Jess in Denmark

The End

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 16:30:00 +0000

Well, now that I'm home, it seems this blog must naturally come to an end. I had so many adventures that I never shared here, and so many ups and downs that never made it to my "create a new entry" screen. But overall, I had an absolute blast, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat (well, except for a few things...).

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed.

Farvel.

Home

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 16:19:00 +0000

I'm home again, back in Texas after a long journey that could have been much longer.

The travel saga: Get to airport in Copenhagen on the 21st after wrestling with suitcases on trains, wait in long line, find out our flight has been delayed 7 hours. Upside of this? 150 kroner in vouchers for food and I wasn't alone, otherwise I would have been out-of-my-mind bored. Downside? Well, ain't that obvious? Besides being stuck in an airport for that long, it meant I missed my flight back to DFW.

After landing in Chicago at 1 a.m. CST, we went through Customs and proceeded to wait in line, all 300 or so of us, with one, then two people working the counter trying to rebook flights. While I was in Copenhagen, SAS told me they wouldn't be able to rebook my flight to Dallas because it was a separate ticket, so the parents booked me a $750 first class ticket for Friday evening, but I tried to save them some money so I waited in line until 4 a.m., when the SAS people told me they would give me a comped flight on Christmas Eve, and I could be on standby every day until then, and they would give me a free hotel room for those nights at the Wyndham, with $30 a day for food. As tempting as that sounded, plus I would have gotten to run around Chicago, I really just wanted to get home, plus my sister left today (christmas eve) to go back to Georgia, so I wouldn't have seen her.

So, it's 4 a.m., I'm in Chicago, and the next flight to Dallas that I could get on standby is at 6 a.m., meaning if I went to the hotel at all, even if it was just to shower, I'd miss a bunch of flight chances, so I proceeded immediately to the domestic terminal and waited in line, at the same time getting to see the horrible awful sides of Americans that I hadn't missed (stressed, fat, fat, obese and fat, ugly, complaining, impatient and rude). Talk about culture shock. Long story short, I got myself a seat on a 9:00 flight to Cincinnatti, then from there to Dallas and I got in around 3 or so. Stopped at Whata-B on the way home. And it was delicious.

The new house has been fun to explore, it was great to see Cristen (she got me a Magic Bullet for Christmas! [And so did Joey!!!!]), and I'm relearning how to ride a bicycle. Yes, relearning, because it was hard the first time and it's still hard.

Have a Merry Christmas, y'all!

Ungdomhuset Riots

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 14:31:00 +0000

For one of the first times all semester, Denmark made international news because of the rioting that happened here Saturday night. I didn't actually see it; I wasn't in that part of Nørrebro, but some of my friends did, and they said it was craziness.

The Copenhagen Post's article is better than those I read on BBC and Reuters, but some background makes the rioting easier to understand.That Danish graffiti reads "We are them that others won't play with"

Ungdomshuset is a youth collective, started in the early '80s, and it's become, somewhat like Christiania, a place for people to go that don't fit in with the homogenous Danish society. People live there, people eat together there, there are concerts, there is a community that's sprung up around this house and it's very close. The city sold the house to a group back in 2000, who then sold it to Christian group Faderhuset, who are now trying to evict the current residents, and have been for years. The video below (see it also on YouTube) shows things from the perspective of the youth that live there.

But courts have ruled in favor of the Christian sect. I haven't been able to find English articles that explain why they so very much want to evict the house's residents

Saturday's riots were the culmination of several days' activities, to which people from across Europe were invited. Indymedia has some good pictures and a better article that also tells the youth side of the story.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

I really am boring.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:37:00 +0000

Since Thursday, I've been in a fantastic mood...finished my last paper, aced a final, landed a sweet spring internship... Classes are very nearly over (ONE MORE DAY), Julefrokoster are happening all the time, the trains run all night on Fridays, Christmas decorations are everywhere in Copenhagen, I get to sleep a lot...

Whereas with school, once I'm done with most of my work, I just want to stay, I'm still ready to go home, back to my life. It's been an awesome four months, but also a long four months!

I guess I don't really have too much to say...tonight my CAC class is throwing a Chanukah party - we actually have a bunch of Jewish girls in the class and my friends Emily and Kendra got their moms to mail over huge boxes of Chanukah-decorated things, menorahs and dreidels. I'm actually about to go help peel potatoes for latkes right now...

Oh. Saturday night, we painted a wall in the common room of the block Abbie and I share. It was pretty sweet then, but in the daylight, it looks pretty bad...bad enough that I'm considering buying some black paint and painting over it all...maybe except for the unicorn. I'll post a picture eventually.

And, in a Slate article about the proposed moon base, Gregg Easterbrook gives us what might be the best Bush slogan ever: "No Price Too High To Accomplish Nothing." I thought some of you might enjoy that as much as I did.

Julefrokost

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:30:00 +0000

Last night, my Communications Across Cultures class had a julefrokost (Christmas lunch, usually served at dinnertime)! It was so much fun. First of all, we ate a lot of food.

