you've been a very bad girl, a very very bad bad girl gaga ;)

 i can feel the work piling up and my life slowly disappearing again...

alice in wonderland was a disappointment that i should have expected. this is just not what tim burton is about. he can't waste his creativity on already existing characters. even if this wasn't just a retelling, but his fabrication of the story after, it didn't have enough tim burton ness. it wasn't creepy enough in the way tim burton usually is and needs to be in order to really understand his sick genius mind. however, johnny depp and helena bonham carter never fail to amaze me. and i liked the special effects, especially of her head. but this will probably be the first and last movie i ever watch in copenhagen. it is so expensive... almost $30 but it was nice to choose seats beforehand. no waiting in line to run for a seat.

i went back to christiania with my danish class for a guided tour. i didn't realize how large it was and pusher street is literally a speck on the map of the whole. the guide has lived there since the beginning of christiania so she gave us the whole rundown of what went down over the years. it still amazes me that a self-governed community can exist in today's society. i thought you couldn't take any pictures, but that's only on pusher street... obviously.

infamous mural at the gate into christiania

this is a map of christiania. pusher street is a speck in the lower right hand corner, which is also where the mural and the gate is located. it used to be old army barracks and the reason for the shape is because it used to be the city's defense border.

so the bad rep that christiania gets is a pretty unfortunate story. it was meant to be like a hippie community of people who wanted to live freely and peacefully. they are what they call a consensus democracy, so majority does not rule. there must be a unanimous consensus. they collectively pay money to the state of denmark for garbage disposal, water, electricity, and also pay to sustain and maintain their own community. i will have to go back and take pictures of the houses because everyone builds their own house however they want so it should be an interesting sight. but when heroin started to appear on the market, the city of copenhagen didn't know how to deal with the junkies so they dropped them all off at christiania's gate... a conspiracy to destroy christiania in hopes for it to disappear. and it just went downhill from there. gangs began to appear in christiania and violence escalated. it's so sad because people try to raise their kids and such in christiania.

christiania's laws. break it the first time, 3 months exile. break it the second time, 1 year exile. break it the third time, exiled forever.

christiania's skate park (this is the fun factory i was talking about last time)

infamous christiania bike to drive around your babies

i also had the chance to see an opera. unfortunately not at the new opera house, but at the old royal danish theater. "the magic flute" composed by mozart. it confirmed my dislike for operas, but at least i felt cultured. it might have been a little bit worse because both the singing and the subtitles were in danish, but i recognized some of the music.  

i'm going to a soccer game tomorrow! f.c. københavn vs. brøndby. this is one of the biggest rivalries... like yankees vs. red sox big. check out the song i need to learn so i can jump up and down with the crowd!

and on a final note...

trust is like a mirror. you can fix it if it's broke. but you can still see the crack in that motherfucker's reflection.

germany and the netherlands

i'm back!

it has been a long week touring germany and the netherlands. we visited so many cities and so many buildings that everything is starting to blur...

the entire trip felt like a walking pilgrimage across europe. in one week, i went to: hamburg, cologne, dusseldorf, neuss, arnhem, amsterdam, utrecht, rotterdam
this is what the danes call "the american way" of traveling, meaning that we try to do one city a day. it's just impossible to truly experience a city in one day, let alone a week. you need at least a month, just like the way danes do it with their six week vacations. 
i like to think that this week was just a preview so that i can return for a longer duration. but i absolutely fell in love with utrecht... it was my favorite city in the netherlands. maybe because i got to see my favorite building that i've been dying to see for two years. and of course, being that i have the worst luck in the world, i finally get to go inside and my camera dies. wtf.

amsterdam ♥
so the conclusion is that canals make a city beautiful. we need to get some of these...

being that we traveled from city to city by bus, i saw a couple of new movies. volver (which was just simply strange) and black book (or zwartboek in dutch). black book reminded me too much of inglourious basterds which makes me wonder if there was any cross pollination between the two. they were released only 3 years apart from each other. but nonetheless, both really good movies.

i also succumbed to my biggest consumerist weakness... books with pretty pictures. this one is a monograph of BIG architects' works entitled "an archicomic on architectural evolution." they are denmark's newest (and youngest) innovators in architecture... check them out at www.big.dk



change of itinerary! i will be going to rome instead of paris at the end of april / beginning of may. yay!!! pizza!!!

last night, i made dinner for the family. eggplant parmesan, which is beginning to become my specialty. tonight is alice in wonderland with the fam :)

wake up in the morning... in sweden?

sorry for the much delayed post...

i swore to never talk about school (even though i am studying abroad, these courses are pass/fail so i am trying to do the bare minimum) but i will just say that i had to put off life (and my blog) to work in studio. i cannot believe they have 10pm deadlines here, but i ended up working in studio from monday through wednesday (with no shower, sleep, or food), only living off of my new obsession... chocolate milk :)
(fyi... this milk box is gigantic. my hand doesn't even wrap around half of it so i have to use both hands to hold it and drink it)

so before studio took my life...

