Spring Break in Nairobi

I have been looking for a way to volunteer this year, some way to give back.  I haven't been able to find an opportunity here in Copenhagen because of my non-existent Danish language skills.  But I have found something a little further afield.  Next Sunday I fly to the Kenyan capitol of Nairobi where I will spend my spring break week at an orphanage run by Living Positive Kenya.  The organization takes care of Kenyans living with HIV.  The associated orphanage is for the children left behind if their parents succumb to AIDS.

I had been a little nervous because shortly after I booked my trip the elections in Kenya took place.  The last elections, 5 years ago, resulted in 1200 deaths and thousands of people displaced.  The election went off without a hitch, though the runner-up is not pleased to have lost.  Thankfully the new constitution provides a path for appealing the results in court and both candidates have stuck to their pledge to take grievances to the courts instead of into the streets.

I'm looking forward to meeting lots of new people, learning a little bit about a new country, and I'm excited about stepping foot on a new continent.   I have no idea what the living conditions will be like, but I do have to write a paper while I am there.  Here's hoping to reliable electricity.

Taste of Home

I was told my place would have a kitchen.  They lied.  I have two glass-top electric burners, a small sink, an under-counter fridge with a freezer that fits an ice cube tray OR a pint of ice cream but not both, a microwave and a toaster.  Oh, and the electric kettle - I still don't understand why everyone in the US doesn't have one of these, they're absolutely brilliant.

The one thing I really miss is an oven.  Roasted veggies, home-made pizza, casseroles, and baking.  So tomorrow I'm heading over to another CBS property with a little different set-up than mine.  They have a huge common kitchen with full fridge & freezer, oven, stove top, and miles kilometers of counter space.  I'm going to introduce an Indian friend to The Princess Bride while I bake off a few dozen chocolate chip cookies.

One of the challenges of cooking in Denmark is finding ingredients.  Living in a city, we have many small "bodega"-type stores and each one seems to specialize in something.  The one across the street has great fresh fruit provided the temps are above freezing, because its all displayed outside.  One a little further down has cornered the market on chips, another one does organic foodstuffs.  We also have supermarkets, which have a much wider selection, but on a Danish scale.  "Wide selection" for Copenhagen means more than one brand.  The biggest supermarket I visit regularly has two flavors of rice cakes - salted and unsalted.  I can't for the life of me taste the difference.

I figured the makings for chocolate chip cookies shouldn't be all that hard to find and, for the most part, I was right.  Two kilos of all-purpose flour (less than $2), tiny bag of white sugar ($2.50), 6 eggs ($4, no they weren't organic or free-range), 500g of dark brown sugar ($4.25), the world's smallest bottle of vanilla ($6), and handful of walnuts for half the dough ($5).  In traditional Bajgier fashion, there will be two batches - one with nuts and one without.

Chocolate chips were a little harder.  I couldn't find them in any of the three local chain supermarkets, but I did remember that Peter Beier Chocolatier several blocks down had chocolate slugs for baking.  The Nestle Toll House recipe called for a 12 oz bag, which I had to convert to grams.  I'll refrain from telling you how much I paid, but this was by far the most expensive ingredient.  Could I have chopped up a standard chocolate bar?  Yes.  Would it have been cheaper?  Heck yes.  Would it have tasted as good or created the layers of chocolate strata the discs will?  Definitely not.  I find myself not splurging on much here in order to keep to a budget, but chocolate always seems to be an exception I'm willing to make.

While I was in the first supermarket, I realized I didn't have any measuring cups or spoons, and baking is pretty precise work.  I figured I would pick some up at one of the many stores I would be stopping at.  No deal.  The closest I came was a single metal measuring cup with two lines on the outside - 100g and 200g.  This completely confused me since a cup is a volumetric measure and grams are weights.  100g of sugar would probably fit in the cup, but 100g of flour probably wouldn't.  I quickly messaged my neighbors to ask if they had something I could borrow and got lucky.  The Indian woman next door who is slowly and patiently teaching me how to cook curries had a Pyrex measuring cup and metal spoons.  Yay!  Crisis averted.

Assembling the cookie dough, I can already tell that they'll taste a little differently than they would back home.  The brown sugar is very dark and has a strong flavor.  I probably should have replaced some of it with white, metal note for future batches.  The vanilla confused me.  There were several brands & quantities of vanilla beans available, but only one bottle of liquid extract - Vanilla in Bourbon.  Its got little flecks of vanilla bean in it and smells great.  I have no idea, though, if its the same strength as the stuff back home.  And then there's the fact that I accidentally bought bakpulver instead of bicarbonat.  A quick google search of how to replace baking soda with baking powder solved that one, but it will also effect the taste.  They're cookies containing copious amounts of quality chocolate, though.  How bad could they possibly be?

