Hey hey everybody,
Long time no see. I've got good news to you August 2012 is the year when I'll be heading back to Denmark mainly to study, so this blog will be to be continued...
Woot, woot
Friday, May 11, 2012
Friday, October 8, 2010
A Movie Suggestion
To all those who are documentarie fans, I advise you to watch a movie called Darwins Nightmare. It's a movie about a fish industry based in Tanzania Africa. I found it a very good eye opener and incredibly fascinating how they really managed to put the whole puzzle togheter. To those who don't want to see it I just would like to mention, there's more to life and things you buy than meets the eye.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Lots of Love from København/Copenhagen
On my hitch hiking trip to the capital of DK.
I had collected enough money to visit the all famous capital of Denmark. Under enough money I mostly mean money to buy a entrance ticket to a festival and some beers. My next money will go to pay off dept from the trip.
So my adventure started on Friday the 1st of October. I packed had packed my stuff and made a wonderful giant blue sign with "E20" and "Copenhagen". I marched off to the right road and the weather was greeted me in its perfection, which is probably why I was picked up by a true Danish grandfather, maybe a little less smelly. I amused myself by sitting next to him in the sunshine and saying that my Danish is really bad over and over again, throwing in some awkward smiles. He took me 8 kilometers down the road, just to be picked up by a couple heading to Germany to buy 'cheap' beer (for me beer is only then cheap when it's free). After making to the next stop I managed to get a ride with the most colourful road worker I had ever met. Somewhere in the hitch hikers world there's an unwritten law to keep your mouth shut on sensitive subjects like race, immigrants, discrimination, religion etc. But as talking about the weather is probably reason for high suicides, so the decision to talk about immigrants just came very naturally. It always feels better to poke your head in the fire when it is advised not to do it. He soon revealed that he gets discriminated at least once a week for his dark skin, although he has lived in DK his whole life, speaks fluent Danish and has a Danish mother. That and other stories from people made me look at this well fare country in a whole new perspective. At some point I started to think, what if Danish people see only the word 'foreigner', not people behind it. The people who come here have their own groups and communities and there is no insight into each others cultures, or even if someone tries they get rejected as the natural way of things. Finally that leads to the fact that natives don't see the immigrants' culture, their families and the fact that they also have a life and roots in the same country and the same also applies for the immigrants, as they are being left out the same way. Not knowing causes fear and fear is hiding behind the word 'foreigner'.
No, now I have gone too far and too fast, first the explanation of the problem. These immigrants did not come at first because they needed to they were brought in by the Danish people themselves as work force. But after some time the need for them reduced and there was nothing to do with them. People who came had settled in and their children were already Danish, maybe they had even brought in their own families. Finally the Danish people ended up having lots of foreigners, but they weren't integrated so good, so they became the enemy. Then an extreme left racist party got into power, saying that the foreigners should be shipped out and given money to live on their own country. Media also hasn't been very innocent, provoking the problem as much as possible. Whenever there's a news about a crime, there are only two ways it can have its introduction, either 'A young foreigner was caught' or 'A young man was caught', so you could always see who is in the wrong. I believe this is the biggest problem in DK, but I am also a foreigner here, so my view can be a little one sided.Back to the truck driver. He told me a story of his brother staying in a prison in US for seven years, not making me feel a whole lot happier about the situation in world. Only after 3 hours we finally arrived in the South-Eastern part of the city called Valby, where he dropped me off. I jumped happily off an called my friend to pick me up. We spent the night cozily chatting and having a drink just to go out to a trance festival in another part of the city where her friend was working. The people there were very much out of place. It was filled with people that in my country would go to dancing clubs, get drunk, drive their BMW and make stupid jokes about getting drunk and throwing up on their neighbors lawn-mower. Girls in belts and men in tight fitting white T-shirts making obvious that they spent 50% of their time in the gym and other 50% drinking beer. As I waltzed in I felt immediately out of place, having on leggings and showing of my favorite little white socks with ethnic-stripes. The decorations were awesome, an the music was also what I happen to listen from time to time. The party was on two floors. On the lower floor you drank and ate all kinds of stuff, after that people headed up to dance and discover their preferences. I decided just to dance and enjoy myself and we left the place around 3 o'clock. The next day started off very successfully, by just vegetating and commenting on the videos in MTV, looking for things to do. In the end we decided to head out to famous Christiania which was a place for free people, even the police doesn't go there very often. As we headed towards our could we stumbled upon a tent introducing Scientology. We went in of course as there was free food and drinks, the cherry on the cake was free massage, they do know how to get people. They also had enough willpower to brainwash people via television. We were given a chair for the brain wash machine and two young guys who were sitting in front of us started talking. Their mission of the day was to sit there in front of that very screen, get drunk and with that annoy all the people in the tent. Why? One of the guys had made a grave mistake by buying a book about Scientology few years back and after that he had never managed to get rid of them. The people there just kept on calling him, at first for informative purposes and later just to annoy him. He told that he couldn't do anything drastic about that because they would ruin his life totally, so the only thing he could do was to annoy them back by getting drunk in their tent, a perfect master plan!
