Swedish Things & Danish Kings

When I first moved into my little danish apartment I was given two sets of keys. I carried both sets around with me at all times. Today is my two week anniversary of living in the apartment. I have already completely lost one set. In Sweden, I found this handy little key chain. I will never lose my keys again!

FYI: In case it's not clear in the picture, it's a Swedish zipper. The modern day zipper was patented as a "separable fastener" in 1917. Invented by a Swedish-born guy named Gideon Sundback.




Today, we slowly made it out of the house and visited another castle, Rosenborg. It is probably my most favorite castle so far. It is right in the middle of Copenhagen and had a lot of cool art and fancy treasures, including some old shiny hats..... The Danish Crown Jewels! It costs extra to take pictures of the crowns. It's free to draw...


They also had some of the old kings' outfits on display at the castle. I was amazed at how small their pants were. I'm not sure if they wore them up really high like capris? Or if they were just really short. I think they were really short. In the Kronborg castle that I went to last weekend, they had a bed that supposedly belonged to a king. I remember thinking it looked like a child's bed.

Marm Alarm & The Garden of Sweden

Marm is in town!

Went to an Irish pub with marm the other night. She sneezed and somehow her glasses flew four feet off her face and smashed on the floor. They didn't break, but it was pretty ridiculous. We had a good long laugh.


Conversation with Mom....

Me: This is the first full day it hasn't snowed in the 2 weeks I've been here.

Mom: Oh yea? How long have you been here?

Me: Two weeks!

Mom: Three weeks?

Me: TWO!!


Took Mom to Sweden today. That was a trip. Popular quotes from the day:

"Julie, do you know where you are going?"
"Juj, is this our stop?"
"Should we get off here, Juj?"
"Which way should we go now?"
"Are we lost?"
"Are you sure you know where you're going?"
"How much money do I have Juj?"
"Can we go to the castle?"
"Is this the castle? "
"Where's the caste?"

We survived. Had a lovely time shopping and visiting the Malmo castle / prison / museum. Mom's favorite decision: "Should we have dinner in Sweden or Denmark?" We went back to Denmark. It's pretty funny how safe and familiar Denmark seems compared to a new foreign country. Even though we weren't in Sweden for too long, it is still another language, another map, another train, and another currency equation to figure out.

Total country count: 7 (Anyone want to guess the 7? I'll send you a postcard if you get it right ;)


Back to watching this tsunami alarm....Hopefully nothing happens.

THE Day

Today reminded me of that first day in early spring when the temperature first gets above 50 degrees and the clouds suddenly let up to reveal that glorious ball of fire....the day when everyone breaks out the flip flops and spring wardrobes because they are so over excited that it is not absolutely freezing, even though it is not exactly appropriate to be wearing sandals and shorts just yet. The high was 6 degrees Celsius which is about 42 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the first day I could walk outside without a hat on and not feel like my ears would break off while my eye balls iced over. When I was walking to the train this morning at 7am, the sun came out. It was raining instead of snowing. I cannot wait for spring.

A Victim to Conformity

I'm not exactly sure what custard is but I always thought that I liked it. For whatever reason I always imagined it was like the vanilla pudding that you fill Boston creme doughnuts with. I LOVE Boston creme doughnuts. So when I was in an ice cream shop in California and I ordered the custard flavored ice cream, I was expecting this delicious creamy, vanilla flavor. I was therefore, totally appalled and repulsed by this horrendous rotten milk taste I experienced when I had my first lick of custard ice cream. I could not take another bite. I was convinced the ice cream was made from spoiled milk. There was no way I could eat that. I was about to get sick. I wanted to tell the clerk the ice cream has gone bad but Trevor tried it and said that is what custard is supposed to taste like. I threw out the entire cone. Now I hate "custard."

