'm taking off! Good luck getting back!" Fortunately I was with some people I knew, one of whom is brilliant with getting around. We stopped in an ice cream shop for some ice cream (still unseasonably warm), and met something I wish I had a picture of: The Danish Ice Cream:

a) A regular, pointy cone.
b) Three (3) scoops of ice cream, each a different flavor. The flavors were ostensibly determined by our gender, the season, our personality, and our eye color. I kid you not, the ice cream man told me, "Let me see your eyes. Champagne!" The champagne flavor was delicious.
c) Squish onto the ice cream a cookie composed of layers of ultrathin wafer and marzapan flavored marshmallow-fluff type substance
d) Pile vanilla (more like Cold Stone's Sweet Cream flavor) soft serve over the top
e) drive a heart shaped sucker through the cookie and into the ice cream. The color of the sucker is also dependent on your sucker and personality. I had green, but I don't know what it means.

We were full for literally three hours. And none of us had a real lunch. Oops!

Wandered through Copenhagen's International Festival, which was much larger than I thought it would be for a city like this one. It was set on one of Copenhagen's beautiful lakes, and there were booths with food, booths with cultural brochures, booths with travel information, and booths where people just kinda hung out and chatted. Very neat! There were also live performances and some cultural dancing that went down (we were there for an Indian group).

Went also the Museum Erotica. Pictures not suitable for general internet display...or certain small beings in my family who may eventually read this. BUT know this: I saw a male chastity belt with a slot you'd poop out of. That was what struck me more than the overall horrendous discomfort and chafing that would result if you wore it - when I've thought of chastity belts before I always concentrated on the front end and the fact that I thought it was funny to lock up a vagina (who'd want to go there anyway?). I never considered the fact that you'd need some way to eliminate from the other end (insert someone's tasteless gay joke here). More exciting for me, at least they had two things: a full pole to dance on (I didn't, and I'm not sure if you're supposed to, but I wanted to nonetheless) and a room full of biographies of the sex lives of famous people. Highlights:
Dick Clark
Charlie Chaplin
Billie Holiday
Martin Luther
Hitler
Mae West
Marylin Monroe

Went home and did some work around 5 in the afternoon. Made myself dinner. I'm kind of happy that I've avoided eating out for dinner so far - and for the most part I'm packing lunch! It's cheaper, and delicious! It's simple coooking, 'cause I don't have key access yet to the shared kitchen - it's an electronic lock and my zapper key has to be put into the system. FOR SHAME, DIS! Once I get an oven and more than a saucepan and a giant wok, I might get more creative :p.

Although you can boil pasta for two in a wok of this size.

Went to Barbar Bar Saturday night. It's a cool place in Vesterbro (I think) that has relatively affordable drinks and a nice ambience. The weather was such that we chilled outside, since in a week we'll be forced by rain to pack inside, or so we hear. Oh, and my friend found 150 dkk (about 30 bucks) on the street, so our bottle of wine was, essentially, free! For us at least. Barbar Bar was rather dead except for us, so I kinda want to go back and see what it's like when there's more people there.

SUNDAY

Whew! I SAW THE HAMLET CASTLE!! Kronborg Castle in Elsinor was for a while the historic seat of the Danish monarchy, and the site of Shakespeare's incestuous play Hamlet. Hamlet never existed and Shakespeare probably never saw Kronborg, but it was really neat to know that I was walking on the same floor that a famous ficticious family fucker (ha!) did. Ok, maybe Hamlet and his mom didn't have real sex. Whatever. Moving on. The castle was GORGEOUS. Oh, and Shakespeare fans: You can get married in the Grand Ballroom of Kronborg Castle. It costs, I believe $150 (that's USD) per head, and you have to have at least 300 guests. This is not including catering, etc. So if you or whomever is paying for your wedding has a hundred grand to throw around, this might be a good way to do it!

We also went into the Castlemates, or the dank underground area that housed horses and prisoners:

This nice man below will allegedly wake up and defend Denmark when the kingdom becomes imperiled. He slept through WWII, though. Although the major Danish resistance group that formed after Hitler occupied Denmark took it's name from this dude, but I forget what it is.

After the tour? More homework.

I'm planning my travel break right now and I'm REAL excited. I could be doing immediately productive things, like homework, but who does that?

Dropping Accents

2008-08-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

Before I go any further I want to apologize for the fact that there is no way to visually articulate the many sounds that Danish requires. Forgive me. Moving on.

SO much has happened in just a few days that there's no way to express it fully without blogging a novel and convincing people to never again read :p. Posts will probably slow down somewhat once I'm settled. BUT until then!

There is a dilemma that I face as a DIS student, and that is why in Hell I would ever want to learn Danish (Brandeis regulations aside). I have yet to encounter a resident of Copenhagen who speaks English with any degree of difficulty. I feel, though, that I'd be cheating myself out of part of the cultural exchange aspect of study abroad if I chose to avoid learning the language.

Part of our two day "Survival Danish" course was a tour of the neighborhood where DIS is located, during which our teacher pointed out locations based not on their cultural significance, but on their practicality. Once such place was 'Tiger" (she pronounced it something like "Teerhuh" with the "ee" truncated and the "rh" formed by pushing the bulky back of your tongue against your hard palate near where it transitions into the soft palate...I think). Another student and myself were hunting it down and got lost. We were in the middle of a square in the Stroget, or the main shopping area, so there were people everywhere to ask for directions. We found a group of snazzily dressed (compared to us drab Americans) teenagers who, because of their youth, were incredibly non-threatening. It's hard to get embarrassed about mangling a word or being lost when you're talking to 14 year olds. My friend asked if they knew where "Teerhuh" was...and no one did. Heads shaking, they asked us what it was, they asked each other what we meant, and then my friend spelled it for them. "Oh, Tiger. It's right over there" Not only was it pronounced without any trace of Danish, the store was literally 100 feet away on the other side of the square. Go figure.

