Congratulations Copenhagen Marathoners!

Today 8373 people participated in the Copenhagen marathon, including my friends Sam and Stine, who both finished in under 4 hours! Good job girls! The picture above is taken from my friend Elisa's apartment on Østerbrogade. Later I went on a run of my own (although far from marathon-length) and admired the many ducklings on the lakes.

And congratulations also to my sister, who just graduated from law school at the University of Minnesota! Good job Anne!

Down with Hitler

This inscription, "ned med Hitler" (down with Hitler) is scratched into one of the windows in the stairwell of my building. I wonder if it's real? (Well, I suppose in a sense it's obviously real, but I wonder if it dates back to WWII...)

The spring students have finals this week and then leave this weekend, but I don't get much of a break because the first session summer students then arrive the following Friday -- so things are busy as always at work. BUT, I just had a fantastic 3-day weekend, filled with beaches (one bougie one, Bellevue, north of the city, and one giant one on Amager, east of the city), parks, a picnic, and a party. A perfect relaxing break since things have been so crazy at work lately. The weather has been amazing, sunny and warm, sometimes even what I would call hot, which is unusual for Copenhagen (so much so that they don't even have a word for it...) Today was cooler again, but still sunny. Not complaining!

Bornholm is beautiful

I've now been 3 times, and each time it takes my breath away. No time to write now, but check out the photos (see link on the left). So pretty. Here's one more, of Gudhjem, the town where we stayed:
It's also been beautiful out lately, and on that note I'm going to try to get out of here soon and go enjoy it!

Europe hates going to work

Evidence:
1. All the days off I've been getting lately (big prayer day, christ skytravelday, and next up 2nd pinsedag (May 12th, 2nd Whitmonday, whatever that means)).
2. Sweden is closed on June 6th for Sweden day, or something like that. No visits possible for our students.
3. Recent dialogue with someone at a Primary Care Trust in London: "Oh, Pamela's on vacation right now; can you call back on Thursday?" Me: "No, I won't be in the office on Thursday; it's a Danish holiday. I'll call on Friday". When I called again today, I got to speak to Pamela. Her: "Yes, I can ask around, but I'm about to go to Spain and then Monday is a bank holiday, so I won't get to it until later next week".

Actually, I rather like it. Although other people's excessive vacation is annoying when you're trying to get in touch with them, I like having my own excessive vacation time. Plus, I think America puts too much value on work ethic. Who decided that having your work be your life is a virtue?

Off to Bornholm tonight!

Kristi Himmelfartsdag

Today I didn't have to work, as it is ascension day (aka kristi himmelfartsdag, christ skytravelday, christ heavenjourneyday, etc.) Coincidentally, this also happens to be May 1st, which is international workers' day and means, in Copenhagen, that everyone assembles in a big park called Fælledparken to drink beer, listen to music, drink beer, play games, ride rides, drink beer, etc. On my way there, I passed an anarchist demonstration (peacefully overseen by police). The park is also right next to the national stadium, which added to the antics as there was a big game today (brøndby-esbjerg), so there were lots of fans out in their team colors either celebrating or commiserating. It's hard to describe the scale of events like this -- it seems like everyone in the city and suburbs is there, even though it was raining earlier in the day so everybody is covered in mud. People bring there babies, who wander around among all the people drinking and smoking joints. We wandered around, listened to some music at the anti-fascism stage, left to get some food, came back and spent some time watching a game in which grown men tried to knock each other off of a kind of balance beam thing with pillows, wandered around more and eventually left. Sometimes I just think Denmark is so weird...