Milk grosses me out, too. I grew up drinking milk with EVERYTHING. Milk with spaghetti, milk with pizza, milk with mac and cheese, milk with hot dogs, you name it. I drank milk with it. That all changed when I got to college. I came home one day super thirsty from a long work out. Went to the fridge. Poured myself a nice, tall glass of milk. Chugged it down. It wasn't until I took the glass away from my mouth and took that first breath in that I realized the milk was completely rotten. Gag. I have not been able to drink milk in the same way since. The only milk I drink now is disguised through the chocolate deliciousness of Carnation Instant Breakfast.

I thought about bringing some Carnation Instant Breakfast to Denmark to make sure I would get enough calcium, but I didn't. As a result, I have not consumed a single sip of milk (outside of my coffee) in the past week and a half. Lord knows I have eaten more than enough cheese to make up for any amount of calcium deficiency, but for whatever reason (eh hem: trying to fit in with local culture), I decided that today I will have milk with lunch. Again, because I cannot read, I just follow the fellow in front of me and do what he does. There are a few different colors of milk cartons. He picks the one with the cow. Sure, I'll go with the cow one. Pour myself a tall glass. Sit down with co-workers. Eating. Talking. Eating. Take a sip of milk. Breathe in. Panic!! Instantly taste that awful, rotten custard ice cream flavor!!! Repress gag reflex. Look around for the fellow I originally followed. His glass is half empty. There is no way this milk is not rotten. But I am watching him happily drink it down!! Ugh. Is this some sort of rotten custard milk that people actually drink(?!) Feel really awful.....I think it is. I have this huge glass of seemingly rotten milk in front of me and apparently to the locals, there is nothing wrong with it. I am too proud and slightly embarrassed to let anyone see me throw it out or know that I don't like it. Looking around, there is no place to dump it out even if I wanted to! When workers are done with their lunch they scrape their food scraps in the garbage, put the plate in the dirty plate tray, the utensils in the dirty utensil tray, and the cups they place upside down in the dirty cup tray. I would feel so silly putting a full cup of milk right-side up in a tray full of empty upside down cups. In an effort to avoid questioning or seem wasteful, I held my breath and forced myself to drink that rancid, repulsive, disgusting-smeling glass of milk. I am still not entirely convinced that it was not completely rotten.

Back to cheese and water.

Conversion Aversion

While preparing to live in a foreign country I thought a lot about what kinds of clothes and shoes to bring, and what the weather would be like, and if my apartment would be close to parks or shops. I never thought about how much mathematical brain power I would need on a daily basis...

TIME
The current time reads 21:05
In real time: 21-12 = 9:05pm
California time: real time+3 then reverse night/day = 12:05pm
Colorado time: CA time + 1 hour = 1:05pm
NJ time: CA time +3 hours= 3:05pm

CURRENCY
Divide danish krone price by 5 and the price in dollars a little less than that.

LONG DISTANCE
Multiply the danish distance (kilometer) by 2/3 and it should be somewhere around there.

SHORT DISTANCE
Divide length in meters by about 3 to get feet.

EVEN SHORTER DISTANCES
I'm pretty used to centimeter lengths so I don't need to translate.

TEMPERATURE
I know there's an equation that includes multiplying by 5/9 or 9/5 and adding or subtracting 32 and if I thought about it long enough I could figure it out, but it is too much effort at the moment. I know 0 degrees Celsius is equal to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Anything close to zero or less is obviously freezing, and warm does not start till about 15 degrees Celsius which is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I won't have to worry about that for awhile....

I know we can't all be in the same time zone, but I wish we could at least all get on the same page with the temperature and distances, and why not all have the same electrical outlets? Who do you have to talk to get this situation standardized?

(Too tired to find the right transitional phrases today......start new blog topic.....)

I had a super long day today. I was at work for way too long. After a certain time the buses and trains start running fewer and farther between. It took me much longer to get home. At the station right before my stop the train ended up breaking down or just decided to stop? I don't know what was going on. They made an announcement but I couldn't understand it! Everyone else got off the train and seemed annoyed so I followed along. I may not understand words but I can read body language. Ended up walking home from there (about a mile). On the way home I came across this seemingly inappropriate store front:



Found out from a colleague that "slut" in Danish means "final." Looked up on google translate and "slutspurt" means "sprint" or "final sprint." Still unsure why it's written on the store front.