The first courses were herring - marinated, curried and ...well, some other way. To my credit, I did try the herring, but as per my suspicions, fish is still disgusting. Next up was egg and prawns and salmon. I didn't try the salmon, thinking it would just be a waste, but I did like the prawns. Or shrimp or whatever. In Denmark, they're really tiny, so you don't have to bite in to a disgusting giant pink finger-looking thing with a head and fins and stuff. So don't think this means I'll love shrimp at home. While we were eating the herring and the other seafood, we had snaps. Snaps is like schnapps, and you take shots of it. Our teachers only brought three small bottles for 30 people, so we didn't do it the real Danish way.Daryl gets adventurous with food

Anyway, next was a roast beef course, with pickles and roasted onions and stuff, the Danish way. We put all of these courses on bread, by the way. Rye bread, although it's acceptable to use white bread for the salmon and shrimps. This is what smørrebrød is - stuff on bread. After the roast beef, it was time for another tradition, nu det jul igen. This is a song you sing, and you all get in a chain and follow the leader around all the rooms and you sing and you run. So we did this in a lot of the classrooms in one of our buildings. Up stairs, down stairs, singing "nu det jul igen, nu det jul igen, og julen være li'g til påske, nu det jul igen, nu det jul igen, og julen være li'g til påske. Nej - det ikke sandt, nej - det ikke sandt, for ind imellem kommer faste..."and, well, you repeat that a lot. It means, "Now it's Christmas again and Christmas will last until Easter. No it isn't true, because in between comes the fast (Lent)." A little odd, but hey, it's the Danish way.Geoff and Jamie translate and prepare us for Nu Det Jul Igen

They served a dish that was basically mushed up apples and potatoes with ham mixed in, then ham with spinach and pork roast with a yummy prune and apple(?) sauce thing. Also, they tried to serve us liverpostej. Seriously? I mean, look at it. Would YOU eat this?Liver paste. MMMMM.

You shouldn't. It tastes like regurgitated cat food. Or in a nicer way, creamy meat. I shudder just thinking about it.

Finally, we had dessert - a rice pudding with a cherry sauce. It doesn't look good, but it's really yummy. And there's a game involved - in each bowl of the pudding is one whole almond. When you get the almond you're not supposed to eat it, but you can hide it in your mouth and be sneaky so other people keep eating and then you let everyone know and you get a special gift. Sadly, I was not so lucky.Rice puddin'

After dessert, we played a Danish game. We each brought two small gifts and the game went you roll a dice and if you get a 6, you get to steal a gift. You can steal as many as you want, and people can steal from you, if they get sixes. In theory, one person can have all the gifts and everyone else can have none. I actually ended up with five, but I gave two of them away because I'm just so darn nice. I got some really awesome stuff, though! Su Yi, from China, brought a silk scarf embroidered with blue flowers - he says that Hunan embroidery is really famous in China. And I got also some Chinese paper cuttings - you have to see them to believe them, they are gorgeous! I don't know what I'm going to do with them, though. I also got a Denmark shot glass and a little viking magnet.

Anyway, I just took my Danish oral final - 15 minutes of speaking only in Danish - and I got an A!

I aftens, havde min kommunikation time en julefrokost. Det var meget spændende og meget hyggeligt. Vi spiste meget - roastbøf, sild, laks, svinekam, skinke med spinat og risbudding (?sp). Vi spillede og snakkede. Jeg vil savner mine lærer. Det er tynd og sød.

As you can see, an A in intro Danish doesn't really translate to proficiency.

Vi ses i to uger!

Time goes by....so quickly

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 16:11:00 +0000

Unlike in my newest favorite Madonna song, time is going by so fast here. Do I really have just two more weekends here? Jeg savner hjem mejet men jeg tror jeg vil savner Danmark når jeg er hjem. Jeg tror min sidst dag i Danmark vil være ulykkelig. Jeg vil savner mine nu venner. But, I'll get over missing Denmark soon enough, although it will be really hard to adjust to being "underage" again. It's funny, some bars in Copenhagen have arbitrary age limits - for some, it's 18, some it's 20, a few are 21 and a couple are even 23! And I'll really miss being able to buy a bottle of wine at the grocery store because I feel like it or picking up a 6-pack of Tuborg for the weekend. I'm going to try and bring home a Julebryg or two so y'all can say you've tried it. And Fisherman's...I won't necessarily miss Fisherman's, but I'll miss it's ubiquity.

Of course, I'll miss much more than drinking! I'm going to miss all the great museums here, being able to take trains and buses and walk everywhere, jeg er ikke glædelig mig til the Bible Belt, I'll miss hyggelig and the neverending pursuit of it, I'll miss our great parks, I'll miss the Danish sense of humor, I'll probably miss trying to learn Danish (I might even keep up trying to learn it with CDs or something...how weird is that?), I'll miss people named Søren and Mette and Rikke and Lune and I'll miss extra vowels... æ å and ø...you've been so much fun! I'll miss being so close to the ocean and I'll miss being able to travel any time I want, all over Europe. Not that I took full advantage of traveling (not enough $$$), but while I did, I had a hell of a time. It will be weird to be back in the land of only cars and new buildings and churches built for max capacity instead of great beauty. Oddly enough, I've noticed I've gotten in the habit of saying "you guys." I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't automatically say y'all! I need some more Southernness in my life! I'm looking forward to a more diverse population as well...while I've seen more Turks and Iraqis and Middle Easterners here than I have in the States, the vast majority of people are white. I think I've seen less than 30 black people the entire time I've been in Denmark. Of course, going back to South Carolina will also mean dealing with daily racism again. Although...Danes are, to generalize, pretty racist toward immigrants. The immigrant "problem" here is a real one, not because they are here, but because they can't assimilate in to the culture and the culture isn't happy about the thought of having to change to reflect the country's new inhabitants. The isolation immigrants can go through is showing itself to be a real problem, as terrorist cells are springing up in the country that everyone thinks is such a fairy tale land.