it was lowell's birthday so we went out to celebrate. we did our usual bar hopping and i have learned that 6 beers is my limit. and mind you, the glasses here are 4 ounces larger than the states. and it was the first time that we were approached by a group of danes. this is very very unusual because danes NEVER speak to anyone outside of their group so it was exciting. i learned that most danes leave their parents' homes as soon as they finish "high school" (their education system is very different so i use the term high school very loosely). and they NEVER come back home. it's considered shameful so it was very hard to explain that going away for school is only temporary and my permanent residence is still technically my parents' home. it was also hard when i told them that my brother still lived with us until recently. they said it was like the italian men who live with their parents even into their 30's. (i'm afraid my brother is headed in that direction as i hear that he has returned home after moving out for a mere 2 months -.-)

we finally partied the danish way, meaning we were out until 5:30am. the typical danish night starts out around 9-10pm when they "pre-party," aka pregame, at someone's house and the night out typically starts at midnight or later. some places don't even open until midnight and before that, it is close to empty and they stay out until early morning. and then my journey home... (i have included a map as a visual)

i was in copenhagen (point B on map) and i live in horsholm (point A on map). the commute is typically a 40 min. bus ride but the buses stopped running so i had to take the train, which typically takes 25-30 min. but i was drunk and i fell asleep so this was my journey home:
B --> C --> D --> A (yes, point D is in freakin sweden!!!) and after i got off the train i had to take a bus home and took it in the wrong direction. sooo what should've been 30 min. took me 5 hours to get home and i went to bed at 10:30am. my host family never fails to reference it in their jokes at least once a day. major fail.

i am trying to watch as much of the olympics that i can stay awake for, and being in denmark, i have earned a greater appreciation for curling. what i thought to be a useless sport is now very interesting and very deliberate in their strategy. denmark is similar to korea in that they are a small country and very nationalistic so if someone is good at something, they support it 200% which is why they like handball and curling... because denmark is good at it. and i tried my hand at it too... in... table curling!!!

 

i have finalized my spring break travel itinerary so here it is! (come join me wherever you can)

3/28-3/31 | prague

4/1-4/3 | vienna

4/4-4/6 | budapest

4/7-4/11 | berlin

and 4/28-5/2 in paris

in 3 days i am off to western germany and the netherlands for a week long study tour with my school. yay! i will try to check out club vandersexxx, as per minkyu's request in reference to eurotrip ;)

jutland

jutland: western denmark, which is a peninsula attached to germany

last weekend i went on a study tour with the architecture school and all the other architecture students to jutland, or western denmark. copenhagen is on an island called sealand, which is considered eastern denmark. so now i have seen 4 of denmark's largest cities... (these are just a couple teaser images. i plan to upload all my pictures at home in new york in may)

skylights || trapholt museum of art
city: kolding [10th largest city]

restoration || koldinghus
city: kolding

staircase || børnekulturhuset st. nicolai
city: kolding

skylights || utzon center
city: aalborg [4th largest city]


note: jørn utzon is the sydney opera house architect. he's danish :)

chapel || aarhus krematorium kapel
city: aarhus [2nd largest city]










cancer counsel center || hejmdal
city: aarhus

note: my first frank gehry experience

skylights || aarhus raadhus
city: aarhus

olafur eliasson || aros
city: aarhus











<-- look! it's me :)

happy fastelavn!

today is fastelavn, what started as a roman catholic tradition of celebrating the days before lent and is now a nordic halloween. all the children dress up in costumes and gather treats for the feast, where they have to "hit the cat out of the barrel." they fill a wooden barrel with candy and beat it with a bat until the candy pours out (essentially a pinata) and the one who breaks it is crowned "queen of cats" and the one who knocks down the last piece of the barrel is crowned "king of cats." this year, it coincidentally falls on the same day as valentine's day but valentine's day is not as popular here because danes consider it to be an american holiday that businesses advertise in order to benefit their revenue. we always joke that soon danes will be celebrating thanksgiving as well as our independence day :)

in light of the holiday, my host dad, knud, made fastelavnsboller. it is a round baked bun filled with cream. IT IS HEAVEN! it is absolutely my favorite danish pastry so far. 


i also had my first real danish meal. i had smørrebrød (open sandwich) before but this was the legit way to eat it. first of all, there are so many rules! you have to hold the rye bread on the short end with your thumb and middle finger with your index finger sticking up in the air. and you must always eat from the short end. you HAVE to eat herring first, then other fish, then meat, then cheese. there are also certain toppings that don't go with other toppings. it's ridiculous. so now i have tried herring! i really really like it and it comes in so many ways... smoked, pickled, curried. i also tried leverpostej, which is pork liver paste. ugh... i did not like that nor the pickled beets that went with it.

another thing that danes love: marzipan. i have never heard of it in the states, but it is a confection consisting of sugar and crushed sweet almonds. it has the consistency of the coconut filling in almond joy. i definitely think it's an acquired taste because i did not like it at all and they looked at me in utter disbelief. but i do the same when they say they don't like peanut butter nor dunking cookies in a glass of milk. lol

on another note, here is my house...

my name on the door... lol. handwritten on paper and taped :)

word vomit

jotting down the jumble of thoughts in my head...

