This may not be my last post

Hello, and good evening, and if you are wondering why I haven't posted since May 4th, well you will probably have to continue wondering. I guess I had better intentions but things get in the way. Since May fourth, a lot has happened. I went to Copenhagen twice, once on a once-in-a-year super cheap ticket to see the Foghorn Stringband play in Christania (occupied area of Copenhagen, to a large extent self governing, technically full of squatters, great place, government wants to get rid of it, I hope they don't...) and once with the school to protest a new economic bill that proposes to cut funds to schools like the folk high school I was at, and other social programs to deal with the financial crisis. What else? I moved rooms, from my shared room in one of the houses to a single room (number 7) in the East wing of the main courtyard. It was a move I should have made much earlier in the semester. It makes such a difference to have the option of privacy, and especially when your roommate is like this girl was, bless her, leaving the door open every time she leaves, and wet towels on the bathroom floor for days or weeks, and I don't know, just stuff like this, I was really happy to move. Besides, it was like a practice move for the real move that occurred last Saturday, a sort of frantic race from my room to the recycling to the trash to the classrooms and I still forgot some stuff.

Its hard to believe I have been gone not quite a whole year now - the only measurable indication I have is that about half my socks are gone (why is it always the socks that disappear?) and the rest have holes. I sometimes look at the yellow pair of ankle high ones with little red doodles that I got from Target last summer and remember putting on my shoes just past airport security on the way here, and the man next to me said, "well if it weren't for these new security measures I would have never known you were wearing such cute socks!" or something like that, and now they are a bit grey and worn and full of holes.

I wanted to use this blog both to keep in touch with folks back home and also as a kind of travelogue/online diary of events for myself to look back on. I should have known myself better, because I have recorded my thoughts and experiences but not all here, just kind of spread out in various notebooks, backs of receipts, letters to friends, letters to friends I forgot to post, and in conversations with other people.

There is actually a lot I would like to say here. Why am I always starting this at like one in the morning? I wanted to include my itinerary, but unfortunately, I only know I am getting home on July 7th, and I will have to revive my computer from its out-of-batteries beauty sleep to figure out the exact time and details (or I could just check my email... ack I'll do it later). But NOW I am currently in Hamburg. SOMETIME soon or at the beginning of next week I will make a brief return to Denmark to visit Gunnar and Birgit and Ditte's family again like I promised I would, and then I considered spending a day in Copenhagen, although that can be not as fun as hoped when you are alone, and then up to Stockholm sometime this next week, hopefully arriving before the weekend. I will probably just miss the princess's wedding (shucks) which is bringing gobs of tourists into Gamla Stan where I will be staying with friends.

I know I always write that I am going to continue writing about something and then like two weeks go by without a peep, but I was thinking about loss and goodbyes and endings and relationships and how this semester ended and what we said and how we all felt and how strange I felt - like not at all sad until the car pulled out of the driveway basically. Anyways maybe I can continue writing tomorrow.

I bought two new books this week to keep myself occupied with something other than rearranging the things in my suitcase - one is the new book by David Byrne called Bicycle Diaries which is like a travelogue of his time biking through various cities, and then a book called The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon, which is a detective story about a group of jews in Alaska - huge over-simplification there but I am enjoying both and am glad to have bought them despite the poor timing for the acquisition of new goods. And I saw a film with Erik yesterday called Mammoth, which I enjoyed. It made me think a bit and it was nice to watch.

So very sorry for the long long delay, and I hope you are doing well!

May the fourth be with you

Happy international star wars day (or something to that effect) and also, happy end of German occupation of Denmark day! Officially Denmark was free the 5th of May but the news came at 8 pm the 4th of May 1945 on illegal BBC radio. The first thing they did after the years of blackouts was to place candles in all the windows as a signal that they were free, and people still do this every 4th of May. Apparently they also burned their curtains. At first I thought they just accidentally lit the curtains on fire because they hadn't lit candles for so long, but actually no, they were intentionally burning the blackout curtains from wartime. I took a picture of the candles in the windows at the school here, but didn't get it loaded on the computer - sorry! Next post maybe.

This will not be a big post, but here is some other (subjectively) interesting news:

Daniel Clowes, the cartoonist who wrote the comic (later to be made into a movie Ghost World, has come out with a new comic called Wilson... Lincoln Public Libraries, you had better be on top of this because I am on my way.

Yesterday, as you may well be aware of, was the 40 year anniversary of the Kent State shootings... still horrifying, and horrifyingly relevant, and you can bet your biscuits I listened to some Neil Young.

There was sleet today in northern Denmark. Sleet! and its May! Where is the sunny spring weather? Where is it?!

Yesterday I made myself sick eating too many cinnamon rolls (or cinnamon snails, translated from danish), but today I ate too many fløderboller (similar but better than marshmellow filled chocolate balls) but did not feel sick.

The current US dollar to Danish kronor conversion rate is $1=5.724K Since I usually use 5 as the figure, this sounds pretty good, like maybe I should finally pay the bill for this semester maybe tomorrow.

Ok bedtime! More soon, and take care to enjoy the spring weather if you are having it.

