Days in Denmark

[lailadk]

catch up time. have been away for 2.5 weeks and have not yet blogged about christmas!

happily, xmas was a very danish affair - there were just 7 of us left here at signalhuset in our xmas jumpers, feasting on the 24th as per dansk tradition, eating far too much ris à l’amande (almond rice...

[daysindenmark]

Laila & her blogging skillz <3

[daysindenmark]

J & I & other Vikings looking cold before going for a quick swim in the harbour in -2 degrees. Thank goodness for the sauna

[daysindenmark]

Once upon a time Mikkel Borg Bjergsø worked as a math and physics teacher at a Copenhagen high school. After school he taught two enthusiastic students to brew beer in the school kitchen. The brewing quickly became more than just a hobby for the two students, who started their own brewery, To Øl, in 2010. In March 2013 the two former students and their teacher joined forces and opened up the second Mikkeller bar in Copenhagen, Mikkeller & Friends

http://mikkeller.dk/

the Danes, in a nutshell.

[daysindenmark]

skintinscandinavia

check out these battlers for a laugh

[daysindenmark]

Get your cure for cancer here!

Behind this building, you will find blood samples from the entire population of Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Denmark's whole population is part of a single study cohort - an epidemiologist's gold mine. Tak for hjælpen, Danes; I don't know how I'd feel about having all my information, and my blood, at the fingertips of your average Danish researcher in a handy little CPR-numbered bundle, but I feel like good things will ultimately come of it.

[daysindenmark]

Berlin. go to Laila's blog for the real story

[daysindenmark]

[daysindenmark]

Private Italian Lessons

My Italian conversation 'class' on a Monday has gradually shrunk, morphing into me chatting to two lovely Italian people (my teacher & a student teacher) and, every so often, another mature-age Dane or two. (Attendance is optional for everyone except me.)

Usually the class starts with teacher no. 1 pulling out a bunch of worksheets and asking what we'd like to discuss today, but then in the decision making process our conversation digresses and then two hours have passed and the class is over.

Conversation topics covered:

Life in Albania

The chances of a good life as an immigrant in Italy

Immigrant literature - Pap Khouma & El Ghibli

The great apple variety in Danimarca

Sweden's immigration laws regarding young married couples and Syrian refugees

The ridiculous lack of light in Danish houses (lucky we talked about this - the student teacher had been convinced that the previous tenant of her flat had simply taken all the lighting with them when they moved out)

Appropriateness of a casual aperativo for the landlord

The special meditative atmosphere in Toscana (turns out mature aged student no. 1 is a meditation instructor who is taking the class so that she can move to Firenze to open a meditation centre in this spiritually-charged, Renaissance-laden atmosphere)

Whether your personality changes when you speak another language

Italians expressing exasperation at the lack of speech-related gesticulation/ conversation feedback when conversing with Danes

That in Denmark, if someone actively avoids eye contact, they don't want to speak to you (so lucky someone decoded this cryptic social norm for us)

Dirt-floored bars in Berlin that are only really popular in the summertime

There's one class left, so this is to be continued

[lailadk]

berlin

hallo, kebab, cheap coffee, lost, pretzel, hostel frenchies, phoenix live, €0.88 breakfast, weird yoghurt, ein splitterbrötchen, hipsters, u-bahn, turkish market, canal, dodgy park, ramen, €3 wine + cake, deutsches historisches, radiator huddling, currywurst, nap, questionable monuments, wine bar #2, milka, aaah cold, battler tourists, mystery meat broth, danke schön, club mate, vague queasiness, east side, decaf, auf wiedersehen !

[daysindenmark]

Check out the suspicious Turkish man in the photo featuring the range of grains

[daysindenmark]

this is why copenhagen is cool

[daysindenmark]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/29/9-questions-about-syria-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/

handy but incredibly depressing

[daysindenmark]

A teary Nova Peris has become the first Indigenous woman in Federal Parliament. Wow. Where do I begin? she said.

[daysindenmark]

Breakfast chats

Today I heard a Korean creation story

[daysindenmark]

The pomp with which we were welcomed into KU in the Matriculation ceremony was luckily tempered by the rector's speech focusing on lego. And, also, by this song which was sung from the lofty heights of the ancient university hall, by a pretty amazing all male choir, which sounds rather officious but is apparently not so; 'The lyrics reflect an endorsement of the bacchanalian mayhem of student life while simultaneously retaining the grim knowledge that one day we will all die.' (Thanks wikipedia) I think it's rather fitting that KU welcomed us with a tongue-in-cheek ancient drinking song.

[daysindenmark]

a film we went to by chance the other day, because it was raining, at the film institute make of it what you will/won't

[daysindenmark]

a film about kunsterne in Africa that we stumbled into in the Images festival on dronning louises bro on sunday. Such a cosmopolitan setup was right at home on the hipster bridge - from a Moroccan samosa cafe we wandered into a gallery of photos taken in rural Nepal, into a book stand with a question-and-answer session about the turmoil in Egypt going on between three presumably Egyptian people and the small crowd, and a few middle-eastern-Danish lads chilling out in the volunteers' tent on their break; all with a spectacular view across the lakes and Copenhagen.

[daysindenmark]

The time has come to buy rain pants

Laila and I got pretty drenched riding into the city today. Danes were wandering the streets unperturbed by wet front of their jeans. luckily a tirsday snegl makes everything better!