Two Gentlemen of Verona

After 5 months, I am still surprised by the manners of men outside the US.  I can't even narrow it down to European men or South American men.  Dutch, Brazilian, Indian, German, and to a lesser extent British and the one Greek guy who spent several years in NYC, all have more manners than 90% of the men I've encountered in back home.  On two separate occasions today my male friends took public transport in the opposite direction of their homes just to see me to my door.  I've also had classmates pick up my empty dishes at lunch because they were heading in the direction of the kitchen.  They pause before going through doorways to let a woman go first.  It caused a great deal of confusion in the first few months, I ended up playing many games of "you first",  "no, you first", "no, please, I insist".  Should I get used to this, it will be a sad day if I ever have to convert back.

Roman Holiday

I spent the Christmas holidays in Rome.  It was the first time I was away from family & friends and, while I missed them, it was a really great vacation.  Someone remind me while I haven't traveled on my own before?  I get out of bed when I want and there's no one to feel guilty in front of when I spent a little too much on that great pair of Italian leather boots.

I stayed in Trastevere, across the Tiber from the main tourist attractions.  Its a fantastic little neighborhood with great shops and restaurants.  I wish I could have afforded a piece by Gioielli Etnici when I stumbled upon the tiny shop that fronted his workspace (www.anticoa.com).  I really enjoyed my AirBnB host, Mario, and the apartment I stayed in, which looked out onto a lovely little courtyard.

It had taken me over an hour and two different means of public transportation to travel from the airport to Trastevere.  I'm amazed I didn't get lost, considering I had 4 lines of directions from Mario and had done no prep for the trip.  That's what happens when you have 3 finals in the week and a half before leaving.  I was feeling pretty darn good when I dropped my bags and wandered out into the city.  I still laugh at myself when I think about my first afternoon out.  I had just crossed the pedestrian bridge when I saw a small fence enclosing a 20'x20' hole in the ground.  Ruins!  I spent at least 15 minutes snapping shots of grass-covered stones from every angle.  It wasn't the towering Ionic columns I had pictured, but, really, what tourist destination fully lives up to expectations?  Then I took a few steps down the street, turned a corner, and ran into real, actual ruins:

Now we're talking.  The remnants of an ancient fish market.  There are seriously ruins around every corner here. This was in the Jewish neighborhood, where I ended up spending a lot of time.  I had a very nice kosher couscous dinner with an Israeli white wine on Christmas Eve.  And I found open shops to peruse on Christmas Day.  In other parts of the city there were great Christmas markets, like the one in Plaza Navona that sold ornaments, candy, and everything you could possible need to set up a 1:25 scale model of the Nativity and the entire surrounding city.  I'm talking tiny fireplaces that flicker, working water fountains...you name it, they had it.

The streets were decorated with, um, jellyfish, and other...festive...things.  People in general seemed to be in a great mood.  There were lots of little performances going on as well.  Choirs singing carols in a square and a neighborhood putting on a live re-enactment of the birth of Christ, complete with live donkey & camels.  Thank goodness the weather was so nice.  It was between 55 and 60 degrees every day - everyone but me was bundled up in a heavy parka, scarf, hat and gloves.

I saw all the standard tourist spots - Pantheon, Colosseum, Forum, Trevi Fountain, Trajan's Market, some Christian crypts from 2,000 years ago...

 Most spots were swarming with tourists.  I have a picture of a mob of people, which was actually a picture of the Spanish Steps, which were under the people somewhere.  I've heard there are 3,000 Euros thrown into the Trevi Fountain every day.  I only tossed in 20 cents.  Does that mean I'm destined to come back to Rome for, like, 6 hours?





Coming from the consumerized-US, I was surprised to find so many of the sites free.  Both the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain were just...there.  In the street, surrounded by apartments and restaurants and souvenir shops.  Lots and lots of souvenir shops.



St. Peter's Square in Vatican City was also free.  I was there for the Pope's Christmas Day address. Me and 50,000 other people.  He's in his balcony on the upper right, but also on the big screen in the lower left.  I bought a St. Christopher's medal for my charm bracelet in the Vatican gift shop.

The Colosseum and the crypts weren't free, but they were worth the small cost.  As gung-ho as I was about the crypts (I even wanted to explore the ones that snake below the streets in Paris, but I knew Mom would never go for it), I'm not sure I'd do it again.  Even with a group of people and a priest leading the tour, it was far creepier than I had anticipated.  Maybe it was the knowledge that so many of the people buried there had not died of natural causes, but for their beliefs.