Another good one that I didn't get a picture of, is a sign on the highway that said "fart" and had the digital numbers underneath it. "Fart" means speed.

I'm learning! The only words I really know are "Hej" (hello) and "tak" (thanks). I have also noticed that f-bombs seem to be universal as well. I was hoping picking up the language would be easier but the danes have some ridiculous pronunciations and they make some weird throaty, nasally, phlegm hacking noises. They probably think the same of me.

So for all you folks at home in your comfy english-speaking lives, here is a little exercise I would like you all to try:

Say this phrase how you think it should sound: Min luftpudebåd er fyldt med ål

Now listen to how the Danes say it: http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/hovercraft/hovercraft_dk.mp3

See what I'm working with here! I don't think I could ever sound like that.
(English translation: my hovercraft is full of eels)

Airing Out Ma' Dundies

I have been in Denmark for a little over a week. It is about time to do laundry. One more thing to figure out for the first time. How the hell does this machine work!? I could not figure it out. E-mailed the service guy....Here are his instructions:



The washing machine needs to be installed like this:
There are two grey tubes (one for water in - one for water out) coming out of the washing machine, they end in one tube (which is a two way tube...) that has a silvery adaptor.
The adaptor must be attached and fastened (with the ring) to the tap and
- then you turn on the cold water
- then start the machine.

OOOOOOOOOOOOK. I feel like I have reached my "learning new things" limit! I don't want to try this I just want clean clothes. I miss my old easy washing machine!! I'm tired. But I cannot go another day.....my socks stink! I must do this or my stinky feet will scare away any chances of me making friends. So I find this grey tube and said adaptor which has two ends. I try to reach the sink. The tube isn't long enough. Great. Realize the machine is on wheels. Wheel it over to the sink. Fine. Look at the adaptor... Which end do you fasten to the sink?! What ring is he talking about? I don't see a ring I see two very similar sides to a tube adaptor and neither one fits on the faucet! Dismantle faucet. No help. Reassemble faucet. In same position as started. Open a beer. Jam the adaptor on as hard as I can. It doesn't fall off! I think it might work. Am scared to turn on water. Look at machine and press "ON" button. It doesn't turn on. What?! Check outlet...it's plugged in ok. Am about to wash my clothes in the sink with shampoo. Walk away from machine. Remember some lamps in my life that wouldn't turn on unless the light switch is on. Run to kitchen. Turn on light switch. Turn on machine. It works! It's in Danish:


Start button is in English. Press start button. Water squirts out of the faucet enough to spray on the counters and some on the floor but not enough for me to care. My clothes are washing! It is a proud moment.



Now they are drying....

Healthy Habits

Stress sickness is a major concern in Denmark.

Danish doctors recommend taking at least 3 uninterrupted weeks of vacation in a row to thoroughly relieve yourself of this mental disease. If you go home and continue to think about work, this is a bad sign that you are getting sick from stress and should strongly consider taking time off.

What a concept. I could use some time off to refresh my bulldozed brain every so often. I would never accomplish anything though if I took a break every time I felt stressed. Danes don't seem as rushed or bothered by deadlines and job demands. Their family, health, and happiness is their main priority. I could get used to that.

Another "healthy" habit they practice is standing at work. They say you shouldn't just sit in a chair all day long. Working in a lab is easy, because often times you are on your feet and running around. But even some days a lab worker can be sitting at their desk all day. Therefore, they have these desks that you can raise to counter height and stand up for part of the day. The desk I work at is a normal, sit-down, immobile desk. I have not a single complaint about it. They have already ordered me my own stand-up desk.

