Watch my feet!

My feet are famous. It's true. Foot model is going on my resume. What am I talking about you ask? Well if you visit toda.com you'll see a video some hairy legs connected to some large feet fit into socks which were obviously not meant for feet that size. Ya, that's me. That has been up, oh I don't know, 7 months or so? But just recently my feet got the shout out on the american apparrel website. Recognize (link)!

I hate lists

I almost hate to do this because these lists are always pretty stupid. However(!), I think these are all very true and it gives a little insight into little aspects of Danish life that I myself have really noticed as well. So having said that, here is a list copied from the interwebs plus little comments by me marked with stars (*).

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You go to the supermarket and buy three good beers and 10 not too good ones.
*Its really common to go into supermarkets and just pull a couple beers out of a six pack. It's much more mixing and matching than I'm used to.

You honestly believe that the distance between Copenhagen and Aarhus is long.
*It is fucking long. Like 4 hours by train. That's NYC to Boston.

The first thing you do on entering a bank/post office/pharmacy etc. is to look for the queue number machine.
*Yup, it sucks and was really confusing initially. You get a little slip of paper with a number, kind of like at a deli or something.

You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number.

When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume that:

a. he is drunk;
b. he is insane;
c. he is American;
d. he is all of the above.

*I guess people don't smile but I usually try not to look at people anyways for fear they will ask me something in Danish.

Can't remember when to say "please" and "excuse me".
*There isn't a Danish word for please, so I don't really know what this one is about.

You start to believe that if it weren't for Denmark's efforts, the world would probably collapse pretty soon.

You know the meaning of life has something to do with the word "hyggelig".
*hyggelig basically means cozy which is a word you only really use if you're trying to give someone a veiled gay compliment. Here they say it all the time and like this one implies, I'm not really sure about it. I sort of know what it means, but I feel like it has a lot more to do with the Danish culture than I know.

You are very surprised when you receive compliments about ANYTHING - including your appearance/clothing! In fact when you do, you find it suspicious and start thinking they might have ulterior motives.

You've completely forgotten what a "date" is - no one ever comes to pick you up and unexpected gifts are VERY unexpected.

You don't think it strange that no one ever comes by to visit without being invited and you never show up at any one's place unannounced either.

You wouldn't dream of coming even 10 minutes early to a party. (Once around the block is always an alternative)

You find yourself lighting candles when you have guests - even if it is brightly sunny outside and 20 degrees.
*This one is definitely true. The Danes love their candles and it has started to rub off. In the grocery store there is a big shelf just for candles. The section for candles is maybe 5 or 6 shelves and I think there are just 2 for cereal.

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So I'm sorry about that, but it's little funny Danish culture things that you don't really know until you live here for a while. Speaking of which, I've been here for nearly 6 months. That's ridiculous.

fuck! i just set my headphones on fire and now my room smells like burning rubber.

The cursed holiday

New Years Eve is a cursed holiday for me. Every year something always happens to make it a train wreck of a night. What better way to welcome a new year? Not that I want to get into it, but in the past couple of years there was the time we thought my friend Justin was dead, the time I accidentally mixed prescription medicine with alcohol (sidenote, turns out I'm deathly allergic to amoxicillin), and then the fist fight between my two good friends; just so you know what we're dealing with. My friends and I have learned to look back at these and laugh (oh Justin, remember that time we thought you were dead? har har har), but I don't think I'll be laughing about this one for a long time. (The rest of the entry is me whining, so feel free to stop reading here).



The story is a simple one though. My family is nice enough I suppose, but being around each other for more than a few hours at a time begins to cause a lot of friction. Someone decided we had to go down to the Champs Elysees (though later there would be much arguing about whose stupid idea is had been with nobody eager to take credit). We sensibly decided that we would be able to make it across Paris in 15 minutes on New Years Eve and get over there with plenty of time to admire the Arc De Triomphe before the corks popped. During the four days we were there we typically spent as much time planning our route as actually in transit, however, this being our first night we argued 20 minutes prior to setting off and then the whole time on the train. It quickly became apparent that we weren't going to make it, and decided we didn't want to spend new years on the subway so we jumped out at the nearest stop and tried to follow the crowds hoping it would lead to some festivities. So now here we are, Paris, the city of love and fine wine, except we are under a bridge in the middle of nowhere because it started raining. We rung in 2008 much like we would spend the rest of our trip, arguing over a map. We looked for the train station we'd just come out of but couldn't find it again. Also being unable to locate a cab we began our long walk home shooting mental daggers at anyone smiling.