April 17th, an ordinary saturday

News:
Tomorrow morning I board a bus to Prague. I have never been to Prague; I think this will be exciting. What won't be exciting will be sitting on a bus for 16 hours. I don't know what we will be doing, probably going to some exhibitions, markets, antique stores, that sort of thing. I already have a ticket to see a jazz/funk band Wednesday night, something my friend Katja found online. One of the girls that went last semester told me about a cool store with clothes and notebooks and other things. Here's the link - Parazit Fashion Store.

Monday is my 21st birthday, and I am excited to be spending it in Prague, and not on a bus to Prague. I find myself wishing I could be with my friends for this birthday, and also thinking back to birthdays of the past. Last year I remember my birthday was on a sunday and it was room draw at Grinnell, but I didn't have to go because I was coming here. That was kind of like a gift to myself, not having to go or think about room draw. I may never have to think about room draw again, considering next year I'm living in an apartment. Saturday the 18th last year, I remember going to an Indian folk music concert featuring the poems of Kabir - an Indian mystic poet from the 16th century whose poetry is well known in song form all over India. I have rarely felt so relaxed and happy - the music and the words (translated at the beginning of each song) was easy to just float away in. There was hardly anyone at the concert because it was Saturday night and I suppose they were drinking. I know I had a proper birthday party in the student coffee shop in the little corner of couches with my family and the dog, I think on sunday evening. It must have been after 8pm because the coffee shop doesn't open until then. They had brought a cake all the way from Omaha that read "happy birthday" but in Swedish - I think, because I didn't know a lick of Swedish at the time and my thoughts were just filled with the idea of actually being in Sweden in a short amount of time.

Anyway, I'm wandering.

There have been a lot of jokes going around, probably you have heard them already, about Iceland. Something like "Iceland was going to send a bunch of cash down to England, but they haven't got any "c"s so they just sent ash instead". Thursday evening I went with to the coast to try to see the ashy sunset which was supposed to be some strange red color, but the sun just disappeared behind a cloud and the wind was so strong we went home before it got dark. There are three Icelandic students at the school, and they are used to this kind of volcanic eruption. It isn't dangerous, because the ash is so high in the air and it gets blown across the sky instead of raining down on us. It can be dangerous for animals, because the ash is poisonous so you should watch out and not let them lick the ground. I wondered if I should watch out and not lick the ground as well. In Iceland people are wearing masks and having the sun blocked out by ash - and of course what everyone is talking about is how the ash blowing across Western Europe has caused all of the flights to be canceled. I am starting to get irritated at everyone blaming Iceland and putting Iceland down all the time. Once I said to Johann, one of the Icelandic students, "You can't possibly know what its like to be American. Everywhere you go, somebody wants to start a fight with you about the government or consumer culture, and I'm just so sick of apologizing for the 300, 000, 000 people of the USA whom I don't know or control. I'm sick of being blamed." And he said, "Yes I do. An Icelandic man living in London was attacked for being Icelandic after the financial crisis. Its something that most people in Iceland had nothing to do with, but we get blamed for it anyway. Now when I go out, I just say I'm Scandinavian."

So my personal message to the world about this volcano is: Leave Iceland alone! They didn't erupt the volcano on purpose!

And here's a link to a video of the ash in Iceland.

This morning I got up around 10:45, scurried over to the dining hall and had some orange juice before they started putting things away at 11. After that I didn't have any ideas about what I would do today, so I went to the TV room and saw the end of a movie about a little boy in London in the 60s who was hoping England would lose to Germany and people would come to his Bar mitzvah instead of watching the final match. In the end, he finally realized that "being a man wasn't what I thought - it was realizing that my dad wasn't perfect, he was just a man, and I loved that man." or something, Helena Bonham Carter played his mother. Oooh! I just found it on IMDB, its called Sixty Six.

Which reminds me, I have seen a few good movies in the last couple of weeks. I highly recommend "The Wackness" - it was really fun, set in the 90s with a great old school hiphop soundtrack and Ben Kingsly plays a washed up hippie psychiatrist. April 9th was Occupation Day in Denmark, commemorating the day Nazi Germany invaded Denmark on the morning of April 9th, 1940. I went on a long walk on the beach and saw some old German concrete bunkers that have been exposed as the sand blows away and the shoreline recedes. We talked about the history of that day, and had a occupation themed party that night, which descended into drunken attempted knife fights and other crazy shinanigans which got five students expelled... but anyways, before all that, we watched a holocaust movie called "Fateless". It was a Hungarian movie that apparently got a lot of criticism for the light in which they presented life in the concentration/work camp, showing the "good" parts - the happiness he was able to find in the midst of the horrors, showing how this young boy was tortured and starved and many other awful things, but when he left, he had trouble adjusting to the real world, and even more trouble returning to Budapest and meeting former acquaintances whose lives just carried on almost normally since when he left. I thought it was a really good movie, and I thought the focus on what the holocaust did to people's identities, especially after they returned home, was really interesting. So I recommend it also. I can also recommend "Mary and Max" as an excellent claymation video - kind of strange, and sometimes sad, but funny too. And unique from other claymation I have seen. My last recommendation for the time being is "Waltz with Bashir" - an interestingly animated documentary about a former Israeli soldier, now film maker, trying to find his memories of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Probably the biggest moment of the movie is when at the end the footage switches from animation to real footage of the wailing women and corpses from this massacre. Really a good movie.

