well.
it's over.
and here i am, sitting on the couch at home, surrounded by familiar sights and smells and sounds and pets.
and it's sinking in in waves. the fact that it's over. that i'm not going back. probably ever. that my bike is not my bike and my room is not my room and i'll never go back to that zoo or that street or that computer lab or that cafe or that falafel place. it's over now.
i'm not sure how i feel.
like i said, it's sinking in in waves.
maybe this means that i'll feel it all gradually and it will hurt less? or maybe this just means that it will just hurt later?
for now it's nice to be home. my family just so happens to be awesome.
i'm running myself a bath now (A BATH!) and for lunch i'm going to walk the dog to Bearance's to get the best sandwich in Canada, then i'll meet mom at her work for tea and then I'll go downtown to find a Teach Yourself Bahasa Indonesian book.
Bahasa Indonesia. yeah. that's right. no time for looking back and being sad. there are big things ahead, and i gotta be ready.
anyways. I just want to say Thanks for Reading. I loved having this blog (even when i neglected it) and knowing that people were reading it, and commenting (!), made me feel more connected to home. i honestly can't believe that so many of you took the time to read my ramblings, and even sometimes post comments (or for some of you: always post comments). i really really appreciate that. my friends just so happen to be awesome too, eh?
maybe I'll try to have a blog in Borneo...
but for now: tak for kampen, dudes.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
whykid
so
people actually read this. indeed, some of my very favourite people. thus, as i continue to procrastinate, i shall continue to post.
only two things to tell you about today:
1. The New Junk on my Face
2. Floss
1. so, that appointment that i mentioned? i went and got my nose pierced again. same side. two holes. sooooooooo awesome (if i do say so myself). i saw a girl on Strøget one day who had two rings side by side in her nose and totally fell in love with the look. so finally, yesterday i went and got it done. the place i went to was actually the nicest, cleanest place i've ever seen in my life (not that i go into piercing places very often, but seriously, it was way cleaner than any hospital i've ever been in. and hospitals, i know). it's a "body modification" place, so they do piercing, scarring, and silicone implants.... some pretty nutso stuff. the guy who pierced me is the owner/founder of the place - sooo friendly, but basically the freakiest lookin dude ever. he's got the neck piercings, HUGE stretched ears, horns, etc etc, everything you can imagine. i was feeling pretty mundane in there, just getting my nose done. i opted to get it done with a ring, rather than a stud. he was sooo smooth at the actual piercing, but getting the ring in hurt like stink. at first i was quite certain that i'd made the wrong decision, because it's REALLY big... but i'm getting used to it now, and I really like it. mostly though, i'm excited for when i can finally take it out and put in two little silver side by side rings :)... anyways, i'm not a huge fan of posting self-taken non-ironic shots, but i just love it so much, here's a photobooth pic:
(...2...) a friend of mine got hers done right after me and as soon as we were done, we headed straight across the street to Floss, my favourite bar in cph. the weather was great so we sat at the outside tables and drank Tuborg and Fisk shots till it got dark. all in all, a great day. I heart Floss. it's a dingy, hole-in-the-wall, graffitied, smokey little bar with an even dingier, smokier, more graffitied basement. apparently it used to be cph punk central. but now it's getting a little tired. in the good way. The crowd is always a mix, the music is always good, and the drinks are dirt cheep. It's a little off the beaten track, so never too busy and mostly locals. From the outsides, especially at night, it looks like a death trap. ...actually, from the inside too. But it's great. I need to find a place like Floss at home... there is just nowhere quite like it. that is your mission dudes: let's find a Floss. I will miss Floss. i don't have any pics of it, but i found some older ones online...
.jpg)
the bathrooms in Floss are pretty much exactly what you'd expect - not a spec of white wall space, so many stickers and so much graffiti. down the wall of the women's washroom, in the corner, i noticed yesterday that it says in big black descending letters: "WHYKID"... and, for whatever reason (maybe my post-piercing hurting face state made me more receptive to meaningful undertones?) it just resonated with me. I feel as if it should be pronounced "wicked"... thus, it's got a double meaning. "wicked!" and "why, kid?"... as in, "dude that is totally great, but what is the motivation, what is the meaning behind it?".... it's deep, i know. .... jeez, i must sound like i'm high. i swear, i'm not.
anyways, that's about it for now... not much interesting going on here. mostly sad - lots and lots of goodbyes and lots and lots of paper writing. blaaaaaaaaaaaaah. this last one is gonna be brutal, mostly from the motivational standpoint though, cause i'm pretty sure I could source wikipedia (or my own blog) exclusively, and still pass... i just gotta actually WRITE it.
blah
today, i biked home from Floss in the absolute pouring rain. I don't think i've ever been so wet without actually having submerged myself underwater... it was amazing. and there was thunder and lightening and rivers in the roads and the rain drops were as big as fists. within about seven seconds i was soaked right through. it was actually pretty fun.
i love this place.
people actually read this. indeed, some of my very favourite people. thus, as i continue to procrastinate, i shall continue to post.
only two things to tell you about today:
1. The New Junk on my Face
2. Floss
1. so, that appointment that i mentioned? i went and got my nose pierced again. same side. two holes. sooooooooo awesome (if i do say so myself). i saw a girl on Strøget one day who had two rings side by side in her nose and totally fell in love with the look. so finally, yesterday i went and got it done. the place i went to was actually the nicest, cleanest place i've ever seen in my life (not that i go into piercing places very often, but seriously, it was way cleaner than any hospital i've ever been in. and hospitals, i know). it's a "body modification" place, so they do piercing, scarring, and silicone implants.... some pretty nutso stuff. the guy who pierced me is the owner/founder of the place - sooo friendly, but basically the freakiest lookin dude ever. he's got the neck piercings, HUGE stretched ears, horns, etc etc, everything you can imagine. i was feeling pretty mundane in there, just getting my nose done. i opted to get it done with a ring, rather than a stud. he was sooo smooth at the actual piercing, but getting the ring in hurt like stink. at first i was quite certain that i'd made the wrong decision, because it's REALLY big... but i'm getting used to it now, and I really like it. mostly though, i'm excited for when i can finally take it out and put in two little silver side by side rings :)... anyways, i'm not a huge fan of posting self-taken non-ironic shots, but i just love it so much, here's a photobooth pic:
(...2...) a friend of mine got hers done right after me and as soon as we were done, we headed straight across the street to Floss, my favourite bar in cph. the weather was great so we sat at the outside tables and drank Tuborg and Fisk shots till it got dark. all in all, a great day. I heart Floss. it's a dingy, hole-in-the-wall, graffitied, smokey little bar with an even dingier, smokier, more graffitied basement. apparently it used to be cph punk central. but now it's getting a little tired. in the good way. The crowd is always a mix, the music is always good, and the drinks are dirt cheep. It's a little off the beaten track, so never too busy and mostly locals. From the outsides, especially at night, it looks like a death trap. ...actually, from the inside too. But it's great. I need to find a place like Floss at home... there is just nowhere quite like it. that is your mission dudes: let's find a Floss. I will miss Floss. i don't have any pics of it, but i found some older ones online...