God Jul!

It's Christmastime in Denmark and I was lucky enough to spend it with Jeppe and his family. I don't know when I've felt more welcome, especially at the holidays.


Note the real candles on the tree. I guess I've always thought of this as pretty dangerous but I was assured at the most there has just been a little smoke and never any real fires. Sweet! Anyway safety is probably the last thing you're thinking about while dancing around the tree and singing songs.


The food was also pretty amazing. Traditional Danish cooking is sort of weird just in that it's pretty straight forward, but also pretty delicious. It almost seems equal parts taste and tradition. Kind of like drinking schnapps at julefrokost, it's gross, but you keep doing it anyways. Here is the classic mother and daughter generational cooking method.


This method is called "drink until it tastes good".


And here's what's cooking! Just look at that pan full of sugar. That's what I call cooking.


Now the meal winds down with lots of wine. And it's almost time for...


Rice pudding! Now there is a tradition in which somewhere in the giant serving bowl of rice pudding (which really was quite large) there is hidden a whole almond. If you end up with this almond, then you get a prize, so it is in your best interest to eat as much pudding as you possibly can so as to increase your odds. Now the tricky part, if you get the almond the idea is to hide it as long as possible so that everyone else gets sick trying to eat all the rest of the pudding too fast. Just to you know, add a little injury to insult.


And this is what it looks like when you win. I've played this game twice now, and have won both times. I figure the odds of this are around 1 in 64 so I pretty much rule. The first time I won I didn't know the hiding the almond thing but this time I made so to hold on to it as long as I could, but trying to hide an almond under your tongue is only comfortable for so long.


After dinner it was time for a visit from santa! It was met with joy and a little confusion, but in the end it works out for everyone.






Glædelig jul!

Thanksgiving

Well its a bit late so now I'm playing catch up. There is of course no thanksgiving in Denmark so this was just a little something to remind me of home. Happy thanksgiving!

Little things

As I'm getting used to all things Danish I find myself less and less surprised by the small things but thinking back today there are a lot of small things that threw me off a bit in the beginning. Here is a small list.

1. Light switches are typically small square buttons and flip the opposite direction. ie. down is on.
2. When people go grocery shopping you only shop for a day or two, not the whole week. For this reason you don't see many shopping carts.
3. Because there are no shopping carts homeless people can't keep their stuff in them as is the fashion in nyc. Instead they use handtrucks or fashion rickshaw type carriages. (Also I've only seen like 10 homeless people, all in better shape than most in ny though equally crazy).
4. In money, commas and decimals are the opposite of the US. 3,000.00 is written as 3.000,00
5. Sometimes you see something for like 49,99. I'm not sure but I think this is an impossible price to make with Danish currency. The cents are called øre and I think they are only in denominations of ,25.
6. No fatties. Sure there are some heavier people but it's really pretty rare to see someone I'd call obese. In my nyc experience I'd say maybe a quarter of people on my train everyday were visibly overweight.
7. Bikes bikes bikes. They are everywhere. This is pretty obvious but when I first came here I really wasn't prepared for how much people ride. Also I've learned that people are just as much impatient assholes on bikes as they are in cars.
8. History. Århus has got some! Again, obvious but unexpected when I first arrived. The office building I work in for example is from the 1600s, over 100 years older than America, additionally it's in great shape. Things are extremely well cared for here.
9. At grocery stores the cashiers sit down and they have a panel in front of them that lifts up which is where the money is kept, not in the register.

It would have been nice to have an even 10 but I can't think of one more right now. Maybe ten could be that I'm surprised how much it feels like home. I've been here a bit over 3 months now but I feel extremely comfortable and it genuinely feels like a lot longer. The city is smallish and in a way reminds me of the city where I went to school. It's got the same sort of charm and while Århus is a bit larger it affords the same sense of familiarity.

Also, I started Danish lessons and it's great! Having been mostly programming for the past 2 years I think has restructured the way I process information and I think my mindset is now a lot more compatible to learning languages.

vi ses!