Alex's Alliterative Adventures

I can’t keep it from the world any longer. I’m just so completely smitten.  We go everywhere together, we’re practically joined at the hip.  I think this could be the start of a very beautiful relationship.

You may hear reports from bystanders that a strange man was running home, hugging a package that may or may not have contained a palm treo 650.  Those reports may not be based entirely in falsehood.

My palm apparently thinks I have jaundice.  Well, I think she’s fat. No, wait baby, I didn’t mean it, I was just trying to look cool in front of the guys.

6 bonus points to anyone who gets the band reference

The photos are a bit small, but they’re of me suspended above the ground, so they do the trick. And holy crap, climbing shoes are small.

I had to pay the second installment of my rent today.  I realized that my rent is around $200 cheaper for the entire term than my friend’s rent.  My friend lives 3-5 times closer to campus than I do, and his internet connection is 200 times faster than mine. And just to add fuel to the fire of jealousy, he’s trying to move here.  I mean, he’s a good guy, but I wouldn’t trust his decision making skills.

So I wandered down to Ye Olde Banke to pay my big ol’ bill, and lucky for me, I had just enough money between my chequing account and my wallet to cover the bill, with just under $2 CAD remaining. I gave the bank teller the invoice and started counting out an uncomfortably large number of bills, but I was interrupted by her quoting me an amount that was 50kr ($8 CAD) more than what the bill had said.  I blinked as she explained that there was a 50kr charge for paying a bill.  Sweden gets a lot of things right, but whoever thought up the fee-payment-fee needs a good ol’ fashioned face stabbing.

I didn’t realize my rant was so long.  Oh well.  In other news, Aarhus photos are up.

I’m going on a trip to Stockholm in a month with my floor, which should be cool.  The school is also organizing some trips to Russia in November.  I’m going to be so damn poor.

Oh yeah, and Jamie is good at this blogging thing.

The pirate party was, in short, awesome. A scavenged wheelchair was turned into a mighty vessel that mastered the seas. One of my Canadian floormates is officially my new favourite drunk viking. I suppose I should really let you guys decide for yourself, though.  Here’s an excerpt from the new album:

If that’s not quality internet content, well then dang nabbit I just don’t know what is.

I don’t have any pictures from Aarhus yet, but there weren’t that many anyways, so for now I’ll just weave my tale of adventure and lederhosen. The morning after the pirate party, Dalia and I hopped aboard a series of trains bound for the second largest city in Denmark: Ã…rhus, or Aarhus to the rest of the world that uses real letters. Sunday was the last day of a 10 day annual festival in Aarhus, so we planned on showing up on Saturday afternoon and seeing where the wind took us.  We arrived a couple of hours before the main music stages opened up, so we wandered around the city to see the sights it had to offer. The church in the centre of town, Ã…rhus Domkirke, was quite beautiful. It contains the largest organ in Denmark, as well as being the tallest church at 96 vertical meters. Pictures of that one will be available when they actually exist.

After touring the church, we wandered outside to hear a danish children’s choir singing to a captivated audience. I was amazed by how good they sounded.  I guess Richard was right, there’s really no reason why children can’t learn to be amazing singers. From there, we followed our ears to the sound of traditional Danish music.  A band dressed in traditional garb (read: lederhosen) had the stage, and their tubas, flugel horns, and clarinets pumped out the oom-pah-pahs like it would be outlawed when their set ended in only one precious hour.  We grabbed a drink and sat down and found that the crowd was just as entertaining as the band. A group of twenty-somethings were making the best possible use of the festival by displaying their Danish pride and singing along with the band and its yodeler. When they saw Dalia snapping pictures and capturing their patriotic swaying on video, they immediately cleared a few seats and gestured to us to join them. With in minutes, we were sharing a pitcher with what seemed like old friends; linking arms, swinging side to side, and yelling along to a tune you can almost hear was really the only appropriate course of action at the time. The Danes told us that the band was, in fact, German. Oops.

After the band’s conductor finished chugging what may have been her fourth beer on stage, the band’s set ran to a close. Our newfound Danish friends were parting ways, but a particularly friendly fellow by the name of Rasmus took us on a tour of the city. The 23 year old was born in Sweden, but he moved to Denmark at the age of 13, so he really helped us to appreciate the subtle differences between the two cultures.  By that of course I mean that he laughed at us when we chose not to grab another beer at one of the beer stands on the street. By the end of the night, he had introduced us to over a dozen Danes, pointed us in the direction of a proper Danish dinner, bought us drinks at at least 5 different establishments, and was generally a classy fellow. We drank and swapped tales with his friends until 4am, at which point we headed to a local bar to dance to Danish favourites until 5:30 or so.

I never stopped feeling welcomed by Rasmus, his friends, or the Danish people.  I spoke with the two Danish girls who insisted I dance with them about how different Europe and Canada are, and yet how similar they can be. I’m reasonably certain that I had at least two conversations with people that didn’t speak a word of English. I didn’t wear my new cowboy hat on the 7am train ride home, but that’s just because the sheriff’s star would’ve caught on too many things when we tried to find unclaimed seats for the 3rd or 4th time. (Seriously Denmark, get your act together.  Sell reserved seating tickets, or sell general tickets.  Don’t sell both on the same train, especially when we want to sleep.) I stumbled home just before 1pm feeling exhausted, broken, and completely satisfied with how I had just spent what may have been the best 24 consecutive hours of my life.

