a few weeks in Denmark

I am so lucky to be able to spend a few weeks in Denmark this summer. Right now I'm back in our old apartment, and we're enjoying some exceptionally nice weather (with a thunder storm last night!), swimming in the Øresund, applying layers of sunblock, eating delicious salads, and planning for our trip to Norway at the end of the week. 

Leo's at work, so I'm up to my usually tricks; doing writing for my PhD, lots of admin (sigh), cleaning and cooking. Mondays may not be as good as the weekend when your weekend is filled with amazing coffee from the place your friend works at and all the delicious salad and bread you can handle, but it's pretty fantastic when you get to stay at home, clean at will (cleaning calms my soul) and think about preparing the most delicious dinner while listening to your new favourite song. 

summer's end

We're in the final weeks of summer over here. Flip flops every day is no longer a sufficient footwear choice, and we've had a few rainy/stormy days lately. Since I'm finished up at my job I'm supposed to be productive; preparing for my studies, 2 proposals, holidays, all that stuff. 

But I've been fairly lazy, if I'm being honest. I've been pottering around at home cleaning, doing laundry, making essential oil with my new lemon balm plant (!), entertaining guests, reading my Paul Krugman book (the closest relation to 'work' right now) cooking, and generally doing things not taxing on the brain. I also spent a good few hours cleaning up the computer, and sorting all 19,000 pictures into appropriate folders. Good grief.

Today is Leaving Cert Results day for all the school leavers in Ireland, and I'm thanking my lucky stars those days are long behind me (7 years!) because boy, was that a stressful experience. All the anxiety, stress and strain of it, just to be told you either get into a course or don't. From there it all starts at a blank page again. Conjugating irregular verbs and solving for x aren't much use for most of us in the real world.

Leo has managed to get his hands on a sourdough starter from a colleague in work, so later today we are making sourdough, blancmange, and some tasty Autumnal dish from the Irish cook book I picked up at the library. Our evenings are filled with swims in the sea, watching a Cold War documentary, and drinking a lot of tea, both breakfast and lemon balm. Life, it's pretty good.

 

sunday

Working on a weekend is not something I enjoy. Working in sweltering heat in a non-breathable outfit that literally renders you invisible to those around you (hashtag housekeeping) is something I enjoy even less.

 This is what my Sunday looked like. Are you depressed yet?

Caramel frogurt as I waited for a delayed metro

Not one to wallow, I induled myself in some frogurt, and then bought two pastries and a packet of crisps, because if ever there's an excuse for junk food, it's after working on a Sunday and the train home is delayed.

When I got home we went for a swim in the sea. We are so lucky to live right beside Kastrup harbour, with the Øresund Bron right there in front of us. As a Bron | Broen afficionado, you better believe I am loving that fact. 

The water was so beautiful. Leo assures me it was perfectly warm, but I held back. Just jumping into large bodies of water is not something I am comfortable with. After a full 10 minutes of humming and hawing, I just did it. Completely worth it. There were some nudist enthusiasts bathing nearby. I am going to miss this free-spiritedness. It seems so silly, the rules we force ourselves to conform to. 

After the swim I felt completely invigorated and refreshed. We watched Milk (having read up on Harvey Milk lately it seemed like a must) and then spent the night looking out at the thunder storm lighting up the sky. And it hasn't stopped raining since. Since it's my day off, I really don't mind. 

4 planes, 3 currencies & 3 sim cards

Last week was pretty hectic, as hectic weeks go. I had 4 days on the go at my housekeeping job, which is fairly tiring by anyone's standards. I'd finish each day absolutely covered in sweat from head to toe (it is very humid in Copenhagen these days, time pressures of the job and the non-breathable uniform aside), cycle the 8km home and basically sit in a vegetative state until I recovered the use of my limbs. The week stretched out in front of me with promise, and would include 4 flights, a trip to Durham to meet those working on my study and my future colleagues, and a trip home to Ireland to see the family, all my friends, and enjoy being back in Meath and Dublin again.

On Tuesday, I hurried to get finished with my work, raced home to get my stuff ready, then headed on over to the lovely CPH Lufthavn for my first of two BA flights of the evening. I was fairly excited to fly with British Airways because they still give out free snacks, and there ain't no snack like a free snack. I had a pretty miserable ham and cheese sandwich on stodgy flatbread and coffee, along with a cookie I brought myself in case BA did not bring their snack A-game.

This shocking sight greeted me, but luckily the weather in Durham was more to my liking. Sunshine, a cool breeze, all the things you don't expect when visiting the north of England. 

The 2 days in Durham were absolutely fantastic. My future colleagues are all incredibly focused, kind, and regard work-life balance as of the utmost importance, which is a huge deal for me (living in Denmark, you come to expect it, and having lived in London, know how sacred it really is). 

There was much coffee drinking, meeting and greeting, and fascinating discussions about the work to come and work those in the department have been involved in. I'm really excited to sink my teeth into PhD life in a couple of months! In case you needed photographic proof that Durham is beautiful, I have included some snippets as evidence.

I stayed at the Premier Inn in town, they were so full of northern charm, caring and friendly, such a shock to the system. Danes are incredibly polite, but this is a whole other ballgame. After a few hours of walking around the town, and a surprisingly emotional visit to the Cathedral (along with a scone and a lot of whipped cream and jam), I headed to Newcastle airport to get on the world's tiniest plane home to my family. I had the good fortune to sit next to an academic from Cork who gave me so much good advice on my PhD. It pays to chat to those sitting next to you!