.jpg)
the bathrooms in Floss are pretty much exactly what you'd expect - not a spec of white wall space, so many stickers and so much graffiti. down the wall of the women's washroom, in the corner, i noticed yesterday that it says in big black descending letters: "WHYKID"... and, for whatever reason (maybe my post-piercing hurting face state made me more receptive to meaningful undertones?) it just resonated with me. I feel as if it should be pronounced "wicked"... thus, it's got a double meaning. "wicked!" and "why, kid?"... as in, "dude that is totally great, but what is the motivation, what is the meaning behind it?".... it's deep, i know. .... jeez, i must sound like i'm high. i swear, i'm not.
anyways, that's about it for now... not much interesting going on here. mostly sad - lots and lots of goodbyes and lots and lots of paper writing. blaaaaaaaaaaaaah. this last one is gonna be brutal, mostly from the motivational standpoint though, cause i'm pretty sure I could source wikipedia (or my own blog) exclusively, and still pass... i just gotta actually WRITE it.
blah
today, i biked home from Floss in the absolute pouring rain. I don't think i've ever been so wet without actually having submerged myself underwater... it was amazing. and there was thunder and lightening and rivers in the roads and the rain drops were as big as fists. within about seven seconds i was soaked right through. it was actually pretty fun.
i love this place.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
examing (and by that i mean dancing around my room to mgmt whilst i should be writing papers)
i'm not sure that anybody actually reads this anymore, but i'm bored and in full-on procrastination mode, so i figured i'd post anyways.
yikes.
i leave here in 8 days.
EIGHT DAYS! actually, considering that it's saturday evening, and i leave on a sunday morning, it's probably closer to SEVEN DAYS now. double yikes. one week.
i honestly can't believe it.
i wish that i had something witty and insightful and summative to say. maybe i will next saturday?
for now, i am just trying to get through this exam that is due on monday at noon. then i'm going out for pancakes, then i'm have this special appointment at 4 that i'm not saying anything about until afterwards (it's a surprise. don't worry mom, not a tattoo), and then i gotta start writing my last exam that is due three days after i leave, which means i gotta hand it in two days before i leave (can't hand stuff in on the weekend).
(ps "exam" here means "big paper"= the only summative assignment for each class. as in, my whole mark for each class is based on one paper. pressure? yes.)
so anyways
i should probably get back to these papers
.... for a while now i have been wanting to give you all the full run-down on my house and my housemates. I have refrained for two reasons: 1) fear that one (all) of them come across this blog and read it and then pee in my bed as revenge, and 2) writer's block, because, really, there are no words to describe these people that i live with. no words (and if i found the words, i'd probably just come across as a malicious b***c, instead of a hilariously insightful and relatively normal individual who had to put up with them all for four months). i am wondering if there is some way to password protect a blog post? so then i can give you guys a hint to the password (my dog's name, my best friend's name, the name of the street i grew up on, something like that) and so you guys could find it but not my crazy housemates... anybody know of a way to do this? seriously. the world needs to know about these people. the world needs to be warned.
anyways. i'll think about it. try to come up with something.
in the mean time, it's exam time.
peace out G's. maybe the force be with you.
-aa
yikes.
i leave here in 8 days.
EIGHT DAYS! actually, considering that it's saturday evening, and i leave on a sunday morning, it's probably closer to SEVEN DAYS now. double yikes. one week.
i honestly can't believe it.
i wish that i had something witty and insightful and summative to say. maybe i will next saturday?
for now, i am just trying to get through this exam that is due on monday at noon. then i'm going out for pancakes, then i'm have this special appointment at 4 that i'm not saying anything about until afterwards (it's a surprise. don't worry mom, not a tattoo), and then i gotta start writing my last exam that is due three days after i leave, which means i gotta hand it in two days before i leave (can't hand stuff in on the weekend).
(ps "exam" here means "big paper"= the only summative assignment for each class. as in, my whole mark for each class is based on one paper. pressure? yes.)
so anyways
i should probably get back to these papers
.... for a while now i have been wanting to give you all the full run-down on my house and my housemates. I have refrained for two reasons: 1) fear that one (all) of them come across this blog and read it and then pee in my bed as revenge, and 2) writer's block, because, really, there are no words to describe these people that i live with. no words (and if i found the words, i'd probably just come across as a malicious b***c, instead of a hilariously insightful and relatively normal individual who had to put up with them all for four months). i am wondering if there is some way to password protect a blog post? so then i can give you guys a hint to the password (my dog's name, my best friend's name, the name of the street i grew up on, something like that) and so you guys could find it but not my crazy housemates... anybody know of a way to do this? seriously. the world needs to know about these people. the world needs to be warned.
anyways. i'll think about it. try to come up with something.
in the mean time, it's exam time.
peace out G's. maybe the force be with you.
-aa
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
the metro lady
get comfordable, cause this might be a long one. in fact, there are so many fun things that i want to talk about today, that i'm even going to index them, so that you can skip ahead to the parts in which you are interested (and if you are not interested in any, then See ya next time, thanks for stopping by)
1) Eat One Live Toad Every Morning
2) my List
3) the title of this post
1) EAT ONE LIVE TOAD EVERY MORNING
well i left off in the prison hostel in oslo, with the strange man in the snowsuit. now i'm going to tell you about one of the most ______ [insert adjective that does not exist in english] days of my life. basically, it started out as the Worst Day Ever, and ended as the Best Day Ever. you might think i'm exaggerating. i'm seriously not. words can not describe the horror of the morning, or the happiness of the evening.
In high school, my friend's dad had a poster on his door that was something like "murphy's laws" or something like that... all i rememer is that it said something like: "Eat one live toad every morning and then you know your day can only get better."
so i went to bed after posting that last post and i read for a while, looked at my watch at 11:30pm, put away my book and drifted towards sleep. at 11:47pm (i know because i checked my watch again) i awoke to a loud and chaotic rumbling coming from the bed beside me. snoring. but not just snoring, SNORING. no no, not even. words cannot describe what i was listening too. it was the loudest, most horrendously sputter-tastic snoring i've ever heard in my life. at first it was hilarious, and i occupied my very awake self by coming up with insightful and comedic metaphors for the snoring. lawn-mowing olympics. rhinoceroses fighting to the death. being trapped in the engine of of jumbo jet. but as time passed, and i lay awake, slowing descending into exhaustion induced insanity, the metaphors became less comedic. isn't there a form of torture where your captors just don't let you sleep?
i actually got out my camera and made videos in the pitch black darkness, just to record the noise. i knew that i would need sound evidence to prove the volume and flemyness of this snoring.
i lake awake for what felt like years. years went by. i shifted and made noises, i threw things, i tried ear plugs, i tried headphones, i tried ear plugs and a scarf wrapped around my head. i tried everything. it was absolutely impossible to sleep.