  St. Peter's Cathedral seemed to dominate the skyline and lot of my pictures, even though its not in the heart of the city.  I'm guessing its a popular tourist destination or something?  I took a guided tour on one of my last days in the city - the wealth in the Vatican museums is staggering.  And the Sistine Chapel is breathtaking.  I'm not religious nor am I particularly appreciative of fine art, but it left me speechless.





Somehow I managed to be on a bridge or on top of a building for several magnificent Roman sunsets.  Its nearly impossible to take a bad picture here, even with the world's worst cell phone camera.





Overall, the trip was amazing.  The people were friendly & helpful, even if no one spoke English.  I got by on a mix of French and Giada De Laurentiis.  The public transportation was a breeze to navigate and interestingly operates on the trust system, just like here in Copenhagen.  The food was, holy cow, just fantastic.  I could do a whole post on what I ate, but I'll spare you.  I'd definitely go back, but not before I see a few other new cities first.

2012

I have no idea where December went.  Well, that's not entirely true, I remember spending a lot of it sitting at my desk studying.  The few times I looked up from my books it was snowing outside, so I went back to reading.  Two terms down, term 3 begins this week.

2012 was a year unlike any other for me.  So many changes, nearly all of them for the better.  

New countries visited:

Mexico, Iceland, Denmark, Italy, Vatican City

Fantastic experiences:

Standing on the edge of a continental plate in Iceland and looking over the edge

Drinking 400-year-old glacier water while hiking on said glacier

Standing under the Eiffel Tower, both the real one and the one in Vegas, about two weeks apart

Seeing the Grand Canyon from the air

Touring Mayan ruins

Riding a bike in Copenhagen, like the locals

Standing in the Roman Colosseum

An audience with the Pope - me and 50,000 other people on Christmas day

Moving to a new country

The complete 180 degree life change was by far my biggest accomplishment.  Leaving a job, a spouse, my home country, my support network.  I'm thankful everyone was so positive and supportive of a move that probably looked a little like an early mid-life crisis.  There are a few things I wish I had done more of, like searching out live music, and a few things I wish I had done less of, like worrying about the small stuff.  Overall, though, I ended 2012 happier, healthier, and with a more positive outlook than when the year began.  

Goals for 2013:

A permanent residence outside the US

A job I can get passionate about

Visit at least 2 new countries

Christmas Markets

God Jul!  There are Christmas markets popping up in the city and I'm making it a priority to really embed myself in the Danish culture by exploring each and every one.  The first one was on the other side of the Frederiksberg Gardens behind my building.  I passed the elephants on my way.  Their enclosure was designed by Norman Foster, a rather famous architect.  The Danes are pretty proud of it.

 The Frederiksberg Christmas market had some really lovely handmade items, like these baskets.

And some Christmas ornaments for the tree, in every color.  I've seen a lot of black ornaments in shops along with fuscia, lime green, blues, and yellows.

 There were some booths selling old ornaments and decorative items.  We'll call them vintage.

 Greenery was everywhere.  Danes like their wreaths and garlands real, I haven't seen any fake trees or garlands anywhere.  See those tiny trees in the pots behind the wreaths?  They're everywhere, I have yet to see a tree larger than 2 feet anywhere.  I bought a tiny tree for my window sill.

 Next up was the market at Tivoli Gardens.  The Danes are also pretty proud of Tivoli.  It opened in 1843 and is the second oldest amusement park in the world.  Its kind of like Disney land, but on a much smaller scale.  An entrance ticket gets you in the door and lets you see any performers in the public spaces, play the games in the arcade areas, and gets you into the many restaurants inside.  It does not, however, let you ride the rides.  That's a separate ticket.  Its beautifully decorated for the holidays.

 And there are strolling performers.

 And live reindeer in front of the Chinese pagoda.  They're very multicultural.

 This building was pretty impressive.  I didn't have time to wander inside, so I can't say what's in there.

 Tivoli's Christmas theme this year was Russia, so they imported Ded Moroz, or Grandpa Frost.

 They also had a small version of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.

 I also explored a Christmas market at the Swedish church which had lots of herring-themed items and many booths selling more "vintage" items.  They also had homemade candy and hand-knitted items.

 The last market I explored was in Nyhavn, an area downtown with what must be the most photographed row of houses in Denmark.