Really, though, Denmark can be a fairy tale land a lot of the time. I say this often, but I don't think I've felt unsafe once in Denmark other than at my kollegium. Life just seems to be less troublesome here. As globalization's influence creeps up, things are starting to change, but old Denmark is charming and warm and wonderful.

I'm rambling a bit, so I think I should wrap things up with a shoutout to the Parental Unit:

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

Adventures!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:04:00 +0000

Thanksgiving was awesome. I was full for about three days, mostly because of Tara, who cooked us a feast. Of course, I brought pie. And brownies.

Haven't been up to too terribly much since then, knocking out papers and soaking up culture. Actually, now that I think about it, I've had some interesting days...

Friday night we went out, bla bla bla, øl øl øl, dance dance dance. But coming home on the nightbus, some people struck up a conversation with a crazy man. Long story short, he follows us off the nightbus all the way to our kollegium and I and the four other people I was with spent half an hour screaming at him to go away, in a variety of languages. (he was Latvian and spoke Danish, not great English) I can't remember another time in my life when I've screamed so loud or had that much adrenaline pumping through me. Later, crazy was lurking in the bushes when my friends came home on a later night bus and he followed them - they had to run in to a block and slam the door in his face. Albertslund's full of charms. Speaking of those charms, someone in another block got stabbed in the head the other day, when he was in his block, in his room. And you thought Columbia was sketchy?

Saturday night I experienced probably the most multinational night of my life - it was a Romanian guy from my block's birthday and around our table at varying points in the night we had: three Romanians, a Russian, a Brit, a Lithuanian, a Yugoslavian/Croatian/Bosnian (he doesn't really identify himself as anything but European), several Polish guys, several Danes and of course, several Americans, all from different states. The conversation was interesting...a mixture of pregnancy talk (two women were pregnant, one had just miscarried), politics and the pros and cons of capitalism.

Sunday, I finally made it out to Louisiana, a modern art museum in Humlebæk. I've been looking forward to going all semester, thanks to a recommendation from the fabulous Owen Riley. :) It was incredible! Tucked in to a forest, overlooking the ocean, the museum features mostly glass walls that let you see the outdoors and not feel all oppressed by a giant building. The sculpture garden overlooking the ocean? Fantastic. My favorites were the minimalist and pop art rooms and an exhibit by a Brit, Keith Tyson, called Large Field Array.
I couldn't even stay at Louisiana as long as I would have liked, because I had to rush back in to København to meet my Danish class for a field trip to Tivoli. For those of you keeping count, that was my fourth Tivoli trip, but my first to Tivoli Jul! And for the record, Jul at Tivoli is the prettiest I've ever seen Tivoli. We ate æbleskiver (literally, apple slices, but they are more like doughnuts) and drank gløgg (glogg?) (glögg?), a hot wine with raisins and almonds. Æbleskiver, delicious (especially with jam), but glogg, not so much. We also watched a light show and explored the elf village (!!). I took some video in the elf village, which eventually I will make in to another Tivoli video (just for you, Abbie), but since I am laptopless, it'll have to wait.

Today, Jacq and I went to the Statens Museums for Kunst (The State's Art Museum), which was enormous, and badly organized. Mixing modern and renaissance? Nej tak - at least not in the same freakin room! Some of the work was impressive, though. I saw some Asger Jorn work at Louisiana and a lot more at SMK - and loved it!

And I have been meaning to do work since I sat down at this computer, but have failed so far! I think I may just jet off to the World Press Photo 06 exhibit and then come back and work.

Vi ses i en måned!

Hej hej,
Jess

Gobble gobble

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 12:16:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

On our menu for tonight: chicken (kalkun is hard to come by), sweet potatoes glazed with a brown sugar and applejuice sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, apple pie and caramel chocolate chip brownies. Guess which part of the dinner I'm responsible for making. I'll give you a hint...jeg er godt til at bage men jeg can lave med ikke særligt godt.

I wish I could be in South Carolina with the fam (and the boy), but there's always next year! Miss y'all!

Bus Plunges

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:01:00 +0000

Just days after Jack Shafer of Slate's Pressbox discussed the decline of bus plunge stories in the New York Times, then reveled in how much readers enjoyed his column, a bus plunges in Alabama and is featured in the New York Times.

Cue the Twilight Zone music?

My life is boring. Read about it!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:09:00 +0000

I'm not sure I've ever gotten as much sleep in one weekend as I did in this one. Friday night, I hung out with the girls while they got ready, and when they went in to the city, I went to bed. It was glorious. I went out Saturday night, probably got around 8 hours of sleep, went home, slept for another 6, was awake for about 5 hours and got another 7 hours. I credit this oversleeping with making it to my Monday morning class for the first time since the travel break.