Other (sad) news: I droped my external hard drive on accident :( and after a look from the computer guy at the school, it was pronounced dead. Which means all of my music stored on it is gone... especially the stuff I got last summer and in Sweden because its not backed up on the computer I used at school the last two years. So I have been sad about that, and have tried not to be so sad, because I can probably find it again its just a lot of trouble that could have been avoided with a bit more care.

My lord I have a lot to say! I'd better stop soon, but just one more thing before I do: I had a "free sale" last week, made lemonade, and tried to get rid of some clothes, cosmetics, and junk I have collected. I just want to get rid of the unnecessary things in my life - things that weigh my down and make it difficult to travel. Or see the floor. Although I heard a new word for my clothes storage system : the floordrobe. "What's that mess? Why are your clothes all on the floor?" "What do you mean, mess? That's my floordrobe!"

Anyways, I haven't got any good pictures at the moment, something I'm embarrassed about because I know I will get home with nothing to show from this year but ticket stubs and strange second hand books in foreign languages. Oh yes, and my memories :)

So goodbye for now, hope to write more soon - perhaps from Prague. I have to take my computer anyways to preregister for fall semester at Grinnell.

Bright, Sunshiny Day!

Hello! I may be missing out on some of my favorite Easter traditions, such as dying eggs, getting lots of chocolate shaped animal gifts, or listening to the Pines of Rome at First Plymouth, but its just about worth it to be here in Hamburg enjoying a couple of lovely sunny days. Hamburg until now has been a dreary, grey place, in my mind it's always raining, always cold and windy, but yesterday my opinion was completely changed. Erik and I rented bikes from the little do-it-yourself automated city bike rental station (positioned around the city so you can pick a bike up one place and leave it were you are going). We biked from his neighborhood to a lake somewhere more in the middle of the city where people were stretched out on long grassy lawns with crocuses jumping out of the ground everywhere. There were lots of happy dogs wandering around and happy guys braving the soft ground to play some muddy soccer. It was so sunny and nice, and SO NICE to be on a bicycle again. Today we walked to the botanical gardens, about 10 minutes from the apartment, and played frisbee until Erik's opera started. There were ducks everywhere, and flowers, and people smooching on benches. Must be spring! I even met a stranger today - which was one of my goals for this break, somebody from Freiburg who was sitting on the next bench over in the neighborhood park this afternoon, who recommended a place to go tonight to see a crappy punk show. "I don't know what bands are playing... but it doesn't really matter!"

....Aaaaand pictures.

Happy Easter!

Spring Arrives

Hey! Look! Little things are popping out of the ground!
Today I spent four hours working on stacking wood into an orderly pile for 75 Kr. an hour meaning I made 60 dollars today. The weather has gotten much nicer and I feel nicer in nice weather. However, my everyday enthusiasm for sewing and my other work here is at a very low point. I like to imagine myself as a grumpy sleepy bear who would like nothing better than to settle down with a nice book and then fall asleep on it, or maybe a bear that is tired of being cold and isolated from other bears. That is the problem with going to Stockholm, when I come back I feel lonely and irritated. I am really looking forward to Easter next week, and to visiting Erik in Hamburg and getting away again for a bit. There are two main problems right now, one being that Vraa is about a 10 dollar train ride away from the next place were you can buy art supplies or paper, buy a used book, or go out for a coffee, etc etc etc. The other problem is the way people act towards one another - you would think that with only 70 students here it wouldn't be worth their effort to judge one another but what do I know.

I had a very strange experience while I was moving pieces of wood this afternoon, where I caught a whiff of some smell, from the wood or the ground or maybe the breeze, that reminded me of sometime when I felt really happy. I couldn't figure out the smell or even what it reminded me of, but I felt happy and optimistic for a short time just thinking about it.

To Stockholm to Stockholm to buy a fat pig. Home again home again jiggety-jig!

And that's what i was doing last week. Here's a picture to prove it! This is me sitting in Stockholm trying to learn this tiny guitar.

More about that tomorrow! now i am back in Denmark, and everything is fine except for loosing one of my shoelaces this evening. It is twice as nice to see everyone here now that i've been away for almost a week, and the weather is definitely perking up. So tally ho! as they like to say or something like that.

Unfortunately this is my bed time. but i will leave you with today's danish phrases of the day :

Er du vågen? Er du klar? Er du sulten?
Are you awake? Are you ready? Are you hungry?

Goodnight!

I hate to make a post with no pictures and no news really, but it was just a pretty pleasant day here today. Here are the things I liked about today in list format:

1. I went for a jogging, at seven! Seeing the morning sun coming through the trees was actually enough to distract me from how much I hate sports that don't take place underwater.

2. I had a REAL coffee, made with freshly ground locally roasted beans, courtesy of my Hungarian next door neighbor Andrew.

3. Our textiles teacher Lene decided that we should take a walk to enjoy the strong sunshine and so us textiles people spent the morning (up until the coffee break) walking through down and then sledding down a hill on little plastic discs.

