it all started when i arrived at the chinatown bus stop. i was sitting in the waiting room which smelled like urine, waiting for amanda, when i saw this petite girl walk by. her face was very familiar, her black pony tail bounced in a familiar way and i remembered seeing eyes like hers before but i couldn't place her. as im staring at her, she starts staring back at me. we recognized that we both thought we new each other and thus must know each other and ran towards each other in confusion. while i was running it hit me. she was my first cities class t.a., misa. we caught up-- she is working with pose, a bridge group for colleges. it was so nice to see her and tell her about old professors and hear about life after a cities degree (she had worked as a paralegal for a while at an international law firm but hated it). she caught the one o'clock bus and i waited for the one thirty.

when we got to new york the f wasn't running downtown so we had to go way uptown to get the q and take it back downtown. we arrived at faccia's close to five. she opened the door in her smock because that afternoon she had decided to paint her wall with clay. when we got in the apartment the living room furniture was pushed in the center of the room and the walls were three different colors of clay. not, each wall was a different color. every wall was all three colors. we were hungry so we heated up a cabbage casarole she was inspired to make after eating sheapards pie at a friends, but she didn't have meat so she recreated it with vegetables and seeds. she finished her project and we went to the MoMA.

the exibition was beautifuly and interestingly displayed. we arrived at the front of the building where there was a single video projected. as we walked around the side of the building we passed a gyro/shwarma cart that smelled amazing and made a note of it. on the side of the building two of the videos were being screened at the same time and the simultaniousness of the stories became clear. we watched the entire video cat power was in and it actually made us dislike the videos themselves because it became clear that these were not normal people. they were beautiful people doing normal things. so this was not the city being projected as a reflection of itself. it had a sort of modeling agenda. but anyway...

we went to the sculpture garden where four screens were projected. the sculpture garden was amazing because there was this weird stuff on the ground that children discovered made an "out of this world" sort of sound if you ran and scuffed your feet simultaniously. it was entertaining to watch these little beings get such a kick out of themselves while making such a comical noise. after watching them for a while, amanda and i realized that nothing was stopping us from doing it except age and expectation so we started and it was as good as it looked. elaine and some very strange (stranger than elaine even!) woman showed up and brought faccia dark chocolate pudding and key lime pie. amanda and i tried it but said, "no, thanks, we are getting gyros!" and we did. on our way out of the sculpture garden we saw a woman yelling at (presumably) her child for the noise-making so we scuff/ran our way out of the garden to the gyro stand.

amanda and i split a gigantic plate of meat, rice, lettuce, tzatziki and pita for 2.50 each (so much cheaper than copenhagen so i had to put the price in). it was un-fucking-believable. we had lost faccia so she called and we met up. elaine needed the bathroom so we went to the hilton and watched all of the guests come and go. i have never seen so many high heels in my life. it was a beautiful, almost hollywood, sight. needless to say we did not fit in.

once we were warm and everyone had used the bathroom we took the a train to brooklyn, switched to the f and got off at high street to go to the women's party. the party was for the closing of an arts collective faccia is friends with. they are being evicted and wanted to throw one last party. when we got there there were at least 100 women there. i'm going to go out on a limb and say they were all gay as well. the activity for the night was turkish oil wrestling. we were crammed into a tiny room to watch the show and all i could see was random limbs covered in oil shooing into the air and then back down again. it was hel-ar-ious. after a couple hours of not being able to breath, amanda and i pushed our way out to the bigger room and saw faccia. after some introductions we left. when we got outside there was a line around the block. it was unbelievable.

i met my friend claire (a bryn mawr alumn) at dizzy's for brunch and we caught up. another cities major and another look into life after college (she is working at a paper store). after brunch we were really full so the three of us met up with faccia and elaine to take faccia's friend lou's dog, abbey, for a walk in prospect park. she was beautiful and i ran with her until we were out of energy (well actually she could have kept going but i was pooped). we brough her back to lou and he told us updates on the killer coke campaign (he started it), fed us his birthday cake and he reminded me of the guy in "on beauty" but i kind of think all academics will have that effect on me now. his wife was just in bolivia and i really wanted to meet her but, alas, she was not there.

