Sweden- 1st visit of the week

Feb. 15th-
Proof of friendship is coming in this post! I am getting past that awkward phase of enjoying my new company but not wanting to scare them away when I document our 2 hours of friendship with a photograph. You know how that goes.. Anyhow this past weekend I went to Malmo with Amy and Alex, both of whom I met through the Copenhagen Adventurers Meetup group. Amy is from Canada and Alex, who actually lives in Malmo, is from England. Since Amy and I were already planning a trip over to Sweden for Sunday Alex offered to show us around and we wound up spending the whole day there.
While we tooled around waiting for brunch to start (the concept of brunch is not well understood in Sweden.. technically its lunch since it doesn't start until 12 and when pickled herring is served I'm not quite sure the food qualifies as breakfast either) we went to Malmoparken to see the sites of the Tivoli equivalent in Malmo. Not quite as impressive although we did see some ponys, a chocolate factory and a giant rubber band tower. I swear its the playgrounds in Denmark and Sweden that make Scandinavians the happiest people in the world. Imagine playing King of the Hill on top of a bouncy web of rubber?! Amy and I couldn't resist.
In Malmo we had brunch and then went to a free art exhibit on South Africa by photo journalist David Goldblatt. Here is Amy as happy as I was to be enjoying my first scandinavian brunch! Notice the blankets on the seat chairs because yes we were sitting outside in -3 Celcius weather. (There were heat lamps as well).
After the exhibit we walked down to the coast to a new neighborhood that is being developed. The turning torso is the tallest building in Sweden and a brand new landmark for Malmo. Right across the Öresund strait from Copenhagen, the city boomed after completion of the bridge in the picture below. Thanks to that people can now work in higher income Denmark and live and play in cheaper Sweden. Its not cheap to cross the bridge but it is very convenient. Trains bring you across the sound every 20 minutes and its an open border. Dinner in Sweden anybody?

Today I am taking off to visit Blake and Courtney up in Stockholm! As a matter of fact I am going to miss my plane if I don't take off now... but I'm very excited to see some familiar faces and to visit with another valle scholar. Stockholm is supposed to be the most beautiful city in all of Scandinavia.. can't wait to take a look at it. Have a great weekend!

About town

Feb 10th-
As much as it seems like I only go out by myself, I do actually have a couple of friends here! Two weekends ago (Im a bit behind) I spent Saturday with an American girl Alison that I know through Angela, my first american friend, and a really nice Danish girl she had just met the night before. When you are abroad it is amazing how quickly friendships form. "Oh hi. I like your watch. Want to go get lunch tomorrow?" But anyhow the three of us went off to the Carlsberg Brewery to check out their beer tour. The beginning half is a tour through the old facilities and it gives a "museum of history" type of overview of the ancient past of beer. (I am envisioning the museum in Albany with the scenes with life size people and dusty clothing..) It was interesting.. but I particularly enjoyed the bottle room and took these pictures for Jeff. (Imagine, Jeff even booked his flight to come see me before I enticed him with these photos!! Thats right Jeff is coming to visit in May- slight sidetrack- but I am very excited. It is my hope to get all of my roommates over here!!)One thing that is really nice is that Carlsberg has been around for a long time and they have always been big contributors to the arts. The Danish museum of Art and Design, the Botanical Gardens and the Little Mermaid statue were all donated by Carlsberg, to name a few.

The next day I went wondering around town. I went to a small art gallery, Gammel Strand 48 and took some pictures around the area. First are two museum photos from a room that was entirely covered in "blah BLAH bLaH" paper. Nothing else in the museum was like this room (and since al the description were in Danish I can't tell you much about it) but there was something about it that reminded me of when we were kids and wrapped all of our gifts in comic strips. So I had to take a few pictures.
Then this is a shot out of the window of the museum. I think I was just soo excited to see some sunshine.. I really liked the color and the reflection of the light in the shingles.
Then around Gammel Strand. It's the oldest part of town.
OH and finally this picture is of Christianshavn. I am going to move again at the start of March and this is the area I will live in for the rest of my stay. I had planned to move again in March if I found the right place, the situation I have now is temporary, and fortunately, something fell into my lap. I didnt have to look hard.. this place was one I was scheduled to see for Feb but didn't start until March in the end. It all worked out great. SO more about that later, but just to let you all know where you can find me when you come to visit, this is the canal to the side of my apartment block;)

Bikes and Walls

Feb. 10th-
On Sunday I wound up in the old part of town and took a couple of pictures of bikes against some buildings. One or two pictures turned into ten..20.. You could easily create a collage from this with the variety available in Copenhagen. I almost like the bikes that are painted bright colors more then the buildings, although they are very charming and make a nice backdrop. This first little photo op is hosted by Løngangstræde, the random street I happened to be on when I started taking these pictures.


















