Closing Blog Lag Gap...
So, thus far my blog has been a bit scatterbrained, as I tend to be, but a bit of order is... in order, chronologically possibly:
Came to Denmark August 4th
Began Danish language course August 7th, 9-12, 5 days a week with required attendance at 3 afternoon "cultural" activities, like some soccer, Pele the Conquerer (movie about how swedish immigrants get beefed [disrespected] by Danes), swimming in the Island Byrgge (pronounced like izlan burger... 'flippin danish is impossible;)) swimming bath which is this really cool, funny structure in a harbor in Copenhagen, museums, etc.... many late nights occured that made our 9 AM class quite comical. Our teacher was Estonian, had spent time in England, and was teaching Danish to a group of occassionally still drunk, generally hung over international students: 3 Australians, a Polish guy, 2 Spaniards, 3 Italians, 3 Americans, a French girl, a German guy, and as you can imagine the communication efficiency was a bit poor;) but we learned a phrase or two, and had a bunch of fun:)
Completed Danish language course August 25th
Friday, August 25th Went to Malmo, Sweden for the final day of the Malmo Festival with a very large group of hyped up, crazy international students. Lots of eating, drinking, and dancing followed. There were carnival rides, food stands, multiple stages with live music, and a lot, a lot of of people. Fun was had by all.
Saturday, August 26th flew from Copenhagen to Berlin, Germany, got in kind of late, was pretty tired from the night before, got a beer and some sushi with the lady that ran my hostel, and slept like a baby.
Sunday, August 27th, Woke up for the free walking tour that is offered in Berlin, and was absolutely amazed with the sites and history of Berlin thanks to my very cool, insanely knowledgable Australian, german history PhD student tour guide.
Monday, August 28th, wandered around Berlin, had a great time, and was further impressed by Berlin; Had the best doner kebab I have ever had for dinner before train ride to Hannover. Appx. 8PM got on a train (A baddass train that goes over 200 KM/Hr. at top speeds during the journey) to Hannover, Germany to catch my flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Arrived around midnight, had to take a cab from the train station to the airport because the train stops running some time before I got there. Got to the airport around quarter til 1 am and joined the miserable looking people trying to waste time and trying, suprisingly pretty successfully to sleep... checked in at about 4 am in close to full zombie mode, went to my gate and tried to sleep more... boarded plane at about 6:15 and was looked at strangely by all due to near full zombie-ification... slept all the way to Dubrovnik. Woke up weary to say the least, wandered around the micro dubrovnik airport, followed some people that looked like they knew what they were doing, they left in a car (they did know what they were doing, but it didn't help me much ;)), luckily got on THE bus that transfers from the airport to the main bus station, where the maddness intensifies. When you get off the bus at the Dubrovnik main station and look like a clueless tourist (like me) you are completely mobbed by elder Croatians trying to get you to stay at their house. After the recent warfare that ripped through Croatia, including Dubrovnik, many homes, many large homes, were sold to croatians for dirt, and with war comes loss of life, which... I don't mean to say this lightly at all... frees up some rooms as well:( Fucking war. So these folks are trying to earn a living by filling empty rooms in there homes... of course Croatia has been quite stable since with huge booms in tourism, and this helps fuel the desire to expand homes, fill empty rooms, and etc., etc. many other factors play a role, of course, as with nearly everything... Anyways, so when you show up, 10-25 elder croatians with binders of pictures rush up to you and proclaim, "very nice place", "i cook fo you", "100 Kuna a night", "look pictures", and this situation is an absolute crapshoot... they all have the same postcard pictures, saying the same thing, so I picked random, sweet looking old lady #17 and followed her, "not much english, only 3 minute walk, my daughter speak good english, 150 kuna a night (appx. $20-25)" "uhhh...sounds great maam:)" - at this point I have no idea where the fuck I am going...full trust in old lady #17. 155 steps later, with the old lady blazing back down the steps while I am still only half way up, hustling, making her living, she says to me with a huge smile on her face, "my daughter help you, good english." The daughter takes me through the beautiful two story hillside home with grape vines growing above in the lattus, pomegranite and fig trees all around, summer squash vines creeping along the edges of the concrete, an absolutely breathtaking view of the bay from pretty much anywhere... I am pretty much in awe at this point, I am a little light headed from the steps, and mix that with no proper sleep and I was a pretty easy sell. The room was immaculately clean, had a massive queen size bed, and two windows with the unreal view of the bay... uh... Ill take it! Stayed there for 5 nights and I would stay there again in a heartbeat. The daughter does speek amazingly good english. She does however have a very "bo-rat from Ali G show" accent weirdly enough... I mean almost exactly:) She was very sweet and helpful in getting me lined up to make some island adventures. I have her card somewhere if anyone is looking for a place to stay in Dubrovnik for a couple of nights.