Other than the sleep and me baking cupcakes Saturday, my life isn't too interesting. I was confused about my cupcakes when they came out looking more like blond-bottom cupcakes instead of black-bottom, but Ida cleared up this mystery, explaining I bought chocolate-flavored sugar, not chocolate. Who knew chocolate-flavored sugar existed?

Oh, and we're planning a small Thanksgiving dinner for about five or six of us. I'm so bummed about missing the Davis thanksgiving, and so jealous that y'all get to be in South Carolina and I don't! And, to make things worse, not only do I have class that day (and Wednesday and Friday), I have a presentation worth 10 percent of my grade in Danish that day, so I can't skip it. Which means apple pie has to be made Wednesday night. We're going to eat early and then meet up with the other DIS kids living at DIK, because DIS gave us 2,000 kroner for Thanksgiving - mostly being used to buy a turkey and beer and wine. We decided to have our own Thanksgiving instead of joining in to the bring-your-own-dish dinner because we fear 30 people bringing mashed potatoes. Which reminds me, my goal for the day is to find sweet potatoes. Could be a bit challenging...

Anyway, sorry this post was a bit boring. I'm not up to much exciting, other than taking my last midterm and wading through the sea of term papers due in the next couple of weeks.

Tomorrow is Nov. 21, meaning ONLY A MONTH LEFT IN DENMARK! Hooray!
(It's not that I don't love Denmark, but I am tired of living here without my friends and family and I am very tired of our fly-infested kitchen, and I am tired of the cold and dark, and I am just ready to go home and back to school. I'm sure I'll miss København once I'm back in the States, but for now, the grass seems greener on the other side of the pond.)

Spring Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:48:00 +0000

As of now, my schedule for Spring 2007 (obvi). I'm thinking about also taking JOUR 304 (Research Methods), but part of me wants to wait and see what extracurriculars I'm getting in to before signing up for six classes.

HIST 351 = African History, honors, not sure what requirement this fills or why I'm taking it
MGMT 371 = self-explanatory, honors
SCCC 434E = Politics and Government in W. Europe, honors
ENGL 462 = Technical Writing, not expecting to enjoy this
JOUR 335 = Reporting, with WIGGINS :)
PEDU 174, in case you are wondering, is Social Dance! I'm really excited about taking that, and was obsessively checking the Registrar's page before I got to register to make sure it didn't fill up. Beginning Shag's three sections, however, all filled quickly.

I'm hoping beyond hopes that when I'm not in class, I'll be working at the StateHouse and with the AP, but my dreams of state political coverage may also be crushed. It's also possible, but not, perhaps, likely, that instead of being at USC, I'll be in Washington, D.C., with the Washington Politics and Journalism Semester. I have an interview for that internship tomorrow night at 11 p.m. my time, which I'll do in between studying for my ENM midterm and after struggling to find any research for my retarded HCA paper.

Visiting Berlingske

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:13:00 +0000

Danish newspapers never cease to amaze me. In many ways, they are radically different from American newspapers, at least the national ones that I've been studying. I go in with expectations of American similarities and find nonparallels that rather confound me.

Let me back up. I visited Berlingske-Tidende today with my friend Dan, whose host dad happens to be the company's CEO, Peter Lindegaard. We sat in on the morning editors' meeting, with helpful translations from Peter, chatted with him a bit and toured the building, met with the paper's chief political commentator, Thomas Larsen, then had lunch and chatted a bit more with Peter.

Some differences between Berlingske and American newspapers that struck me:

Printing is all done off-site. Berlingske and JP/Politiken actually share printing facilities outside of Copenhagen to reduce costs. (They are competitors.) Distribution is also not handled within the company.
The online and print versions of the newspaper are completely different, with different staffs. While part of the reason behind this is because online readers, according to Peter, are looking for quick news and not in-depth news, it's also because the journalists refuse to write for the web, and because they're unionized, they can get away with this. At local newspapers, this is a bit different, because if they refuse, Berlingske can threaten to close the newspaper, but the reporters working for Berlingske-Tidende know their paper won't be shut down, so they won't work in multimedia.
Their online production is actually costing them money because though advertisers are eager, not enough content is available for the web, so the site is viewed as unimportant
If a section editor wants more room in the newspaper for content, ads are moved to a different section of the paper. This doesn't happen that often, and the advertisers do get angry, but it happens.
Journalism is one of the highest-paid professions in Denmark
Danish journalists covering Parliament have press offices in the Parliament building

Other interesting things I learned:

Berlingske hasn't lost a single subscription since going tabloid a little less than eight months ago
Their decision to go tabloid was more of an effort to keep current readers than to attract new ones
Dato's not doing so well, but if it ends up winning the newspaper war, it could be permanent. "There could be room for one free newspaper on the market."
Peter thinks in 20 years, all newspapers will be free
Advertisers have absolutely no influence on content, and neither does the management. (Whether this is true or just the opinion of the CEO is debatable, but I'm inclined to believe him.)
Danish newspaper profit margins run around 5 percent to 10 percent

The more I know, the more I want to become fluent in Danish and move here.