We left the tent after drinking a liter of their juice and eating all their cookies. Arriving in Christiania was like walking into a dream. For a second I though I was like in an improved version of Moldova, I suddenly felt home. First you had this nice clean city and then you turn the corner and end up in a very chaotic world, old paper, garbage, posters, great people, masked men selling grass, graffiti, worn down houses, it was all there. There were a lot of people all around, in houses were gatherings, some bars. We found a booth for exchanging clothes, you put clothes and you take clothes. Afterwards we sat down to a bench and had a few beers, waiting for a evening to head out in another bar. Around 12 after a lot of trouble, we found this nice bar, very football styled. It soon turned out there were around 7 people all from Svenborg, including my friend. We had a couple of beers and headed home.
My last day of Københaun started with vegetation...again, but this Sunday I decided to head home and with this other girl also from Svenbourg we headed towards Fyn, she lived in Odense, which is around 30 km from my school. To say that the day was less than perfect for hitch hiking is an understatement. We experienced cold winds, rain and drivers waving in compassion as we stood there with expressions varying from happiness to desperation and confusion. After standing there for half an hour an Englishman living in the house next to the road came up to us and invited us to have a cup of tea. After freezing our asses off for the next half an hour we decided to do just that, as long as it was free. He really loved talking, while we were sipping the worst tea in the British history. We found out quickly his attitude towards Danish women, weather, British and of course immigrants, my favorite was 'I'm not a racist...I just don't like Muslims'. We left with an easy heart right after drink that murky hot water and got a ride in the next half an hour. We made it to Odense rather fast and I decided to spend the night there because it was close enough for me. Our night passed with drinking tea and dumpsterdiving, where I found the cutest pair of shiny silver slipper, totally unused. I think everybody should have at least one pair of weird shous what you'd never connect to the personality.
The next morning we started around 7 and I had a long 5 km walk to the Odense suburbs, where one remarkable thing happened. While I was wondering how do these people find time to trim their hedges into perfect squares, triangles and circles a man walking his dogs came up to me and asked about my giant Odense sign. We started talking and at some point we ended up talking about..yes you know it already...the immigrants and he told me that all the Polish people are coming here to earn fast money, for example his bike was stolen just few weeks back and on that same day a Polish car was seen standing on the street...Do you see the conclusion pattern? Anyways if I would've told him that I was from Eastern Europe he would've probably sent his dogs after me. I just find it silly that because there are some people from that country coming to earn some money in that way, but nevertheless you cannot say all of them are thieves. But I've met tons of this kind of people so my expectations are not very high in any case. I got back to the school by 10 o'clock.
So those were my adventures, I don't have any pictures unfortunately, so you're gonna just have to use your imagination. Take care and seeya.