Building Blocks & Sleeping Rocks

LEGOs were invented in Denmark by a carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen. The word LEGO comes from the Danish phrase "leg godt" which translates to "play well." Later the toymakers discovered that "lego" can also be loosely translated in Latin to mean "I put together" or "I assemble." This is convenient.


Today I saw Holger the Dane. He sleeps in the basement of Kronborg castle (this castle is the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet). His beard has grown down to the floor and he is supposed to sleep there until some date when Denmark is in mortal danger, at which time he will awaken and deliver the nation from evil. I went to this Kronborg castle with my danish co-worker and her boyfriend. We went on a guided tour which unfortunately was completely in danish. My new friends would clue me in on the important stuff. For instance, in the center of this huge ballroom room against the wall is an elaborate structure that resembles a fireplace, but is obviously something else. Everyone's gathered around it blabbing and alas it is a door to a spiral staircase. The guide points through the door and talks with a little more excitement. I'm thinking the passageway is the king's grand entryway or a secret escape to an intricate network or underground tunnels in case the castle is invaded, etc. Danish translation: the spiral staircase was used by the king's guests to relieve their bladders while at parties. They would pee down the spiral steps and the servants put buckets at the bottom to collect the waste. In the morning they wash the staircase with water and sprinkle it with some oil and herb concoction to ease the stench.

Took a long walk..... Went for a run.... Only saw 15 seconds of sun....

8:00: Woke up and chatted with Trevor. Ate danish rye bread with raspberry jam for breakfast. Then mapped out a run to a nearby park.

8:30: Went for a 1.5hour run/walk (see map) and took some pictures.
Found the Little Mermaid statue (background: the Den Lille Havfrue was made by sculptor Edvard Eriksen in 1913 as a tribute to the fairy-tale written by native Dane, Hans Christian Andersen. The statue is now world famous as a symbol of Copenhagen). When I asked a co-woker about the statue, they said Denmark had lent it to China for a few months. Apparently the Chinese love this statue. I was a little disappointed but I figured I would just go visit the area where the statue used to be anyway. When I found it the statue was there! There was a group of asian tourists taking pictures of it. Here are some pictures from my run:




10:00 Met my neighbor! He's a young guy from India and lives right across from me. I was excited to meet another young foreigner and was hoping we could be friends. He's going to back to India in 2 days. Oh well.

10:15 Showered. Thought a vein on my chest was about the explode because it was bright blue/green.
...figured out that it washes off. It was just a mark from my necklace. phew!

10:30 Played with a dead bug (See Biking Bugs post)

10:45 E-mailed a cousin of my great grandmother. I have been in contact with a lot of distant Nordic relatives recently. One cousin of mine lives on the other side of the park from me. I've hung out with him and girlfriend this past week. I think we have the same great great great great grandparents (something like that).

11:00 Left for a 5 hour walk! Found the US Embassy a few blocks away. Thought it would be good to take a picture for the blog. Apparently it's illegal. The security guard ran right out when he saw my camera and made me delete the photo. Oops. It was an ugly building anyway, looked like a jail built in the 1960's. Next door was the Canadian Embassy which closely resembled the Queen's Palace.

12:00 First stop: the Queen's Palace, Amalienborg They have a parade of the guards everyday at noon. Not so impressive. I was a little nervous taking pictures after the embassy, but saw some other people were doing it:




13:00 (Danes go by military time) Lunch at Nyhavns Faergekro (www.nyhavnsfaergekro.dk). Had my first espresso and my taste of herring. They espresso was gross, but I could get used to it. The herring wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Nyhavn is a famous place in Copenhagen with lots of cute and colorful restauransts/shops/apartments. While at the lunch the sun came out for about 10 seconds!! It was the first time I'de seen blue sky or any sign of sun since my arrival. Although brief, it was still glorious.

14:30 Walked through the city center outdoor mall and shopping area (known as Stroget). There were tons of people. I will definitely be coming back here.