4. I ate an avocado.

5. I washed my hair!!!

6. We have afternoons free every Wednesday, so I went with a couple people to the church thrift store in town which is only open from 2 to 5 on Wed. Thurs. and Fri. and I finally found on old bed sheet the right color and weight to finish my first project with. I also bought a vintage looking bright red day dress in a soft kind of fuzzy but not as fuzzy as swede fabric.

7. One of the towns people who was eating dinner with us as a part of our community meal thing on wednesday nights complimented me on my hat with bear ears.

8. I watched the movie "Seven Pounds" starring Will Smith, and it was kind of sad, and then listened to some music, including a silly techno song version of a traditional Finnish polka, and a band called the Panics that I liked, and then part of a live show of George Carlin. Also I ate part of a Toblerone bar.

9. On my way to my house I ran into the British student, Lee, who was preparing for a presentation on his hometown of Brighton. He showed me some pictures of the Starlings gathering in a big flock/swarm at dusk to spend the night under the pier, and also video of the annual Brighton pride parade and festival which they are famous for. Brighton was also apparently the site of one/several? huge clashes between Mods and Rockers back in the day. Which reminds me, Lee told me to watch a good movie about that which I can't remember the name of but it started with a Q.

10. and, tomorrow morning I will do some yoga with Marta and actually get up in time for breakfast again.

What a good day.

Goodbye February

I wish, I wish I were a fish.

Sometimes you just have a day where you start to think about things, and you start to ask, "why is this skirt I'm making not working?" and "why do I always compare myself to other people?" and "why do I get so pessimistic about my future when I compare myself to other Grinnellians?"

And so on days like this I find myself saying "I wish I wish...."

Right now I wish I were staying at højskole another semester. Or I wish I could move to Sweden. Forever. I also find myself wishing for things that I don't even want, like wishing I had done a summer internship or wishing I were more ambitious, successful or clever. I know that partly responsible for this wishy outburst is the email I got from the Sociology department announcing the upcoming elections for members of the Soc. SEPC, a student-to-faculty liason group that organizes events for the students in the department. Not exactly knowing why, I decided to run for a spot. In my statement I basically wrote that I have been abroad for a while now and that has helped me to get the kind of wider perspective that I often lose at Grinnell when I get overwhelmed by the pressure or stress, and that I know I do sociology because I love it and think its important, which is why I want to serve on the SEPC - to keep an awareness of why we are here, and form a group with the students and staff of the sociology department where concerns and experiences are shared and ideas are supported.

This is what I want. But when I got the everyone's statements to read and then vote from, I realized I am actually the only one who cares about or thinks about or even questions why we are at Grinnell, studying sociology, and not off doing something completely different. And I was less disappointed by the realization that anyone reading all 10 statements would read mine and think I a failure for having no plans for graduate/law school than I was disappointed to realize that I am going back to a place (a society, a country, a school) where I am surrounded by people with a completely different attitude towards life. It's like I can see the gigantic tidal wave of culture shock gathering on the horizon but there is nothing I can do about it except wait for it to crush me...

So I wish I wish I were a fish.

We also were required to post our favorite youtube video as a part of our SEPC statement, so here's mine for your viewing pleasure. Hoppípolla means "hop in puddles" in Icelandic.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAYb8ZyjzD0&feature=channel

In other news, last weekend I made chocolate covered bacon with some of my friends here. Their idea was this: What three things are delicious, no matter what they are with? Answer: Chocolate, bacon, and sour cream. So why not put them all together? The scary thing as that it actually was good. I think the key is to keep your bacon crispy and only eat them with sour cream when they are hot. But the chocolate and bacon combo was delicious. Here are some pictures.

Muffins and Grandaddy

I was just sitting here looking for interesting things on the internet to kill an hour before dinner, when I thought, "I want to make some muffins!" I am out of money for this month, so I didn't even think about trying to buy the necessary things and make it happen, but I did you on google to took at pictures and recipes of muffins. One of the first pictures that came up was a cartoon from this website about a muffin (below). I like it.
I also saw this comic on the same website, which is probably only funny if you have heard music by Grandaddy - perhaps I can provide an example (Here is a link to "Jed the Humanoid by Grandaddy). But I liked this one too.


I don't know what its like to watch an overlysensitive robot get neglected to death, it sounds sad.

We had salmon today for lunch with potatoes and roasted vegetables and chocolate mousse for dessert. Yesterday I tried to dye a light pink tablecloth darker pink using beet-juice kindly donated to me by the kitchen ladies. The reason I needed to to this was because I made a visit to the fabric store yesterday and realized that it is hard to find anything that is cheap enough for my to be able to buy it. Also, I don't like wearing pink, so I thought if I'm going to have to use this tablecloth, I should try to do something to make it a little more interesting. Maybe tonight I will soak it in coffee and see if that does anything fun.

Usually on Wednesday nights we have a song evening where community members come and eat dinner with us and then sing with us out of the folkhighschool song book, but our music teacher was sick so it was canceled and instead I watched the Spongebob Squarepants movie, which is surprisingly funny and relevant to my life.

My biggest problem right now seems to be keeping a wide-angle lens on things, and remembering all of the things I need to do/wanted to do if I had a bit of free time. This includes corresponding with various people, studying Danish, organizing things, and actually a lot of things and I have trouble remembering them. I have plenty of free time, but its very very hard to remember what it was that I wanted to do with it.