Dark, dreary Denmark

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:16:00 +0000

The darkness here is really starting to get to me, and this isn't even the worst of it. It's dark by 4:45 now, and not light until 8. It's also cold, windy, and very often rainy. It's very disorienting for it to get dark so early; I never have any idea what time it is. I can't spend much time outside, and my room in Albertslund is like a little white jail cell (with nice hardwood floors). We also don't have lightbulbs (or light fixtures, really, they apparently got stolen?) in our common rooms, so I can't do my studying out there. There's light in the kitchen, but we also have a fly infestation. A bad one. Not having a computer is a torturous experience. Not only do I not have any music, I can't watch movies, I can't look at my old pictures, I can't type papers, I can't use the Internet for any number of things I enjoy doing for many hours, and I can't talk to people.

A bunch of other stuff (papers, lack of $$, meager food supplies) has me rather down in the dumps as well. No wonder this country has such a high suicide rate. But I got free Thai food courtesy of the IT department on Thursday night, went to a DIS Halloween party at the Happy Pig last night (I was white trash, my back story was perfection), had fun with Tara this afternoon and am off to eat Jacq's food and then go to what should be a fun party at another kollegium.

The Anti-Rumsfeld

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:56:00 +0000

Is it just me, or did Bush pick Rumsfeld's replacement because he looks like Santa Claus?

Clever, but I think the American public might catch on when they get MREs and bullet shells in their stockings instead of chocolate and toys.

:: CNN - Bush replaces Rumsfeld to get 'fresh perspective'
:: WaPo - Robert Gates Lauded as Breaker of Barriers
:: NYT - Robert Gates, a Cautious Player from a Past Bush Team
:: A&M's The Battalion - Gates brings leadership to Washington, DC

..:And the winners are

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 13:19:00 +0000

Well, grab my saddle and call me Aunt Fannie, because I am blown away by the election results (sort of). If you told me a year ago that the Dems would have been in control of the House and were within one of controlling the Senate, I would have hugged you but then thought you were crazy.

It's nice that the national mindset is changing (maybe our country can start FIXING itself FINALLY!), but coming back to reality, I live in RepublicanLand and seem to have always done so.

In case y'all live in holes...

Perry wins...Kinky makes a 12 percent dent
Barton whomps the competition, surprise surprise
Sanford wins (but forgets his photo I.D. Even the Danish newspapers made fun of him for this.)
Ravenel beats Grady Patterson (!)
Marriage in South Carolina is formally defined as between a man and a woman (sigh)
We have recounts in SC for Lt.Gov. and Education Superintendent
McMaster's back, which means another nonproductive several years of SC legislature, because they and the Gov'nah will be fighting the whole time
Dairy trumps pigs, as Hugh stays in office instead of Emile

It's so weird to care about two state elections. I don't think I have that much invested in Texas elections at the moment, yet I vote there, and the South Carolina elections directly affect me so much, yet I have to sit back and watch as others decide. Frustrating...

South Cackalack results
Texas results
National results

Also, I was really, truly surprised that Leiberman won. That son of a gun really does have Joementum.

Election such and such

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 15:46:00 +0000

I know, I've been posting a lot, but hey, it's election day, so deal with it.

I just go around to checking out The Greenville News's endorsements. I loved my time at the paper, but I think that I will have to really consider the editorial pages of newspaper I want to work at in real life, because I seem to be diametrically opposed to nearly everything TGN states that it supports.

A YES for Amendment 1 with NO explanation? No thank you!

The State also takes a cowardly route and votes yes, but at least gives some explanation. However, the explanation they give is pathetic. "So we can move on to other issues." Yeah, Brad Warthen, that's good logic. Why not just blow up all of Iraq, so we can move on? Why not kill everyone who poses any threat to the US, so we can move on. That's idiotic reasoning if I have ever heard any. Not to mention, it doesn't explain the decision. By that logic, just vote NO and move on.

Over at the Post & Courier, the editorial board makes the lovely statement that voters should choose on a case-by-case basis, and not on straight party lines. How refreshing! However, they still lean towards Republicans, and also vote Yes on Amendment 1. Election Day every year in South Carolina and Texas is a painful reminder of how different I am ideologically than many of the people I live with.

I won't delve in to individual candidates, especially since I didn't vote for any of them. (I voted in Texas.) I'm sure I'll come back and edit this as the day goes on and I start to hear things. I'm basicially begging for phone calls to update me on how the election turns out but I suppose I can wait until morning if I really have to. The other thing about that is I have no class tomorrow morning, just a field trip in the afternoon, so I'd have to commute two hours back and forth from the city because of course, I have no functional computer at home.

GO VOTE

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:23:00 +0000

I need say nothing else.

GO VOTE

seriously,

GO VOTE!

New breakfast discovery!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 12:44:00 +0000

This morning, I discovered the amazing breakfast invention of kernemælkbrød (yummy bread), spread with nutella and peanut butter, topped with frosted flakes. Seriously, it's good stuff.

Unfortunately, most of my other meals for the next two months won't be so good. I have almost no money left, thanks to a very expensive travel break and lack of budgeting during my first month, so I'll be sticking to rice (3 kroner a box), pasta (6 kroner a bag) and every once in a while, some bread and if I feel like splurging, maybe a little jam. It's gonna be a little bit ridiculous, I think. Hopefully I'll get invited to a lot of Christmas meals?

Anyway, didn't have much to say other than that. I'm glad people are finally back from traveling, and now I'm off to class. I spent the entire weekend reading and studying and writing that damn long article for Jenn and the g&b.