15:00 Lost. Could not find the visitor center but found the National Museet, a museum of Danish history. It's free so I mozied on over and saw some cool Viking memorabilia. I only made it around the first floor before I was completely exhausted. I will definitely come back to finish the rest of it.
Side-note: I am very confused by the floor numbering system in Denmark. What I consider the 1st floor they call 0 floor. Their 1st floor would be our 2nd. My apartment is advertised as on the 5th floor. However, I count everyday and if I was in America I would be confident that I live on the 7th floor.

16:00 Took the train home. Had a beer and turned on the Olympics. It was a good day.



View from out my living room window:






Side question: Did anyone pick up "the little mermaid" tune in the title? Or was that too much of a stretch?

Biking Bugs

Biking is VERY popular in Denmark!

Funny things Danes say and do, Part II

1-They stretch after lunch. They have a series of 6-7 different stretches and they have print outs of how to do each of them. They have different stretches for different days of the week and they are all kept in a binder. After lunch they lay out the papers and go through the motions while snacking on liquorice.

2-They love carrots. Everyday there is a basket of carrots at lunch. Not baby carrots, but the big long sticks. Everyone eats carrots. I was leaving a friend's house tonight to walk home through the freezing snow and my friend was telling me how she felt so bad that I had to walk all the way home. She told me to pretend there was a carrot waiting for me at home.

3-They have a Chief Happiness Officer at work. From the way they described it, it sounds like some sort of motivational speaker. He tells people to think of 3 happy things every time they leave a building and to always try to surprise you co-workers with nice gestures.

4-They have this holiday that sort of sounds like Halloween (I forget what they call it here). It happened last weekend. From what I understand, the holiday originally started as the end of some sort of fasting period. When people were done fasting, the kids would run around to the neighbors and sing songs about "please give me some bread." And the neighbors would give them bread. These days, I'm not sure if they still fast anymore, but the kids still run around singing songs about bread, except now they dress up in costumes. And instead of getting bread, people will give out money or candy. They also have this wooden barrel thing that's full of candy and the outside is decorated (sort of like a pinata). The kids then whack it with sticks. The first kid to knock out all the candy is named "The Cat Queen." They keep beating this barrel with sticks and the person to knock down the last piece of the barrel is named "The Cat King." The names Cat King & Queen originated in the olden days before they had candy....they would fill the barrel with kittens instead.

5-They think I sound Chinese when I try to speak Danish.

Baby Snatcher Revealed!

It was my mom! ha

Viborggade 26

Pictures!


















And the weirdest room of all!


The bathroom is pretty much a stand up shower with a toilet and sink in it...
Important things to remember:
1) go to the bathroom before showering, otherwise take your socks off and roll up your pants before you go back in.
2) take out the toilet paper out before you start the shower so it doesn't get soaked.

5am: a time so nice, I lived it twice

Ever since I got to Europe my cell phone has been stuck on London time. London time is an hour earlier than Copenhagen time. I probably could have looked into fixing it, but instead I compensated by always adding an hour to my cell phone time. Consequently, when I would set my alarm for 5am Danish time, I would set it for 4am on my phone (London time). Well sometime overnight my phone decided to upgrade to the local time. I showered, ate breakfast, and made it halfway to the train station before calling Trevor. He informed me it was 8pm his time which would make it 5am my time and I'm already halfway to the station for the 6:20am train! After confirming the correct time on the iphone, I cursed myself and ran back home...

Funny things Danes say and do

1-Their word for blue jeans translates to "cowboys" in english.

2-On a couple's 12 and a half year wedding anniversary a big group of their friends and family will come to their house at 6am (doesn't matter if it is a weekday or weekend) and completely decorate their front door and sing songs until the couple come outside. They pretend to be surprised even though they totally expect this. Then everyone goes inside and has a party for a few hours before the guests leave to go to work.

3-Every day at 9:30 we take a break for bread. Toppings include butter, jam, chocolate, or cheese. Fresh bread comes on Thursdays. The Danish word for breakroom is pauserum and the Danish word for gym room is motionrum or something like that.