Last thing before I go down to dinner:
I really really really appreciate emails or letters keeping me updated on how you are doing and what you are up to. I am sometimes feeling a little disconnected from things here - partly because its a small town (hard to absorb culture in a quiet, isolated place), partly because I don't have very good access to books in English or a place where I can do research, and partly because I get distracted by various things. But talking with people seems to help, and I want to talk about things that happen here with people that AREN'T here so that I can try to explain and define what's going on a little better. So tell me what you're up to! and also ask me things if you can think of any - help me lose this haze and become bright eyed and curious again :)

Monday, Week Six

Now that its over, today seems like it has been a very productive day. And maybe when you compare it to other days, like the day there were three dogs in the classroom eating scraps of fabric and chasing each other, it was productive. For example, I watched all of the musical numbers from Hair again between lunch and afternoon classes, and went to two different grocery stores looking for cheese with my housemate Betina. I FINALLY started to hammer a ring I have been working on for probably four weeks, once a week. And soon it will begin to look like a whale I hope! I finished off my carton of Sødmælk ("sweet" milk, the best one, comes in a dark blue carton, 3.5% fat) and my box of Pepparkakor Hjärtan (the same heart shaped pepparkakor I was eating all the time last semester in Stockholm, usually at Anna's house dipped in healthy teas :) )

Next week or this week maybe in textile we are going to make two skirts, one correctly so we have more practice with the technique, and then another one that we will deliberately sew incorrectly to make something interesting. This is why I like my textile classes here, because we aren't just following some textbook, our teacher Lene is interested in doing things that will be fun or experimental, and unlike a lot of "crafts" classes (I think) we aren't just following instructions to get to a nice finished product we can take home with us; I think (this is my theory) that we are being forced to think a bit more. For example, in week nine (I think this is week six), Lene wants us to create some costumes/dresses, one by sewing on the machine, one sewing by hand, and one using glue, and using fabric, paper, plastic or something else, and we will have to design them with inspiration from some yet to be determined musical artist. So we will be listening to this artist the whole week/time we are working on the costume. So far, suggestions have been Michael Jackson, ABBA, Johny Cash, and Sun Ra, which I couldn't help suggesting even though I think everyone would hate me if we had to listen to experimental free jazz for an entire week BUT it would be really cool because the things they were wearing are already really interesting, and also Lene said she wanted us to get into the history of the people and their philosophies, and what little I know about Sun Ra (the guy) there is plenty of philosophy to get into. I am mostly just hoping we don't do Michael Jackson... sorry I mean, while I appreciate his style, I am a bit tired of hearing the same 10 or so songs of his, especially after this summer, when apparently that was the only thing people wanted to listen to. Actually it could be more interesting to do this project for a band that doesn't have a well established image already, or maybe just some completely unknown musicians playing folk music - then it would be all about what you hear and not about how the musician wanted to be seen.

SO, creative interesting people that you are, have you any suggestions? I'm really excited about this assignment!!!

SUN RA (guy in purple cape) So anyways, despite that glowing review, I think it would be really nice to get away this weekend to someplace a little more populated and maybe witness some live music experience. If only I could convince somebody to come with me! But I think the important thing right now is just the feeling that a change of scenery would be nice, walking around, wandering through someplace I've never been, learning something by watching, hopefully meeting interesting strangers would all be nice right now. It would actually be great to see Ditte and Lars too, but I haven't talked to them and don't know what their plans are for the weekend or if they would be home or anything.

OK, sorry if I'm boring you, just kind of thinking with my fingers on the keys. I need a haircut. I bought a SIM card this weekend so now I have a phone number! But I haven't turned on the phone yet. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I have Danish and then textile. Who knows what we'll be doing in Danish, I need to do WAY more work on my own or I'll never be able to say anything with confidence, in textile, I am still doing other things in lieu of finishing my skirt because I don't want to use the expensive stuff I bought on accident, and the tablecloth I got at the red cross second hand shop today is really too pink for me.

So that was today, and tomorrow, and hello! and sorry, I will buy batteries for my digi camera and take some pictures and put them here <3

Pas på Hinanden

Today was a day of tragedy here at Vrå højskole. Around twelve thirty as we were all eating lunch, someone noticed that smoke was pouring out of the upstairs windows of our headmistress and headmaster's house, Søren and Pia's house for those of you who know them. We tried our best all of us to find fire extinguishers and some students even tried to fight the fire that had by that time erupted out of the side of the house with an emergency hose. However, it had already taken a strong hold and all most of us could do was wait for the fire trucks to come over icy roads from the next town over. Their dog, a big part of everyday højskole life, had been sleeping upstairs in the bedroom and died in the fire.

When they finally put the fire out, when it was all over, everyone came together in the school living room, all feeling shocked and sad, and some with problems from inhaling smoke. Søren and Pia came in to speak to all of the assembled students and teachers and staff, and they told us that the most important thing to do right now was to pas på hinanden, or take care of each other and be there for each other. So that's basically what was did for the rest of the day, talking and hugging and crying sometimes, and despite being a very very sad time, it was a good feeling of everyone being close to each other.