i read a bit more but i was too tired to focus. but still unable to sleep. the noise. oh, the noise. i cannot explain. i just cannot.
knowing that the first train left the downtown station for the airport at 4:45am, i got up at 4:15. i packed up in the pitch blackness.
i openned the top pocket of my backpack to check that i had my passport.
it wasn't there.
again, something indescribable. the feeling of my insides falling through the floor and my head bursting through the ceiling, simultaneously. the physical symptoms of panic. my passport was gone.
how could this have happened? i was awake the whole night! i was awake and hugging my backpack the whole night! how could this have happened!?! i looked at my enemy. my nemesis. the man i hate most in the world. the snorer. could he have taken it somehow? maybe in that 17 minutes when i actually was almost sleeping? DID HE TAKE MY PASSPORT?!
but most of all
what the &%$# do i do?!?!
how could i have been so stupid? why didn't i move it to a different pocket? like the pocket in the INSIDE of my bag!?
wait a second.
i remember now.
i did do that. my passport is in the pocket on the inside of my backpack.
false alarm.
i left my room, still shaking. because it wasn't reception hours for my hostel, i had to find the hotel "next door" (note to oslo hostel: around the corner and through a sketchy parking lot is NOT "next door") and go there to check out. still shaking.
then i walked, in the pitch black night, in the misty drizzly snow, past all the drunken stragglers, still out at 4:30am, in creepy sketchy horrid oslo. i got to the the train station.
and it was locked.
the shaking intensified. the creepy people that hang out at locked train stations at 4:30am started yelling at/towards me in norwegian. i started walking away. fast, faster, i started running (wearing both of my backpacks) around the train station, towards a cab that i could see idling. i felt like i was in a movie. escaping.
as i come around the train station, i noticed that it's actually in two parts. i was heading towards another major entrance. lights were on and there were people inside. i ran inside. safe. lights. janitors. people with suitcases. early morning/late night commuters. i bought a train ticket and napped in the train station. then i napped on the train. then i full out slept for two hours in the airport. then i had a lovely chat with a somalian man at the airport.
i found the check in, found food, things were looking up.
i slept on the plane.
and all of a sudden i was in munich. germany. GERMANY! i'd never been there before but i'd always known that i loved it. or at least since blenheim (in nz, when i lived with lots of germans), i'd known that i would love it.
and i did.
i navigated my way to the main train station in downtown munich (yes, i'm pretty proud of myself), stored my bags and wandered for 4 hours. and it was sunny and warm. i changed into sandals and rolled up my pants. and wandered. taking pictures, drinking coffee, nosing in on easter church services. i lay in a park and read. i took a picture of a place called "The Ratsgellar" for RJ. then another picture of an accordion player, also for RJ. it was a great afternoon.
i found my way to my train seat, chatted with a friendly german man. declined his only-semi-creepy offer for drinks. and tried to sleep. but i was too excited. i was heading to blenheim people! BLENHEIM PEOPLE!
when my train pulled in to würzburg, i had another moment of doubt. i was ten minutes earlier than i'd told Jork that I'd be there. and i'd never actually even confirmed with him that he'd come get me. i had no idea where i was supposed to go. i stood in the train station for a few minutes, reading signs, pretending a knew what i was doing while my mind raced to figure out a plan of action. did i know the name of the hostel? did i know how to get there? did i know if the reception would be open so late? did i know what name the booking would be under?
then from the far corner of the station, a group of people, in shorts and sandals and holding beers were walking towards me. and before i know it, i'm being hugged, and i'm shaking hands, and these people know me. they know my name and they KNOW me. somewhere deep down, between the base of my spine and the bottom of my stomach, a knot relaxes. unties. these people KNOW me. I know that none of you will really understand this, except for Nicole, but I just gotta say it anyways: for the first time in a long time, i was Home.
what a crazy day.
-----
BANG. right here. i was writing the above blog post on tuesday, when right when i finished typing "what a crazy day" my computer crashed. and never recovered. it´s at the apple hospital now, and i´ve already been told that the 100GB harddrive is completely unsalvageable. i lost everything. sorry rj, no more pictures of german accordian players. i´m still waiting to find out if whatever killed the harddrive is covered by the warranty. hopefully i will get a new harddrive for free. and soon. but either way, my computer died.
i´ve been visiting the computer labs on campus every day and quietly morning my loss and licking my wounds and trying to figure out just exactly what i have lost. i know that i have all of my pictures from 2nd year uni up until i moved to cph backed up. but nothing from before that and nothing from after. thankfully, i had already given some of my norway pics to Esta and i´d posted an album of pics from my weekend in wurzburg on facebook, so i have those. and my parents have backups of most of the pics from when they were here. so that´s good. but i lost the rest of the pictures from my trip and 30 GB of music and all my journals and my writings from the last 10 years and hundreds of documents that i probably won´t ever need but still feel insecure not having.
but anyways
back to where i left off:
-----
2. MY LIST
As many of you may already know, I found out a couple weeks ago that I´ve officially been "hired" on as a research assistant by an orang researcher whose work i´ve admired for years. it´s a big and scary and very exciting opportunity and, if everything goes as planned (which is pretty unlikely, because there is sooo much paperwork and i can´t for the life of me figure it all out), i will be leaving for Borneo in early july. how nuts is that? and i´ll stay till december and then be back in vic in time for my last semester of uni, starting january 2010.
but, my point here, is that i very abruptly realized that i only have one month left in copenhagen. only one month left in europe! and i just wasn´t feeling like i had really made the most of it. and i was very sad. SO, i made a list. yes! a list! of all of the things that i want to do before i leave. and over the last week, i have crossed 3 out of 15 things off of the list (i need to speed it up here). Number One was get a bike. I am so mad at myself for putting off getting a bike for so long. but the day after i made my list, i bought a bike. and i think i´m pretty much the happiest kid in denmark now. i ride around all day, everywhere. i have named my bike Zoo Transport, because mostly i use it to go to the zoo. the weather here is sunny and warm now, and my bike is one of those old-school mary poppins bikes, with a big basket on the front, and i just ride around with my hair blowing in the wind all day. it´s pretty great. i will take some pictures and post them. maybe. i dunno how these computers would handle me trying to post pictures. i miss my mac.
3.THE METRO LADY
the metro here is very simple. when you're standing in the metro station, waiting for the metro to come, there are only two tracks, one going in each direction. and there are screens that say how long until the next metro, and where it is going. but then, as each train rolls in, there is a lady who announces something. for three months i have been trying to figure out what she says. For the train heading towards my house, it sounds like "Toes spok toes t´ Vanløse" and for the train going the other way it sounded like "Toes spok ind t´ Lufthavn." now seeing as how Vanløse and Lufthavn are the end stations, i figured that whatever she was saying meant "train going to ___" but i couldn´t for the life of me figure out exactly the words that she was saying. nor why it was different for each direction. and my danish teacher told me it was "Toget kører til ____" (train going to ___) but i knew that was wrong. then finally, just a few days ago, i went and made lasagna with my italian friend (holy crap it was the best lasagna ever. i take no credit for it. all i did was spoon stuff into a pan) and it occured to me to ask her danish boyfriend. AND NOW I KNOW. it´s been driving me crazy!!!
