More Adventures in Copenhagen

Time for another entry!

After a slow weekend the last week was very fun. Plenty of events, yet time to hang out, make food on my own, practice some Danish, and yes, get my bike back.

I was hoping to have a busy last weekend,with plans to meet up with new and old friends, but was disappointed when the majority of them fell through. But it’s my blog and I’m not going to write about the disappointing times :)

I did get a visit from my friend Katie, a fellow volunteer with me at the UW in a peer health education group. She was stopping in Copenhagen for 1 day on her long journey to China. So I got to give my first tour of the city as a resident which felt good and was fun.

The new week started off well. On Monday I got to meet up with my Danish teacher (Jan) and classmate (Yuki) from the UW for beers and dinner. Jan actually teaches Danish in Denmark over the summer and then returns to the University during the school year. Yuki is a recent graduate but absolutely loves Denmark and is renting an apartment over here. It was great for all three of us to finally meet over here in the place we had been talking about in class the whole year.

On to more bike news… Thankfully I believe the bad luck with my bike is over, although I have passed it on to friends in my class. I was borrowing Anya’s (German girl from my class) bike over the weekend who was out of town. I warned her beforehand that I had bad luck with bikes, and she had heard my presentation on bikes, but she thought it was safer with me than parked at the train station. Her bike was completely fine, but the next day her lock broke. No reason really…just stopped working... but I did warn her.

Another bad luck bike story: I was at the beach with Giuseppe and while walking back to our bikes he dropped his key to his bike lock into the sand. We assumed it would be easy to find, but 15 minutes later with the help of 4 other searchers he was carrying his bike back to his apartment. He didn’t want to leave it at the beach because it would be a pretty easy place for it to be taken, and more importantly it was his landlord’s bike! Needless to say it garnered us a few weird looks, particularly when we tried to carry it using my bike (don’t ever try this)…

Thankfully I have passed the bad luck on because I got my bike back from the shop and it rides just fine. The repairman fixed the spokes and there is no shaking. He mentioned that the back wheel is bent, and will eventually need a whole new part. It seems fine to me though and I will just ride it out until something happens. Let’s hope it lasts 4 months and my bad luck with bikes ends with Anya’s broken lock…

On Thursday I had my first night working at “Studenterhuset”—try translating that one yourself—which was great. Studenterhuset operates mainly through student volunteers and offers some of the cheapest drinks in the city, with further discounts for staff and students.

My first night was great because it was not too busy so I got to get the hang of things having never worked in a bar before. I won’t be doing anything too fancy though. If customers want any kind of mixed drink they have to buy it separately (a shot of rum, and a coke for example), and then they pour it! …makes it easy for amateur bartenders like me, and we normally get beer orders anyway.

It was also a good chance to meet lots new people. I was working a shift with international students from Italy, France, and Switzerland, but there are many Danes that help run, and frequent the bar allowing me to practice a bit.

Even though it is a volunteer position they still “pay” you quite well. All non-alcoholic drinks are free on your shift. For every shift you work you get 5 drink tickets which you can use another night to come in and have a beer, or come have a coffee during the day, or give them to a friend. Also, if you have the clean-up shift, its free drinks and pizza while cleaning up!

The only problem was I thought I was working 7-11, but Thursdays they close early and only have 1 shift from 7 to around 2. Needless to say I was tired the next day, and after class and meeting up with some friends at an electronic music festival (not a big fan…) I retired early for the night. My next shift is on Wednesday for international night where it will be much busier, and I will be staying later to clean-up, but I am excited to work again.

I am also really excited for my upcoming trip with my brother Donnie and dad Kirk for quick stops in South France, North Italy, and the Swiss Alps. My landlord just left yesterday on a trip back home to Albania so I have the apartment all to myself until the 6^th of September.

We will be traveling from the 24^th of August until the 3^rd of September so there will be no blog updates during that time. But I have been getting some questions about what the food is like in Denmark and what I and The Danes usually eat over here, so I may do an update on food in Denmark (a favorite topic of mine) before I take off.

As always, look forward to hearing from you. Have some pics below and new one's in the "extra pictures" album on picasa.

Jeff

Bikes, Class, and my first full week

My first full week in Copenhagen was quite exciting. I got to meet a lot of people, talk lots of Danish, and of course, have more bike trouble.

Class began on Monday with everyone who had taken some Danish before taking a placement test to determine one's level. I was placed in level 4 (of 7), but my Danish instructor at UW was teaching level 4 and using the same book that I had used the past year, so I was bumped up to level 5. It's definitely not too difficult so I'm glad it worked out like that.