after the dog walking, we headed back to faccia's, grabbed our stuff and went home.


amazing weekend.

i made it out of copenhagen alive. i am in lyon. it is fucking crazy. i can't really express myself right now. i am quite pleased.

there have been lots of explosions around my building lately and i've just casually assumed they were fireworks. but i was waiting for the night bus all fucked up with my friends and a bomb exploded in the "skat" building next to us. a man ran away from the scene and smoke started pouring out and we were like, "fuck!" but we didn't know what to do so we just got on the next bus. i just got back home and i saw rioting and bon fires in the street but all seems safe. too bad that building is right next to my fucking dorm. pray for me?

ps this really annoying girl kept hitting on me tonight and i had to be like, "if you touch me one more time im going to punch you in the face" but i didnt and i just kept running away from her/accepting her free drinks. asshole?

Tuesday. December 6-7.

I have been wearing the same clothes for two days.

The DIS program leaves Wednesdays free. They usually fill the Wednesday with a study tour of some sort, for instance, I have been to a two different mosques, one in Denmark, one in Malmo, Sweden on Wednesdays. Luckily, my program doesn't really do much on Wednesdays (although for a while Carsten was filling them up with bike tours and shit). This Wednesday I decided to be very productive and went to an extra Danish class where I learned a very important word that will make it soooo easy to make subordinate clauses and then, even thought it was gross and wet out, I went to the Kunst Museum. Or, the Art Museum. I have started using Kunst as an insult. It may or may not catch on. Anyway, some of the exhibits were good; I saw a famous portrait of Martin Luther and this really neat illusionary art from the 18th century. Other exhibits sucked, such as the Napoleon art, and the photography exhibit. I had to wait for the bus in the pouring rain so I was pretty miserable when I got home. I put my laundry in and got an email from J asking if I wanted to get together to do some reading and finish our project. I felt like baking since it was grey out and reading and baking go well together. I stopped at the store and picked up chocolate. Three different kinds. When I got there, J had made this delicious peanut butter stir fry for Katie and I but I had already eaten so I only had...like ten bights... Anyway, we went to the kiosk to get milk and butter for our cookies. Something about the flour in Denmark makes it impossible to make good tasting cookies so we added honey to them and they were fabulous. We also made some more special than the rest. The night got a little crazy and J couldn't respond to anything without laughing for twenty minutes. Some how Katie got straight enough to ride her bike back to Amar and J and I fell asleep to Donnie Darko. We awoke at nine, decided to skip class, and reawoke at 12:30. I had class at 1:50, so I got out of bed around 1 and we hopped on a bus. We were both still kind of fucked up from the night before and the class I was going to was an hour and twenty minutes of Yiddish folk music by a guest lecturer (a Polish Jew with holocaust survivor parents). Her stories were really good but they made up about 10% of the class while the rest was non comprehensible singing. And her voice was SO loud. Talking or singing I wanted to stop her and be like, woah, chill out. It was really pretty at first but that stuff can wear you down.

After class I sat in the periodical room reading the New Yorker. There was a really good article on Arlen Spector-- just a heads up. Then I went to the MME concluding dinner. There was free wine, as usual, and everyone got tipsy. We toasted each other and hugged and watched a slide show in which there were about 20 pictures of Bhaskar and I together. I began to notice that we have striking resemblances. Shit. I'll get those pictures and show you what I mean. I told everyone I would buy drinks at the Elephant and the Mouse after the party and we headed over there. It was really nice have one last experience all together because our program is really spread out. We are lucky to have such a nice small group. Once everyone had finished their Christmas beers, J, Hale and I went to this laundromat cafe in Osterbro. We did some reading but, honestly, I think I had too much to drink and I was a bit sick. I went to smoke a cig with Hale and our waiter grabbed me on the waste and went "OH! You smoke!" He sat down with us and we found out he was from Iceland and he owned the place. We told him what we were studying and he told us the world needs more people like us. Yeah. I know. So he was a sweetheart.