Julebryg

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 13:43:00 +0000

Before I get to the point of this post, let me say In Your Face, Suckas to every Republican who spent excess energy gloating at me after the election two years ago. I only wish I could be in the States to enjoy every moment of Republican defeat. Thankfully, I will be there for the election that will knock Bush out of power, sure to go down in history as one of the best days in my life. It's nice to daydream every once in a while.

But, back to Julebryg. Friday night I got to witness one of the more peculiar Danish traditions, the launch of Tuborg's Christmas beer. Nearly every Danish beer comes out with a Christmas beer, but "J-day" is when Tuborg's beer starts being sold at the bars. This national celebration used to be held on Tuesday nights but the Danish government actually asked Carlsberg (which owns Tuborg) to move it to a Friday night because so many people were hungover at work on Wednesdays.

Unsure really of what this tradition entailed, a group of us met up Friday night and headed to Råadhusplasen (the city center), which was completely and utterly TRASHED from the MTV awards the night before. Instead of the big party with free beer we were expecting to find, we saw a small train decorated with Tuborg fliers and a giant Tuborg truck. Eventually we figured out that the Tuborg truck goes around to bars and brings them two cases each of free Tuborg, along with blinking Tuborg hats and such.

When the back of the truck opens, instead of case after case of beer, we see this lively group of people:who then go in to a bar with the free beer and merch and sing the Tuborg Christmas song to the tune of Jingle Bells. After hearing this about 5 times, I was sick of it, but I heard it many more. So did they, which might explain why they weren't cheerful at all, despite wearing ridiculous Santa-esque costumes.

All over the city, bars were celebrating the launch; some even had fake snow machines. We, being lame Americans who thought it would be a big deal to miss the 20:59 launch, got tired early and headed back before midnight, when most Danes were heading out to celebrate.

Anyway, for your reading delight (although I'm guessing most of you won't be able to sing along since y'all have no idea how to pronounce Danish), the lyrics to Julebyrg.

Julen står for dør'n
for voksne og for børn
Og hvis du er julemand
så skal du ta' din dørn

Julen er et ræs
Du får "julestress"
Indtil Tuborg-julemanden
kommer med et læs

Julebyrg, julebyrg
Tuborg julebyrg
Ventetiden bli'r så sød
Julehjerte-glød

Julebyrg, julebryg
Tuborg julebyrg
Nyd den kold, og ønsk en ven
Glæd'lig jul igen

Don't ask me what it all means, but it was something to do with the beer being for everyone and being a good way to relieve Christmas stress and enjoy time with friends.

Czech Trek!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 17:16:00 +0000

This has been the best week ever! I had the time of my life on the Czech Trek, and I wish it could have lasted twice as long.

Day by day recap:
Left Sunday at 6 p.m. on our pimped-out bus that wasn't actually comfortable at all. 54 people, 54 seats. We got friendly quickly. Rode a ferry to Germany, then drove forever through Germany all night. The sunrise in the Czech Republic was stunning, though our breakfast at some random hotel was not (jellied meat? nej tak). The scenery from the bus was an interesting mix of drop-dead gorgeous countryside and mountains with Communist-style buildings everywhere. You could feel how poor the country was.

Monday morning, we went to Terezin, a concentration camp somewhere in Czechland. It wasn't a death camp, so I didn't feel as nauseous hearing about what went on there as I usually do when I hear about Holocaust happenings. Not to say I wasn't upset - I am human - but we didn't hear too many gory stories. It was a very weird thing to be somewhere that saw so much suffering. We were in rooms that held 600 people prisoner, tiny cells where the people were crammed in so much that they died, in the room where 100 people would shower at a time, once a week, five to each showerhead. To be there was just so strange. I was glad to leave.

Finally at 1 or so, we got to our hotel: a castle on top of a mountain. I was giddy from the time we were driving around the area until we left. The scenery was phenomenal. The mountains, the fall leaves on the trees, the greenness, the enormousness of everything....I hadn't realized how much I missed being in a non-city. We went on a three-hour hike (it seemed much shorter) after lunch, then had dinner. Every lunch and dinner was a three-course taste of different Czech food, and breakfasts were incredible buffets. I don't think I've ever eaten so well in my life.

Budvar, the original Budweiser, was on tap at the hotel -- and I could afford to drink it! God bless the horrendous Czech economy. The beer is delicious, in case you were wondering.

The next day, we did archery in the morning (pretty lame, though I came close to shooting an arrow through an apple) and in the afternoon we did rappelling and high-rope-bridge walking. While we waited, some people sleeve-fought.

But I digress. I thought rappelling would be the less challenging half of that activity, but I was wrong. Since I was a kid, I've loved to climb up things and hated to climb down them, so imagine how I felt having to come down a 25-meter rock wall with just some rope holding me up. It was literally the most terrified I have ever been, though I did get some cool views of the ravine as I slowly, slowly made my way down.

For the high rope bridge, we took a zipline across the ravine.