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Sunday date day

Feb 8th-
I just got back from the movies and wanted to say that I know this movie is probably really cheesy but I thought it was cute! It's He's Just Not That Into You based on that book that came out, but it has a Love Actually approach with all the intertwining stories, and I don't know, I just thought it was fun. Maybe it was the date I had with myself going to the movies, it was great to go alone!! I don't know why I've never done this before, or rather considering I hardly ever went to the movies, why I didn't make any time for it before. When you go on a date with yourself you can order whatever you want at the snack bar and nobody is looking so you can order up a size of the popcorn and it doesn't even matter. Then you can be a major pig because you DID order up a size and you don't even have to worry about sharing it! It was really fun.. well minus the fact that people were applauding and ooh and ahhing during the film. Not sure if that's attributed to the fact that I'm in Denmark or because I was in the audience of a chick flick:)

Next up will be a trip to Cinemateket (http://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/Cinemateket.htm). This is one of the only places you can see local and foreign films with English subtitles. I found out about this and some other exhibits and things through the Copenhagen Post (http://www.cphpost.dk/) which is the only all English news paper. Now that I'm better connected I'm sure Ill be more involved in what's happening. Today for instance I strolled into a beautiful art gallery and then went to an Aussie bar to watch some footie. It was all there this whole time- who'd have thought a simple tourist targeted news source would have been all I was looking for?!

New News

Ok first of all how cool is this newspaper cover?! I am lucky enough to work with some people that hang onto their old papers for a while before they recycle them. I got a copy of the inauguration speech in Danish and the paper announcing the election win as well!


Now for the news~



Alright well not to dwell on anything too much but I am no longer living in the place I wrote about last time. Things can change quick here in Denmark:) That or I just spoke too soon about it in my last post. Anyhow, let's forget about it. Things didn't work out and so I moved in Feb to this new place in Østerbro. Its just temporary but its really hard to find housing in the city so its good to know that if I don't find what I'm looking for I can just stay here. Its comfy, a 2 bedroom apt where I rent one room, like the last place, except this room is much bigger and so it feels more like a studio (see pics). I'm real comfortable here.. the problem is its in a family apt (man and his daughter) so I'm not getting the social aspect of housing that I wanted. But the family is very nice! Anyway.. I really wanted to get on and over that topic. I am just trying to live in as many parts of Copenhagen as I can before moving out.. new plan is to really get my money's worth in places over here.. haha;)

So a lot has been going on again since I haven't been blogging. (My Feb goal by the way is to blog at least 3 times a week.. you need to know more about the random little things that make up life here.. not the dramas I create:) First of all.. My dad is a champ and got through his hip replacement surgery today no problem!! Good for him.. I'm so glad he got this done because he was really excited about getting his mobility back. So I am very, very thankful to have my daddy well and happy!!

Secondly I started a class at DTU this week. It's called Energy End-Use Savings and the Environment and I'm really excited about it. (Jackie, watch out... I'm getting my training!) There are about 50 students in the class and aside from the 4 hours of class every Monday, I have a good feeling about it. I think it will be a really good class.On Sunday I went to a a Superbowl party with some american friends that I met. Well, it wasn't much of a party but I was able to find pigs-and-a-blanket at the grocery store, called pølsehorn, to bring with me. We treated it like a regular Superbowl party, even if there were only 4 of us there. Since the Superbowl aired at 1 am, we instead watched the handball world cup. It was France vs. Croatia (24:19). Denmark lost the consolation game to Poland.. oh what a disappointment.
And last weekend I went to visit Fredericksborg Slot. It was a beautiful castle surrounded by these pretty baroque gardens. I went on Sunday because it was supposed to be the only day all week with sun.. get a load of my "sunny" day in Denmark!
The sculptures in the courtyard were nice.. I actually kind of like the weather for these shots.

The inside of the castle was the Museum of National History.

The working chapel

By the reflection pool..

The gardens. Around here is a big park and in the summer the lawns get crowded.Another nice sunny Denmark shot :)I'm definitely coming back in the summer. It was a really relaxing day and I'm glad I went through the museum. It was great to see a restored castle and since it was also the museum for national history, the top floor was turned into a modern collection for the 20th century leaders, artists and significant figures in Denmark's history.