I'm living in a war zone

Or, you would think so judging by the noise of all the fireworks people set off at night. Fireworks are only legal/available at this time of year (for New Year's Eve), so people are going crazy with them. Every night as soon as it gets dark the streets and skies are full of them, and from inside one's apartment it sounds like the city is under siege. I guess tonight will be worst of all, since it's actually New Year's Eve now... I'm going to a party at a coworker's apartment. It begins with the Queen's annual address to the nation at 6 pm, followed by dinner, etc. Then before midnight you stand on a chair, turn on the TV, watch the clock in town hall square, and, at the stroke of 12, jump down to the floor -- jumping into the new year.

Look how Scandinavian...

My Christmas eve dinner was!
Actually, the meal itself (quiche, soup, salad) wasn't really all that Scandi, I just think the picture is.

Julefrokost!

Last Saturday we had our staff julefrokost. Julefrokost means Christmas lunch, but isn't necessarily really a lunch. They are really common, and most people will go to a bunch during December: with work, with family, with friends, with your old high school class, etc. It's such a big deal that all of the trains are free on weekends in December (to discourage drunk driving).

The event starts with dinner. First comes the fish course, with assorted herring eaten on rye bread. Next is the meat course, which mainly means flæskesteg -- roast pork with "cracklings" (weird crunchy skin layer on the top). Then for desert there is rice pudding with cherry sauce. All of this is Christmas lunch food, as opposed to Christmas food, which is a whole different menu. All is enjoyed with Christmas beer, wine, and snaps. In between courses, you sing Danish Christmas carols (and, in our case, some American ones).

After dinner is a gift-exchange game called pakkeleg ("package play"), which involves dice and gift-stealing. Everyone brings a wrapped present to the party, and then during the game they all run around taking them from each other. Eventually time is called and then you are stuck with whatever you've got. You can end up with lots or none. I got a big candle with snowmen and candy canes, but others got more exciting things like chocolate penises and various parts of a dismembered mannequin.

Next there is music and dancing, including running around outside in the dark holding hands in a big circle and running around a tree screaming a song whose lyrics translate to:
"Now it's Christmas again, now it's Christmas again, and Christmas lasts until Easter.
No it isn't true, no it isn't true, for in between comes the fast".
I always thought you were supposed to "dance" around a "Christmas tree", but apparently running around any tree will do. Actually, I'm surprised nobody broke an ankle or anything, given that we were running around in heels (the women, anyway) in the dark, on cobblestones, being dragged by the hand, after perhaps a bit too much to drink... But apparently no one was seriously injured.

Anyway, then is more dancing, etc. for a long time... everything takes a long time, actually: our Julefrokost started at 5, and continued until midnight, at which point a bus came to take us to the club "Vega" where we had VIP passes... very classy. Meaning, free entry into the club, reserved booths, and drink tickets. Pretty nice. Even the "old" (as in, over 30) staff came to the club... It was amusing to come into work on Monday and listen to my boss and other people in administration talking about their hazy memories of the night!

So, a fun night, and interesting cultural experience! Very different from most American office Christmas parties, I think!

If you ignore the guys peeing in dumpsters...

Copenhagen is really beautiful at Christmas! Sure it gets dark at 3 pm, but that just means more time to enjoy the light displays on Strøget, the pedestrian shopping street. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me today when I went shopping for shoes to go with my new Julefrokost (Christmas lunch, literally, but not really a lunch so much as a herring buffet and boozefest) dress, but below you can see a picture taken by somebody else of some other year's Christmas decor. (I don't know what time of day that picture could have been taken though -- I've never seen that square so un-crowded in December!) I think the nicer end of Strøget is one of the prettiest places in Copenhagen at Christmas -- Tivoli's pretty good too, but a bit much, perhaps, and much more touristy.Denmark gets into the Christmas spirit starting on November 1st, aka J-Day, when Tuborg's Julebryg (Christmas brew) is released. This marks the beginning of the season, and all the shops put up their Christmas displays. I haven't been feeling Christmas-y for quite so long, but the last few weeks have been pretty full of Julehygge -- what with the decorations, the gløgg and pebernødder cookies, the Crazy Christmas Cabaret in Tivoli, and Nøddeknækkeren (the Nutcracker) last Friday, although the Danes put on one of the weirdest productions of it I've ever seen, with the exception of the Ballet of the Dolls version -- the Danish one included two Herr Drosselmeyers, a giant yellow rabbit on springs, a gorilla sugarplum fairy, and WAY more bicycles than I've ever seen in the Nutcracker before. We had terrible seats in the gallery, with a rather limited view of the stage but a very nice view of the royal box. Unfortunately Her Majesty was not in attendance.

13 days, according to my advent candle!