"Toget i spøg to til Vanløse"
"Toget i spøg et til Lufthavn"
train on track two to vanløse
train on track one to lufthavn
as i am writing this i am realizing the extent to which this means NOTHING to you and you can´t possibly CARE about the metro lady. but it was one of those things that was driving me totally nuts. and i can´t express how happy i am to FINALLY KNOW.
also, i feel like, just over the past few weeks, i´ve really settled in here. now, with my bike, and my comprehension of the metro lady, i LIVE in copenhagen. i don´t speak danish to people, but i often understand them now when they speak it to me. that´s the first step.
i live here now. i love this city. i love their crazy rediculous language. and their bike lanes and traffic lights just for bikes. i love how they never get out of the way and how there are just as many dad´s pushing strollers as there are mom´s. I love when the sun is out and so are all the people. I love how unnecessarily fashinable everybody dresses. I love how friendly danish people are once you get to know each other. I love the dice game that they play in dingy bars, and dingy bars where they play the dice game. I love when i don´t lose the dice game and so i don´t have to buy the next round. I love the zoo and the babboons and the gibbons (who, i swear, know me now), and the chimps and the camel that is my one true love, and the baby ring tailed lemurs. And i love the friendly guys at the falafel place by my house - i love how they can´t speak a word of english but they try anyways, and that they make the best falafel in all of copenhagen (yes, i have eaten enough falafel here to be able to say that with authority).
my close friend Laura left today and it´s made me all introspective.
this is all coming to an end, apparently. even though I feel as if it´s just beginning.
I will miss this place.
1) Eat One Live Toad Every Morning
2) my List
3) the title of this post
1) EAT ONE LIVE TOAD EVERY MORNING
well i left off in the prison hostel in oslo, with the strange man in the snowsuit. now i'm going to tell you about one of the most ______ [insert adjective that does not exist in english] days of my life. basically, it started out as the Worst Day Ever, and ended as the Best Day Ever. you might think i'm exaggerating. i'm seriously not. words can not describe the horror of the morning, or the happiness of the evening.
In high school, my friend's dad had a poster on his door that was something like "murphy's laws" or something like that... all i rememer is that it said something like: "Eat one live toad every morning and then you know your day can only get better."
so i went to bed after posting that last post and i read for a while, looked at my watch at 11:30pm, put away my book and drifted towards sleep. at 11:47pm (i know because i checked my watch again) i awoke to a loud and chaotic rumbling coming from the bed beside me. snoring. but not just snoring, SNORING. no no, not even. words cannot describe what i was listening too. it was the loudest, most horrendously sputter-tastic snoring i've ever heard in my life. at first it was hilarious, and i occupied my very awake self by coming up with insightful and comedic metaphors for the snoring. lawn-mowing olympics. rhinoceroses fighting to the death. being trapped in the engine of of jumbo jet. but as time passed, and i lay awake, slowing descending into exhaustion induced insanity, the metaphors became less comedic. isn't there a form of torture where your captors just don't let you sleep?
i actually got out my camera and made videos in the pitch black darkness, just to record the noise. i knew that i would need sound evidence to prove the volume and flemyness of this snoring.
i lake awake for what felt like years. years went by. i shifted and made noises, i threw things, i tried ear plugs, i tried headphones, i tried ear plugs and a scarf wrapped around my head. i tried everything. it was absolutely impossible to sleep.
i read a bit more but i was too tired to focus. but still unable to sleep. the noise. oh, the noise. i cannot explain. i just cannot.
knowing that the first train left the downtown station for the airport at 4:45am, i got up at 4:15. i packed up in the pitch blackness.
i openned the top pocket of my backpack to check that i had my passport.
it wasn't there.
again, something indescribable. the feeling of my insides falling through the floor and my head bursting through the ceiling, simultaneously. the physical symptoms of panic. my passport was gone.
how could this have happened? i was awake the whole night! i was awake and hugging my backpack the whole night! how could this have happened!?! i looked at my enemy. my nemesis. the man i hate most in the world. the snorer. could he have taken it somehow? maybe in that 17 minutes when i actually was almost sleeping? DID HE TAKE MY PASSPORT?!
but most of all
what the &%$# do i do?!?!
how could i have been so stupid? why didn't i move it to a different pocket? like the pocket in the INSIDE of my bag!?
wait a second.
i remember now.
i did do that. my passport is in the pocket on the inside of my backpack.
false alarm.
i left my room, still shaking. because it wasn't reception hours for my hostel, i had to find the hotel "next door" (note to oslo hostel: around the corner and through a sketchy parking lot is NOT "next door") and go there to check out. still shaking.
then i walked, in the pitch black night, in the misty drizzly snow, past all the drunken stragglers, still out at 4:30am, in creepy sketchy horrid oslo. i got to the the train station.
and it was locked.
the shaking intensified. the creepy people that hang out at locked train stations at 4:30am started yelling at/towards me in norwegian. i started walking away. fast, faster, i started running (wearing both of my backpacks) around the train station, towards a cab that i could see idling. i felt like i was in a movie. escaping.
as i come around the train station, i noticed that it's actually in two parts. i was heading towards another major entrance. lights were on and there were people inside. i ran inside. safe. lights. janitors. people with suitcases. early morning/late night commuters. i bought a train ticket and napped in the train station. then i napped on the train. then i full out slept for two hours in the airport. then i had a lovely chat with a somalian man at the airport.
i found the check in, found food, things were looking up.
i slept on the plane.
and all of a sudden i was in munich. germany. GERMANY! i'd never been there before but i'd always known that i loved it. or at least since blenheim (in nz, when i lived with lots of germans), i'd known that i would love it.
and i did.
i navigated my way to the main train station in downtown munich (yes, i'm pretty proud of myself), stored my bags and wandered for 4 hours. and it was sunny and warm. i changed into sandals and rolled up my pants. and wandered. taking pictures, drinking coffee, nosing in on easter church services. i lay in a park and read. i took a picture of a place called "The Ratsgellar" for RJ. then another picture of an accordion player, also for RJ. it was a great afternoon.
i found my way to my train seat, chatted with a friendly german man. declined his only-semi-creepy offer for drinks. and tried to sleep. but i was too excited. i was heading to blenheim people! BLENHEIM PEOPLE!
when my train pulled in to würzburg, i had another moment of doubt. i was ten minutes earlier than i'd told Jork that I'd be there. and i'd never actually even confirmed with him that he'd come get me. i had no idea where i was supposed to go. i stood in the train station for a few minutes, reading signs, pretending a knew what i was doing while my mind raced to figure out a plan of action. did i know the name of the hostel? did i know how to get there? did i know if the reception would be open so late? did i know what name the booking would be under?
then from the far corner of the station, a group of people, in shorts and sandals and holding beers were walking towards me. and before i know it, i'm being hugged, and i'm shaking hands, and these people know me. they know my name and they KNOW me. somewhere deep down, between the base of my spine and the bottom of my stomach, a knot relaxes. unties. these people KNOW me. I know that none of you will really understand this, except for Nicole, but I just gotta say it anyways: for the first time in a long time, i was Home.
what a crazy day.