Then, we walked across a very unstable rope bridge back. The first time I did this, it was a little scary, but I made it just fine. The second time was much more fun, so by the third time, I was a little overconfident perhaps and walking less carefully. I fell, and then had an epic struggle in the middle, dangling high above a ravine. See, after I fell, I of course tried to get back up, which was hard, but I was standing and then realized I wasn't standing on the part for feet, I was standing on the "railing." So I had to somehow get that straightened out and after I thought I had everything worked out, I start to walk again and realize that my safety line had gotten wrapped around the bridge, so then I had to under and over the side. It took forever, and when I finally made it to the other side, the instructor was like, "we weren't sure if you were going to make it, we were thinking about coming to get you." But I did, so life is good, and I'm not too terribly embarassed like I would have been if they did actually have to go rescue me.

It was really fun, though, and I have some crazy bruising on my arm from it. Sadly, by the time I was falling and dangling and struggling, it was pretty dark outside, so no one's pictures of it came out, though I have some pretty bad ones that require some squinting and imagination.

That day was Halloween, and I love Halloween for those of you who don't know. I go all out in the States and I was incredibly, incredibly bummed that I wasn't getting a Halloween this year, especially after seeing everyone's pictures from the weekend before I left. But because the people on the trip were so awesome, we totally made it a Halloween to remember. We crafted costumes out of things we packed and found in the hotel and we were damn creative. I was an angel, wearing a lace curtain with wings made from a pillowcase and two hangers, and a paper halo. We had a whole crew that dressed up for dinner and then we got to do a "treasure hunt" around the castle in the pitch black, with light only from tea lights that kept going out. My team came in second...boo...but later we exploded lighters, and it was fantastic.

The next day was rock climbing on top of a different mountain, in what had to be subzero temperatures. I also attempted and failed at rappelling.

That afternoon we had the best time ever, crawling around caves. I didn't take any pictures, but other people did, and I'll steal them eventually. We were in a part of a national forest where tourists aren't actually allowed. Our guides have to fight every year to get permits to take small groups in the caves. Once we navigated pitch-black caves, extremely tiny holes and a myriad of rope bridges and rocks and leafy trails, our prize was getting to go in a cave where it looked like Indians had been. I'm not sure what the real story was behind it, but it was a tiny room with not much oxygen and a fire pit set up. We all got to sign a guestbook dating from 1912!!

Somehow, after just that small amount of time, we had to leave the Cesky Raj (roughly translating to Czech Paradise). We went to Prague for all of eight hours, which was a bummer, but at least I got to spend them with Diane! We walked around a little, visited a monastery, tried the beer that the monks have been brewing for over 500 years, shopped a little and reminsced a lot. I'll definitely have to go back to Prague some day and actually see it, because we had way too little time there to actually see it.

On the Charles Bridge

OH! And it snowed! The other group got hailed on when they were rock climbing, but we just got a very light dusting of snow. That night while we slept, the castle got a bunch of snow, and so did Copenhagen. Sadly, by the time I got back in to the city this morning (after a torturous bus ride), it had melted.

In short, I'm in love with the Czech Republic.

Travel ups and downs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:00:00 +0000

I'm back in Copenhagen! I missed it, definitely. Who would have thought Albertslund would ever be a welcome sight for me?

I had such an amazing time in the different cities I was in and even traveling between them wasn't that bad, for the most part.

Some high (and low) lights: If you actually know me, I'm sure you'll hear longer stories about this trip when I get back, but I am way too tired right now to write everything that happened. Plus, it would be way too long to read.

:Riding the London Eye

:Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub that was rebuilt in 1667

:The Charles Dickens museum, located in one of his old houses

:Shooting this protester for my photojournalism assignment and watching him and a "Heritage Warden" get in to a shouting match

:Eating scones and drinking tea on a cruise down the Thames

:The British War Museum's Holocaust exhibit

:Camden, London, a really cool alternative neighborhood

:Old Spitalfields Market. I literally went there four times, though the last two were both to look for something I saw on the second trip (which I didn't find again)

:Being in the East End and the West End and thinking of the Pet Shop Boys song

:The ferry ride from England to Holland was pretty cool, even though I got seasick. The ferry had a casino and about six restaurants in it, not to mention two movie theaters. It also showed one too many Britney Spears music videos

:A carnival ride in Amsterdam that first rocked my world then messed with it. What's with European rides lasting five times longer than American ones?

:Introducing Becca& Kathryn to soft ice
:Seeing the Nightwatch, both in person and in 3-D sculpture form

:Amsterdam in general was really fun. And food in Amsterdam. Helllooo 77-Euro cent Doritos!

:Losing Kathryn and Becca at Amsterdam Centraal and winding up just taking a train to Eindhoven myself, then remembering after the first train stop that they were going to take a bus, THEN getting a €50 fine because I bought a student ticket and despite being a student, I was somehow not eligible for the student price. Eventually I found them at the airport so it all worked out

:The adorable child who sat in front of me on the plane and discovered that when she threw her Teletubby toy behind her chair it magically reappeared back there (I was playing along)

:The air pressure on the plane messing with my ear so I couldn't hear for like four hours out of one ear

:Being really sick once I got to Milan

:Did I mention non-stop coughing?

:Il Duomo

:The stores!! The Prada, the Dolce and Gabbana, the AMAZING shoes

:One word:GELATO

:That wonderful feeling of not being able to breathe

:Leaving my purse on a bench at the Metro station (I have never done this before, ever, by the way, and of course I decided to lose my purse in Italy), frantically running around to get back to that station to find it, asking security about it and having him point to a guy literally inches away from walking out of the station who had found my purse and seemed almost as happy to be giving me back my purse as I was to be getting it back (It had my passport in it, for goodness' sake! And my camera!), and even insisted that I check it to make sure it was all there and that he hadn't even opened it. Can you say lucky?