Dogme films and Danish lit for dummies

I don't know how familiar you are with Danish films, but they tend to be dark, bleak, and depressing. I think it's strange that the happiest country on earth produces the most depressing movies, but maybe they're trying to reach some kind of balance or something -- experiencing traumatic situations vicariously since their lives are just so damn easy. Actually, I've heard speculation that the reason Danes are so happy is that their expectations are so low, and the depressing films support this idea -- if you are constantly expecting a loved one to be paralyzed in a car accident, or to find out your husband is cheating on you, or is dying of cancer, or that he molested your children all throughout their childhoods (plots elements of a few of the Danish dogme movies), then you have to be pleasantly surprised when things turn out alright.

Whatever the reasoning behind the depressing nature of Danish cinema, the same phenomenon apparently applies to literature, at least in the genre written for foreigners trying to learn the language. For Danish class, we each have to read three little books and then discuss them in an oral test next weekend which determines if we can move on to the next module. Anyway, these books are amusing because while they are written to be understandable to someone who has only been learning the language for about two months, they are not children's books -- like Danish movies, they deal with themes such as infidelity, dying/kidnapped babies, post-traumatic stress syndrome, intellectual disabilities, racism, drowning children, etc. But this is all done using very easy words and simple sentence structure -- translated opening line paragraph of one of the books I read, for example: "It is night. Mona can see the moon. It is yellow, and it shines." And it goes on, using similar language, to describe her one year old having febrile seizures, her thinking he's dead and fainting in the arms of the paramedic, etc. Pretty weird. (Btw, he ends up being alright in the end -- in case you were worried).

Anyway -- I just think it's interesting that such an apparently happy country is so obsessed with making themselves sad, but maybe it makes sense. Maybe if you live somewhere where life is difficult and awful, you only want to watch lighthearted movies, to take your mind off your troubles. If, on the other hand, you live in Denmark, where you have nothing to worry about, you need to create some drama in your life to keep yourself from getting too content and bored. Hmm.

Danes love to bite chumps

This may be incomprehensible to my older readers, but to anyone familiar with Facebook it should make sense. I have noticed that Danes, and maybe Europeans in general (based on a smaller pool, so maybe it's not statistically significant) just LOVE facebook applications. Especially the vampire one, where you can "bite chumps" to turn them into vampires. But it holds for all applications -- most Danes have so many that you have to scroll down for like an hour to get to the NORMAL wall (below the superwall, and the funwall, and the daily babe, and the "if you were a _____, what kind of ______ would you be" quizzes, and the extended info, etc., etc., etc.!) It's nuts. Seriously guys, do we NEED to see your hot bag on your facebook page?? Actually, I think my favorite application I've seen so far is the "baby-ticker pregnancy countdown" which shows a picture of a floating fetus and how big it is on the current day. But this is on the page of an American, so I can't blame everything on Europe...

Zoobilee Zoo and Captain Kangaroo

We had a visitor at work earlier this week who looked a lot like Captain Kangaroo. I mentioned this to Staci at lunch, which led to the topic of 1980s children's television. She said that her favorite show as a child was Zoobilee Zoo (see full cast, left). When she described it a bit, I realized that this was a show I also loved as a very young child, but had never been able to find again in my adult life, as I had no idea what it was called. I remember seeing it only a few times, but absolutely loving it, particularly the character below who I always thought was a cat but was apparently actually Whazzat Kangaroo. (In my defense, she looks a lot like a cat -- cat ears, cat tail...) I also was a fan of the character who I thought was a racoon, but was really Bill der Beaver. It's exciting to finally rediscover this gem. Of course I looked for it on youtube, and there are actually several full episodes available. I started to watch one, but it turns out it's actually pretty boring and predictable. Not surprising, I guess, given that it went off the air in 1987 and I was therefore only three when I would have watched it (although maybe I was watching reruns). It is focused around a group of people in animal suits, who are called Zoobles. The viewers, for some reason, are addressed as Zoobaroos by the mayor (in center of picture above), who helps sum up the moral lessons learned by the characters in each episode. To the viewer above the age of 4, it's pretty trite and has annoying songs, but it's nevertheless satisfying to finally answer one of those little questions that's been bothering me for years (what WAS that weird show with the animal suits??)

Does anyone else remember this fantastic program?

The Danish Language, part 2

Today I went into a hardware store and successfully asked, in Danish, for some bicycle lights. I was very proud of myself, as I got a Danish reply, and had no communication difficulties, unlike this guy.

It's from a Norwegian comedy show, and they're making fun of how terrible the pronunciation is in Danish :)

Oh, and also, it's official -- I had my first bike ride during snowfall yesterday. It begins...