Yours,
Jelly
I had collected enough money to visit the all famous capital of Denmark. Under enough money I mostly mean money to buy a entrance ticket to a festival and some beers. My next money will go to pay off dept from the trip.
So my adventure started on Friday the 1st of October. I packed had packed my stuff and made a wonderful giant blue sign with "E20" and "Copenhagen". I marched off to the right road and the weather was greeted me in its perfection, which is probably why I was picked up by a true Danish grandfather, maybe a little less smelly. I amused myself by sitting next to him in the sunshine and saying that my Danish is really bad over and over again, throwing in some awkward smiles. He took me 8 kilometers down the road, just to be picked up by a couple heading to Germany to buy 'cheap' beer (for me beer is only then cheap when it's free). After making to the next stop I managed to get a ride with the most colourful road worker I had ever met. Somewhere in the hitch hikers world there's an unwritten law to keep your mouth shut on sensitive subjects like race, immigrants, discrimination, religion etc. But as talking about the weather is probably reason for high suicides, so the decision to talk about immigrants just came very naturally. It always feels better to poke your head in the fire when it is advised not to do it. He soon revealed that he gets discriminated at least once a week for his dark skin, although he has lived in DK his whole life, speaks fluent Danish and has a Danish mother. That and other stories from people made me look at this well fare country in a whole new perspective. At some point I started to think, what if Danish people see only the word 'foreigner', not people behind it. The people who come here have their own groups and communities and there is no insight into each others cultures, or even if someone tries they get rejected as the natural way of things. Finally that leads to the fact that natives don't see the immigrants' culture, their families and the fact that they also have a life and roots in the same country and the same also applies for the immigrants, as they are being left out the same way. Not knowing causes fear and fear is hiding behind the word 'foreigner'.
No, now I have gone too far and too fast, first the explanation of the problem. These immigrants did not come at first because they needed to they were brought in by the Danish people themselves as work force. But after some time the need for them reduced and there was nothing to do with them. People who came had settled in and their children were already Danish, maybe they had even brought in their own families. Finally the Danish people ended up having lots of foreigners, but they weren't integrated so good, so they became the enemy. Then an extreme left racist party got into power, saying that the foreigners should be shipped out and given money to live on their own country. Media also hasn't been very innocent, provoking the problem as much as possible. Whenever there's a news about a crime, there are only two ways it can have its introduction, either 'A young foreigner was caught' or 'A young man was caught', so you could always see who is in the wrong. I believe this is the biggest problem in DK, but I am also a foreigner here, so my view can be a little one sided.
We left the tent after drinking a liter of their juice and eating all their cookies. Arriving in Christiania was like walking into a dream. For a second I though I was like in an improved version of Moldova, I suddenly felt home. First you had this nice clean city and then you turn the corner and end up in a very chaotic world, old paper, garbage, posters, great people, masked men selling grass, graffiti, worn down houses, it was all there. There were a lot of people all around, in houses were gatherings, some bars. We found a booth for exchanging clothes, you put clothes and you take clothes. Afterwards we sat down to a bench and had a few beers, waiting for a evening to head out in another bar. Around 12 after a lot of trouble, we found this nice bar, very football styled. It soon turned out there were around 7 people all from Svenborg, including my friend. We had a couple of beers and headed home.
My last day of Københaun started with vegetation...again, but this Sunday I decided to head home and with this other girl also from Svenbourg we headed towards Fyn, she lived in Odense, which is around 30 km from my school. To say that the day was less than perfect for hitch hiking is an understatement. We experienced cold winds, rain and drivers waving in compassion as we stood there with expressions varying from happiness to desperation and confusion. After standing there for half an hour an Englishman living in the house next to the road came up to us and invited us to have a cup of tea. After freezing our asses off for the next half an hour we decided to do just that, as long as it was free. He really loved talking, while we were sipping the worst tea in the British history. We found out quickly his attitude towards Danish women, weather, British and of course immigrants, my favorite was 'I'm not a racist...I just don't like Muslims'. We left with an easy heart right after drink that murky hot water and got a ride in the next half an hour. We made it to Odense rather fast and I decided to spend the night there because it was close enough for me. Our night passed with drinking tea and dumpsterdiving, where I found the cutest pair of shiny silver slipper, totally unused. I think everybody should have at least one pair of weird shous what you'd never connect to the personality.