4-People will leave their strollers outside on the sidewalk with the baby in it while they go inside to shop or use the bank. I heard they did this, but really couldn't believe it. Today I did see a baby all by itself outside a shop.

Trouble posting a comment?.....

If you tried to post a comment but failed:

here's the deal with comments: when you try to post a comment, this little embedded window comes up that shows you what your post will look like, and most people probably think that their comment has been submitted because they can see the preview. However, it's not the post; it's a little window that shows what your post will look like, and it also has one of those things that asks you to type out a word in a picture before you can submit your comment (you know, like you have to do when you buy stuff online sometimes).

Unfortunately, the this little embedded window is too small for what it's trying to show. The part with the pic and the field you type in and the button that says "Post Comment" isn't visible because it's below the bottom of the little embedded window. There're also no scroll arrows to scroll down to them.

So what I had to do was hit "tab" a few times to get to that part of the page.

Maybe you can blog about how to comment and that'll make things easier for people hopefully.

Mysterious bottle

There is a strange red and white bottle in the bathroom labeled WC-RENS. I'm not completely sure what it's for. I googled it and translated the web page. This is what came up in the product description:

"WC refine remedy is precisely expensive! Tilt instead of a half to whole dl eddikesyre and a nicely stænk sulfo to the lavatory! Lazy stand gladly the night by, or catching you are away about the day. Brush carefully and you've the earth merriest lavatory!"

I'm still unsure of what to do with it....

My cozy litte flat

I made it to Copenhagen! Poor Henrik helped me drag my two 50+lb bags up to the fifth floor (no elevator!). I am never packing so much again. (Thank you sooooo much Henrik)> I'll post pictures in a little bit, I just wanted to let someone know I was here. I feel bad calling anyone because its 2am CA time, 3am CO time, and 5am NJ time. But when you people wake up give me a call! I want to tell you about it. Its a little after 10am here I think. I'm going to go make myself busy for awhile.

Happy Valentine's Day Lovers!

I see London, I see France....I wish I packed more underpants

I'm here! In Europe anyway. I am currently stuck in London!! I hate getting stuck overnight =( To re-cap the last 24 hours: yesterday I had my last meal at Taco Bell before heading to the airport where I said a sad farewell to Trevor (see picture of what he looked like when I left him)
and dragged my over-stuffed & overweight bags to check in. The flight from Santa Barbara to LA went fine. The flight from LA to London was delayed and delayed and delayed. First the airplane was late, then we boarded and sat on the plane forever! We finally got to London and had to sit on the plane for another hour because there were no open gates to pull up to and then when one finally opened up the walk way was broken! Then they had to find a staircase but of course none could be found. We were on that plane for so long! Longest flight of my life. And at the end everyone was so eager to get off and the engines were off, there was no AC, it was soooo hot and starting to stink, fun! Anyway it was a long day, but enough complaining. The flight was ok regardless of the delays. It had free wine and movies and I slept most of the time. I met a nice Norwegian couple and a girl from Saudi Arabia who taught me how to dial international calls. I'm currently at a hotel in London where they put me up for the night and have started watching the Olympics. I talked to Dad and Sally, and Sally's parents who live near London and gchat-video-ed with Marm, Nancy & Josh, & Trevor who since I left him now looks like this:


I have to charge my real camera so in the meantime you will have to deal with iphone pictures....

A couple things I thought were cool about London: they have bottle openers on the wall in the bathroom and their blow dryers look like reverse vacuum cleaners.


And I thought the door sign was funny:


I should get to bed, my next flight is at 6:55am tomorrow!

NEW Blog!

Blog blog blog. Hope you like my new blog template, it only took me 8 hours to pick out and an extra hour and Trevor's brainpower to figure out how to download it. Now comes the stress of trying to figure out interesting things to write everyday to keep you blog followers entertained.....maybe I'll test out posting some pictures...