the best 400kr I ever spent

ok so

just a quick post, whist i wait for a phone call. then it's bed time. i'm beat and tomorrow i need to have my game face on, cause it's international student orientation, so I gotta go make me some new friends.

but first:
i need to add to my strange/interesting things in copenhagen list:

(how could i have forgotten this one?)
4. Fur. everywhere. women wearing fur. men wearing fur. fur coats. fur hats. and today i saw what probably falls into the category of "fur scarf" but that is a stretch. it was clearly just a dead animal wrapped around a woman's neck. feet and everything. .... i am trying not to judge. but it's difficult.


---
ok
sommore picture perhaps? why not!

so on saturday, i went with some of my housemates down to city hall for a chinese new year celebration. there was free food and some funny things going on on stage. everything was in danish so we had no clue what was happening but it was fun anyways. i wandered around the city hall building with my new nepalese friend, and we chatted with some security guards and learned cool things about the building. so i'll put up some pics of that...

oh - important to note: i have decided to become a freegetarian. everything here is so freakin expensive, that i have to capitalize on opportunities for free things. including food. so. for the duration of my time in denmark, i am a vegetarian, UNLESS it is free. free dead cow? deepfried, please.

after the chinese new year celebrations, i walked home from downtown for the first time (instead of taking the metro) and saw some cool buildings and different parts of my neighbourhood, and i checked out some hotels where my parents might stay when they come to visit.

today (sunday), i went to the zoo with my housemate. the zoo! yes! the zoo! i love the zoo! i bought an annual pass, cause it was pretty cheep, actually. same price as my kettle. if i go to the zoo three times, then it will be worth it. and probably i will go three times a day, so it'll definitely be worth it. the gorillas was a false rumour. BUT they did have CHIMPS! YES! CHIMPS! i've never seen real live chimps not on tv! so that was pretty neat. there were two juveniles who were very playful and it was fun to watch. also they had hamadryous baboons, which i've never seen before... they were a lot smaller than i expected. and then they had a whole lot of other monkeys and totally awesome animals too. i'll post pics of that for sure too...

then tonight we had a house meeting with my hilarious landlord. it was nice to finally meet everybody living here, and sit down and just chat and talk and sample danish liquor. i think this house is gonna be a very comfortable place to live. i'm stoked.

ok
pictures
now




inside the main city hall in copehagen... it has a name... i can't remember... it's a really cool building




looking out the window from the free chinese food room, out over the main square of the city




one small section of ceiling over the magistrate stairwell inside city hall... it was fancy




looking at city hall from the square




walking home from downtown - the graffiti here is awesome




polar bear at the zoo! check out the teeth on the piece of carcass that it's eating.... only a lil bit creepy. they looked like horse teeth




...pretty self explanatory




emperor tamarin! so cool!




despite yesterday being absolutely freezing with flurries, i saw my first bit of copenhagen blue sky and sunshine! woot!





so chill




my very favourite thing in all of copenhagen




my new best friends




giraffes are way huger than i expected. i was somewhat overwhelmed by the awesomeness.




walking home from the zoo.... this picture is lovely because you can't tell that we were dying of freezingness.




is it just me.... or....???

høly møly københavn

so

i'm in copenhagen!

holy crap it's so strange here. everything is the same. except completely different.

there are basically more bikes than there are cars. and it's awesome. and totally weird.

i don't even know where to begin... so i thought i'd just post some pics instead.

my flight was pretty uneventful. nobody cared about the spelling mistake on my ticket.... actually nobody even noticed. so that was pretty sweet. then my mentor (a danish student that the KU international office set me up with) met me at the airport and navigated the metro with me to show me how to get to campus because there was a meeting for international anthropology students. it was pretty funny, me showing up at the meeting with my huge giant backpack and my overstuffed little backpack and my bursting purse. i'm glad that i went though, despite the lack of sleep and showering, because everybody was really nice and we got a tour of our campus.

then i headed back to the metro alone (with all my stuff) and had a very interesting encounter with the ticket machine.

you see, that is the weirdest thing about this place: everybody speaks english but all of the signs and instructions and buttons and machines are all in danish. and HOLY CRAP. wtf. danish is so weird. so i basically just pushed a bunch of buttons till it said something that looked like "insert kort", so i put in my credit card and got a ticket. yeeeah.

then i found my house. the place that i am living in is pretty cool. right now, everybody hasn't arrived yet, so its pretty quiet (the semester doesn't start until monday). basically it is just a huge giant house. and half of it belongs to Tor (and i assume that he lives there with his family), my super friendly danish landlord, and then the back half has a windy twisty staircase that leads up to a floor with four rooms (including mine) and then further up to a floor with 6 rooms and a kitchen and bathroom. i've only met a couple of the other people who live here (the rest either haven't moved in, or are elusive and mysterious), but so far everybody seems really nice. we're all equally confused and bewildered by the danish.

yesterday and today i spent mostly on my own, exploring the city and taking care of necessities like getting a phone (which i have now! awesome!... cept i have only a limited idea of how to use it cause it's all in danish... poopey) and a converter to plug in my computer (kinda freaked out a bit when i realized that i'd forgotten that) and some groceries and a kettle and getting my classes sorted out. it is neat to wander around the city. it's pretty cold (but not nearly as bad as kingston) and dreary (but not nearly as dreary as victoria) but it hasn't rained yet, and it's comfordable. basically i just walk and walk and walk all day. i took some pictures yesterday (which i am posting) and also a picture of my room! the first two nights i was in a different room, and then this morning i moved into this room and it's sooo sweet! i have a sink and mirror and a swivel wheely chair and A BALCONY! and the walls are yellow. also the guy who was here before left behind some maps and decorations (including a bumble bee craft made out of a popsicle stick and pipe cleaner... he was clearly very talented).

so yeah.
anyways.
i am compiling a list of strange/interesting things i see here in copenhagen...