I'm So Euro

Evidence:

1. I no longer regularly translate prices from kroner into dollars in my head. This makes me cringe less when buying things, especially given that the dollar is dropping like a stone (5.0??? seriously??) The other day, for example, upon buying an Irish coffee for 42 kroner, I thought to myself, wow, that's such a good deal! Then I thought, wait a minute, that's actually more than $8, for a pretty small drink... not something I would have EVER classified as a good price in the states. But here, that's really pretty reasonable. (By the way, did you know that the proper Irish way to drink an Irish coffee is without a straw? We were a bit insulted the other day when we had a different bartender than usual and he tried to give us straws.)

2. I know my exact weight in kilograms (since there are scales on the treadmills at my gym), but would have to think a bit to translate that into pounds. (I'd just as soon not, though...)

3. I wear legwarmers for their intended purpose, legwarming, during my daily bicycle commute when I wear skirts. Of course, the daily bicycle commute is another piece of evidence on its own, too.

4. It makes me distinctly uncomfortable when I'm with Americans who insist on crossing against the light when there are no cars around. "But, the light is red...!"

5. I light candles like it's my job. Even while I eat breakfast. And I just bought an advent candle... with a little line for each day in December, so you burn a bit more each day.

6. I could never make myself run down to the grocery store right next to my building in a sweatshirt or something. Or without makeup.

7. I never forget to put the little divider thing on the belt as soon as I put my groceries on. And I get pissed if others (obviously foreigners) do.

8. Oh yeah, and I eat open-faced ryebread sandwiches with cream cheese, tomato, and cucumber for lunch every day.

Probably there are more things. That's what I can think of at the moment. But I'm definitely still an Amerikansk pige -- I refuse to do dishes the plastic-tub-in-a-sink way, for example. I just don't see WHY this works better. So I'm holding onto my roots :)

The Danish Language

I like Danish, because it is so literal. Everything is called exactly what it is. For example, a bra is called a b.h., which stands for "bryst-holder" (breast holder). Jeans are called cowboybukser (cowboy pants), a hole punch is a hullemaskine (hole machine), and wood is just called træ (tree). As in, my house has floors of tree. It's silly. On the other hand, there are also words that don't make sense at all: the verb for "to ski" is translated literally as "to stand on skis" (at stå på ski), and the phrase "I am a housewife" is "jeg går hjemme", which means "I walk around at home". The traditional word for stepmother is stedmor, but due to the negative connotations with evil stepmothers, the more polite "papmor" has been adopted -- literally, "cardboard mother". Which doesn't seem all that polite to me either, but you can always go with the other possibility, "bonusmor". Grandparents are "bestparents", whereas great-grandparents are "oldparents". Cute.

I like my Danish book because it assumes we're all refugee-types, rather than mainly European PhD students, visiting faculty at universities, and employees of study abroad programs, which is the actual composition of the class. We learn phrases like "I can't come to class tomorrow because I have an appointment with my social worker", and "Zahra's not coming anymore -- she's gone home to Lebanon." At the moment, we're learning words for jobs, and while we have learned the obvious ones like "teacher", "nurse", etc., all of the specific jobs we have learned are distinctly... immigrant: busdriver, cabbie, hotel maid, janitor, and my favorite, "jeg går med aviser", which means "I walk around with newspapers", and is about the lowest of the low in terms of jobs. These are the people, usually drunks and vagrant-types, sometimes just foreign, who try to hand you free papers at the train stations and on the street. It must be a bit disheartening to take Danish class and be told that this is what you can aspire to when you learn the language... It makes class more entertaining though, and helps the 3.5 hours pass a bit more quickly.

Mallows

I just purchased the following bag of Marshmallows :
from my local Netto, for use in preparing delicious candied yams for today's "intern Thanksgiving" event. I think the "easy to make" claim in the upper right-hand corner is a bit silly, given that they're flippin' marshmallows, but turn over the bag and you find these detailed "instructions for use":

My favorite is step 3, in which upon careful roasting, the "Mallows become a real caramel". What the hell does that mean? The safety warnings are also pretty good. Finally, there's also a pictorial version of above instructions, in case you don't know any of the three included languages, or are illiterate. My favorite is the picture of the sad kid who's too young to safely eat marshmallows:

Diverse

Wow, just got home from the most ridiculous dinner ever. Maybe I'll write about it when I am less tired. For now, suffice it to say that customer service is non-existant in Denmark. On an unrelated note, here is a map of drinking ages around the world. Go Denmark, in all of your 16+ glory. Enjoy!

source: http://www.unusualmaps.com/drinking.html

Fact of the Day

According to my Danish teacher:

In Denmark, old people get a special free transportation pass that they can use on the train, metro, and buses. Except during rush hour. Because they are too slow.