Dubrovnik was unreal! Gorgeous, insanely well kept, amazingly historical (the details of this history are beyond me), etc. Travelled to two of the nearby islands, Lopud and Locrum... postcard beauty... pictures to come... words can not describe well enough. Met a bunch of crazy irish people that convinced me (wasn't very hard;)) to jump off cliffs, drink too much, and hang out with crazy irish men in the middle of the night singing traditional irish music... I have movies of this... if I can figure how to get them on this thing its pretty funny, but a bit of a "had to be there..." type deal... I'll ask my main computer nerd amigo Mr. Seth.
Left Croatia at 5:30 AM Sunday September 3rd, returned to Hannover, took a train to Berlin, found a new different, very nice hostel in a different part of town, fell asleep, woke up starving, ate amazing thai food on reccomendation from tour guide, strolled around - further convinced that if Berlin had waves I'd want to move there, had some tea, and went back to sleep.
Woke up Monday the 4th of September, checked out of my hostel, went to airport to catch flight back to Copenhagen.
Started school Tuesday, September 5th. 1st class at 10 AM International Environmental Law, 2nd class 4 PM Economics of the EU... both quite interesting and taught well by danish governmental officials; neither professor is actually an academic by trade. Time gap inbetween the two classes leaves plenty of time to... read, and do homework (like this post;)).
2nd day of class I have my meeting for my Fisheries Biology course, and it so happened that it was held in Helsignor which is a 45-60 minute train journey up the east coast of Denmark. Helsignor was pretty cool. As was our lecture and following "exercise" (which is similar to a lab...something more "hands-on") concerning fish otoliths.
School has been going as school tends to... quickly, intensly, etc. I am in 3 different faculties which makes my life a bit hard as the University of Copenhagen is not the classic central campus layout... much more spread out throughout the city and the surrounding areas. Thus, I am constantly running around, I have 3 different user ids, passwords, printer cards, copy cards, library check out cards, etc.; on the bright side I get to see more... :)
Some of the weekends since school has begun have been more eventful than others. One weekend I was invited at the very last second to join a group of international law students for a law faculty sponsored excursion to a countryside facility for a bit of alcohol assisted uninhibited debauchery and relaxation. There was a pirate party one night and since I was a late addition I had no time to think ahead for a costume so I went with the tea towel head wrap, cardboard and rubber band eyepatch, eyeliner drawn-on tatoos, rolled up pants, bare feet look... I scored some persons plastic hook-hand thing half way through;) It was quite fun... dont really have any pictures...undskyld ("excuse me" in danish). I have some other pictures of the weekend though. See above... hopefully soon. Another interesting weekend has recently come to an end. I have spent the last 4 days, 3 nights (Sept. 28th - Oct. 1st) in and around Amsterdam, Netherlands. My friend Seth and I left Copenhagen last thursday, arrived in Amsterdam and embarked on our first of several epic journeys to our hostel that actually is outside the city limits of Amsterdam amidst the fields, cows and windmills. The location of our hostel was actually really amazing - right near a beautiful lake, the facilities were great, the staff was friendly enough, and we had an awesome trailer that was called the "VIP" because of its above average size with our own rooms on either side of the trailer and a small "living room"-like thing... didn't really matter because we were never in there, but whatever. We were generally travelling the many, many kilometers between our hostel and the city on buses, and trains. The public transportation was actually