1. getting onto the plane from london to copenhagen, i noticed an extremely large number of wide brimmed hats. of all different varieties. some looked like the australian outback hats, one was wicker and some were like tilley hats. all worn by boys and men who looked very danish. big wide brimmed hats. i kid you not. like 30 of them. .... ????

2. everybody here rides bikes (like. actually. more bikes than cars. at least downtown) but instead of using regular bike locks, they have these little key locks on their back tires. so they just kickstand their bike up anywhere, lock the back tire (so that it can't spin) and go into the shop, or whatnot. it's pretty cool. beside the main train/metro/bus station downtown there is just a SEA of bikes. bikes everywhere. i am excited for the day when i see somebody sketchily speed walking along with a bike, holding up the back tire. THEIF, i will yell. THEIF!

3. strollers. everywhere. so many strollers. and i can't figure out if there are this many strollers at home but i am only just noticing them here because they look different (in fact, they look more like "buggies" here... very oldfashioned and classy). but yeah. everybody has a baby. buggies everywhere.

ok... i'm sure there's lots more but i can't think of it now. plus i will stop babbling (so much for "i will just post some pics instead", eh?). here are pictures! enjoy! thanks for the comments!


my yellow room! the door on the right leads to my balcony (ooohhhh aaahhhh) and my closet and sink is on my left, where i was standing taking the picture



i took this tonight as it was getting dark and i was walking home. it's looking back towards downtown, accross "the lakes" (these weird and, i think, human-made lakes... they are all very rectangular)



looking down at a portion of strøget (i think that's what it's called!), the main pedestrian street... it's pretty neat. it goes on forever and it's all different shops and cafes and bikes everywhere! I took this picture from the window of a coffee shop that was on the second floor of a bookstore (nicole - it sorta reminded me of borders in auckland... thus it is my new favourit place)



the bridge and the entrance to Nyhavn (this canal street thinger), going up to let a boat pass



the dude in charge of the bridge raising. the whole process was pretty ghetto. they just put out their hands to stop the cars, then raise the bridge. this guy has it all under control.



looking down Nyhavn... a pretty classic tourist guide book photo spot.... it's pretty dead this time of year though. in the summer it is all restaurant patios and touristness... but yesterday it was just me and some seagulls (and the bridge dude).



another shot of Nyhavn.... ooooh aaaahhh



hahahaha ... hahah.... haha...........heh?

welcome

yo

so

welcome to my copenhagen blog

i wasn't sure whether i should do a blog for this trip.... i wasn't going too.... for some reason this whole thing feels less like a "trip" and more like a simple shift in location ... mind you, as i sit here on the floor, looking at the huge whak of crap that i've scattered around the living room in my attempt to pack, "simple" might not be the best word.

but alas.
it's tradition. the blog and the ridiculously last-minute packing fiasco.

so this is my copenhagen blog. and this is me still procrastinating on the packing thing.

i'm not sure what i will talk about on this blog. hopefully i'll have lots of crazy things to tell you. it is entirely possible that danishland is a crazy place. we're just gonna have to wait and see, i think. i really have absolutely no idea what to expect. if this blog sucks, we can all blame anna and danner. they pressured me into doing one.

for this first post, i had big plans to shamelessly rip off taryn's pre-peru blog post idea, and write out my goals for this trip. but then i realized that i don't actually have any GOALS, per-say. well, one:

i can't speak any danish. and when i try to, i sound like i've just had dental surgery. i would like to learn some danish. or at least how to fake it.

... but other than that... i have no plans, no focus, no notions of how i want the next few months to play out. it's kind of nice. i feel very... what is a word that is the opposite of "tied-down" (but that is less emo than "free"? i am trying to stay away from emo, remember)? un-burdened? i just feel like i'm gonna go to denmark, and what happens, happens. well ok that's not totally true....

i want to pass my classes
and have a good time
and go to legoland.
ok so three goals: learn some danish. go to legoland. pass my classes.

probably that's enough. don't want to get over ambitious and just stress myself out.

speaking of stressful -

my name on my plane ticket is spelled wrong. hello, my name is alison aHSbury. definitely not the name on my passport. definitely the travel agent dude got me to check over the spelling on my ticket TWICE before he printed it. definitely i didn't notice at all.

so, i guess, goal number four: be allowed to get onto the plane that is taking me to copenhagen. potentially the most difficult of all of the goals.

anyways
i really don't have much to say right now,
now that we've discussed my huge giant list of goals

i hope that you come back to visit this blog often. and comment, if you should feel so inclined. i always read the comments. i like the comments.

i'll let you know how the whole getting-on-the-plane deal goes down. wish me luck.

peace and happiness and rainbows,
-a ahsbury