Alex's Alliterative Adventures

A very strong argument could be made for the idea that there are two things which number among the best things in life.  One of those things is being at the absolute end of your ability, being so ready to give up that another attempt seems like it would be harder and more painful than anything else in the world, being so desolated by your failure that you can’t think of anything else… and then getting up, giving one final effort to the shouting and kind words of friends, and accomplishing things that you thought you never could’ve done.

The other of those things is free cheese.

When both of those things happen to me in the same day, I’ll be able to sleep happily tonight.  After the homemade lasagna, that is.

(ETA of rockclimbing pics: unknown.  current status: MIA.  response: draft letter of condolenses for next of kin)

I’ll actually talk about the real world as opposed to self-righteous idealism when I get home tonight.  Keep eating free cheese.

edit: I’m tired, and therefore a liar.  stories tomorrow.

For some reason, I’m really stretching for topics for a new post.  I figured you guys didn’t want to hear about how we’re reducing bandwidth consumption by applying texture compression algorithms in my mobile graphics class, and that’s about all I’ve got.  In the next few days, I’m going climbing and I’ll have finished applying to jobs (hopefully), so I might have some exciting tales at that time.  Until then, here’s the canned blog post:

 

There’s a Swedish word, “Lagom“, that can’t be directly translated to any other languages. The closest possible translation is usually said to be “just right”, “enough”, or “in moderation”.  None of these words really carries the meaning across, though, because they all imply settling or a lack of satisfaction, whereas lagom is more of a perfect amount; better than excess. When a rich man drives a nice volvo instead of a flashy corvette, it is said to be lagom.

There are certain things about Swedish culture which are really quite lagom. The world could learn a thing or two from this country.

I’ve caught whatever bug’s currently hitting the students over here, so here’s a post I wrote when I got back from Aarhus. See kids, planning ahead means you can pass out and feel kind of like dying with no repercussions. 

 

A Norwegian/Danish author once created a concept describing Denmark’s culture, referred to as the Jante Law. Roughly paraphrased, it means that Danish society frowns upon those who intentionally try to make themselves better than others, or to wield one’s accomplishments over your neighbours’ heads. Although this is seen as a negative aspect of Danish culture, I find it really refreshing.  I like to judge my worth based on my own accomplishments, and how far I’ve come from where and who I once was in life.  I’ve never understood why people get so hung up on comparing themselves to those around them.  There are a near infinite number of people who are better than you at something, and they will always be better than you at that one thing, no matter how hard you try.  You will also meet countless people that you might be tempted to feel superior to for one reason or another. I don’t see the point in competing with your peers, you can’t ever really connect to someone if you’re constantly sizing them up to see which arbitrary pissing contest you can best them at this time. I’m not talking about sports or other set competitions, I’m talking about defining yourself as a person. It’s comforting to know that there’s an entire country that looks down on the idea of emphasizing the differences between people instead of their similarities.  But hey, what do I know.

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.

Like most languages, the Swedish names of the days of the week have their roots in mythology: