Adventures!

Thanksgiving was awesome. I was full for about three days, mostly because of Tara, who cooked us a feast. Of course, I brought pie. And brownies.

Haven't been up to too terribly much since then, knocking out papers and soaking up culture. Actually, now that I think about it, I've had some interesting days...

Friday night we went out, bla bla bla, øl øl øl, dance dance dance. But coming home on the nightbus, some people struck up a conversation with a crazy man. Long story short, he follows us off the nightbus all the way to our kollegium and I and the four other people I was with spent half an hour screaming at him to go away, in a variety of languages. (he was Latvian and spoke Danish, not great English) I can't remember another time in my life when I've screamed so loud or had that much adrenaline pumping through me. Later, crazy was lurking in the bushes when my friends came home on a later night bus and he followed them - they had to run in to a block and slam the door in his face. Albertslund's full of charms. Speaking of those charms, someone in another block got stabbed in the head the other day, when he was in his block, in his room. And you thought Columbia was sketchy?

Saturday night I experienced probably the most multinational night of my life - it was a Romanian guy from my block's birthday and around our table at varying points in the night we had: three Romanians, a Russian, a Brit, a Lithuanian, a Yugoslavian/Croatian/Bosnian (he doesn't really identify himself as anything but European), several Polish guys, several Danes and of course, several Americans, all from different states. The conversation was interesting...a mixture of pregnancy talk (two women were pregnant, one had just miscarried), politics and the pros and cons of capitalism.

Sunday, I finally made it out to Louisiana, a modern art museum in Humlebæk. I've been looking forward to going all semester, thanks to a recommendation from the fabulous Owen Riley. :) It was incredible! Tucked in to a forest, overlooking the ocean, the museum features mostly glass walls that let you see the outdoors and not feel all oppressed by a giant building. The sculpture garden overlooking the ocean? Fantastic. My favorites were the minimalist and pop art rooms and an exhibit by a Brit, Keith Tyson, called Large Field Array.
I couldn't even stay at Louisiana as long as I would have liked, because I had to rush back in to København to meet my Danish class for a field trip to Tivoli. For those of you keeping count, that was my fourth Tivoli trip, but my first to Tivoli Jul! And for the record, Jul at Tivoli is the prettiest I've ever seen Tivoli. We ate æbleskiver (literally, apple slices, but they are more like doughnuts) and drank gløgg (glogg?) (glögg?), a hot wine with raisins and almonds. Æbleskiver, delicious (especially with jam), but glogg, not so much. We also watched a light show and explored the elf village (!!). I took some video in the elf village, which eventually I will make in to another Tivoli video (just for you, Abbie), but since I am laptopless, it'll have to wait.

Today, Jacq and I went to the Statens Museums for Kunst (The State's Art Museum), which was enormous, and badly organized. Mixing modern and renaissance? Nej tak - at least not in the same freakin room! Some of the work was impressive, though. I saw some Asger Jorn work at Louisiana and a lot more at SMK - and loved it!

And I have been meaning to do work since I sat down at this computer, but have failed so far! I think I may just jet off to the World Press Photo 06 exhibit and then come back and work.

Vi ses i en måned!

Hej hej,
Jess

Gobble gobble

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

On our menu for tonight: chicken (kalkun is hard to come by), sweet potatoes glazed with a brown sugar and applejuice sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, apple pie and caramel chocolate chip brownies. Guess which part of the dinner I'm responsible for making. I'll give you a hint...jeg er godt til at bage men jeg can lave med ikke særligt godt.

I wish I could be in South Carolina with the fam (and the boy), but there's always next year! Miss y'all!

Bus Plunges

Just days after Jack Shafer of Slate's Pressbox discussed the decline of bus plunge stories in the New York Times, then reveled in how much readers enjoyed his column, a bus plunges in Alabama and is featured in the New York Times.

Cue the Twilight Zone music?

My life is boring. Read about it!

I'm not sure I've ever gotten as much sleep in one weekend as I did in this one. Friday night, I hung out with the girls while they got ready, and when they went in to the city, I went to bed. It was glorious. I went out Saturday night, probably got around 8 hours of sleep, went home, slept for another 6, was awake for about 5 hours and got another 7 hours. I credit this oversleeping with making it to my Monday morning class for the first time since the travel break.

Other than the sleep and me baking cupcakes Saturday, my life isn't too interesting. I was confused about my cupcakes when they came out looking more like blond-bottom cupcakes instead of black-bottom, but Ida cleared up this mystery, explaining I bought chocolate-flavored sugar, not chocolate. Who knew chocolate-flavored sugar existed?

Oh, and we're planning a small Thanksgiving dinner for about five or six of us. I'm so bummed about missing the Davis thanksgiving, and so jealous that y'all get to be in South Carolina and I don't! And, to make things worse, not only do I have class that day (and Wednesday and Friday), I have a presentation worth 10 percent of my grade in Danish that day, so I can't skip it. Which means apple pie has to be made Wednesday night. We're going to eat early and then meet up with the other DIS kids living at DIK, because DIS gave us 2,000 kroner for Thanksgiving - mostly being used to buy a turkey and beer and wine. We decided to have our own Thanksgiving instead of joining in to the bring-your-own-dish dinner because we fear 30 people bringing mashed potatoes. Which reminds me, my goal for the day is to find sweet potatoes. Could be a bit challenging...

Anyway, sorry this post was a bit boring. I'm not up to much exciting, other than taking my last midterm and wading through the sea of term papers due in the next couple of weeks.

Tomorrow is Nov. 21, meaning ONLY A MONTH LEFT IN DENMARK! Hooray!
(It's not that I don't love Denmark, but I am tired of living here without my friends and family and I am very tired of our fly-infested kitchen, and I am tired of the cold and dark, and I am just ready to go home and back to school. I'm sure I'll miss København once I'm back in the States, but for now, the grass seems greener on the other side of the pond.)

Spring Schedule

As of now, my schedule for Spring 2007 (obvi). I'm thinking about also taking JOUR 304 (Research Methods), but part of me wants to wait and see what extracurriculars I'm getting in to before signing up for six classes.

HIST 351 = African History, honors, not sure what requirement this fills or why I'm taking it
MGMT 371 = self-explanatory, honors
SCCC 434E = Politics and Government in W. Europe, honors
ENGL 462 = Technical Writing, not expecting to enjoy this
JOUR 335 = Reporting, with WIGGINS :)
PEDU 174, in case you are wondering, is Social Dance! I'm really excited about taking that, and was obsessively checking the Registrar's page before I got to register to make sure it didn't fill up. Beginning Shag's three sections, however, all filled quickly.

I'm hoping beyond hopes that when I'm not in class, I'll be working at the StateHouse and with the AP, but my dreams of state political coverage may also be crushed. It's also possible, but not, perhaps, likely, that instead of being at USC, I'll be in Washington, D.C., with the Washington Politics and Journalism Semester. I have an interview for that internship tomorrow night at 11 p.m. my time, which I'll do in between studying for my ENM midterm and after struggling to find any research for my retarded HCA paper.

Visiting Berlingske

Danish newspapers never cease to amaze me. In many ways, they are radically different from American newspapers, at least the national ones that I've been studying. I go in with expectations of American similarities and find nonparallels that rather confound me.

Let me back up. I visited Berlingske-Tidende today with my friend Dan, whose host dad happens to be the company's CEO, Peter Lindegaard. We sat in on the morning editors' meeting, with helpful translations from Peter, chatted with him a bit and toured the building, met with the paper's chief political commentator, Thomas Larsen, then had lunch and chatted a bit more with Peter.

Some differences between Berlingske and American newspapers that struck me:

• Printing is all done off-site. Berlingske and JP/Politiken actually share printing facilities outside of Copenhagen to reduce costs. (They are competitors.) Distribution is also not handled within the company.
• The online and print versions of the newspaper are completely different, with different staffs. While part of the reason behind this is because online readers, according to Peter, are looking for quick news and not in-depth news, it's also because the journalists refuse to write for the web, and because they're unionized, they can get away with this. At local newspapers, this is a bit different, because if they refuse, Berlingske can threaten to close the newspaper, but the reporters working for Berlingske-Tidende know their paper won't be shut down, so they won't work in multimedia.
• Their online production is actually costing them money because though advertisers are eager, not enough content is available for the web, so the site is viewed as unimportant
• If a section editor wants more room in the newspaper for content, ads are moved to a different section of the paper. This doesn't happen that often, and the advertisers do get angry, but it happens.
• Journalism is one of the highest-paid professions in Denmark
• Danish journalists covering Parliament have press offices in the Parliament building
  

Other interesting things I learned:

• Berlingske hasn't lost a single subscription since going tabloid a little less than eight months ago
• Their decision to go tabloid was more of an effort to keep current readers than to attract new ones
• Dato's not doing so well, but if it ends up winning the newspaper war, it could be permanent. "There could be room for one free newspaper on the market."
• Peter thinks in 20 years, all newspapers will be free
• Advertisers have absolutely no influence on content, and neither does the management. (Whether this is true or just the opinion of the CEO is debatable, but I'm inclined to believe him.)
• Danish newspaper profit margins run around 5 percent to 10 percent

The more I know, the more I want to become fluent in Danish and move here.

Dark, dreary Denmark

The darkness here is really starting to get to me, and this isn't even the worst of it. It's dark by 4:45 now, and not light until 8. It's also cold, windy, and very often rainy. It's very disorienting for it to get dark so early; I never have any idea what time it is. I can't spend much time outside, and my room in Albertslund is like a little white jail cell (with nice hardwood floors). We also don't have lightbulbs (or light fixtures, really, they apparently got stolen?) in our common rooms, so I can't do my studying out there. There's light in the kitchen, but we also have a fly infestation. A bad one. Not having a computer is a torturous experience. Not only do I not have any music, I can't watch movies, I can't look at my old pictures, I can't type papers, I can't use the Internet for any number of things I enjoy doing for many hours, and I can't talk to people.

A bunch of other stuff (papers, lack of $$, meager food supplies) has me rather down in the dumps as well. No wonder this country has such a high suicide rate. But I got free Thai food courtesy of the IT department on Thursday night, went to a DIS Halloween party at the Happy Pig last night (I was white trash, my back story was perfection), had fun with Tara this afternoon and am off to eat Jacq's food and then go to what should be a fun party at another kollegium.

The Anti-Rumsfeld

Is it just me, or did Bush pick Rumsfeld's replacement because he looks like Santa Claus?

Clever, but I think the American public might catch on when they get MREs and bullet shells in their stockings instead of chocolate and toys.

:: CNN - Bush replaces Rumsfeld to get 'fresh perspective'
:: WaPo - Robert Gates Lauded as Breaker of Barriers
:: NYT - Robert Gates, a Cautious Player from a Past Bush Team
:: A&M's The Battalion - Gates brings leadership to Washington, DC

..:And the winners are

Well, grab my saddle and call me Aunt Fannie, because I am blown away by the election results (sort of). If you told me a year ago that the Dems would have been in control of the House and were within one of controlling the Senate, I would have hugged you but then thought you were crazy.

It's nice that the national mindset is changing (maybe our country can start FIXING itself FINALLY!), but coming back to reality, I live in RepublicanLand and seem to have always done so.

In case y'all live in holes...

• Perry wins...Kinky makes a 12 percent dent
• Barton whomps the competition, surprise surprise
• Sanford wins (but forgets his photo I.D. Even the Danish newspapers made fun of him for this.)
• Ravenel beats Grady Patterson (!)
• Marriage in South Carolina is formally defined as between a man and a woman (sigh)
• We have recounts in SC for Lt.Gov. and Education Superintendent
• McMaster's back, which means another nonproductive several years of SC legislature, because they and the Gov'nah will be fighting the whole time
• Dairy trumps pigs, as Hugh stays in office instead of Emile

It's so weird to care about two state elections. I don't think I have that much invested in Texas elections at the moment, yet I vote there, and the South Carolina elections directly affect me so much, yet I have to sit back and watch as others decide. Frustrating...

South Cackalack results
Texas results
National results

Also, I was really, truly surprised that Leiberman won. That son of a gun really does have Joementum.

Election such and such

I know, I've been posting a lot, but hey, it's election day, so deal with it.

I just go around to checking out The Greenville News's endorsements. I loved my time at the paper, but I think that I will have to really consider the editorial pages of newspaper I want to work at in real life, because I seem to be diametrically opposed to nearly everything TGN states that it supports.

A YES for Amendment 1 with NO explanation? No thank you!

The State also takes a cowardly route and votes yes, but at least gives some explanation. However, the explanation they give is pathetic. "So we can move on to other issues." Yeah, Brad Warthen, that's good logic. Why not just blow up all of Iraq, so we can move on? Why not kill everyone who poses any threat to the US, so we can move on. That's idiotic reasoning if I have ever heard any. Not to mention, it doesn't explain the decision. By that logic, just vote NO and move on.

Over at the Post & Courier, the editorial board makes the lovely statement that voters should choose on a case-by-case basis, and not on straight party lines. How refreshing! However, they still lean towards Republicans, and also vote Yes on Amendment 1. Election Day every year in South Carolina and Texas is a painful reminder of how different I am ideologically than many of the people I live with.

I won't delve in to individual candidates, especially since I didn't vote for any of them. (I voted in Texas.) I'm sure I'll come back and edit this as the day goes on and I start to hear things. I'm basicially begging for phone calls to update me on how the election turns out but I suppose I can wait until morning if I really have to. The other thing about that is I have no class tomorrow morning, just a field trip in the afternoon, so I'd have to commute two hours back and forth from the city because of course, I have no functional computer at home.

GO VOTE

I need say nothing else.

GO VOTE

seriously,

GO VOTE!

New breakfast discovery!

This morning, I discovered the amazing breakfast invention of kernemælkbrød (yummy bread), spread with nutella and peanut butter, topped with frosted flakes. Seriously, it's good stuff.

Unfortunately, most of my other meals for the next two months won't be so good. I have almost no money left, thanks to a very expensive travel break and lack of budgeting during my first month, so I'll be sticking to rice (3 kroner a box), pasta (6 kroner a bag) and every once in a while, some bread and if I feel like splurging, maybe a little jam. It's gonna be a little bit ridiculous, I think. Hopefully I'll get invited to a lot of Christmas meals?

Anyway, didn't have much to say other than that. I'm glad people are finally back from traveling, and now I'm off to class. I spent the entire weekend reading and studying and writing that damn long article for Jenn and the g&b.

Julebryg

Before I get to the point of this post, let me say In Your Face, Suckas to every Republican who spent excess energy gloating at me after the election two years ago. I only wish I could be in the States to enjoy every moment of Republican defeat. Thankfully, I will be there for the election that will knock Bush out of power, sure to go down in history as one of the best days in my life. It's nice to daydream every once in a while.

But, back to Julebryg. Friday night I got to witness one of the more peculiar Danish traditions, the launch of Tuborg's Christmas beer. Nearly every Danish beer comes out with a Christmas beer, but "J-day" is when Tuborg's beer starts being sold at the bars. This national celebration used to be held on Tuesday nights but the Danish government actually asked Carlsberg (which owns Tuborg) to move it to a Friday night because so many people were hungover at work on Wednesdays.

Unsure really of what this tradition entailed, a group of us met up Friday night and headed to Råadhusplasen (the city center), which was completely and utterly TRASHED from the MTV awards the night before. Instead of the big party with free beer we were expecting to find, we saw a small train decorated with Tuborg fliers and a giant Tuborg truck. Eventually we figured out that the Tuborg truck goes around to bars and brings them two cases each of free Tuborg, along with blinking Tuborg hats and such.

When the back of the truck opens, instead of case after case of beer, we see this lively group of people:who then go in to a bar with the free beer and merch and sing the Tuborg Christmas song to the tune of Jingle Bells. After hearing this about 5 times, I was sick of it, but I heard it many more. So did they, which might explain why they weren't cheerful at all, despite wearing ridiculous Santa-esque costumes.

All over the city, bars were celebrating the launch; some even had fake snow machines. We, being lame Americans who thought it would be a big deal to miss the 20:59 launch, got tired early and headed back before midnight, when most Danes were heading out to celebrate.

Anyway, for your reading delight (although I'm guessing most of you won't be able to sing along since y'all have no idea how to pronounce Danish), the lyrics to Julebyrg.

Julen står for dør'n
for voksne og for børn
Og hvis du er julemand
så skal du ta' din dørn

Julen er et ræs
Du får "julestress"
Indtil Tuborg-julemanden
kommer med et læs

Julebyrg, julebyrg
Tuborg julebyrg
Ventetiden bli'r så sød
Julehjerte-glød

Julebyrg, julebryg
Tuborg julebyrg
Nyd den kold, og ønsk en ven
Glæd'lig jul igen

Don't ask me what it all means, but it was something to do with the beer being for everyone and being a good way to relieve Christmas stress and enjoy time with friends.

Czech Trek!!

This has been the best week ever! I had the time of my life on the Czech Trek, and I wish it could have lasted twice as long.

Day by day recap:
Left Sunday at 6 p.m. on our pimped-out bus that wasn't actually comfortable at all. 54 people, 54 seats. We got friendly quickly. Rode a ferry to Germany, then drove forever through Germany all night. The sunrise in the Czech Republic was stunning, though our breakfast at some random hotel was not (jellied meat? nej tak). The scenery from the bus was an interesting mix of drop-dead gorgeous countryside and mountains with Communist-style buildings everywhere. You could feel how poor the country was.

Monday morning, we went to Terezin, a concentration camp somewhere in Czechland. It wasn't a death camp, so I didn't feel as nauseous hearing about what went on there as I usually do when I hear about Holocaust happenings. Not to say I wasn't upset - I am human - but we didn't hear too many gory stories. It was a very weird thing to be somewhere that saw so much suffering. We were in rooms that held 600 people prisoner, tiny cells where the people were crammed in so much that they died, in the room where 100 people would shower at a time, once a week, five to each showerhead. To be there was just so strange. I was glad to leave.