I just rode three different busses home and it is so nice to be in my room. Here are some pictures:

Limbo Time

That is the best way to describe the time between one class and another. There isn't enough time to do anything but read articles for class, return library books or eat lunch. I guess there is a lot one "could" do in that time but because it is only an hour or two it is easier to say that the time is useless and spend it doing nothing. the fact that the most comfortable place to hang out in dis is the periodical room or the computer lab makes that limbo time usually time spent on the computer. like now. i would go to the periodical room but the new yorker is old and ive already read it.

so here i am. on the computer. i woke up and considered not going to class but i knew we had a city planner coming in as a guest speaker so i got my act together and left. he was a great speaker and im glad i went. but i got my period and wanted to die. i was looking for pain killers when my friend nicki walked by. she is one of those girls whom, though she is the same age and has the same amount of life experience as you, could actually be your mother. and she had some. actually, she had a plethora for specific pains so i got exactly what i needed. but it was kind of late to be taking it so the next hour i was in extreme pain. but probably not as painful as lucy's pain. sorry about that boo.

i had a fantastic weekend. friday night i ran the bastions with haley. we went at five so it was pitch dark. it looked like the bastions were closed but we went anyway. bastions are earthen fortifications that are shaped like spades. they were constructed to give full offensive range as well as take the impact of cannon fire. copenhagen kept theirs and made some of them into parks and, actually, the theme park "tivoli" was built on a bastion. but the ones we were running on were in a circle because they were protecting the original fort. now military personel live there. so we were running it in the dark, there was no one there, the moat was glistening in the moonlight, the windmill was glowing, the bells on the church were going off--it was unbelievably beautiful. at the completion of my first lap there stood a man in military fatigues. i ran back to haley so i wouldn't have to have this awkward interaction on my own. he told us the bastions were closed and we had to leave. so we left. and then we ran around the outside of the bastions. but the trail stopped half way around so i suggested we run through the fort. which we did. and when another man in fatigues started towards me i turned my ipod up and sprinted.

after our run we went to my place and ate delicious spinach and garlic mashed potatoes. the we hung out with froter the norweigen, peter, and dan at brendan's flat. we had fun for a while, then dan creeped everyone out so i left and went to bed.

the next day i spent with jaimie working on a project for carsten's class. we walked from rådhuspladsen to vesterbrotorv and decided to get lunch before starting the project. we got this spicey "pizza" to which i unknowingly added that sun dried tomato chili pepper sauce. i was on fire. but it calmed down and i ate the rest with lemon juice. why am i writing about this? anyway, we took over fifty pictures of vesterbro and were lucky enough to catch a man shooting up under the church steps.

we decided to go do our write up at jaimie's flat. she was riding her bike so, when it started pouring rain, i was miserable and alone at the bus stop. the bus was packed and a woman in a gigantic fur coat kept leaning on my face. now this was not only gross fur, but this was WET gross fur, in my face. i wanted to die. i kept knocking her leg with my breifcase but she wouldn't move! ugh. i arrived at j's traumatized. she made me coffee and talked me down. then we typed typed typed and finished the majority of our write up before abbey came over. then all work ceased and we had very intense intellectual conversations comparing smith to bryn mawr to col college. it was nice. later, abbey made us chestnuts but i ate one that tasted like clams so my chestnut eating experience was cut short. j must have thought we didn't get enough to eat so she made banana bread to complete the night. i walked home in fear that someone would rob me of my computer but i made it home safe.

i wanted to go to this photo exibit that has been travelling the world (a bunch of award winning photos) so i called up jack to see if she wanted to go. we took this crazy train route into the city, but im glad we did or we would have missed the most exciting thing i have ever scene in a danish subway. we were just standing in nørreport station when this man started shouting up the escalator in danish. people started running and we just stood there unable to understand what was going on. this man emerged from the stairs and started chasing these guys around with a knife. it was crazy. once things settled again this girl told us the man was pissed at another guy for not getting out of his way. right. i should pull a knife every time someone doesn't get out of my way. WHAT? she went on to say that copenhagen is a crazy city where people get shot in coffee shops. i was like, girl, im from america. people get killed on the street just cause. but we acted impressed and caught our train.