 The booths in Nyhavn were, unfortunately, not all the interesting.  Some goodies to eat, some jackets and hats from Norway, some Christmas-themed trinkets from China, and this:

These are garlic graters.  They also grate chocolate, parmesan, and a whole host of other foods which you would find out if you stopped to listen to their spiel.  Mom and I run into the Garlic Grater Girl at several craft fairs.  She always insists she hand-makes the ceramic dishes herself.  I guess she's exporting them to Denmark now?

There are a few markets that don't open until December, so I am hopeful a few of them will be better than these.  The one in Christiania should be interesting even if there's nothing to buy.  Christiania is the "free" area of Copenhagen where they don't recognize the Danish government.  Since the 1970s they have made their own laws and the government looks the other way.  Pot is their biggest export.  Like I said, their crafts should be...interesting.

What color is your brain?

For our Leadership class, we each got the opportunity to take the HBDI "Whole Brain Analysis" test.  Its along the same lines as a Meyers-Briggs personality test or a Predictive Index test.  Its the latest testing fad.  The goal is to find out how your brain works, which will tell you what work-style preferences you have, which, through extrapolation, tells you what kind of employee or manager you'll be.

HBDI uses a 4-color system

Engineers tend to be blue, teachers red, accountants are green and psychologists yellow.  Roughly.

My issues with this type of testing are two-fold.  

1) I could take this test every month for a year and get a different result every single time.  The responses you choose depend entirely upon your mood, your most recent experiences, and what else you have on your mind.  This is not science, this is at best an educated guess about how you might behave at a single moment in time, a snapshot.  As such I believe it has very limited use as a predictor of future behavior.  

2) It boxes people in.  Our results were handed out in class and we spent 10 minutes reading through and chatting with our neighbors.  I heard so many people say "I'm blue!" or "I'm green and red!".  As soon as we apply these color labels, it narrows our view of how we think a person does or should behave.  If someone scores high in blue, does that mean they'll make a bad teacher?  Its a dangerous tool when applied too liberally.  Its best used as a rough guide for what a person might prefer as a work style or from a job.  

What color am I?  I know you're dying to know.  I fully expected to be blue.  I spent, oh, 7-odd years as a scientist.  I enjoy working through problems analytically and like to think that I react rationally under stress.  What did my test say?  That I was mostly red, then equally yellow and green, but very little blue.  But when stressed, I become very blue and not a lot of any other color.  Yes, I fully realize that because the test didn't give me the results I expected that I may be slightly biased, more willing to call the test into question.  Because clearly the results were wrong.  Right?  I've had a lot of time to mull over my results and read a little more about the colors and the test itself.  I'm now willing to admit that there may be some small, tiny, minuscule kernel of truth in the results somewhere.  Why else would I have hated lab work so much and chosen to run off and join the Red Cross?  All this self reflection made me realize that I had actually put myself in a box labeled "scientist", a box much too small to fit a softer, more intuitive red side.  I need to be more open to exploring all my colors.  So I guess the test was good for something after all.

CPH City Life

Its hard to describe the feel of Copenhagen.  New York is gritty and strung out on caffeine.  San Francisco is friendly and tech savvy.  Paris is dirty yet chic.  Shanghai is modern, young, and exotic.  Reykjavik is just quirky.  Copenhagen is...cozy?  Warm?  Laid-back?  Its hard to pin down.  Maybe the best word is no-nonsense.  People here don't fuss over anything.  Long line?  No worries, Copenhageners are patient.  Sleeting out?  Just ignore it, we're on our bikes, there's not much we can do about it.  Traffic jams and honking horns?  Non-existent.

I've only been here a short two months, but it definitely feels like home.  I love having everything so close!  The supermarket?  2 blocks down.  And I know where everything is.  Looking for the pasta sauce?  Its over by the rice.  No, I don't know why its not next to the pasta.  The movie theater is 2 blocks up (but I know a shortcut).  The park is out my back door.  My doctor is a half a block down and Charlotte, the receptionist, teaches me a new Danish word every time I visit.  The Taco Shop (Mexican food is a must-have in any city I inhabit) is three blocks over.  My favorite bar?  I've got a couple, are you looking for a local dive or swanky and hip?  The best cafe?  The Phoenix, its across the park, but they only serve cocktails after 9.  Ask for Jakob. :)

The one thing that took the longest to adjust to was the noise.  Having lived in the country, I was used to silence with maybe the occasional coyote or turkey.  Down the street from my little apartment is the town hall and its got a bell tower.  The bells ring every hour and every half hour, though sometimes they start a couple minutes early.  Its quirky, but hey, that's Copenhagen.  The ambulances and police cars have those weird European sirens that sound more like broken Fisher Price toys than real sirens.  Luckily I don't hear those more than a couple times a week.  I'm also far enough up that I don't get much street noise.  Though, as I said, there aren't any honking horns and I've heard exactly one booming stereo in 10 weeks.  Its almost peaceful.  You know, for a city.  I can see why it consistently ranks as one of the top cities in the world for quality of life and happy residents.