really great, paid 13 euro for a 3-day ticket which was really reasonable, I thought... in comparison to Berlin or Copenhagen, but after 12:15 AM the final 5km leg of our public transportation journey stops operating. The first night we learned this the hard way, followed the freeway, with stints walking along the actual freeway (yes, like some redneck crackhead straight out of an episode of cops... imagine that and replace redneck crackhead with two stoned Americans in Amsterdam... or technically Vinkeveen, or something like that...) in attempts to get back to our shelter, and last night ( Early Sun. morning October 1st) we made the mistake for the second time, quasi-purposefully, and this time we were pointed in a more proper walking direction by the politie (police) after a 110 euro fine threat... thanks guys;) Saturday morning we rented bikes and cycled in the beautiful country along some of the what seems like millions of canals (I guess Amsterdam is all below sea-level...strange huh;)?) Saturday and Sunday evening we met up with some Brazilian friends from Copenhagen who were visiting as well and had a blast. The red light district is quite an interesting place... pretty much what you'd expect; Hookers in rooms lit by... RED LIGHTS... selling their bodies for money, japanese tourists waiting in line for live sex shows, marijuana dispensing "coffeeshops", and way too many drunk, nasty, frothing, frightening horny men. Really, Amsterdam is quite the interesting place... uhm...It is FUCKING crazy! Go if you haven't been... I can not, will not explain it any further. See the countryside... it is nice... look out for pictures to follow this massive word business...
Got back from Amsterdam yesterday, had school this morning, basketball practice this evening (first game this Sunday!), a nice bike ride home in terrential downpour, a good garlicy meal to myself, finished some laundry, and I now soak in candle light and music to my liking, finishing this post, gonna follow with some pictures, maybe some painting during upload wait time... That is pretty much it...haha... a short synopsis... good for something... many details left out... but whatcha gonna do? ;) LOVE YOU GUYS. Live it up life lover extraodinaires. Hej Hej! Farvel... for now! XOXO
Came to Denmark August 4th
Began Danish language course August 7th, 9-12, 5 days a week with required attendance at 3 afternoon "cultural" activities, like some soccer, Pele the Conquerer (movie about how swedish immigrants get beefed [disrespected] by Danes), swimming in the Island Byrgge (pronounced like izlan burger... 'flippin danish is impossible;)) swimming bath which is this really cool, funny structure in a harbor in Copenhagen, museums, etc.... many late nights occured that made our 9 AM class quite comical. Our teacher was Estonian, had spent time in England, and was teaching Danish to a group of occassionally still drunk, generally hung over international students: 3 Australians, a Polish guy, 2 Spaniards, 3 Italians, 3 Americans, a French girl, a German guy, and as you can imagine the communication efficiency was a bit poor;) but we learned a phrase or two, and had a bunch of fun:)
Completed Danish language course August 25th
Friday, August 25th Went to Malmo, Sweden for the final day of the Malmo Festival with a very large group of hyped up, crazy international students. Lots of eating, drinking, and dancing followed. There were carnival rides, food stands, multiple stages with live music, and a lot, a lot of of people. Fun was had by all.
Saturday, August 26th flew from Copenhagen to Berlin, Germany, got in kind of late, was pretty tired from the night before, got a beer and some sushi with the lady that ran my hostel, and slept like a baby.
Sunday, August 27th, Woke up for the free walking tour that is offered in Berlin, and was absolutely amazed with the sites and history of Berlin thanks to my very cool, insanely knowledgable Australian, german history PhD student tour guide.