-----
BANG. right here. i was writing the above blog post on tuesday, when right when i finished typing "what a crazy day" my computer crashed. and never recovered. it´s at the apple hospital now, and i´ve already been told that the 100GB harddrive is completely unsalvageable. i lost everything. sorry rj, no more pictures of german accordian players. i´m still waiting to find out if whatever killed the harddrive is covered by the warranty. hopefully i will get a new harddrive for free. and soon. but either way, my computer died.
i´ve been visiting the computer labs on campus every day and quietly morning my loss and licking my wounds and trying to figure out just exactly what i have lost. i know that i have all of my pictures from 2nd year uni up until i moved to cph backed up. but nothing from before that and nothing from after. thankfully, i had already given some of my norway pics to Esta and i´d posted an album of pics from my weekend in wurzburg on facebook, so i have those. and my parents have backups of most of the pics from when they were here. so that´s good. but i lost the rest of the pictures from my trip and 30 GB of music and all my journals and my writings from the last 10 years and hundreds of documents that i probably won´t ever need but still feel insecure not having.
but anyways
back to where i left off:
-----
2. MY LIST
As many of you may already know, I found out a couple weeks ago that I´ve officially been "hired" on as a research assistant by an orang researcher whose work i´ve admired for years. it´s a big and scary and very exciting opportunity and, if everything goes as planned (which is pretty unlikely, because there is sooo much paperwork and i can´t for the life of me figure it all out), i will be leaving for Borneo in early july. how nuts is that? and i´ll stay till december and then be back in vic in time for my last semester of uni, starting january 2010.
but, my point here, is that i very abruptly realized that i only have one month left in copenhagen. only one month left in europe! and i just wasn´t feeling like i had really made the most of it. and i was very sad. SO, i made a list. yes! a list! of all of the things that i want to do before i leave. and over the last week, i have crossed 3 out of 15 things off of the list (i need to speed it up here). Number One was get a bike. I am so mad at myself for putting off getting a bike for so long. but the day after i made my list, i bought a bike. and i think i´m pretty much the happiest kid in denmark now. i ride around all day, everywhere. i have named my bike Zoo Transport, because mostly i use it to go to the zoo. the weather here is sunny and warm now, and my bike is one of those old-school mary poppins bikes, with a big basket on the front, and i just ride around with my hair blowing in the wind all day. it´s pretty great. i will take some pictures and post them. maybe. i dunno how these computers would handle me trying to post pictures. i miss my mac.
3.THE METRO LADY
the metro here is very simple. when you're standing in the metro station, waiting for the metro to come, there are only two tracks, one going in each direction. and there are screens that say how long until the next metro, and where it is going. but then, as each train rolls in, there is a lady who announces something. for three months i have been trying to figure out what she says. For the train heading towards my house, it sounds like "Toes spok toes t´ Vanløse" and for the train going the other way it sounded like "Toes spok ind t´ Lufthavn." now seeing as how Vanløse and Lufthavn are the end stations, i figured that whatever she was saying meant "train going to ___" but i couldn´t for the life of me figure out exactly the words that she was saying. nor why it was different for each direction. and my danish teacher told me it was "Toget kører til ____" (train going to ___) but i knew that was wrong. then finally, just a few days ago, i went and made lasagna with my italian friend (holy crap it was the best lasagna ever. i take no credit for it. all i did was spoon stuff into a pan) and it occured to me to ask her danish boyfriend. AND NOW I KNOW. it´s been driving me crazy!!!
"Toget i spøg to til Vanløse"
"Toget i spøg et til Lufthavn"
train on track two to vanløse
train on track one to lufthavn
as i am writing this i am realizing the extent to which this means NOTHING to you and you can´t possibly CARE about the metro lady. but it was one of those things that was driving me totally nuts. and i can´t express how happy i am to FINALLY KNOW.
also, i feel like, just over the past few weeks, i´ve really settled in here. now, with my bike, and my comprehension of the metro lady, i LIVE in copenhagen. i don´t speak danish to people, but i often understand them now when they speak it to me. that´s the first step.
i live here now. i love this city. i love their crazy rediculous language. and their bike lanes and traffic lights just for bikes. i love how they never get out of the way and how there are just as many dad´s pushing strollers as there are mom´s. I love when the sun is out and so are all the people. I love how unnecessarily fashinable everybody dresses. I love how friendly danish people are once you get to know each other. I love the dice game that they play in dingy bars, and dingy bars where they play the dice game. I love when i don´t lose the dice game and so i don´t have to buy the next round. I love the zoo and the babboons and the gibbons (who, i swear, know me now), and the chimps and the camel that is my one true love, and the baby ring tailed lemurs. And i love the friendly guys at the falafel place by my house - i love how they can´t speak a word of english but they try anyways, and that they make the best falafel in all of copenhagen (yes, i have eaten enough falafel here to be able to say that with authority).
my close friend Laura left today and it´s made me all introspective.
this is all coming to an end, apparently. even though I feel as if it´s just beginning.
I will miss this place.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
kickin it in norwegia
k so
wow
i'm bad at keeping up with this
are any of you still reading this?
the task of a post about family time proved far too overwhelming for my computer (which couldn't handle uploading the pictures) and my own sense of initiative (i tried once then was too overwhelmed by the task to try again, so just gave up).
so instead of a full post about family time, i will just tell you the best part. the highlight, if you will.
three words: ice. cream. truck.
i will paint you a picture:
me and jenny. sitting on our beds at a tacky-fancy bed and breakfast. the curtains match the bed spreads. we are in a little town on a little island that is all deserted and ghostly in the off season. it is dark out. but not too late. 7:30pm, perhaps. we are doing homework.
a noise outside. a bell. in the distance. getting closer.
we look up at each other. eye contact. a conversation between sisters. a conversation without words...
that sounds like an ice cream truck
holy crap, that sounds like an ice cream truck
are we doing this?
we are doing this
run and get money from mom, i need to find shoes
...eye contact
we run down the hall. we grab money from mom. we run outside.
we are wearing socks on the cold cobblestone.
darkness.
a light at the end of the street. a truck. a white, square truck. danish is being spoken in the distance.
we approach. a man with a dog and a little girl, saying favel to another man standing by the lit up truck. the man with the dog is holding a box. A BOX OF ICE CREAM.
we speak words. incoherent slews of english words. we are too excited to make sense. with are met with a confused look by the man next to the truck. he doesn't speak english. let alone giddy-spewey english. wildly we gesture. ice cream! ice cream!
we look at the sign. we point to it.
we want one of those
and one of those
please
more gesturing. more danglish.
not possible to buy just one of each. must by a box.
en hel kasse.
a whole box.
awesome.
we choose the tastiest looking ice cream cones.
we buy a whole box.
we yell thankyous.
tak
tusind tak
tak skal du have
all the danish thankyous that we know
we yell and we laugh and we run in our socks back to our house.
we sit on our parents bed and the four of us each enjoy two ice cream cones.
four words: highlight. of. my. life.
k now. anyways.
back to the present.
so it's easter break here.
and we get a week off. which, because i only have class on wednesday and thursday, is actually 11 days. and because i flew to norway instead of going to class last thursday, it's actually 12 days. awesome.
quick summary:
-spent two nights in Bergen at Eyv's apartment with him and Esta. awesome. i love bergen. i want to live there. forever. it's amazing. it's like a combination of victoria, jasper, and the place where Wallace & Grommit live.