The next morning we started around 7 and I had a long 5 km walk to the Odense suburbs, where one remarkable thing happened. While I was wondering how do these people find time to trim their hedges into perfect squares, triangles and circles a man walking his dogs came up to me and asked about my giant Odense sign. We started talking and at some point we ended up talking about..yes you know it already...the immigrants and he told me that all the Polish people are coming here to earn fast money, for example his bike was stolen just few weeks back and on that same day a Polish car was seen standing on the street...Do you see the conclusion pattern? Anyways if I would've told him that I was from Eastern Europe he would've probably sent his dogs after me. I just find it silly that because there are some people from that country coming to earn some money in that way, but nevertheless you cannot say all of them are thieves. But I've met tons of this kind of people so my expectations are not very high in any case. I got back to the school by 10 o'clock.
So those were my adventures, I don't have any pictures unfortunately, so you're gonna just have to use your imagination. Take care and seeya.
Yours,
Jelly
Monday, September 20, 2010
How to make smoked eggs?
An update on what has happened and what has been taking place on this jelly filled country.
Untskyld (sorry in Danish) for not updating for such a long period of time, but laziness and the rest of the world had gotten better of me. Fortunately now I'm back on tracks and ready to fill you in on most of the amazingly awesome things that have happened.
To make it shorter, here's a list of things I've done during this period:
And last but not least, annoying the hell out of most of the 60 students here, plus some teachers.
So that sums up most of it, smaller details can be retained, by donating money (only for good cause of course)
Plus I got an offer to stay in this wobbly hilly land till December and that's an offer I just can't refuse, especially if we will get a new teacher and most important-free food. If you think I'm being cheap by saying that then you're wrong, it's not easy living with constant state of poverty and without any plan or certain education it's hard to find a job, plus it's way too early for me to sell my soul into chicken training circus. And now I'd like to present you some great pictures from these past months, enjoy:
Hhere's an address to my picture album. Btw. making smoked eggs is easy, first you make genocide by boiling an egg, drill an hole in it, stuff it wit tobacco and a filter, smoke...and voilá, one smoked egg.
Plus today I got a new haircut, now I look like Lady Gaga with a blind 90 year old hairdresser. I just asked a girl from here to cut my hair and she just did it...of course during dinner time she sat right opposite to me and couldn't stop laughing, cuz I look like Lady Gaga gone wrong. Well at least it was only hair, remember not to ask her to fix your brain.
That's it for today, hope you had fun and have sweet dreams,
Sove godt.
Untskyld (sorry in Danish) for not updating for such a long period of time, but laziness and the rest of the world had gotten better of me. Fortunately now I'm back on tracks and ready to fill you in on most of the amazingly awesome things that have happened.
To make it shorter, here's a list of things I've done during this period:
- Done jewellery
- Paintballing
- Climbing trees and walls and crates, basically everything climable
- Semi-bungee jumping
- Swimming
- Petting soft jellyfish and spend tons of quality time looking for them
- Partying in Svenborg
- Finding out that the guy who invented female condoms was from Svendborg
- Dumpster diving, which I might say is incredibly fruitful activity in DK (I even mean it in a literal way)
- Meeting with the major of Nord-Fyn
- Visiting a local high school and a nearby folkehøjskole
- Different markets on Fyn which seemingly had age limit 'over 70 year old only'
- Visiting Århus and the biggest art museum there named ARoS Kunstmusem and it was really really good (and expensive)
And last but not least, annoying the hell out of most of the 60 students here, plus some teachers.