Tycho Brahe's nose and the Roundtower

Disclaimer:  This post does not contain a whole lot of pretty pictures and is filled with Sciency stuff.  Consider yourself warned.

One of the things about Copenhagen that I think sets it apart from other cities I've visited is the science history.  Two qualifiers here: 1) I've never lived outside the US, though I have seen a few other cities so my data set isn't all that large and 2) I'm a big science geek, so I may seek it out more than the average tourist.

A little background to begin...Tycho Brahe was a Danish nobleman who made some astronomical discoveries in the 1500s.  Literally astronomical, as in new stars and calculations that would allow Johannes Kepler to form the basis for the laws of planetary motion.  Smart guy.  Except he got into a disagreement with a cousin over the validity of a mathematical formula.  Neither could convince the other he was right, so they agreed to a sword duel.  Really.  Check Wikipedia.  Tycho lost the bridge of his nose in the duel and forever after wore a metal plate in its place.  Sometimes silver, sometimes gold, perhaps even copper (it was a heck of a lot lighter).  This has absolutely nothing to do with the building I visited last weekend, I'm just a big Brahe fan.

Anyway, Tycho had become a bit of a celebrity in the Astronomy field and King Frederick II wanted to keep him in Denmark, so the king gifted Tycho with an island and the funds to build his own observatory, which he built and ran as an institute for several years.  I wonder if I can visit the island...mental note for future explorations.  Anyway, King Frederick died and his 11-year-old son Christian became king in 1588.  Tycho and the new king did not get along and eventually the astronomer moved to Prague and became the Royal Astronomer under Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II.  Did you know there were not one but two Holy Roman Emperors named Rudolph?  

When Tycho left Denmark, Christian Longomontanus became the new Royal Astronomer of Denmark.  I don't think he made any particularly important contributions to his field because I had to check the spelling on his last name three times.  But he was influential with the new king and convinced King Christian IV to build a new observatory for the University of Copenhagen.  At the time, the University was also looking to build a library and a church.  Danes being efficient men, they combined them all into one building.  There are several dozen snarky comments running around in my head about one building devoted to both science and God, but I'll be nice and keep them to myself.  What resulted was the Rundetårn, which translates as the Round Tower.  Creative, I know.  

The observatory is the tall round tower on the left, the church is the main part of the building on the right, and the library was in the church attic.  One problem with this set-up was that they had to get lots and lots of heavy books and observatory equipment up to the top of this building.  Their solution?  Eliminate the stairs.

The observatory tower has seven and a half turns from bottom to top and its one giant ramp so they could pull the books up with a horse and cart.  The builders of the W.E.B. Du Bois libarary could have learned a thing or two from these guys.

In 1726, Czar Peter the Great ascended the tower on horseback to look at the stars.  Unfortunately its no longer an official observatory, though they do hold amateur stargazer get-togethers up there.  They've had several bicycle races inside the tower and in 1989 Thomas Olsen set a world record when he rode a unicycle up and down the tower in 1 minute, 48.7 seconds.  But the best thing about the tower are the views from the top.  They're out of this world.  You can see the tiny windmills in the sound to the left of the 4 smoke stacks and waaaay off in the distance is Sweden.  (hint: if you click on the pictures, they get bigger)

City Afternoon

I took the afternoon and saw more of the city center today.  I plugged a destination into my phone and stuck the headphones in to listen to the turn-by-turn directions, but a short way into my bike ride I realized the navigator was taking me the boring way.  So I took a few turns that weren't in the plans and wound up at Rosenborg Castle.

 Built beginning in 1606, completed in 1624 under King Christian IV.  It was only used as a royal residence
until 1704 and only twice after that due to a fire and an invasion.  To the left of the castle, out of the picture above, are the garrisons for the Royal Life Guards, which provide a permanent guard at Amalienborg Palace, the main royal residence.  Here they are in the process of the changing of the guard.  They leave Rosenborg Castle and march several blocks to Amalienborg Palace.

                                      
 I love the cute backpacks they wear.  I wonder what's inside.

 Next stop was a flower market

 With roses of every color.