-spent one night at Eyv's family's country house with him and Esta and his parents. also awesome. a quaint little country house on the shoreline of a norwegian fjord. complete with a composting toilet, fishing rods, and the best vegetarian-food-cooking mom i've ever met.
-spent one night at Eyv's family's house in Haugesund (with him and Esta). also on the edge of a fjord. no wait, a sound. there is a difference, apparently. explored some cool historical sights around what used to be the center of norway.
-spent two nights at a totally hilarious hospital hotel in Stavanger (with just Esta). went to two cool museums, one of which featured an exhibit about homosexuality in nonhuman animals. a whole exhibit. with big huge colour photos. holy crap, i love norway.
-left Esta and took a boat back to Bergen. did homework in a cool coffee shop. stayed in a hostel that was totally great cept it had the worst beds in the history of horizontal surfaces. didn't sleep much.
-today: took the train to Oslo. went and saw the original "Scream" painting at the national gallery. very cool. drank coffee and wandered and read my book and wandered and drank more coffee.
tonight i'm staying in a hostel that i'm pretty sure i saw featured on America's Most Dangerous Prisons on sunday at Eyv's house. it's all kinds of awful. but whatever, just for one night. i think i'll sleep hugging my backpack. if the next hostel i stay in doesn't have lockers, i'm going to carpenter one out of another bed and used that to store my stuff in (the major downside of travelling with a laptop and non-pocket-size camera).
but when i came back after my wandering, there were three very friendly german girls in my room, so that made me feel better about this place. then i went in to the shower and when i came back out, there was a man lying fully dressed in snow-suit gear on the bed next to mine. boots and a tuque and everything. oh hello. no answer. sleeping? nope. eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. deaf? maybe. he got up a few minutes later and when into the shower. from the sounds of it, he showered five times. like, water on for a few minutes, water off for a few minutes, water back on, water off, etc. then no noise for 30 minutes. then all of a sudden, he reappears around the corner, fully clothed in his snow suit gear. lies back down. snores for a while. gets up. leaves the room.
i am so unbelievably and profoundly confused.
but anyways
bedtime now.
tomorrow i'm leavin early and flying to munich, then train to würzburg to see blenheim people! yes! blenheim people! people who nicole and i lived (and worked) with when we lived in blenheim, nz! awesome! great! holy crap! i'm so stoked!
hope you could stay interested despite the lack of pictures.... i'll try to put some up when i get back to kbh next week.
wow
i'm bad at keeping up with this
are any of you still reading this?
the task of a post about family time proved far too overwhelming for my computer (which couldn't handle uploading the pictures) and my own sense of initiative (i tried once then was too overwhelmed by the task to try again, so just gave up).
so instead of a full post about family time, i will just tell you the best part. the highlight, if you will.
three words: ice. cream. truck.
i will paint you a picture:
me and jenny. sitting on our beds at a tacky-fancy bed and breakfast. the curtains match the bed spreads. we are in a little town on a little island that is all deserted and ghostly in the off season. it is dark out. but not too late. 7:30pm, perhaps. we are doing homework.
a noise outside. a bell. in the distance. getting closer.
we look up at each other. eye contact. a conversation between sisters. a conversation without words...
that sounds like an ice cream truck
holy crap, that sounds like an ice cream truck
are we doing this?
we are doing this
run and get money from mom, i need to find shoes
...eye contact
we run down the hall. we grab money from mom. we run outside.
we are wearing socks on the cold cobblestone.
darkness.
a light at the end of the street. a truck. a white, square truck. danish is being spoken in the distance.
we approach. a man with a dog and a little girl, saying favel to another man standing by the lit up truck. the man with the dog is holding a box. A BOX OF ICE CREAM.
we speak words. incoherent slews of english words. we are too excited to make sense. with are met with a confused look by the man next to the truck. he doesn't speak english. let alone giddy-spewey english. wildly we gesture. ice cream! ice cream!
we look at the sign. we point to it.
we want one of those
and one of those
please
more gesturing. more danglish.
not possible to buy just one of each. must by a box.
en hel kasse.
a whole box.
awesome.
we choose the tastiest looking ice cream cones.
we buy a whole box.
we yell thankyous.
tak
tusind tak
tak skal du have
all the danish thankyous that we know
we yell and we laugh and we run in our socks back to our house.
we sit on our parents bed and the four of us each enjoy two ice cream cones.
four words: highlight. of. my. life.
k now. anyways.
back to the present.
so it's easter break here.
and we get a week off. which, because i only have class on wednesday and thursday, is actually 11 days. and because i flew to norway instead of going to class last thursday, it's actually 12 days. awesome.
quick summary:
-spent two nights in Bergen at Eyv's apartment with him and Esta. awesome. i love bergen. i want to live there. forever. it's amazing. it's like a combination of victoria, jasper, and the place where Wallace & Grommit live.
-spent one night at Eyv's family's country house with him and Esta and his parents. also awesome. a quaint little country house on the shoreline of a norwegian fjord. complete with a composting toilet, fishing rods, and the best vegetarian-food-cooking mom i've ever met.
-spent one night at Eyv's family's house in Haugesund (with him and Esta). also on the edge of a fjord. no wait, a sound. there is a difference, apparently. explored some cool historical sights around what used to be the center of norway.
-spent two nights at a totally hilarious hospital hotel in Stavanger (with just Esta). went to two cool museums, one of which featured an exhibit about homosexuality in nonhuman animals. a whole exhibit. with big huge colour photos. holy crap, i love norway.
-left Esta and took a boat back to Bergen. did homework in a cool coffee shop. stayed in a hostel that was totally great cept it had the worst beds in the history of horizontal surfaces. didn't sleep much.