So that sums up most of it, smaller details can be retained, by donating money (only for good cause of course)
Plus I got an offer to stay in this wobbly hilly land till December and that's an offer I just can't refuse, especially if we will get a new teacher and most important-free food. If you think I'm being cheap by saying that then you're wrong, it's not easy living with constant state of poverty and without any plan or certain education it's hard to find a job, plus it's way too early for me to sell my soul into chicken training circus. And now I'd like to present you some great pictures from these past months, enjoy:
 | |
| Maria at her best! |
 |
| A horsee |
 |
| Going to the market can effect your shoes |
 |
| Århus Kunstmuseum called Aros (or something very similar) |
 |
| I feel like this all the time |
 |
| I Århus |
 |
| A giant 6 meter boy in Århus |
 |
| This masterful thing is a robo c(m)op cleaning your floors when you're not looking |
 |
| THis is what happens when combining a girl scout and reggae |
 |
| Some pretty pink flowers |
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| Chess makes everyone look smarter |
 |
| Calling Jellyfish! |
 |
| Found the jellyfish! |
 |
| Place for skinny dipping in Bogense |
Plus today I got a new haircut, now I look like Lady Gaga with a blind 90 year old hairdresser. I just asked a girl from here to cut my hair and she just did it...of course during dinner time she sat right opposite to me and couldn't stop laughing, cuz I look like Lady Gaga gone wrong. Well at least it was only hair, remember not to ask her to fix your brain.
That's it for today, hope you had fun and have sweet dreams,
Sove godt.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Kitkat
Monday, August 23, 2010
Underneath the Gray Skies
A dedication to all the people I'm living with.
It's raining outside as usual, my lessons just ended and I have infinite amount of coffee under my command. I can tell you stories about the most amazing things or maybe a little less amazing things...or just casual things, it depends on how easily you get excited.
So soon after arriving I found out that this school of Folkehøjskole has an alternate purpose to teach people how to live together in small communities. To see the same faces during breakfast, lunch and dinner. I guess it's an important surviving skill, as it shows you who you actually are and what is your social status amongst others.
My company around this place is rather colorful as I've probably told you. Unfortunately I have no pictures to add.
As I was mistaken to be a boy I was put into room with a short disabled girl, although it doesn't show so much, she is as playful and as extroverted as any other person, she already has the boundaries for her comfort zone established. For the first week, she didn't say anything to me, not even hello nor goodbye. But recently she seem to have gotten used to me and even has enough courage to poke me and annoy me when I'm cleaning up. Actually yesterday was a big break trough as she started telling me about her family and how her dad died last year (even though it was in Danish I understood that much). I guess that is something that needs time to get over in every case. During the night I've had some problems with her, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or in my case, grouchy in the mornings. Today as I was vacuum cleaning the floor she came and turned the machine off several times and I poked her back, at least there's an international language of annoying people that works under every circumstance.
I also have a neighbor, tall, blond and thin girl who most parts reminds me of a boy. Somehow she found it a fun entertainment to sit on me while I watch TV, after that it has being a game of cat and mouse. She sneaks up on me and tries to tickle, the hardest part is that she is living next door which makes avoiding her sometimes hard, so whenever I find my shoes gone or keys displaced I know who to blame and then comes revenge aka tickling her until she gives over my stuff and that is the basis for our relationship as I can't really talk to her in Danish.
Btw as a side remark I should mention that we have touch screen computers and very fancy ones too.
Back to the people. In my class there's also this Japanese girl Y (for safety purposes), who is really the sweetest girl ever. She worked in Japan as a waitress in a small village, but ended up here. She is the only person who is trying to learn Danish too, so for that reason I always sit next to her.
There are also a few other Japanese people with I spend a lot of my time, but one thing is common to all of them. They are all very very polite, I guess it's already written in their DNA. I heard one Japanese lady apologizing one day for not knowing English, Truth be told there's nothing unnatural in not knowing a language. If you really want to communicate with the person you will do it, although it might require some creativity. Recently I've learned to talk with my hands and it seems to work much better. If you speak about liking something you tap on your heart, if asking other persons thoughts on something you tap on your head, for going you show a direction, things like that help a lot.