When I asked one of the Danes I drunk the night away with what I should bring back home to best represent Aarhus, he thought for a few minutes and translated a Danish saying for me: “Take what you can, and leave with a smile”. He said it exemplifies the Danish people and their openness, generosity, and trusting nature. The warmth and happiness I felt while getting to know these strangers can’t quite be summed up by that phrase or any other, but it’ll have to do. I’ll leave you with a random phrase you can use to make people think you speak Danish: “Jeg elsker Djursland”. When people think that you love Djursland, the nose of the face that is the shore of Denmark, then you’ll have a pretty hard time convincing them that you’re not actually made of Danishes.

Unfortunately, the choir recordings were unusable, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say that they were really good.

We toured Copenhagen properly yesterday, it was a lot of fun.  After the changing of the guard, we saw a lot of statues and monuments, including two of the most famous, the Gefion Fountain and the Little Mermaid.

According to legend, a women named Gefion was to be given a reward from the king: she could have as much land as she could plow in one day and night with four oxen. She turned her four giant-begotten sons into oxen and plowed like it was going out of style.  The oxen were so plow-y that their plowing loosened the land and sent it into the sea, making the Danish island of Zealand.  Crazy ol’ Danes. The Little Mermaid was a gift from a Carl Jacobsen (of the Carlsburg Breweries) to the city of Copenhagen. He had it commissioned after he saw a performance of the ballet of the Little Mermaid.  I decided to defile the Danish landmark with my Canadian patriotism:

We then saw a Danish military wedding, climbed the Round Tower, which is a large observatory in central Copenhagen, and then we decided to find food.  We ended up in Freetown Christiania, which is a partially self-governing neighbourhood in Copenhagen. This place was the craziest shit I’d ever seen.  It was like walking into a mixture of one of Picasso’s paintings and a heroin overdose. The only phrase I can think of that even begins to describe this place is a post-apocalyptic drug trip.  The ground was littered in beer bottles, stray dogs weaved in and out of tourists’ legs as they were trying to eat, and a man ate a burger out of a garbage can in front of us.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the neighbourhood itself, so we couldn’t properly capture the sousaphone player belting out his bass line to the beat of the marching drummers while the rest of the wind players in white robes played along. (Iulia, I think you’d really like this place) The community functions on consensus, so the residents that want the communities public hash trade to disappear have met a lot of resistance.

There were lots of people taking lots of pictures, so hopefully I’ll connive some of them to hook me up with photos that don’t suck.  The photos I did take are available in a new album.  Check out the clock, it’s great. I won’t spam them all here, but I will leave you with the first photo I’ve taken here that I’m particularly proud of:

There’s only one way to overcome your fears.

It’s even mildly delicious. While the water was boiling and the sauce was warming, I was being struck by creative bursts from all sides.  Chunks of sausage!  Minced onions and peppers!  Wait… that’s it! Meat and vegetables! It’s all so simple.  So terrifyingly, beautifully simple.

And kev, in answer to your question, yes, I do have a window.

This would be why I’ve been neglecting you guys.  Also because I hate you and I want all of you to die.

<3

note: There are also shots of my prison and/or room up in the gallery.  Go nuts.

ps. Yes, I got a camera phone.  Don’t feel bad for the old camera, it’s just a camera, it has no feelings.  Besides, the new one is much better.

I spent Friday evening at the Malmo festival, or Malmöfestivalen, which was a lot of fun. I purchased what might be the most delicious concoction I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating:

That would be battered pineapple and ice cream, in the same dish. The Swedes are a truly noble people. The serrated fork caught me by surprise, but it worked much better than the Knork.

The Malmo Festival is Malmo’s annual music festival. One of the big attractions was a giant sing along on the main stage. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were standing around eating, drinking, and singing such classics as My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean, and what may have been Baa Baa Black Sheep. I decided to pass on the singing, since the Swedish lyrics escape me.

We ended the evening with ridiculously expensive, watery beer at the rock and roll stage. A Swedish pop/rock group, Joddla Med Siv, had the crowd worked up into an energetic frenzy. Energetic frenzies work differently in Sweden, though. Everyone was clapping along to the music and giving each other plenty of space. There was no moshing, no crowd surfing, and no continuous threat of being crushed to death. I… I didn’t know what to do.

I do, however, need to buy a better camera.

After heading home and getting 4 hours of sleep, I jumped on a bus with a bunch of other exchange students to check out the country side. It was pretty boring, but it was mildly picture worthy. We visited Ales stenar (the Ales stones) in KÃ¥seberga and Gilimmingehus, which I dub the World’s Smallest Castle. If I remember correctly, no one knows what the stones are for, and the Castle belonged to some dude who got rich buy taxing the hell out of people, so he needed a castle to protect him from everyone who hated him.

The night ended with a welcome party for exchange students. It was surprisingly empty given the fact that tickets were sold out, and the beer was watery, but it was cheap(er)! Only $5 a glass! I might have to go straight-edge while I’m here, anything else will be too expensive.

God damn it, I need a better camera.

I just got back from the first day of a week-long music festival, so I’m a bit exhausted. I’ll be mostly out of commission tomorrow, but I’ll write something more substantial on sunday. In mean time, I’ll tide you over with a few pictures from the land of Tasty Danishes. Click on each picture for a bigger version.

“Slut” actually means “end”. I can only presume that “spurt” means “spurt”.

Apparently the Danes have a different idea of what’s appropriate to plaster your store windows with. Either that, or they speak a foreign language, or something.

These parking clocks are extremely common in Copenhagen.

Danish cars have a small clock sticker in the windshield. It’s used to display the time at which the car was parked, which in turn is used to enforce parking laws. Shut up, I found it interesting.

I have no idea what was going on here.

Those danes, they’re crazy.

On my second day in Denmark (August 15th), I decided to walk through the local shopping area. While I was there, a random parade broke out. It may have been due to my presence, I’ll never really know for sure.

I’m about to pass out on my keyboard, I’ll be more active in a few days.