I feel so sad for Pia and Søren. Their dog Severin was really a part of their family, and every night when Søren would make his evening rounds of the school he would be close behind. I know they loved him a lot and I can't imagine how awful it was to know he was inside without being able to do anything. They lost a lot of personal possessions like all their clothes, their computers, Søren's whole office, and many other things. Søren told me that all his pictures from the trip he took to the US with dad are gone.

I'm too tired to write any more right now, but I just wanted to say that this happened, and also that we are ok, we did a good job of watching out for each other today, and when Pia and Søren come back tomorrow from their summer house, we will be watching out for them too. It's a close community here, which in and of itself can feel a little claustrophobic at times, but it also means we can really come together and be there for each other when we need to.

Does "Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho" offend you too?

I joined the hojskole choir today, which ended up being about nine people strong. I joined the choir today because I was getting tired of playing the piano by myself whenever I had any free time. So I thought, "be social, AND play music". So this was a good thing, and we did some warm up exercises and stretched and then tried singing a song or two that the choir had learned last semester. One of these songs was the American spiritual "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho", but it had obviously come out of a Danish songbook, which maybe was the reason that the whole song was spelled in a peculiar, old-fashioned "black" dialect. On the one hand, I thought, there were some activists that tried developing a written version of the dialect most african-americans were speaking at the time as a sort of means for solidarity, but on the other hand, listening to a bunch of Danish people imitating a really archaic sounding written interpretation of black speech is kind of offensive, like blackface routines are offensive, or this kind of asexual, big breasted black nanny character is offensive; mostly because it goes with an underlying ignorance or lack of respect or mockery of black people. What do you say? Are you with me on this one? Maybe I just get annoyed when we sing American spirituals in Denmark because they get lumped together - like we just "sing a little gospel" when we want to "cut loose", when really these songs are just as versatile as other songs, for example we could be singing it in a gospel way, or a New Orleans kind of way, or as a slow ballad or with a lot of harmony or whatever, but they're all just lumped into this one category and treated like some odd novelty.

I've been really tired lately; yesterday I took a really long nap, but I just seem to have less energy. I spent a lot of energy today trying to be furious with myself for spending about fifty dollars on fabric on accident for a skirt I designed, that I may or may not even end up bringing home with me because I already have too much stuff to put in my suit case.

Tomorrow I have Danish as a Second Language all morning and Staged Photography all afternoon, followed by probably me playing the piano, and then later working on a ring I'm making in jewelry class if the workshop is open.

So good night!

Long time no post!

First of all, sorry sorry sorry to everyone who has looked at this blog at all in the last two weeks or so and thought "oh fiddlesticks, nothing new here!" because I have gotten really behind not only on posting here but also in answering emails, giving out my new address and taking pictures of the new place as well. So I will try to take care of a few of these things right here right now!

My new address is this: Brita Higgins, Vrå Højskole, Højskolevej 1, 9760 Vrå, Denmark

Specific apologies to Caleb and Marianne for taking so long, especially Caleb who is used to me showing up late everywhere and is very patient and still friends with me despite this sort of thing happening all of the time - by the way, we never went on a bike ride to your house from downtown we should do that sometime.

This is a picture of the windup toy booth at one of the christmas markets in Hamburg that I took simply because this woman's job was just to stand there and wind up the toys so that people would get excited and buy them and I think I would be extremely good at this job.

Erik just left today from visiting, and I think Søren tried to convince him to come to school here... maybe it will happen, who knows, right? and he got to meet the people I have met and see the school again which was hopefully fun.

JON GARREY! I heard from Erik that I got a postcard from you THANK YOU!!!! But I haven't seen it yet, Erik needs to send it to me, but I'll just say that please you are welcome to visit anytime, you can sleep on my floor or probably get your own room and eat with us all for free! So do it! Weekends are completely free so we could go iceskating or watch movies or have a party but weekdays are free after 4pm and basically all I do all day is listen to music and play with fabric so you're welcome there too. Just let me know before hand so I don't run away to Stockholm on a whim at that particular time.

Speaking of which. Stockholm, I miss you lots and lots and I am going to come visit as soon as possible. We will have många många fikas!!!! and dance about and drink öl!

Grandma - thank you for sending a letter, I'm looking forward to it and I will send you one back!

Anna Smith - thank you for facebook stalking me and calling me a pretty lady!

Anna Cassel - I miss you! Come visit! I need to send you some music which I will do soon.

Tim - thanks for dropping a line and basically its really nice to be remembered.

Randy - damn you and your moving! but its ok because we'll hang out this summer.

Meemo, Jim, Mom and Dad - thanks for all of your picture captions. Erik thought "your base are belong to us" should win, but I haven't really picked a winner because they all made me laugh and that was really the whole point :)

Seth - hello! ha ha I know you read this now I can mind control you with hidden messages!!!

J.A. - hejsan! Har du glömpt mig nu? Jag hoppas inte! Jag behöver din hjälp att kommer ihåg hur man talar Svensk! Dansk är svart att lära.