I also talk a lot or watch TV with some people who have been here for a while. Jør is around 60s and from the weight losers class, doing it very successfully. I met him on the first night I came here and he told me a lot about this school. He's a vibrant person, doing a lot of sports and enjoys being alive, even though he has been trough a lot. He comes here only for the company and I feel this school gives him a purpose.
From time to time I talk to a local Danish guy, who is in his 30s tall and blond, a very intelligent person, knows about movies, philosophy, music, politics, everything basically. I often enjoy talking to him about...well...everything. He is here in the disabled class, but you really can't tell it on the first sight. And even not when talking to him, but he did told me that giving him drivers license would be a mistake. Today I just noticed that he had a picture of a tractor and sunrise on his glasses. A thing he wasn't aware of. I also named his alter ego, he's name is Peter.
There are also two disabled people I should mention. First one...lets call him B is an artist, he has his own imaginary world, with an imaginary kingdom and language, he invented. He has tons of pictures of the citizens of those countries and their castles/houses. Each and every one of them have different names and the hole kingdom is built on equality, peace, fantasy and freedom (at least that's how I remembered it). From time to time he looks into people's eyes, which in my mind is a pretty good thing. He's 28 and should also live somewhere on Fyn (the central island I'm living on). I often envy him, his art has his own styles, he knows what he does and what to do, he even has a goal to his art.
There's also a B2 who is living in the same house that I'm living in. He arrived recently, but turned out to be rather scary. At first I didn't think much of him, seemed rather okay, but he has problems with the left side of his body, but that's not the issue. The thing is, every time I happen to be in the same room he is just staring at me until I get uncomfortable enough to cover my view of him or to leave the room, always saying hello and once he even decided to greet me shirtless after I finished washing my teeth. I just assume that is just a form of how his state, but it's still a little hard to handle. Just another day in Denmark.
Good news: There are jellyfish here, yesterday I went swimming and they were floating around, so soft and transparent, purple, as big as hands or tiny like peanuts, glowing in the water a little blue-ish. Next time will try to get some pictures. I LOVE jellies. In Danish jellyfish is vendmand (literally water man) and in Japanese it is 水母 [kurage].
Now if you're still awake you can pat yourself on the shoulder and find something exciting to do and think about jellies while doing it.
Cheers!
It's raining outside as usual, my lessons just ended and I have infinite amount of coffee under my command. I can tell you stories about the most amazing things or maybe a little less amazing things...or just casual things, it depends on how easily you get excited.
So soon after arriving I found out that this school of Folkehøjskole has an alternate purpose to teach people how to live together in small communities. To see the same faces during breakfast, lunch and dinner. I guess it's an important surviving skill, as it shows you who you actually are and what is your social status amongst others.
My company around this place is rather colorful as I've probably told you. Unfortunately I have no pictures to add.
As I was mistaken to be a boy I was put into room with a short disabled girl, although it doesn't show so much, she is as playful and as extroverted as any other person, she already has the boundaries for her comfort zone established. For the first week, she didn't say anything to me, not even hello nor goodbye. But recently she seem to have gotten used to me and even has enough courage to poke me and annoy me when I'm cleaning up. Actually yesterday was a big break trough as she started telling me about her family and how her dad died last year (even though it was in Danish I understood that much). I guess that is something that needs time to get over in every case. During the night I've had some problems with her, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or in my case, grouchy in the mornings. Today as I was vacuum cleaning the floor she came and turned the machine off several times and I poked her back, at least there's an international language of annoying people that works under every circumstance.
I also have a neighbor, tall, blond and thin girl who most parts reminds me of a boy. Somehow she found it a fun entertainment to sit on me while I watch TV, after that it has being a game of cat and mouse. She sneaks up on me and tries to tickle, the hardest part is that she is living next door which makes avoiding her sometimes hard, so whenever I find my shoes gone or keys displaced I know who to blame and then comes revenge aka tickling her until she gives over my stuff and that is the basis for our relationship as I can't really talk to her in Danish.