(is there a word for "jotting" when you type or does it only refer to writing?)

rant of the day: service is terrible here and danes are so rude!!!

i understand that they are frank and direct and that there's no word for "please" in danish but i still can't help ranting about it. even though i come from new york, i hate bumping into people on the street. i need my 30 feet circumference of personal space (what can i say, i'm american). there's no "sorry" nor "excuse me." when the bus comes, there is a mad dash to get on first, regardless of old people, little people, old people with little people. that may be because once you're on the bus, there's a mad dash to get a seat. hah and EVERYONE puts their bag down on the seat next to them and doesn't move it until asked to. ridiculous.

there is no tipping here and as a result, there is no service. or it's very low. restaurant scene: enter, sit down, order up front, eat, pay up front, leave. and if they do happen to bring the check to you, they never come back to get it so it's always smart to just leave without paying :) <-- advice from a dane

thank god that almost every place has the "take-a-number" system because without it, it would be pandemonium (even some bakeries have the system... but i always forget and stand in line like an idiot while 10 more people come in after me and get helped before me)

denmark is very laid back. it would be nice if this was my way of life, but having lived in a fast-paced city, this is extremely frustrating. you cannot just go out to the bus stop and wait. it will never come. you must plan your trip ahead of time and leave your house accordingly to catch the bus. the great thing is that the transportation here is punctual, down to the minute. but everything slows down on the weekend. most stores are closed on weekends and if not, they close at like 2pm. even during the weekday, everything opens late and closes early. no wonder danes are so happy.

there might be another reason (or two) why i'm so grumpy...

cmu has had its first snow day in 30 years. this is historic and i missed it. i have also learned that they had 3 consecutive snow days (and counting). wtf! i am in europe and i am genuinely jealous right now. 
and then...
i broke another tooth!!!

:(

it's cheaper to break all your bones than it is to break a tooth in denmark, but i have broken the one thing that is not covered by their wonderful free public health care. fml.

here comes the sun...?

sorry for redundant sun references in my blog titles but i'm seriously still waiting for warmer days...

since christiania, i had my first night of drunken debauchery and the best part about it was that it cost me absolutely nothing. my danish brother, jakob, took me out to his friend's house party at casper's (yes... the friendly ghost). being the good citizens that we are, we rode our bicycles. i'm using the family's spare bike and the lowest seat height is as high as my belly button so i have no choice but to step back and practically pole vault onto my bike every time. and oh man am i terrible in snow. i don't know how they bike in these conditions but they do... rain or shine or anything else. i learned some danish drinking games and they almost always involve dice and bluffing. and the rule is to play until the last man standing (or last dane standing because i didn't stand a chance). o.m.g. i did not know how drunk you can get off of beer. and the danish way to resolve drunkenness is to keep drinking. how ridiculous.

but jakob and i miraculously made it back home at 4am on our bicycles. thank goodness we live in the suburbs where there are no cars on the road after 8pm. but i definitely did not make it to my 8:30am class. poo... the class-skipping habit already begins... in the first week.

my danish parents have gone on vacation to india so jakob and i are on our own for 9 days but we decided to alternate who's in charge of dinner every night. darn... my lack of cooking experience (or any experience in the kitchen for that matter) has been exposed. and really badly too :(

i am so ashamed. he can handle the kitchen better than i can. yesterday, i used my secret weapon: 신라면. and then had tea and biscuits for post-dinner (such class right after eating instant noodles). then i did my duty as a rightful american and made him watch zoolander. he loved it!

yesterday he made fettuccine with cream(?) and smoked salmon. and for post-dinner he made nachos and guacamole. this was the smoothest and palest guacamole i've seen in my life. by smooth, i mean there were no peppers, no onions, no cilantro, no nothing. it was straight up avocado, yogurt(?), salt, and lime. not at all chunky nor naturally green like usual guacamole. but still delicious! and post-dinner activity was danish trivial pursuit. holy shit that game is hard!!! i rocked the entertainment questions though.

today was pork stuffed with pesto (don't be shocked. i bought it premade and i just had to stick it in the oven) and our collaborative creation of what i like to call "the white salad." it consisted of: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, eggs, mozzarella. there was about 2 times more eggs and mozzarella than anything else on that list :)

wow... weather in copenhagen sucks balls. i was also unfortunate to have come to denmark during a winter they haven't seen in 20 years where all the lakes are frozen. it has not stopped snowing and snow does NOT get cleaned here. if it does, only the bicycle lane gets cleaned. and did i mention that bicycle lanes are about 2 times wider than the pedestrian sidewalk? i can't even walk next to the person i'm talking to.

btw... fyi... (ahem... sarahkim) you cannot see aurora from here. or very rarely and by ridiculous chance.

gahhh!!! excited for lost... and all the other shows coming back. i have found a way to hide my denmark ip address so i can stream on u.s. sites. thanks lowell :)