:With a combination of a late plane and a long bus, got in to Stockholm at 1:15 a.m. The train station had closed at 1, so I set up an impromptu hobo camp, sat on the sidewalk wearing as many layers as I could, surrounded by my worldly possessions. It was cold. Very cold. Then a crazy man came up to me and told me his life story. Then the train station opened finally.

Ugh and then I got back to Copenhagen FINALLY and it was awesome.

I have hundreds of photos but for some reason either Blogger or this firewall isn't letting me post them, so just hold tight! (Or if you're in college, just look at my facebook)

Via the dutchflyer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:54:00 +0000

I survived a night in London on my own, two train rides and a ferry ride and am now having an amazing time with Kathryn and Becca in Amsterdam. Gotta love the Dutch!

Can't write much, just stopped by an internet cafe.

How's home, everyone? Leave comments!

Oh, that crazy ol' GOP

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:13:00 +0000

So despite my wonderful life living in Europe, I have to keep an eye on US politics and such, and some of the things I learn here give me a different perspective on American situations.

For my photojournalism assignment yesterday, I ended up photographing this crazy activist guy and his friends. Activist guy, Brian Haw, has been living across the street from Britain's Parliament for 5 1/2 years, protesting against various wars and such, general crazy activist folderol. And so there I got many an earful about how wrong the war is etc. etc., and they didn't quite understand that I wasn't Danish, just studying in Denmark, so they liked me.

But I digress, and that's not really related, it was just fun, especially when the Heritage Warden came to tell him to bugger off and then they got in a screaming match. Also yesterday, we spent five hours at the Imperial War Museum. Yes, five. It wasn't really what I expected from a war museum; we spent most of our time focusing on the Holocaust and such.

What I took away from it, among some other things, was an important point that British people today like to think they were fighting in WWII to save the Jews, even though during the war they knew about the concentration camps and did nothing to stop them because it would have let the Germans know their code had been broken. And today, the US knows the genocide going on in Darfur and we see a lot of other horrible crimes against humanity, but we don't really do much about them. Even in Iraq, we didn't go in with the aim of helping humanity, we went in under the false pretense that America could have been attacked by Iraq.

Even the GOP says we are fighting an ideology, not a tangible enemy (it's their newest commercial, just click on top news or whatever to see it), yet the armed forces in Iraq are fighting like it's an actual war and not an ideological one. Why, if we are so desperate to show the Muslim extremist world that we really are a good country, do we not act like a good country? Why do we go into a hastily-thrown-together war in Iraq instead of ending a genocide in Sudan? Why do we not put hundreds of billions into improving domestic life for both our country and that in the developing world? It seems so simple to me that if we do not want to be seen as a capitalist, destructive society with no heart, then we should not act like a capitalist, destructive society with no heart.

We should be fighting to save humanity, not fighting to cause more harm to innocent people.

Living in Europe has made me realize how much I love America, really, and how much I love being American, but it also has reinforced my beliefs that this administration (and probably others before it, but I didn't follow politics then) doesn't know what it's doing in the world and doesn't really care about the world's opinion of it. It's a hard thing to do, to see how little my country is valued by the rest of the world, and how much of a joke it is to so many people.

London!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 17:58:00 +0000

Top o the morning to you all, even though it's the afternoon. Obviously, I haven't picked up much British slang, but I've been having a jolly good time here in the UK.

We've been doing a mix of touristy stuff (the London Eye, tea cruise down the Thames), lectures, visits (the BBC tour sucks, by the way), and just wandering around by ourselves (the Charles Dickens museum was everything I expected and more).

Leave comments requesting particular souvenirs if there's something British you really want, or just leave comments telling me how much you miss me!

In a couple days I'm going to Amsterdam and Milan with Kathryn and then hiking and rock climbing and such in a forest in the Czech Republic for a week.

Woo!

Yes, I know, I'm totally eloquent.

Another Danish controversy?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:47:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of posts. My computer, delightful thing that it is, now won't charge at all and so doesn't turn on. So I use the computers at DIS, but they're only available from 8 am to 10 pm my time.

Anyway, just a tiny something interesting before I have to head out to a lecture, when the new newspaper Nyhedsavisen launched on Friday, it broke the story of a group of young politicians from the Danish People's Party having a contest to see who could draw the most humiliating picture of Mohammed. The Muslim world is angry at Denmark again, but the country is hoping to avoid another controversy like last year's by immediately distancing itself from the politicians and Nyhedsavisen and other newspapers have removed the video of the contest.

It will be interesting to see how this evolves.

Will try to post again this weekend, but if that proves unsuccessful, then I'm off for three weeks of travel. My itinerary is:

London Oct 15-20 with my CAC class
Amsterdam Oct 21-25 with KATHRYN!
Milan Oct 25-26 also with KATHRYN!
Stockholm Oct 26, haven't decided if I will stay here for a day or just catch a train back to CPH
Czech Republic Oct 29-Nov 3 with DIS, living in a castle in the forest, going hiking and rock climbing and rappelling and all sorts of fun things, then a day in Prague with DIANE

then probably sleeping foreeeeeever