Btw as a side remark I should mention that we have touch screen computers and very fancy ones too.
Back to the people. In my class there's also this Japanese girl Y (for safety purposes), who is really the sweetest girl ever. She worked in Japan as a waitress in a small village, but ended up here. She is the only person who is trying to learn Danish too, so for that reason I always sit next to her.
There are also a few other Japanese people with I spend a lot of my time, but one thing is common to all of them. They are all very very polite, I guess it's already written in their DNA. I heard one Japanese lady apologizing one day for not knowing English, Truth be told there's nothing unnatural in not knowing a language. If you really want to communicate with the person you will do it, although it might require some creativity. Recently I've learned to talk with my hands and it seems to work much better. If you speak about liking something you tap on your heart, if asking other persons thoughts on something you tap on your head, for going you show a direction, things like that help a lot.
I also talk a lot or watch TV with some people who have been here for a while. Jør is around 60s and from the weight losers class, doing it very successfully. I met him on the first night I came here and he told me a lot about this school. He's a vibrant person, doing a lot of sports and enjoys being alive, even though he has been trough a lot. He comes here only for the company and I feel this school gives him a purpose.
From time to time I talk to a local Danish guy, who is in his 30s tall and blond, a very intelligent person, knows about movies, philosophy, music, politics, everything basically. I often enjoy talking to him about...well...everything. He is here in the disabled class, but you really can't tell it on the first sight. And even not when talking to him, but he did told me that giving him drivers license would be a mistake. Today I just noticed that he had a picture of a tractor and sunrise on his glasses. A thing he wasn't aware of. I also named his alter ego, he's name is Peter.
There are also two disabled people I should mention. First one...lets call him B is an artist, he has his own imaginary world, with an imaginary kingdom and language, he invented. He has tons of pictures of the citizens of those countries and their castles/houses. Each and every one of them have different names and the hole kingdom is built on equality, peace, fantasy and freedom (at least that's how I remembered it). From time to time he looks into people's eyes, which in my mind is a pretty good thing. He's 28 and should also live somewhere on Fyn (the central island I'm living on). I often envy him, his art has his own styles, he knows what he does and what to do, he even has a goal to his art.
There's also a B2 who is living in the same house that I'm living in. He arrived recently, but turned out to be rather scary. At first I didn't think much of him, seemed rather okay, but he has problems with the left side of his body, but that's not the issue. The thing is, every time I happen to be in the same room he is just staring at me until I get uncomfortable enough to cover my view of him or to leave the room, always saying hello and once he even decided to greet me shirtless after I finished washing my teeth. I just assume that is just a form of how his state, but it's still a little hard to handle. Just another day in Denmark.
Good news: There are jellyfish here, yesterday I went swimming and they were floating around, so soft and transparent, purple, as big as hands or tiny like peanuts, glowing in the water a little blue-ish. Next time will try to get some pictures. I LOVE jellies. In Danish jellyfish is vendmand (literally water man) and in Japanese it is 水母 [kurage].
Now if you're still awake you can pat yourself on the shoulder and find something exciting to do and think about jellies while doing it.
Cheers!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Danske
The daily program in the Folkehøjskole.
If you are reading this you must be either really bored, or have way too much time on your hands, But if you're reading this because you want to learn more about Denmark you have come to the right place. The organization here is supposed to be like in the army. At 7.45-8.15 there's breakfast. then a meeting from 8.30-9.00. Till ten o'clock we'll have some lessons after which there's a coffee break. The lessons continue till 12 and for half an hour we have lunch after what we have to do our chores aka cleaning. More lessons till 3- another coffee break. 6-6.30 we have dinner. Of course everyone adapt to their needs, so my program looks a little different.