And then I wandered around taking pictures of buildings downtown.  I believe this is one of the buildings of the University of Copenhagen, which was founded in 1479.

My last stop was the Round Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Copenhagen.  Its an interesting building and deserves it own post.

Term 1

The last two weeks I've spent almost exclusively in my apartment or in the library reading, writing, and studying, but the sun is shining again because the first term is complete!  5 more to go.  I wrote 30 pages for 4 different papers and took one 3-hour exam that wasn't nearly long enough for all I wanted to write.  I know I've been out of school for, oh, 10 years or so, but I wonder if things have changed drastically in the states, because our exam here wasn't what I was expecting.  It was taken at a computer terminal.  I took both the GMAT and the GRE at computer terminals, but this was different.  We were handed paper copies of the test questions, but we were expected to write our answers a Word file, which got saved to the hard drive.  We were allowed to perform calculations in Excel and save that file as well.  When we were done, we printed out two copies of each, put them in separate envelopes, and sealed and signed them.  I can't remember the last time I wrote 7 pages in 3 hours.  Have I mentioned that the standard paper here isn't 8.5 x 11?  Its something called A4, which is 8.25 x 11.75.  It means more words per page.

I think I did alright, I won't know for a few weeks.  I certainly wouldn't want to be tasked with grading 43 10-page papers or 43 7-page accounting exams.  I'm confident I passed, at least on the Danish scale, which runs from 12 to -3.  An A is equivalent to an 11 or 12, a B is an 8, 9, or 10, a C is 5-7, a D is 1-4, and failing is 0 to -3.  I was wondering aloud how there could be different degrees of failing when a classmate explained that in Germany you can receive a few -1s or -2s, on exams and still work hard and pass the course if you pass other exams.  But if you get a single -3, you've failed the class.  I think I like the alphabet system better.

What did I do to celebrate?  I caught a movie.  Yes, it was in English, but it had Danish subtitles.  Skyfall opened here a week ago and I've been dying to see it.  It was pretty fantastic.  I paid 85 DKK for the ticket, which is the equivalent to $15.50 for a matinee.  In Hadley I think I was paying $8 or $9?  It gets pricier for evening shows.  Popcorn starts at $5 for a small and goes up to $10 for a large, so that isn't too different from home.  There's almost no limit on what I'd pay to see Daniel Craig as Bond, though.  Oh, and they have assigned seats in Danish movie theaters.  I could have bought tickets online and chosen my seats if I'd wanted to.  Even buying them in person, the clerk asked me where I wanted to sit.  Jury is still out on whether its a better system.  More research is needed...

Kultur Natten

Once a year, Copenhagen hosts Culture Night.  It works similarly to First Night in Northampton - you buy a button and it gets you into all the events throughout the city.  Most events began between 4 and 6 in the evening and ended anywhere from 10pm to midnight to 5 am.  A lot of the museums are open late and have special exhibits.  Lots of shops and restaurants are open late as well, and some places have special events for the occasion.

The button also gets you onto all the public transportation for free, which is a pretty big deal considering how expensive the Metro, bus and train are.  A single ride between any two zones (metro, bus, or train) is 24 DKK, or roughly $4.50 at the current exchange rate.  A single ride across 3 zones is 36 DKK, or close to $6.  A ride from my apartment to the airport, approximately 25 minutes, will cross 5 zones and would cost over $15 one-way.  Its still cheaper than a taxi, which will run $50.  A ten-ride ticket between two zones is 145 DKK, bringing the price down to $2.75 each.  Reason # 42 why everyone here rides a bike.

Our first stop was the Statens Museum for Kunst.  We wandered through the botanical gardens to get to our stop and along the way picked up a gentleman who asked if my accent was American or Canadian.  He had just flown in from Australia and hadn't heard an American accent in forever. He'd gone to Williams college for undergrad and remembered western MA fondly.  He asked if he could tag along since he didn't have an agenda, so we chatted on our way to the museum.

The event descriptions on the KulturNatten website were pretty brief, so I wasn't sure what to expect from "National Gallery staff uses UV and other technology to show the layered stories behind the final image of a work of art."  We found the starting point of the tour and I belatedly wondered if the talk was in Danish or English.  The downside to studying in an all-English program is you assume everything outside the program will be in English, too.  Oops.  There were two portions of the talk and it turned out that one of them would be in English, since the restorer was Irish and not all that comfortable with Danish yet.  We also sat through the Danish portion and asked the guide afterward if he would be kind enough to summarize in English what he had just said.  He was very generous with his time and took my friends and I through the highlights.  You can read more about the exhibit we saw here:  http://www.smk.dk/en/explore-the-art/exhibitions/illuminated/  Don't worry, its in English.