The picture to the left is the three foot tall statue of The Little Mermaid, considered by non-Danes to be a shining icon of Denmark. Our Danish tour guide, however, wasted little breath on "the silly insipid girl on a rock," preferring instead to focus on the history of the area and what has been done to the mermaid. Since she is invested with such national power, she has been used as a canvas on which to express the populace's level of satisfaction with the government. She gets presents, roses, and such, and in less happy times she has lost her arm, her head, and on one occasion was dynamited out of the water. She actually had a ring of cement installed in her neck to help prevent future decapitation.

The picture to the left is a fountain. It's pretty.

The architecture here is wonderful - it's a blend of super old bricky stuff, and really sleek hypermodern glass buildings that are designed with specific intent, such as the lantern shaped opera house. It's really nice to see, especially because it all blends together harmoniously. The fearless leaders of Denmark made a conscious decision to have all new buildings designed with an eye towards maintaining and working with Denmark's existing, historical structures. The result is spectacular.

My Danish professor is brilliant. She is like a hardcore. crazy Danish mom-teacher. Basically, everything I want in a professor. We watched some music videos of Danish pop music today. Here is a link to a Danish teenage heartthrob from their TV show, "X Factor." As explained by my professor, since Denmark is such a small country, it doesn't have the same talent pool to draw on as larger programs such as the shows in America or the UK. Nevertheless, Martin is apparently a hot little number with the Danish teeny boppers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xamcfvbXayE (go to about 00:51)

Rule of the day:

If a "g" comes between two vowels, it is dropped.

Observations:
1) street musicians in Denmark are far more exciting to American street musicians. Not necessarily technically, but they play much sillier and more engaging music.
2) Light switches here are teeny.
3) it's possible to crossbreed a bicycle and a bulldozer. And then put children in it.

August 24-27...

2008-08-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

High: Vegetarian Restaurant in Christiania
Low: broken converter (I'm writing from the computer lab)

I suppose I should explain the title of the blog first...

I had my first class in Danish yesterday, and it's incredibly difficult. I was paying ten different kinds of attention, and thanks in no small part to my voice teacher and her Kleenex box, I noticed that when our Danish instructor spoke (both English and Danish), her speech had a highly forward, focused sound to it. My hand shot up, and I asked something like, "Do you put it so you can feel it in your nose?" The entire class, teacher included, fell silent (we had been practicing dialogues, so this began as a private, one on one question), my neighbors (friendly people) burst out laughing, and the teacher gave me a look like I had two heads and just said "do I put what where?" Somewhat awkward. BUT I think it helped...English speakers who have learned Danish and know what I'm asking about, if you think you have a helpful answer, please let me know!

Ok, here's how it's gone so far:

I arrived at 7:10 am Sunday and checked in. When I packed, I was really worried I'd be one of those Americans who overpacks and brings umpteen things too many, so I narrowed it down and ended up taking one normal sized suitcase, one carry-on sized suitcase, and my backpack (I stuffed a duffel into the small bag so I can shop around while I'm here :p). Upside = I was one of the lightest packers, and all of my bags fit into the big one, which is great for storage! Downside = I miss the pants I made myself leave in the states. Fair trade? I think so!

OH and not only were there like twenty bajillion DIS students on my connecting flight from DC to Copenhagen, but I got bumped up to business class! Hooray!!

Orientation has been interesting - on the first night DIS separated us into groups according to where we're living and then treated the groups to dinner. This was when I found out that I am the only DIS student living in my kollegium. Now, I'm kind of excited about the prospect of being able to schmooze with so many Danes, but in the moment, after a 16 hour plane ride, I was somewhat less than pleased. We've been touring around the city so far, mostly in the central area where DIS is located. So far it's BEAUTIFUL. Pictures to come when I find a way to charge my computer.

My kollegium is located about 30 minutes away from DIS HQ, down near Christianhavn. It's a gorgeous walk, and I'm also within walking distance of bus and metro stops, so when the weather is gross (like today) it's easy to catch a ride to school.

OH the people in my program! Well for starters the program is HUMONGOUS, something like 600 students, and I didn't realize that DIS caters almost exclusively to Americans. There are some wonderful people, some not so wonderful people, and some people who need to take some anthropology classes to develop some cultural sensitivity. By and large though everyone's basically friendly, which is a plus.

Words of import:
1) Kollegium = collective dorm. Danish universities don't have campuses like we're used to in the states. Instead, students from all different local universities live together in large structures called kollegiums.
2) ost = cheese. Allegedly what certain people yell when the popo show up

Observations:
1) Danes are BEAUTIFUL. There are, of course, exceptions, but as a rule, BEAUFITUL.
2) "This is a nation of coins" - Asian tourist lady to me as I bowed out after failing to purchase a metro card with my debit card.
3) Skinny jeans are the shit.
4) In relation to number one: it's reasurring to see fat, frumpy Danes. Otherwise, it would be like living among elves who are preturnaturally pretty.