Monday, August 28th, wandered around Berlin, had a great time, and was further impressed by Berlin; Had the best doner kebab I have ever had for dinner before train ride to Hannover. Appx. 8PM got on a train (A baddass train that goes over 200 KM/Hr. at top speeds during the journey) to Hannover, Germany to catch my flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Arrived around midnight, had to take a cab from the train station to the airport because the train stops running some time before I got there. Got to the airport around quarter til 1 am and joined the miserable looking people trying to waste time and trying, suprisingly pretty successfully to sleep... checked in at about 4 am in close to full zombie mode, went to my gate and tried to sleep more... boarded plane at about 6:15 and was looked at strangely by all due to near full zombie-ification... slept all the way to Dubrovnik. Woke up weary to say the least, wandered around the micro dubrovnik airport, followed some people that looked like they knew what they were doing, they left in a car (they did know what they were doing, but it didn't help me much ;)), luckily got on THE bus that transfers from the airport to the main bus station, where the maddness intensifies. When you get off the bus at the Dubrovnik main station and look like a clueless tourist (like me) you are completely mobbed by elder Croatians trying to get you to stay at their house. After the recent warfare that ripped through Croatia, including Dubrovnik, many homes, many large homes, were sold to croatians for dirt, and with war comes loss of life, which... I don't mean to say this lightly at all... frees up some rooms as well:( Fucking war. So these folks are trying to earn a living by filling empty rooms in there homes... of course Croatia has been quite stable since with huge booms in tourism, and this helps fuel the desire to expand homes, fill empty rooms, and etc., etc. many other factors play a role, of course, as with nearly everything... Anyways, so when you show up, 10-25 elder croatians with binders of pictures rush up to you and proclaim, "very nice place", "i cook fo you", "100 Kuna a night", "look pictures", and this situation is an absolute crapshoot... they all have the same postcard pictures, saying the same thing, so I picked random, sweet looking old lady #17 and followed her, "not much english, only 3 minute walk, my daughter speak good english, 150 kuna a night (appx. $20-25)" "uhhh...sounds great maam:)" - at this point I have no idea where the fuck I am going...full trust in old lady #17. 155 steps later, with the old lady blazing back down the steps while I am still only half way up, hustling, making her living, she says to me with a huge smile on her face, "my daughter help you, good english." The daughter takes me through the beautiful two story hillside home with grape vines growing above in the lattus, pomegranite and fig trees all around, summer squash vines creeping along the edges of the concrete, an absolutely breathtaking view of the bay from pretty much anywhere... I am pretty much in awe at this point, I am a little light headed from the steps, and mix that with no proper sleep and I was a pretty easy sell. The room was immaculately clean, had a massive queen size bed, and two windows with the unreal view of the bay... uh... Ill take it! Stayed there for 5 nights and I would stay there again in a heartbeat. The daughter does speek amazingly good english. She does however have a very "bo-rat from Ali G show" accent weirdly enough... I mean almost exactly:) She was very sweet and helpful in getting me lined up to make some island adventures. I have her card somewhere if anyone is looking for a place to stay in Dubrovnik for a couple of nights.
Dubrovnik was unreal! Gorgeous, insanely well kept, amazingly historical (the details of this history are beyond me), etc. Travelled to two of the nearby islands, Lopud and Locrum... postcard beauty... pictures to come... words can not describe well enough. Met a bunch of crazy irish people that convinced me (wasn't very hard;)) to jump off cliffs, drink too much, and hang out with crazy irish men in the middle of the night singing traditional irish music... I have movies of this... if I can figure how to get them on this thing its pretty funny, but a bit of a "had to be there..." type deal... I'll ask my main computer nerd amigo Mr. Seth.
Left Croatia at 5:30 AM Sunday September 3rd, returned to Hannover, took a train to Berlin, found a new different, very nice hostel in a different part of town, fell asleep, woke up starving, ate amazing thai food on reccomendation from tour guide, strolled around - further convinced that if Berlin had waves I'd want to move there, had some tea, and went back to sleep.
Woke up Monday the 4th of September, checked out of my hostel, went to airport to catch flight back to Copenhagen.
Started school Tuesday, September 5th. 1st class at 10 AM International Environmental Law, 2nd class 4 PM Economics of the EU... both quite interesting and taught well by danish governmental officials; neither professor is actually an academic by trade. Time gap inbetween the two classes leaves plenty of time to... read, and do homework (like this post;)).