Some interior shots of the National Gallery:

This one shows where the old building ended and the new addition began, bridged by a glass ceiling several stories up.  We're still inside the building.

After the talk we wandered around a little and found a performance space where people were getting settled.  I remembered reading something about a musical performance, but couldn't remember the description.  So we settled in for a listen.  On stage were a gentleman with an electric guitar, a woman playing an electric bass and an impressive array of foot pedals, and a gentleman standing in front of the piano playing an iBook and an electric turntable (not the piano).  On the screen behind them was a very strange music video that ended just as their performance began.  Once they began playing, the screen came alive with amorphous shapes and vivid colors, just melding into each other in what we assumed was supposed to be in time with the music.  Except there was no beat. 

Only the morning after was I able to figure out who we had seen.  The guy at the iBook was Martin Hall. THE Martin Hall.  Who?  "Martin Hall began studying music at the tender age of 10. He released his first album at the age of 17, and in 1995 he received a three-year grant from The Danish Arts Foundation for his work as a composer. In 1996 Hall released the album Random Hold, which is featured in the Politikens Rockleksikon list of the 50 most influential records in Danish rock."  Down at the end I'll post some videos of his work.  If you can listen to more than 5 minutes of it, I'll totally be impressed.

Anyway...

We snuck out of the performance after 10 very confusing minutes and headed to our next stop, the Center for International Study.  They were hosting an American haunted house and offered free smores. I couldn't resist dragging my friends along since I've been feeling a little homesick for a New England fall.  

Above is Gomathi roasting a marshmallow.  Both she and Clara enjoyed their first smore, but ended up with more marshmallow on their hands then they would have liked.  Never made it through the haunted house, as the line was far too long.  But I snagged a spiced hot cider for the road.  

It was approaching midnight, so we wandered back in the direction of the metro and encountered a street artist.  He was a very talented drummer banging away on plastic buckets set up around a dolly.  He also played a plastic pig that made squeeling sounds, we think it might have been a dog toy.  He was sprinkling his act with political commentary (we think) and was a big hit with the growing crowd.  Since we know about a dozen words in Danish, we moved on.  We found a crepe truck still open and opted for some cinnamon & sugar crepes for the ride home.

Some more on Martin Hall:

This is the video that played before the live performance began, its called Dead Horses on a Beach.  I believe he composed, but didn't play or sing on this track.  You can also find it on his latest album.

I cannot find a good representation of the live performance we saw, as all the Martin Hall YouTube videos are, well, normal.  The songs are 3-6 minutes, have a beat, and he sings some lyrics.  There was none of that in the show we saw.  It was continuous...I hate to say it....noise.  It was very odd and seems like a very big departure from Hall's previous work.

Danish Stats & Oddities, Part I

Why bury the headline?  I learned the other day that 70% of Danish people cheat on their partners.  The same source also tells me 1 in 20 children are being raised by someone they think is their biological parent but is not.  Apparently a good portion of this extra-curricular activity takes place during the holidays, which the Danes celebrate with vigor.  Scheduling starts in October and you can expect to have multiple holiday meals with your friends, co-workers, and your family.  Office parties are notorious for a little fun on the side, should one be so inclined.  Supposedly Vegas got their saying from Danish office parties.

The Danes are the second tallest people in the world after the Dutch.  Men in the Netherlands stand an average (yes, average) of 6'2" while men in Denmark stand an average of 6' even.  American men in comparison stand an average of 5'9".  My bed, while a single, is the longest bed I've ever slept in.  And the toilets?  My feet don't touch the floor.  Its hard to be 5'4" in Denmark.  Don't even get me started on buying pants...

Speaking of toilets, many of them are co-ed.  In a small doctor's office where there is a single bathroom, this is, for an American, expected.  I was surprised, though, to find it the case on campus as well.  When you open the bathroom door, you enter a vestibule with sinks and  mirrors and several more doors.  Each inner door closes off its own room with a toilet, mirror, sink, and hand dryer.  Totally fine if you have this knowledge going in.  A little shocking if you think you've walked into the ladies' room only to see two guys primping in front of the mirror.

Men and their hair!  Men here can spend hours and whole bottles of hair product getting ready in the morning.  It must look like they care too much and not one bit, all at the same time.  Some guys wear it short, others a little longer, always neat.  By contrast, there is only one acceptable women's hair style in Denmark - up and sloppy.  Women don't use hair spray or curing irons or even blow driers it would seem.  And after a week of riding my bike through the city, I completely understand why.  Unless you have a short, shellacked do, its never going to stand up to the wind & rain you're likely to experience on your morning bike ride to work.