-today: took the train to Oslo. went and saw the original "Scream" painting at the national gallery. very cool. drank coffee and wandered and read my book and wandered and drank more coffee.
tonight i'm staying in a hostel that i'm pretty sure i saw featured on America's Most Dangerous Prisons on sunday at Eyv's house. it's all kinds of awful. but whatever, just for one night. i think i'll sleep hugging my backpack. if the next hostel i stay in doesn't have lockers, i'm going to carpenter one out of another bed and used that to store my stuff in (the major downside of travelling with a laptop and non-pocket-size camera).
but when i came back after my wandering, there were three very friendly german girls in my room, so that made me feel better about this place. then i went in to the shower and when i came back out, there was a man lying fully dressed in snow-suit gear on the bed next to mine. boots and a tuque and everything. oh hello. no answer. sleeping? nope. eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. deaf? maybe. he got up a few minutes later and when into the shower. from the sounds of it, he showered five times. like, water on for a few minutes, water off for a few minutes, water back on, water off, etc. then no noise for 30 minutes. then all of a sudden, he reappears around the corner, fully clothed in his snow suit gear. lies back down. snores for a while. gets up. leaves the room.
i am so unbelievably and profoundly confused.
but anyways
bedtime now.
tomorrow i'm leavin early and flying to munich, then train to würzburg to see blenheim people! yes! blenheim people! people who nicole and i lived (and worked) with when we lived in blenheim, nz! awesome! great! holy crap! i'm so stoked!
hope you could stay interested despite the lack of pictures.... i'll try to put some up when i get back to kbh next week.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
family time is the best time!
yes, indeed, it is.
and i'm gonna write a lot about it and post a lot of pictures after i hand in this paper tomorrow at noon.
and after i finish my danish homework for tomorrow night.
and after i finish the copious amounts of work that i have to do for my new anth class on wednesday.
and after i finish my danish homework for wednesday night.
.... sometime, over the course of the next month, i will post all about family time.
on a scale of one to great, it was super awesome.
and i'm gonna write a lot about it and post a lot of pictures after i hand in this paper tomorrow at noon.
and after i finish my danish homework for tomorrow night.
and after i finish the copious amounts of work that i have to do for my new anth class on wednesday.
and after i finish my danish homework for wednesday night.
.... sometime, over the course of the next month, i will post all about family time.
on a scale of one to great, it was super awesome.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
today is family day. the best day.
so
apologies for the lack of postings
things have been busy.
AND today (!!!), at 3pm Denmark Time, my parents and my sister are arriving! HOLY MOLY! HOW GREAT IS THAT!?
my plan was to have my big poli anth paper done by the time they get here (it's due right after they leave and i don't want to work on it while they're here). but that didn't exactly happen. i had really good intentions for the week... but every day my studious plans of hardcore academia were foiled...
Monday: i was still tired from the the weekend, so i ate falafel and slept all day. then in the evening i did my danish language homework and then went to class. on the way home from class, as i was snoozing on the metro, a metro guard came over to me and spoke a lot of danish in an angry tone. i pulled out my klippekort to show him that i'd paid but he just kept going. finally it occurred to me to say "english! english!" at which point that he told me it was a 600kr fine for putting my feet up on the seat in front of me. i managed to get out of it by playing the Clueless Foreigner Card (which in this case was actually totally true), but he was not happy. then it was bedtime.
Tuesday: i got up early and went over to CSS to print off articles for my paper. i slept with my head on a desk for a while, then got a call to go for coffee with some friends... two hours later i was back at CSS, and i found lots of articles, and just as i was about to print them off, a security guard came and told me that he was closing the computer lab. no, there was not time for me to print anything. i must leave right away. phooey.
Wednesday: is always my busy day. i got up and went to my favourite coffee shop and read/skimmed/looked towards the readings for my class that day. then went to class. then went back to the CSS to print off those articles. then went to south campus and did my danish language homework and then went to danish class. afterwards, it was studenthouse time (have i mentioned studenthouse? it's a KU bar, and every wed night is International Student Night. the place itself kinda sucks, but when everybody comes out, it's really fun). i wasn't gonna stay long, cause i really needed to work on my paper. but EVERYBODY was there. and thus, so was i. Great. Night. (please note, however: never wear thai fishing pants out dancing. they fall down.)
Thursday: went to class. spent the first hour of class sleeping (totally not my fault. the lecturer has the most soothing, melodic, voice i've ever heard. also, the topic was Danish Literature up to the 1800s. seriously.), and the second hour drinking coffee and reading the first english newspaper that i've seen since home (!!!). then i went to my friend's place for daytime water cause i hadn't seen her much lately. so that was lovely. then i came home and i was gonna work on my paper, but i decided to get my danish homework out of the way instead. so that's ok. it's ok the procrastinate by doing other work. totally acceptable.
Friday: I WENT TO THE LIBRARY! and did work! for hours! then mid-afternoon, i got a call from my friend who needed a wingman for this party thing hosted by his department. he didn't know anybody going, but wanted to get to know them, so i said i'd go with him until he made new friends. around 2 am, we stubbled out of the swankiest bar i've ever seen (let alone been too; the drinks were all fancy and made with real crushed fruit while you watch! and everybody was like, late twenties, fancy upwardly-mobile business folk. in suits and dresses. having intelligent conversations about the economic crisis. whilst surrounded by fancy leather couches and edgy modern art). Eyv and I (me dressed like a straight-up hobo. my usual) and a bunch of our new danish friends were having a great time. as the only non danish speaker/comprehender (Eyv is norwegian, so he can understand danish and speak it with a not-quite-right-but-still-comprehendable accent) i found the whole night quite hilarious. by midnight, i was pretty much fluent.
Saturday: i went out for brunch with my italian friends. they are just lovely. as was brunch. very sophisticated and classy. my pj's only got a few strange looks. then i came home and cleaned the bathroom (only to find out that it was cleaned the day before so i don't get any cleaning points for it anyways.... seriously though, apparently i live with a black-haired yeti cause i can't believe it was cleaned within the last week. it was nasty). then i cleaned my room. cause my housemate was hosting a party last night, so ya know, time to deal with the old food and large piles of dust that are taking over. i would have started writing my paper, but then people started to show up... the majority of the party was upstairs in the common areas of our house and consisted mostly of people who i've never met before (or have met but don't reeeeally remember in that awkward reluctant-to-introduce-myself-just-incase kind of way), so a couple of my friends and I just hung out and chatted in my room. then we went downtown in search of falafel and found probably the best durum that i've ever had. then i came home to bed. way too tired to get to work on my paper. also i needed to be well rested for family day, today.
so you see. my intentions were good. always good intentions.
it's just that, after spending last semester cooped up in an old geography lab, having my soul ripped out by various 400 level anth class + stats, it's difficult for me to turn down opportunities of fun. so ya know. i'm just making up for lost time. it's ok, right?
now it's sunday, and i'm awake and obsessively checking the british airways website to keep tabs on my fam's flights. they have arrived in heathrow. how freaking awesome is that!? I think that i will practice my danish and work on my paper... but it's just filler time until i can justify leaving for the airport.... their flight gets in at 3... so probably i should be there early.... like 2ish. just incase it takes them a negative amount of time to get through customs. my family is awesome like that.
peace out homeslices.