Here are some more random pictures from the last two months or so:
Jonas in his new shirt for Christmas!
New Year's Eve in Hamburg
Downtown Hamburg in winter
Marzipan sculpture in Herr Max, the awesome cake shop by Erik's apartment.
Singer songwriter with tiny guitar who was playing at Haus 73, a "cultural house" in Hamburg with a coffeeshop/bar that was fun to hang out in.
Um... and for my staged photography class I had to dress up like a big baby
Unfortunately, that's about the extent of my pictures right now. But visit the school's website and look up "Billeder" for a few more pictures from the school.

Yes, so look forward to more news, on the classes, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, useful phrases in Danish, what's for dinner, how many cups of coffee I can drink in one day without feeling gross, and what its like to be here.

Lars Winnerbäck, don't make me cry! OR Jag längta efter Sverige

I am having a unexpected wave of nostalgia for/ längtar efter Sverige. Which is not to say that I don't like Denmark or don't feel already like I belong here because I feel very warmly towards all things Danish and I always have. I actually don't know what it is. I felt like a stranger in Sweden for a lot of the time, and it wasn't until we read "The Emmigrants" by Wilhelm Moberg that I felt significance in my family connection - reading that book about people just like my relatives (Moberg spent a lot of time researching and interviewing emmigrants in America and their diaries of the trip) was like some kind of solidifying agent that made it possible either A) for me to feel overly emotional or B) like my connection to the Swedish-American identity we practiced at home was real and something that really belonged to me.

Today we had a "song night" after dinner where the two music teachers at the school introduced the hojskole song book, talked about its history, its use historically in framing the hojskole movement as it evolved, and its continued use today in many settings as a way to frame meetings, become focused and so on. We also talked about our purpose in singing from it every day at morning assembly and in the afternoon and usually at night too. Its about togetherness, and remembering the past melodies and the past history through these songs, and also to help us non Danish speakers with inflection. There have been many editions of this book, but the effort to compile old Danish folk melodies was started quite late (I guess?) and so many were lost or almost lost, BUT luckily, said the teachers, in Sweden there is a strong long tradition of keeping and recording and singing folk melodies, at schnapps drinking parties probably ;) and so there are Swedish and Norweigan and some German songs in our books too.

Today we sang one such song, which I can't recall the name of right now, except that I was written in the cold war era and the first line was something like "If you have a song to sing, sing it now" (implication being "there might not be a tomorrow") - it was kind of sweet and sad. I actually understood most of what I was singing, and singing in Swedish while the Danes stumbled on the pronunciation of a couple words, like göra with a "g" sound instead of a "y" sound, I was very excited to be seeing Swedish again and understanding it and well, its not even like I have great pronunciation in Swedish either, but for some reason I was feeling really emotional about it.

And then I came home and listened to Lars Winnerbäck, and the song "Innan Mörkret Faller" especially was making me miss Sweden - again, who knows why! I suppose because of all the Swedes I met that were great, and who accepted me as one of their own, even though I'm about as Swedish as blond hair (It's not like people AREN'T blond in Sweden, its just not unique, you know).

Youtube the song, maybe it will make you längta efter Sverige as well!

OMG I'm EXHAUSTED

TODAY was my first real day at the Vraa hojskole (folk high school) and despite drinking maybe five cups of coffee I am completely totally worn out. I will try to explain. First, I got up at 8:20 this morning, about four hours earlier than I have been getting up for the past, um... three or four weeks? Then I had breakfast with Soren and Pia (for those of ya'lls who ain't in the know: Soren= my dad's friend, teacher at the school, married to... Pia= headmistress of the school, both of them played a big part in convincing me to come here) so right - breakfast. Also at breakfast were two former students spending the holidays with Soren and Pia, one named Tina and one who I spent a lot of time with named Sofia from Hungary. I like Sofia a lot - she is learning to play the tin whistle and just got back from visiting her boyfriend in Iceland (some Islander she met at the hojskole) with a really nice Icelandic sweater, and we watched The Notebook and Enchanted together. Oh yeah, and then we shoveled some snow. Most of the students were arriving today and to pick the one guy who flew in to Alborg today up from the airport, the school borrowed a limo from a wealthy benefactor, which apparently has a low bottom, so we were 1) shoveling snow off the roof of the art building 2) attacking a lump of ice in the main entry gate so that the limo count make it in. After this I rode the limo to the airport and met/got to talk to some five of the other students returning from last semester. When more people started arriving, we had what I will call a fika, (coffee and cookies) in the "living room" in the main building of the school. This is when I drank all the coffee that is now making my mouth dry and legs twitch... and met more students. Considering the most socializing I have done in weeks consisted of one or two people that I already knew or wandering around in an unfamiliar neighborhood in Germany asking where I could buy hair dye, this was eventually quite exhausting. So luckily, Sofia wanted to watch a movie, so I went back to Soren and Pia's house with her and began to knit a hat - BECAUSE ITS REALLY REALLY COLD and I can't believe I forgot to bring a hat to Europe. At six it was dinner time, and we arrived in the dinning hall to see the most delicious looking, lets say "feast", laid out in the middle on a table. There was roast pork, baked potatoes with herbs, and then probably twenty or some bowls of things to make salad with - olives, bean sprouts, corn, nuts and seeds, tomatoes, greens DELICIOUS. And there was desert too, some kind of berries with whipped cream on top. Then we had the whole evening of 1) everyone meeting in the living room and introductions of teachers 2) singing songs out of the special folk high school song book (looks like a hymnal) we sang "It's a Wonderful World" and then a Danish song, and then that song that goes "winter spring summer or fall, all ya gotta do is call, and I'll be there yes I will... you've got a friend" 3) introduction to the five or six different main subject lines 4) and probably most importantly, a BIG DANCE to some CRAZY SCANDINAVIAN FOLK MUSIC! They were calling it the "porn polka" because you line up in two lines, and then run out and link arms with your partner and spin and then, well its hard to explain, but you spin once with everyone else in succession and between each one you swing back with your partner, so its a bit like an infidelity dance - that's what they told us at least. But it was really really good fun. Apparently Soren has been telling the other students about me, that I was coming and, unfortunately, that I was really crazy/fun/interesting. This means that people already have a positive opinion of me (Yay!) but it also means I have something to live up to. And I'm the sort of person that takes a bit to warm up to people and really be myself - so I hope they can wait for the crazy. Now I'm in bed - its been a wonderful day, there is wireless internets at the school so I checked my email/facebook for the first time since I've been here, I have a nice dorm, and a nice roommate incidentally with an AMAZING singing voice - her name is Line (pronounced "Lean-eh") Tomorrow morning I get up at 7 (!!!!!!!) so now I must must must go to bed. But wow this will most likely be a great semester.