the photo exibit was behind kobenhavnH station. on our walk to the warehouse where the photos were displayed we stepped over needles and saw the sketchiest drug deal ever. i was scared to look. but once we got there the photos were so depressing and scary that our earlier experiences didn't seem too bad.

we returned to keops kollegium for a christmas party where they were serving æbleskiver (danish doughnut holes) and gløg (warm red wine, schnapps, and schnapps soaked nuts and raisins). as you can imagine, the combination of wine and carbs lead to a comatose evening. we met a girl at the party who had a bunch of movies on her external hard drive so she sent me some. jack came over and we watched "good night and good luck." it made me proud to be friends with j, a future journalist and world changer. lisa also sent me "rize" but it dled with no sound. damn.

that is all.

I have a lot of pictures for my Thanksgiving post because it was THAT good.

First Thanksgiving, Jaimie Stevenson's party, Guest list: Zak, Katie, DK roommate, DK roommate's friend, Me.

Ten o'clock on Wednesday night I finished writing a 15 page paper on the Diaspora and integration of the Sephardic Jews. The paper wasn't due until Friday so Thursday I was just planning on doing nothing while the rest of my friends struggled through their papers. I had just gotten home around 7 and I had psyched myself up to do readings when I received and email from J saying, "Kylling dinner, be here at 8/9ish. I have bought everything and we will split it 6 ways." Well, I wasn't too into this email. I was thinking, bitch, I just got home... I'm tired, I don't want to throw in on some dinner...blah blah. But I went. And it was AMAZING. Here are pictures:




Her roommate made this almond cake and licorice ice cream (which luckily didn't taste like licorice) that melted in your mouth (the cake specifically; duh the ice cream melted). The conversation was so good, mainly because I told boarding school stories that had them in stitches.

Thanksgiving Two, Drea's Host Family, Guest List: Mar, Far, Bror Tim, Bror Jan, Marmar, Farfar, Allison and Me.

Getting to Drea's took a little bit of effort and a little bit of money but since I love the train system here it was all glorious. Her Mar picked me up when I got to her town. We got along immediately and by the time we got home we were besties. Drea was working on the stuffing when I got there and put me to work washing the turkey. Now I have never washed a turkey before but I have to say it is a lot like washing a baby. Except I haven't done that either. Anyway, mufuckah was heavy. Then we stuffed those two ten pound turkeys and put them in the oven (they wanted to make sure we had enough so they got two). Special props to Drea's parents because finding a turkey in Denmark is like finding pork in Iran.

Drea had told me to get a gift because we were playing some Danish gift giving game. Drea and Allison hadn't gotten their gift yet so we went to the store. It then became apparent that these were supposed to be gag gifts and my pretty bowl with doves on it was inappropriate. Oh well.

We got back and started making all the side dishes like cranberry sauce, string beans and mashed potatoes. I was not needed for all of this so I hung out with Jan who showed me his entire Starwars Lego collection. He got me to speak in Danish and very politely said, "That's was good. I could understand you." Thanks. I got to make comments like, "When I was a kid, we used to make shapes out of Legos. Shapes that we would then call houses or gardens." Jan showed me the two foot model he built in over two years. Tim and I bonded over Rune Quest. I told him the girl I used to baby sit played and maybe they had quested together. He told me he didn't quest. He gardened. What a cutie. They showed me their wrapped gifts which were completely covered with package tape. Definitely not dove bowls. The grandparents arrived with tons more gifts and hugs.

We sat down to dinner and the grandfather entertained us with tales from the sea (he used to be a sailor and has been everywhere). He told me all about Hong Kong and drunken rickshaw excursions. Oh the stories this man told...

After we stuffed ourselves full of apple cake that Tim had made (the time he made it before he had mistook sugar for salt so we were all relieved at its deliciousness) we played the game. 2 dice were passed around it was played in steps:

1. Every time you rolled a six you got to take a present from the table until all the presents were gone.
2. Five minutes were put on a timer. Every time someone rolled a six they got to steal a present from someone else until time runs out.
3 All presents are opened. Another five on the clock. Every time you roll a six you give a present away to someone.