Overall there are around 200 international students studying for the summer, but the majority (1500 or so) will arrive in September. My class has about 9 people in it from all over the place. Three girls from Germany, one from Iceland and one from Japan. Two middle aged guys--one from France, the other from Bolivia, a young Italian guy, and me. I thought it was crazy that someone from Japan did (and could) study Danish, but I guess she probably wondered the same thing about me...

Most people are taking the course because they are studying Nordic studies of some kind: history, design, etc. Others want to work in Denmark after they are done with school or have a significant other that is Danish. Overall the class is fun and not painfully boring for working on Danish for 3+ hours a day. I also got to see students from the UW that will only be studying during the summer. I only know about 3 of them but I will be hanging out with them a bit this weekend.

Like many Danish buildings, my University is a combination of old and new, but my "campus" (there are 4 throughout the city, but not really like a US campus) is new. I was quite surprised on the first day while in a large lecture hall they wrote something on the whiteboard, and it appeared projected on a large screen above it for everyone to see.

I also spoke with an advisor-only in Danish-about courses. I will probably be taking a Danish Language course (like I take now), a Danish Culture course (no homework!) and a class on theory of social relations in the Middle East. Should be a full schedule, although most of the work is independent and I will actually not be in class that much.

On Tuesday I got to checkout the Danish beach on the island where I live. It is HUGE, and quite nice, with white sand imported from the west coast. It was around 75 degrees and there were hundreds of people there, along with an uncountable amount of bikes.

Bikes are a very important means of transportation over here. Although public transportation through busses, trains, or the metro is very good, it is still a bit expensive. The metro is basically like the monorail in Seattle except it goes useful places! During rush-hour it runs every 4 minutes (!) and gets you to your destination very quickly, but unless you buy special tickets its about $4 a ride. Bikes are the best way to get around because everyone knows the rules regarding them (you learn it as a part of school), the city is pretty small, and you have your own lane.

When I last left off I just had a bit of an annoying bike experience, and I have another bike story as well. After hearing my story, my friend Giuseppe from class told me his friend left him keys to a bike, and if I could find it it was mine. The only catch: it was around a ton of other bikes, and the only description was that one was black, one was a mountain bike, and they were locked up together. Fortunately when I found the area where they should be there were not too many bikes there, but unfortunately, those two bikes were gone.

My landlord then found an announcement at the University about bikes for sale. I called the seller (from my new cell phone!) and headed over. He had 4 bikes left from old international students that left and didn't have time to sell them. I looked them over, and rode the bike I bought before buying it to make sure it was good, and at the time I didn't notice any problems. Then on the way back the back tire started shaking...

I took it to a shop and thankfully the repairs are not too expensive for a few broken/weak spokes (well, at the shop I finally found it wasn't too bad-$100 at the first, $80 at another, and $30 at the one furthest away, so I'm glad I shopped around). I thought I was going to be without a bike for the weekend, but my friend Anya from class is going home to Germany and is letting me have her bike for the weekend so she doesn't have to park it at the train station where she thinks it will be stolen.

Bottom line: When I get my bike back I will use two locks on it and hope that I never have to go into a bike shop again, although I am getting quite good at telling them my bike has problems. I also had a presentation to give in Danish class today on anything I wanted. My title was: "How not to buy a bike in Copenhagen".

I also have signed up to volunteer as a bartender at "The Student House" which is a bar that many university students go to, and hosts and international night on Wednesday nights. Should be a good way to meet people and have fun. I start next week.

Last night my landlord had two friends over for dinner, an interesting pair. They were sisters, one who is the hippie type from whom I learned lots about drugs, the Freetown of Christiania, and the recent destruction of Ungdomshuset, which was a squatter residence for European counter-culture youth in Copenhagen.

The other sister was almost finished with her training to be a priest in the Danish State Church, working in prisons. I asked her how often the Danes go to church. She said most of the churches in the countryside are barely used at all, and maybe 15 regulars in churches in the city! Definitely not a religious society... I was struck by surprise when the hippie was describing some guy she did not want to become involved with because he could not speak any English or Danish and the future priest quickly said: "Well, you don't have to talk..."

Overall a good week, looking forward to the weekend. Hope to hear from you.

My first few days before class...

I decided to start a blog to keep everyone posted on what I'm up to over in Denmark. I would like for people to post comments or keep in touch with what you are up to wherever you are :)

Overall the past few days I have been settling in, exploring Copenhagen, and trying to get on schedule in the different time zone.

The first day was very long, but not too bad as my two planes were on time and they fed me on both flights! It took about 15 hours total of travel time. Overall I was up from 5am on the 31st of July until 7pm on the 1st of August, with about 4 hours sleep and 9 hours taken away from the time difference. I was doing fine until the afternoon of the 2nd day when I started nodding of during dinner...