2nd day of class I have my meeting for my Fisheries Biology course, and it so happened that it was held in Helsignor which is a 45-60 minute train journey up the east coast of Denmark. Helsignor was pretty cool. As was our lecture and following "exercise" (which is similar to a lab...something more "hands-on") concerning fish otoliths.
School has been going as school tends to... quickly, intensly, etc. I am in 3 different faculties which makes my life a bit hard as the University of Copenhagen is not the classic central campus layout... much more spread out throughout the city and the surrounding areas. Thus, I am constantly running around, I have 3 different user ids, passwords, printer cards, copy cards, library check out cards, etc.; on the bright side I get to see more... :)
Some of the weekends since school has begun have been more eventful than others. One weekend I was invited at the very last second to join a group of international law students for a law faculty sponsored excursion to a countryside facility for a bit of alcohol assisted uninhibited debauchery and relaxation. There was a pirate party one night and since I was a late addition I had no time to think ahead for a costume so I went with the tea towel head wrap, cardboard and rubber band eyepatch, eyeliner drawn-on tatoos, rolled up pants, bare feet look... I scored some persons plastic hook-hand thing half way through;) It was quite fun... dont really have any pictures...undskyld ("excuse me" in danish). I have some other pictures of the weekend though. See above... hopefully soon. Another interesting weekend has recently come to an end. I have spent the last 4 days, 3 nights (Sept. 28th - Oct. 1st) in and around Amsterdam, Netherlands. My friend Seth and I left Copenhagen last thursday, arrived in Amsterdam and embarked on our first of several epic journeys to our hostel that actually is outside the city limits of Amsterdam amidst the fields, cows and windmills. The location of our hostel was actually really amazing - right near a beautiful lake, the facilities were great, the staff was friendly enough, and we had an awesome trailer that was called the "VIP" because of its above average size with our own rooms on either side of the trailer and a small "living room"-like thing... didn't really matter because we were never in there, but whatever. We were generally travelling the many, many kilometers between our hostel and the city on buses, and trains. The public transportation was actually really great, paid 13 euro for a 3-day ticket which was really reasonable, I thought... in comparison to Berlin or Copenhagen, but after 12:15 AM the final 5km leg of our public transportation journey stops operating. The first night we learned this the hard way, followed the freeway, with stints walking along the actual freeway (yes, like some redneck crackhead straight out of an episode of cops... imagine that and replace redneck crackhead with two stoned Americans in Amsterdam... or technically Vinkeveen, or something like that...) in attempts to get back to our shelter, and last night ( Early Sun. morning October 1st) we made the mistake for the second time, quasi-purposefully, and this time we were pointed in a more proper walking direction by the politie (police) after a 110 euro fine threat... thanks guys;) Saturday morning we rented bikes and cycled in the beautiful country along some of the what seems like millions of canals (I guess Amsterdam is all below sea-level...strange huh;)?) Saturday and Sunday evening we met up with some Brazilian friends from Copenhagen who were visiting as well and had a blast. The red light district is quite an interesting place... pretty much what you'd expect; Hookers in rooms lit by... RED LIGHTS... selling their bodies for money, japanese tourists waiting in line for live sex shows, marijuana dispensing "coffeeshops", and way too many drunk, nasty, frothing, frightening horny men. Really, Amsterdam is quite the interesting place... uhm...It is FUCKING crazy! Go if you haven't been... I can not, will not explain it any further. See the countryside... it is nice... look out for pictures to follow this massive word business...
Got back from Amsterdam yesterday, had school this morning, basketball practice this evening (first game this Sunday!), a nice bike ride home in terrential downpour, a good garlicy meal to myself, finished some laundry, and I now soak in candle light and music to my liking, finishing this post, gonna follow with some pictures, maybe some painting during upload wait time... That is pretty much it...haha... a short synopsis... good for something... many details left out... but whatcha gonna do? ;) LOVE YOU GUYS. Live it up life lover extraodinaires. Hej Hej! Farvel... for now! XOXO
posted by Brendan V. Lange at 8:55 AM
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