When I opened my presents (which for the most part where the boy's package taped wrapped ones) I had a logic puzzle game, a candle holder base, and a naked woman flower pot with a dead flower "growing" out of it (this was from the grandmother). I got rid of the candle holder and went home with the game and the vase. I hope it makes it back with me.

After dinner we drank coffee and Baileys, talked politics and ate chocolate. Det var hygge. It was cozy. Drea's mom talked to me about how she thought gays should have the right to be married but not adopt. I asked why and she said it was unnatural not to have a father or mother figure. I let her talk and questioned more about the unnatural aspect before telling her that I had two moms and no father figure. It made her think. She didn't apologize, thankfully, but it definitely made her curious about her own opinions. She asked me how I came about and I talked to her about my life and she was pondering it. It was so perfect. Before I left she gave me a big hug and told me I could come back whenever I wanted. I would LOVE to get back their before I leave.

Pictures of our glorious foodstuffs and the kiddies:

I thought it time to post.

I'm so hyped up on caffeine right now that I am recalling junior year of high school when Virginia Fischer gave me "something like a caffeine pill" before my APUS midterm. It turned out to be off-the-market Ephedrin and, boy, I REALLY filled in those bubbles. I was scribbling them in so hard and fast that even I knew I looked crazy. A+.

Let me give a rundown of my trials today. The encounter that keeps coming into my head was the pregnant woman and her significant other making out on top of me on the bus today. Her stomach and his rubbing hand were (and I am using metric here just because it is more accurate) a centimeter away from me. It was also the most crowded bus ride for an extended period of time that I have yet experienced. A woman knitting yelled at a boy for his backpack getting too close to her head and I was going to freak out on her and be like, "look lady, the bus is packed, you are sitting and KNITTING; shut the fuck up," but I was so shocked that she actually said something, which is not Danish at all (very passive people) that I was almost proud of her for voicing her annoyance.

I had Danish class review today because our oral is coming up. Nina, my teacher, is awesome and stayed after with me to listen to my interview. In the grand tradition of language teachers, I don't think she likes me. But I like her so it doesn't matter.

After Danish I ran into Danny in the lounge, jumped up and down on his couch and procrastinated until my study tour.

For study tour we had to meet at Radhuspladsen to go into the Town Hall. I met Jaimie there and we looked at the architecture exhibit for the mayors 5x5 plan which, if you asked me, looks like complete shit. I did like some of the models in which the buildings were built into hillsides so there was lawn on top of the house. But I question how much maintenance that requires. We weren't there to see the exhibition though and soon enough Carsten clapped his waspy hands and we had to fall in line. We went up the brass staircase to the congressional room and sat there for an interesting lecture about the mayor's platform and Copenhagen's local government. It was freezing in the room, the talk lasted two hours, and J fell asleep so when Carsten mentioned the tour that would proceed the talk we made a quick get away plan.

Our plan was foiled thrice before working. First we tried to hang back in the congressional room until everyone left but our tour guide was a security guard and kept giving us fishy looks, waited for us, and then locked the door behind us. Foiled once. Then, we were standing in a group looking at the ugliest mural ever (these mermaids had two fins) we tried to slip down the staircase. With one foot on the first step the tour guide asks me how many people and days I thought it took to shine the brass. I was going to kill him. I told him one person, one day. He laughed as though that was ridiculous and told me 28 people and every day. I think this shows just how inefficient and backwards Denmark can be. In America we would have a machine to do that. The third time was right after the whole shining fiasco. The class had just left with the tour guide when he was done impressing us with this information and all of a sudden this visiting international educator came over and asked me if I take Danish. I tried to be as off putting as possible but he kept asking me about my teacher and what not and I was like, "Yes. Danish. I take it. Nina. No, I don't know Susan." He finally caught on and left. J and I ran, full sprint down that staircase while Jacob and Dusty looked at us with longing faces to which we gave the middle finger and peace out signs.

J had work to do and I was still in Danish mode so I called Brendan. We made dinner (I fucked up precious American mac n cheese Pasta Roni) and I discovered the frozen spinach I bought is not exactly what I thought it was (it is a little creamy). So dinner was a flop but our Danish was fabulous. We hung out in the lounge and then decided to take our conversation to the Street Car Cafe that Bren found over break. We sat their drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while interviewing each other in Danish. The guy gave us free refills because no one else was coming in and he would have just gotten rid of it (not because it is coffee and it should be free). I couldn't refuse and thus I am in this jittery situation.

