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.