IKEA: Stylish and affordible Swedish design, OR time-sucking hell-hole?

So, Erik and I went to IKEA today to pick out a wardrobe, rug, bathroom light, and additional chair so that when there are three people in his apartment, Erik doesn't have to sit on the trashcan.
As much as I love IKEA, four to five hours of even a potentially good thing (they have a cafeteria! and all of the furniture have cute little names!) becomes not such a good thing. I was excited to see these familiarly Swedish items: princess cake (green marzipan covered cake with jam? and cream DELICIOUS), köttbullar (meatballs a la Sweden), and kanelbullar (cinnamon rolls but these didn't have very much cardamom). I tried to take a picture of the princess cake - partly because I have so many good memories of eating it with Matthew Chance at Sture Katten - but then the cafeteria lady yelled at me in German, because apparently you aren't allowed to take pictures of the food. I was downcast, and I don't understand, because when I think of places where you aren't allowed to take pictures its places like meat packing plants or Walmart where they have some evil violation of health codes or human rights lurking around the corner, but IKEA, what do they have to hide? Anyway, so we had a fika (refills are FREE on coffee) and then spent a very long time looking at wardrobes. For part of this time I occupied myself with filling my virtual house with as many virtual chairs as possible, and then taking a picture of it BECAUSE HOW WILL THEY STOP ME! mwaa ha ha ha ha ha....
Finally we left IKEA having bought a wardrobe and a chair but no light and no rug... Also, Erik bought me a mouse because I liked it, and it was only 99 cents, and I had a hard day and he understands me and my needs. My needs for mice. So there we are, that was pretty much today. Ha! and wouldn't YOU like to know if I'm talking about a real mouse or not!

(... but if you're smart you probably know what kind of mice they sell at IKEA....... and I bet you're smart)















Here's the lady getting ready to yell at me...














....And chairs.

Learning Danish!

I wondered how much I have learned in Sweden that will help me in Denmark language-wise, especially because all the Swedes I talked to said these (mean?) things about the Danish language: 1) that it was like Swedish but with porridge in your mouth, 2) that Danes can understand Swedish but if I learn Danish my Swedes (and yes I mean to make that possessive- I met them, their mine now) won't understand me, 3) and also they told me that I will think I know what word to use and then all of a sudden it will be a completely different word or mean something different - till example: in Swedish "frukost" means breakfast, but in Danish it means lunch HOW CRAZY IS THAT? Not actually sooo crazy but okay.

But here's what I've got so far:

New things:

"riot" på Svensk is "upplopp", but in Danish it's uh, something else, sorry I forgot.
"konstig" in Swedish means "weird", but in Danish "weird" is "underlig"
"maybe" in Swedish is "kanske", but in Danish it's "måske"

Old things:

I'm REALLY GLAD that "duktig" exists in both languages, although I think it's spelled differently, because it just means you've done a good job at something.
Of course "tack" is the same, although it's spelled "tak" in Denmark.
And it appears that if you change "t" to "d" in many words, they are the same, like "food" in Swedish was "mat" but in Danish it's "mad" - I swear I'm not overgeneralizing here, but I will have to add more examples later when I can think of them.

And sadly, things I have to leave behind:

Fika, does not exist in Danish.
Bra! or Jätte bra! do not exist in Danish as nice general expressions for "good".
And I haven't seen that many Kanelbullar or Lussekatter, my delicious friends.

But after a couple weeks of what I will call "down time" (more accurately: Sweden withdrawal pains, sleeping, Christmas! and culture shock in Germany) between last semester and this one, I'm ready to go at this learning a new language thing again, this time with full intention, not just sincere hopes that I will learn to speak it.

blink, and you'll miss it

Hello. Please post a caption for this picture. The writer of the best caption will win something silly sometime in the future.