(k actually, just before the peacing, here are some pics... nothing exciting though...)
funny story: do you see all that hay edging around the edge lake (behind the picnic table)? so when there was snow on the little hill above it, kids would toboggan down towards the lake and straight into the hay. it is the barrier that kept them from just going straight into the lake and freezing to death. and i don't mean the special, cool, dare-devil kids. i mean like whole school groups. "ok class, make sure you all wear your one-piece snow suits and pointy balaclavas tomorrow, because we're going tobogganing straight towards a semi-frozen lake, and we'll trust your health and safety to a small strip of hay bails. FIELD TRIP!"
the daily parade of the fur hats. as seen from my fav coffee shop.
i have been meaning to show you all these cool bikes things.... you see, you know at home how people sometimes pull kids around behind their bikes in those little fluorescent wheely tents? well here, instead, they have these cool bucket things that replace the front wheel. and there are special ones made to be comfy so that kids can sit in them. it's pretty cool.
list of things i've seen the front bucket of bikes:
1. dogs. plural.
2. newspapers.
3. children.
4. an adult.
5. pineapples.
i really like the colour arrangement of this edifice. especially the green door.
apologies for the lack of postings
things have been busy.
AND today (!!!), at 3pm Denmark Time, my parents and my sister are arriving! HOLY MOLY! HOW GREAT IS THAT!?
my plan was to have my big poli anth paper done by the time they get here (it's due right after they leave and i don't want to work on it while they're here). but that didn't exactly happen. i had really good intentions for the week... but every day my studious plans of hardcore academia were foiled...
Monday: i was still tired from the the weekend, so i ate falafel and slept all day. then in the evening i did my danish language homework and then went to class. on the way home from class, as i was snoozing on the metro, a metro guard came over to me and spoke a lot of danish in an angry tone. i pulled out my klippekort to show him that i'd paid but he just kept going. finally it occurred to me to say "english! english!" at which point that he told me it was a 600kr fine for putting my feet up on the seat in front of me. i managed to get out of it by playing the Clueless Foreigner Card (which in this case was actually totally true), but he was not happy. then it was bedtime.
Tuesday: i got up early and went over to CSS to print off articles for my paper. i slept with my head on a desk for a while, then got a call to go for coffee with some friends... two hours later i was back at CSS, and i found lots of articles, and just as i was about to print them off, a security guard came and told me that he was closing the computer lab. no, there was not time for me to print anything. i must leave right away. phooey.
Wednesday: is always my busy day. i got up and went to my favourite coffee shop and read/skimmed/looked towards the readings for my class that day. then went to class. then went back to the CSS to print off those articles. then went to south campus and did my danish language homework and then went to danish class. afterwards, it was studenthouse time (have i mentioned studenthouse? it's a KU bar, and every wed night is International Student Night. the place itself kinda sucks, but when everybody comes out, it's really fun). i wasn't gonna stay long, cause i really needed to work on my paper. but EVERYBODY was there. and thus, so was i. Great. Night. (please note, however: never wear thai fishing pants out dancing. they fall down.)
Thursday: went to class. spent the first hour of class sleeping (totally not my fault. the lecturer has the most soothing, melodic, voice i've ever heard. also, the topic was Danish Literature up to the 1800s. seriously.), and the second hour drinking coffee and reading the first english newspaper that i've seen since home (!!!). then i went to my friend's place for daytime water cause i hadn't seen her much lately. so that was lovely. then i came home and i was gonna work on my paper, but i decided to get my danish homework out of the way instead. so that's ok. it's ok the procrastinate by doing other work. totally acceptable.
Friday: I WENT TO THE LIBRARY! and did work! for hours! then mid-afternoon, i got a call from my friend who needed a wingman for this party thing hosted by his department. he didn't know anybody going, but wanted to get to know them, so i said i'd go with him until he made new friends. around 2 am, we stubbled out of the swankiest bar i've ever seen (let alone been too; the drinks were all fancy and made with real crushed fruit while you watch! and everybody was like, late twenties, fancy upwardly-mobile business folk. in suits and dresses. having intelligent conversations about the economic crisis. whilst surrounded by fancy leather couches and edgy modern art). Eyv and I (me dressed like a straight-up hobo. my usual) and a bunch of our new danish friends were having a great time. as the only non danish speaker/comprehender (Eyv is norwegian, so he can understand danish and speak it with a not-quite-right-but-still-comprehendable accent) i found the whole night quite hilarious. by midnight, i was pretty much fluent.
Saturday: i went out for brunch with my italian friends. they are just lovely. as was brunch. very sophisticated and classy. my pj's only got a few strange looks. then i came home and cleaned the bathroom (only to find out that it was cleaned the day before so i don't get any cleaning points for it anyways.... seriously though, apparently i live with a black-haired yeti cause i can't believe it was cleaned within the last week. it was nasty). then i cleaned my room. cause my housemate was hosting a party last night, so ya know, time to deal with the old food and large piles of dust that are taking over. i would have started writing my paper, but then people started to show up... the majority of the party was upstairs in the common areas of our house and consisted mostly of people who i've never met before (or have met but don't reeeeally remember in that awkward reluctant-to-introduce-myself-just-incase kind of way), so a couple of my friends and I just hung out and chatted in my room. then we went downtown in search of falafel and found probably the best durum that i've ever had. then i came home to bed. way too tired to get to work on my paper. also i needed to be well rested for family day, today.
so you see. my intentions were good. always good intentions.
it's just that, after spending last semester cooped up in an old geography lab, having my soul ripped out by various 400 level anth class + stats, it's difficult for me to turn down opportunities of fun. so ya know. i'm just making up for lost time. it's ok, right?
now it's sunday, and i'm awake and obsessively checking the british airways website to keep tabs on my fam's flights. they have arrived in heathrow. how freaking awesome is that!? I think that i will practice my danish and work on my paper... but it's just filler time until i can justify leaving for the airport.... their flight gets in at 3... so probably i should be there early.... like 2ish. just incase it takes them a negative amount of time to get through customs. my family is awesome like that.
peace out homeslices.
(k actually, just before the peacing, here are some pics... nothing exciting though...)
funny story: do you see all that hay edging around the edge lake (behind the picnic table)? so when there was snow on the little hill above it, kids would toboggan down towards the lake and straight into the hay. it is the barrier that kept them from just going straight into the lake and freezing to death. and i don't mean the special, cool, dare-devil kids. i mean like whole school groups. "ok class, make sure you all wear your one-piece snow suits and pointy balaclavas tomorrow, because we're going tobogganing straight towards a semi-frozen lake, and we'll trust your health and safety to a small strip of hay bails. FIELD TRIP!"
the daily parade of the fur hats. as seen from my fav coffee shop.
i have been meaning to show you all these cool bikes things.... you see, you know at home how people sometimes pull kids around behind their bikes in those little fluorescent wheely tents? well here, instead, they have these cool bucket things that replace the front wheel. and there are special ones made to be comfy so that kids can sit in them. it's pretty cool.
list of things i've seen the front bucket of bikes:
1. dogs. plural.
2. newspapers.
3. children.
4. an adult.
5. pineapples.
i really like the colour arrangement of this edifice. especially the green door.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)