Bamse -- the world's strongest and kindest bear

From Wikipedia:
Bamse – Världens starkaste och snällaste björn ("The world's strongest and kindest bear") is a Swedish fictional cartoon character created by Rune Andréasson. The highly popular children's cartoon first emerged as a series of television short films as well as a weekly half page "Sunday strip" in 1966, before being published periodically in its own comic magazine since 1973. The name "Bamse" comes from a Scandinavian word meaning "bear" or "teddybear" or, at least in Danish, just generally stuffed animal. He is the world's strongest bear, as he gained super strength by eating a batch of honey called dunderhonung (lit. "thunder honey" or "rumble honey"), specially prepared for him by his grandmother. Most other people, with only a couple of exceptions, will only get a three-day stomach-ache from eating it. Nalle-Maja, one of Bamse's daughters will get both the strength and the stomach-ache. His other daughter, Brumma, will get none. He is also the world's kindest bear, and frequently repeats his motto, "nobody is the better for being beaten". Catchy, no?

Bamse's best friends are Lille Skutt ("Little Hop"), a very fast but notoriously frightened white rabbit, and Skalman ("Shell-man"), an ingenious tortoise who invents all sorts of machines, including spacecraft and time machines, and stores just about anything in his carapace (except for a locomotive and an atlantic steamboat, according to own claims). He also looks stoned. Skalman seems to be a polyphasic sleeper, and according to himself, his best invention is the food-and-sleep clock, whose calls he follows slavishly, even at times when sleep seems highly inappropriate. To this date, he has only ignored the alarm call a few times, including the discovery of a dinosaur's egg, the birth of Bamse's children, and a state of deep depression (due to the (false) belief that his carelessness had caused the death of Bamse's children). A bit dark for a children's comic strip, I think...

Bamse and his friends are very clear about their values. They are strongly opposed to racism, bullying and violence. Also, pro-communism... keep reading. The only villain that is depicted as unredeemable is Krösus Sork ("Croesus Vole"), a crude capitalist who will do practically anything for money. This, together with the overall focus on sharing and some of the "school" pages making pro-Chinese and Vietnam statements, has led some people to accuse the series of promoting communism. The series somewhat changed direction when Bamse had children, specifically triplets, in 1982. In 1986, he had a fourth child, Lille Skutt having one at the same time. (Skalman remains single, though.) Family life is now in focus, and here also the basic values shine through, like that of gender equality. In 1989 Skalman noticed that Bamse's fourth child ("Brumma") was intellectually handicapped, which again brought up the subject of equality. More heavy themes... awesome.

Etc, etc. Conclusion: Scandinavians are super weird. As a side note, I'm considering naming my future kitten Bamse, not after the bear but after the Danish word for stuffed animal, and because I think it's cute. It strikes me as more of a puppy name, but I'm not sure I'll ever get a puppy, so... hmm. Something to keep in mind.

Danish hospitals have no security

Whenever I go to the hospital, which I do somewhat often for work, I am always surprised by how I can just walk wherever I want and nobody tries to stop me. I guess I haven't done a lot of hospital wandering in the states (at least, not without my volunteer vest that shows that I have a reason to be there), but I feel like somebody would stop you, or at least ask you if you needed help finding something, if you tried to wander into, for example, the X-ray or MRI department. Here, though, I can just waltz into whatever department I like, looking kind of lost and carrying my bottles of wine (because usually when I go there it is to deliver wine gifts to guest lecturers), and nobody even looks at me.

Anyway. I think that's weird.

Denmark is really, really small

So, I started this blog when I first came to Denmark 3.5 months ago, but haven't gotten around to posting until now. So here goes, with no real introduction.

When I talk to random Danes, one of the first things they usually ask me is, "So why did you come to Denmark? It's so small!" I don't really get why they have such a complex about this, as far as I can tell the size of a country doesn't really matter for ones day-to-day life, but it is true that it's a pretty damn small country. Point of evidence: Celebrities are everywhere. On Friday evening, my friends and I were having dinner at La Galette, a French crepe place, when Sidse Babett Knudsen, pretty much like the most famous actress in Denmark (see pic), came in with her little son and sat at a table a meter or so away from us. Thing is, if you're famous in Denmark, you probably live in Copenhagen, and Copenhagen isn't really that big, so you see famous people a lot if you know who they are. Of course, an American like me usually doesn't know who they are, since famous Danes are not typically all that famous on a global scale. I've seen 3 of S.B.K.'s movies, but I'm still not sure if I would have recognized her if I hadn't been with a "real Dane" who pointed her out. It was exciting though, and interesting to see how polite the Danes in the restaurant were about leaving her alone -- I feel like a star of a similar caliber in the US would be mobbed, or at least stared at more.

Anyway, I'm late to a brunch, so that's it for now...