New blog!!!

Hi!
I have a new blog now - http://projectsanityinthefaceofacademics.blogspot.com
<3 Brita

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!