I got a text from Jack saying she wanted to stay up all night writing her paper so I should come over. She lasted until one. I ate her cornflakes and cucumber, read Vice, and did sit ups. The best part in Vice was the review on Beyonce's B'day. It says something like, "isn't that something women clean their vag with? Why didn't she just call it Douche? I just discovered a picture of Beyonce all tied up with pet alligators on the back of the jacket that almost makes up for the bad music but, alas, I am still daunted." That was definite paraphrasing but you get the gist. Liz Still, if you read this, you should look that review up. There is a really good one on PDiddy too.

Because of that study tour I don't have class tomorrow morning.


I almost forgot to write about Thanksgiving! It is so important that it deserves its own post even though these will be out of order. I could save this one as a draft and then publish it after but honestly, who cares?

The third biggest party in Denmark is the Danish People's Party.

Here is what they have to say:

1. Pia Kjærsgaard, chairman of the Danish People's Party, MP, and arguabley the most powerful woman in Danish politics

"Not in their wildest dreams could thay have imagined [in 1900] that large neighbourhoods in Copenhagen and other big Danish cities, in 2005 would be inhabited by people on a lower level of civilization. With imported primitive and cruel habits, such as honour killings, forced marriages, halal slaughter--blood vengeance. But that is precisely what has happened. Ten thousands and again ten thousands of people who apparently in the matter of civilization, culture and metality remain in 1005-instead of 2005- have come to a country that centuries ago left the Middle Ages."

"It has been mentioned that 9/11 was the occasion of a struggle between the civilizations. I don't agree on that. Because a struggle is between civilizations would be conditional on the existence of two civilizations, and that is nto the case. There is only on civilization and that is ours."

2. Mogens Camre, member of the European Parliament, previously member of Danish Parliament:

"The imams have not come as ordinary preachers, they are the advance gaurd of the expedition of conquest that has the aim of acquiring new land for people who did not have the ability to develop their own."

"Let me say it clearly: Muslims must live in Musim-country- and that is not here." "Muslims, because of their culture, constitute a great problem in all Western countries. Very few of them want integration, as they have come with a culture which they think shall conquer all the world. That is why they take up so much of the public debate- and that is why they are such a heavy strain on public funds."

"The real cause of the great unemployment among the Muslims is that these people hail from a culture which is not at all working as we are, and where there is prestige in doing nothing."

"What we are facing is not just a short military operation. It is about driving this ideology of evil out of the Western civilization Never shall Islam take a place in our countries."

3. Morten Mwesserschmidt, MP:

"A mosque in Århus may appear harmless. Yes, some would say unimportant, while referring to the Jews who also have synagogues. But that would amount to saying that Islam and Judaism are equal. And the world is not like that. Islam is a fanatical ideology that, in line with Communism and Nazism, keeps millions of people in poverty and oppression all over the world. A mosque is a genuflection to this ideology--and precisely what the fundamentalists want. If we wish for the success of integration, and that Denmark will not suffer the same fate as the Muslim countries, we must stop beding over backwards every time the Muslims make their demands. We must stand firm on the culture that Denmark builds upon."

im going to interject here. morten, baby, i think YOU might be the nazi here.

4. Marin Henrikensen, MP:

"Nowadays all Muslims are described in the press as being Danish Muslims, as if Islam has ever been Danish, or for that matter is able to become so. At least that would require a small miracle. We can then wait for that, or we can fight against the Islamization. I prefer the last."

"A mosque would be a safe haven for extreme viewpoints and the imams would be in clover. Now they can really spread their hate propaganda. A mosque will attract fundamentalist Muslims and people who sympathize with terror. Islam is at its core fundamentalist, therefore, such an institution will be a liability on every neighbourhood which should have a mosque."

so, basically, a nazi facist party has reared its head hear in denmark and a huge amount of danes support it. and you thought it was all bikes, blonds, and binge drinking.