Ah, the bikes.  This will have to be a post all its own.  Or, more likely, a 12 part series.

Money.  The unit of currency is the Kroner, or crown.  There are 100 ore, or ears, in a kroner.  There are 50 ore coins as well as 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20 kroner coins.  There are 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 kroner bills, each a different sized rectangle.  So how do I buy a box of cereal that costs 29.95 kr?  I have two options.  If I pay with coins, the amount is rounded up to 30 kr.  If I pay with a credit or debit card, the amount charged is exactly 29.95.  A little odd, yes, but think about gas signs in the US.  A gallon costs $3.89 and 9/10ths.

And taxes are included with all prices advertised.  If I'm in the supermarket and I see a box of tea for 17 kr, I know that's what I'm paying.  If I only have 100 kr on me, I can add all the items in my basket in my head and know I'm going to have enough cash.  Several of my classmates were stunned to learn this is not how it works in the US.  They all focused on one point - "So, you go to the store and the price on the shelf is not the price you pay?  How do you know they're not cheating you?"  I tried to explain that its all automated, it has to be considering each category of product can have its own tax rate.  But they still thought it was a complete scam.  And then a Canadian brought up paying less for things when you have cash vs. credit card, or negotiating price with smaller shops and that's when the Portuguese accountant's head exploded.

Weekends

I've only been here a little over a month, but I already have a typical weekend.  

Friday

Friday night found a group of us sitting on a classmate's boat chatting and having a few drinks.  Frank is a sailor and, rather than rent an apartment in town, he opted to buy a small boat and live in the harbor for the year.  I won't envy him when winter sets in.  We had burgers at the marina's restaurant.  They only had one burger option - it came with bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and some kind of special sauce.  The thing I found odd was that they didn't ask me how I wanted it done.  When I asked the waiter about this, he said they all come out medium.  His version of medium was pretty close to my version of well done.  My new phone was having navigation issues, so I waited until someone else was leaving so I could follow them back to school.  Biking from the harbor to campus took about 40 minutes.  I think I've spent more time on a bike in this last month than I have in the last 15 years.

Saturday

Saturday morning I made my way to the Forum, a convention center in city center.  For this weekend only it was hosting a sample sale.  Several designers had clothes & shoes at a serious discount.  

Even on sale, clothes are still pretty pricy unless I'm shopping at H&M.  Typical shirt ran about $40 and shoes started around $100.  Some of the stalls were selling used clothes & shoes, which seems to be a popular thing here in Denmark.  I stopped at a flea market last weekend and at least 60% of the booths were just used clothes & shoes.  It just wasn't the same without Mom.

I had taken the metro two stops East to the Forum because I was afraid I would buy more than would fit on my bike.  So when I stepped out of the metro after shopping with only one bag, I stopped into the Fotex, my favorite supermarket.  Stores are open in Copenhagen M-F 9-4 or, if you're lucky, 9-5 or 6.  They're open Saturday from roughly 10-2 or 4.  They're also open the last Sunday of the month and, as we approach the holidays, more and more Sundays in the month.  I was hosting brunch the next day, so I knew I needed to get my supplies on Saturday.

Sunday morning I cleaned & rearranged furniture so I could host our weekly brunch for the MBA students on the graduate floor of the building.  I made french toast, though I couldn't find maple syrup to save my life.  Turns out agave syrup works in a pinch.  Tetyana, from Russia, contributed cheeses - mozzarella and feta.  Gomathi, from India, made curry and home-made roti.  Clara, from Portugal brought a fruit salad she had made the day before.  Kris, from the UK, made bacon in his flat.  Iryna, from Canada, contributed the coffee, and Hrafn from Iceland brought the OJ.  Frank (of Frank's boat fame), from the Netherlands, was invited since he had been nice enough to host us on his boat.  He brought himself.

After brunch, a few of us biked to the football pitch (soccer field) where there has been a weekly pick-up game between current MBA students and a handful of alumni.  Iryna doesn't have a bike yet so she caught a ride on the back of Frank's.  She's heard a rumor there's a police auction where you can buy a bike for as little as $35.  She's going to check that out on Tuesday.

The football pitch is in the shadow of a stadium where the pros play.  I went in the hopes that someone would explain the rules to me, but it turns out they don't really play with rules, so those of us not playing served as the cheering section.

When the football match ended, most of us went back home to read for Monday's Management Accounting class.