I sleep trough the breakfast just to catch some food 5 minutes before the kitchen closes. Appear halfway to the meeting where we sing some songs. Be minimum 10 minutes late for the class. Do the chores before lunch, so have 5 minutes for eating and even be on time for the second class. I just feel the need to control my own life and doing it with my own groove just feels great. It's a small attempt to bring chaos into this organized world. And when I say organized I mean Denmark is seriously on the point country.
Nobody throws anything on the streets and random people even clean up the streets, all the houses in the nearest village are renovated and really tidy with added decorations like old tuned BMWs. There's huge infrastructure here and even the smallest roads are pavemented. Everything is nice and tidy and rather expensive. For example owning a car is worst than smoking around here (even though cigarettes cost 50 kronas, which is a lot even in their standards, 90% of people staying in this school smoke). Per half a year people have to pay on the car weight, registration and even the fuel consumption. SO if you want a car, Denmark is not the right place for it.
The average pay a Danish person receives is about 105 kronas per hour, which is about 5 times more than average in Estonia. Although about 1/3 of the money goes for taxes and 25% of all goods you buy. The taxing system is progressive as people who get around 600 000 kronas per year have to pay 62% for taxes as a person with 400 000 kronas has to pay p.e 42% for taxes. At least that's what I learned in the last class.
Ooh and also some good news, as I didn't have any money it has been rather difficult for me during the past few days, but I met this nice artist who hired me to clean her house once a week and giving me 100 kronas per time, so I can live here almost normally and finally I can buy a beer!!! Oh the small joys.
Plus I'm also learing Danish now, there's always something to add to your language skills...although thanks to my ex roommate I learned two of the most importand words in Danish befor I even came here: billeder (a picture) and indbakke (inbox). They are very important.
Anyways take care and look at your toes, they might need trimming and painting over.
If you are reading this you must be either really bored, or have way too much time on your hands, But if you're reading this because you want to learn more about Denmark you have come to the right place. The organization here is supposed to be like in the army. At 7.45-8.15 there's breakfast. then a meeting from 8.30-9.00. Till ten o'clock we'll have some lessons after which there's a coffee break. The lessons continue till 12 and for half an hour we have lunch after what we have to do our chores aka cleaning. More lessons till 3- another coffee break. 6-6.30 we have dinner. Of course everyone adapt to their needs, so my program looks a little different.
I sleep trough the breakfast just to catch some food 5 minutes before the kitchen closes. Appear halfway to the meeting where we sing some songs. Be minimum 10 minutes late for the class. Do the chores before lunch, so have 5 minutes for eating and even be on time for the second class. I just feel the need to control my own life and doing it with my own groove just feels great. It's a small attempt to bring chaos into this organized world. And when I say organized I mean Denmark is seriously on the point country.
Nobody throws anything on the streets and random people even clean up the streets, all the houses in the nearest village are renovated and really tidy with added decorations like old tuned BMWs. There's huge infrastructure here and even the smallest roads are pavemented. Everything is nice and tidy and rather expensive. For example owning a car is worst than smoking around here (even though cigarettes cost 50 kronas, which is a lot even in their standards, 90% of people staying in this school smoke). Per half a year people have to pay on the car weight, registration and even the fuel consumption. SO if you want a car, Denmark is not the right place for it.
The average pay a Danish person receives is about 105 kronas per hour, which is about 5 times more than average in Estonia. Although about 1/3 of the money goes for taxes and 25% of all goods you buy. The taxing system is progressive as people who get around 600 000 kronas per year have to pay 62% for taxes as a person with 400 000 kronas has to pay p.e 42% for taxes. At least that's what I learned in the last class.
Ooh and also some good news, as I didn't have any money it has been rather difficult for me during the past few days, but I met this nice artist who hired me to clean her house once a week and giving me 100 kronas per time, so I can live here almost normally and finally I can buy a beer!!! Oh the small joys.
Plus I'm also learing Danish now, there's always something to add to your language skills...although thanks to my ex roommate I learned two of the most importand words in Danish befor I even came here: billeder (a picture) and indbakke (inbox). They are very important.
Anyways take care and look at your toes, they might need trimming and painting over.
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