Finally at 1 or so, we got to our hotel: a castle on top of a mountain. I was giddy from the time we were driving around the area until we left. The scenery was phenomenal. The mountains, the fall leaves on the trees, the greenness, the enormousness of everything....I hadn't realized how much I missed being in a non-city. We went on a three-hour hike (it seemed much shorter) after lunch, then had dinner. Every lunch and dinner was a three-course taste of different Czech food, and breakfasts were incredible buffets. I don't think I've ever eaten so well in my life.

Budvar, the original Budweiser, was on tap at the hotel -- and I could afford to drink it! God bless the horrendous Czech economy. The beer is delicious, in case you were wondering.

The next day, we did archery in the morning (pretty lame, though I came close to shooting an arrow through an apple) and in the afternoon we did rappelling and high-rope-bridge walking. While we waited, some people sleeve-fought.


But I digress. I thought rappelling would be the less challenging half of that activity, but I was wrong. Since I was a kid, I've loved to climb up things and hated to climb down them, so imagine how I felt having to come down a 25-meter rock wall with just some rope holding me up. It was literally the most terrified I have ever been, though I did get some cool views of the ravine as I slowly, slowly made my way down.

For the high rope bridge, we took a zipline across the ravine.





Then, we walked across a very unstable rope bridge back. The first time I did this, it was a little scary, but I made it just fine. The second time was much more fun, so by the third time, I was a little overconfident perhaps and walking less carefully. I fell, and then had an epic struggle in the middle, dangling high above a ravine. See, after I fell, I of course tried to get back up, which was hard, but I was standing and then realized I wasn't standing on the part for feet, I was standing on the "railing." So I had to somehow get that straightened out and after I thought I had everything worked out, I start to walk again and realize that my safety line had gotten wrapped around the bridge, so then I had to under and over the side. It took forever, and when I finally made it to the other side, the instructor was like, "we weren't sure if you were going to make it, we were thinking about coming to get you." But I did, so life is good, and I'm not too terribly embarassed like I would have been if they did actually have to go rescue me.

It was really fun, though, and I have some crazy bruising on my arm from it. Sadly, by the time I was falling and dangling and struggling, it was pretty dark outside, so no one's pictures of it came out, though I have some pretty bad ones that require some squinting and imagination.


That day was Halloween, and I love Halloween for those of you who don't know. I go all out in the States and I was incredibly, incredibly bummed that I wasn't getting a Halloween this year, especially after seeing everyone's pictures from the weekend before I left. But because the people on the trip were so awesome, we totally made it a Halloween to remember. We crafted costumes out of things we packed and found in the hotel and we were damn creative. I was an angel, wearing a lace curtain with wings made from a pillowcase and two hangers, and a paper halo. We had a whole crew that dressed up for dinner and then we got to do a "treasure hunt" around the castle in the pitch black, with light only from tea lights that kept going out. My team came in second...boo...but later we exploded lighters, and it was fantastic.

The next day was rock climbing on top of a different mountain, in what had to be subzero temperatures. I also attempted and failed at rappelling.

That afternoon we had the best time ever, crawling around caves. I didn't take any pictures, but other people did, and I'll steal them eventually. We were in a part of a national forest where tourists aren't actually allowed. Our guides have to fight every year to get permits to take small groups in the caves. Once we navigated pitch-black caves, extremely tiny holes and a myriad of rope bridges and rocks and leafy trails, our prize was getting to go in a cave where it looked like Indians had been. I'm not sure what the real story was behind it, but it was a tiny room with not much oxygen and a fire pit set up. We all got to sign a guestbook dating from 1912!!

Somehow, after just that small amount of time, we had to leave the Cesky Raj (roughly translating to Czech Paradise). We went to Prague for all of eight hours, which was a bummer, but at least I got to spend them with Diane! We walked around a little, visited a monastery, tried the beer that the monks have been brewing for over 500 years, shopped a little and reminsced a lot. I'll definitely have to go back to Prague some day and actually see it, because we had way too little time there to actually see it.

On the Charles Bridge

OH! And it snowed! The other group got hailed on when they were rock climbing, but we just got a very light dusting of snow. That night while we slept, the castle got a bunch of snow, and so did Copenhagen. Sadly, by the time I got back in to the city this morning (after a torturous bus ride), it had melted.

In short, I'm in love with the Czech Republic.