Klaus and Maureen, my uncle and aunt who live about 3 hours away from Copenhagen, picked me up from the airport in the morning. They had stayed with Klaus's parents, Ole and Anne Grethe, the night before as they have an apartment in downtown Copenhagen. They took me to Ole and Anne Grethes, fed me, and took care of some practical stuff before taking me to my apartment. My apartment is on Amager, which is a small island to the south of Copenhagen which the airport is also on. It is outside the city itself, but the city is only a 15 minute walk away, and shorter once I get a bike. There is also a metro (monorail train) nearby that I can use to get around the city and the rest of Denmark, as well as busses which I have not tried yet.

The apartment itself is very nice. I was very skeptical based on the outside of the building, but as Maureen said, many buildings don’t look so great from the outside but inside they are quite nice. This is definitely true of my apartment. It has a nice living room, bathroom, kitchen and two bedrooms. My roommate/landlord is writing her PHD at the university in psychology and has lived in the place for three years, but I am her first roommate here. She is from Albania but has lived in Denmark for 10 years now. She is very nice, not minding my inability to pay rent yet! She also speaks English very well.

I have been on many long walks around the city, which is actually very small when compared with something like downtown Seattle. I went on a bit of a tour with Ole who knows the city and its history very well which was quite helpful. We walked through all of the cities districts østerbro, nørrebro, and vesterbro, in about a five hour long walk. We also ate, for the second time, at Ole and Anne Grethes favorite Chinese restaurant--just one example of how expensive it can be in Denmark. The bill for the four of us (me Ole, Anne Grethe, and her assistant) was about $125 for lunch. The soup which they insisted I should order as an appetizer was around $8...

Today I went on about a 7 hour walk through Copenhagen taking pictures, enjoying the excellent weather of about 75 degrees and sun, and having a delicious Danish hotdog and ice cream for lunch. There were also a couple events around town such as a concert outside the art museum and a carnival-like event at the harbor on my island Amager.

I have been able to use my Danish a little bit so far, but not too much. I have had no problems using only Danish while going to the store, baker, or buying food. Asking for directions has also gone pretty well. Beyond that I spoke with my mentor and a little with my landlord and it went pretty well both times. My intensive course starts tomorrow so we will see how that goes.

Perhaps my most eventful day was yesterday when I went to attempt to go buy a bicycle... Like everything, bikes are pretty expensive here, so I wanted to get a used cheap one. After looking around the internet I decided that ones there were still not cheap enough (best I could find was $300), so I decided to try my luck at the police auction which I had heard from a few people might be a good option.

I was quite proud of myself for finding my way there across town, and didn't really know what to expect. There were probably 200 total people there for maybe 100 bikes or so. We were all crammed into a very small room where the sign clearly said maximum occupancy: 150, but that definitely wasn't followed. There were a lot of bikes in 5 different rows stacked two high. We were given a half hour to inspect them, but there were so many people and the bikes were packed so tight I had no idea whether they were actually good or not, so I just waited to check them out later.

I got the hang of the auction and tried bidding a few times as bikes that looked decent were being sold for around $100. It seemed the mountain bikes were going cheaper so I decided to go for one of those, one that preferably had tires full of air so I could ride it back. After about 1/2 hour or so I got one which I thought was decent. There were about 3 rows of bikes left, so I could have waited but I thought this was a decent deal for this bike (around $75).

While taking the bike out of the room I realized that it had a lock on the back spokes, so I could not walk it, but had to carry it. As soon as I got it out of the building there was a grungy looking man with a hack saw saying "4 dollars to take it off" referring to the lock. I looked at it, had no idea how to get it off without a key, and let him at it.

After I started walking it I realized that both tires were completely flat: great. I did not want to walk it back but had no choice, and the metro allows, and has plenty of room for you to take a bike on it. As I was walking it down the street the tires stopped rolling... I looked down and a rubber strap, the lining of the inside of the back wheel has completely come out of the wheel and has wrapped around the gears, getting stuck in them as I walked the bike along. 15 minutes later, sweating in the sun I am walking my bike again with the gears free and the lining completely gone wishing I had bought another bike.

After getting back to Amager and walking my bike to a shop (while jealously looking at every bicycle parked on the street and everyone that bikes by) I ask a repairman how bad it is. The first shop says it is too bad and it would be better to buy a new bike. The 2nd shop owner agrees, saying it could be repaired for around $120. I resign to the fact I made a horrible purchase and realize it would be better to buy a new one. The bike needed new tires, a new chain, and to have its breaks fixed... It is now parked out front for a little experiment I have of how long it will be there before someone takes it... Soon I will buy a used one from a shop to guarantee that it is actually a decent bike.

That’s it for now! I'm really excited for classes to start tomorrow. It has been nice getting to know the city but I haven't met any people yet so I am looking forward to that this coming week. Below is a slideshow of some pics.

Jeff