 

And then before I knew it I was home to this little fellah, buckets of tea and as many free range eggs as I could muster (and I mustered a great deal). I'll make another post about my trip to Ireland, because I think this is quite long enough! Suffice to say: British Airways food-pretty bad. Durham-beautiful. Shifting from Kroner to Pounds to Euro and back to Kroner- mildly confusing. Life-very excited.

new start

I am pretty excited, I have finally gotten myself a little job, which means I can continue with my life as normal, while working part-time and earning some money. It's only a start, but one I am very grateful for.

My final Airbnb guests for a couple of weeks left this morning, so I have been cleaning the whole apartment to make it like new, ironing shirts, and drinking coffee with cream and milk (half and half does not exist in Europe, although it should, so this is the best I can do). 

I have to go do a Danish test later, so I have to spend the afternoon studying the past tense and vocabulary about liking/not liking various foods. Riveting.

Did you know, they've uncovered some new evidence which suggests that Stonehenge was built by an ancient people who inhabited the area. 

Here's the cutest ad campaign to highlight pickpocketing in Copenhagen (don't really see the need for this, especially the Danish language version, I'm fairly sure only the most obvious of tourists get pick pocketed). And a tiny clothes peg!

busy busy busy!

I've been 'job seeking' in Denmark for a while now, and it's funny how, while being technically unemployed, you can still be overwhelmed with work, tasks, classes etc. I'm one that likes to keep busy, for sure, but seriously, I don't know where all the tasks keep coming from!

I'm using Airbnb a lot lately, and that is keeping me incredibly busy. All the back and forth emails, room preparation, talking to guests etc. takes a lot of time. It's very satisfying to have a small independent source of income, and I also LOVE being a great host, but man is it ever a job and a half.

On the plus side, my female guests just disposed of the coffee grounds down the toilet and polished up the pot like I do afterwards. Sometimes innate female capacities for knowing the considerate thing to do make me so happy.

What with interview preparation, job hunting, bed sheet and towel washing (it. is. constant) 8km cycles to and from town, distractingly sunny days and the endless Danish homework, I have been oh so very busy.

I'm also beginning a dance class tonight, and will hopefully be teaching Leo how to sing. 

But, hey, this just came in the post, wrapped in a burlap sack:

I am so very happy now!

A little feel of Denmark from a legend

I have been a huge fan of A Prairie Home Companion since childhood. The radio show was played on Saturday mornings on an Irish station, and my dad and I would listen, laugh, and sing along as I went about my Saturday extra curriculars; first gymnastics, then on to drama and ballet (I was a busy child). Garrison Keillor's warm voice is reminiscent for me of the safety net of childhood, of car rides on Saturdays, of that pre-adolescent security, when the world briefly made sense.

I had a Canadian guest staying last week, and we were pleasantly surprised to find out we were both familiar with the wonderful world of Lake Woebegone, 'where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

Even better than that, he told me about an excellent article written by Garrison Keillor from National Geographic, available on his website here. The article itself is from 1998, but all of his comments about Copenhagen and Denmark more generally are still so relevant. A wonderful, heartfelt piece of writing by someone who really understands and admires Denmark, which is funny and eternally true for a foreigner living here.

Please read it, I cannot recommend it enough! It may even bring a tear to your eye, if you are one who is as sentimental as I am.

While you're at it, if you're not familiar with A Prairie Home Companion, spend some time on the website listening to stories and songs about "the little town that time forgot, and the decades cannot improve."  The humour and sensibilities of a fake Midwestern town have never been so entertaining.

• Garrison Keillor National Geographic Article
• A Prairie Home Companion Website
• The Wiki about the show

a long break

I haven't written anything substantial in a long time, this is true. However, I have a legitimate reason! The sunshine, Easter holidays, a trip to an organic pig farm and a whole lot of flute playing. All this stuff kind of got in the way.

I've been getting back into trad music, so for the first time in a  long time (really, about a decade) I'm playing at sessions and practicing a lot in my free time, trying to expand my repertoire. A trad musician is only as good as his repertoire, and, while my technical skills are pretty good (an outstanding teacher in the form of a neighbour who happens to be an internationally renowned Irish musician), boy have I missed out on ten years of tune accumulation. And it shows. I'm there rocking all the tunes of days gone by, many of which were not even popular in Ireland, let alone Denmark, and folk music does in fact evolve, however slightly.

But I'm trying my best, stealthily recording as many tunes as I can to greedily devour later. My trust flute, absolutely rudimentary in design, sounds as beautiful and reliable as it did when it was purchased for me age 12/13. It's still as sleek and black, the tone still as consistent, and I'm still unable to deviate from G and D Major without some serious finger bending.

Music is a fantastic thing. And playing the music yourself really heightens already thriving emotions. I've been so happy since I started going to a pub on a Friday evening, to have endless bottles of Coke poured into me and play the tunes of my youth.

 

I don't actually own this photo, it belongs to Martin, a wonderful man from Northern Ireland that places an impressive range of percussive instruments. Needless to say I'm the only female in the shot, with flute in hand.

I'll write a bit more on the last couple of weeks shortly, but for now it's off to the local Kommune to register to vote in May (grumble grumble Representative Democracy is inadequate grumble), and then it's back to Danish class. I think I have forgotten all my Danish words.

Have a great day, internet!

april is here

It's time for planning, writing applications, searching for jobs, learning Danish, rearranging the furniture, impromptu trips, and life-changing decisions.

Come one, come all!

I wish there were more hours in the day.

the week that's in it

This week I passed my modul 1 Danish test at Studieskolen. I don't think anyone expected to fail, but I take everything school related really seriously so I stressed myself out the past two weeks studying.

We had drinks after the test and it was so nice to bond with those I've spent the past 6 weeks with. Some of them are moving on to do other things, but the majority of us are continuing onto module 2 next week.

I'm applying for a college course. A big one. I'll say no more because I don't expect to get it, but this is a huge step for me.

I've been catching up with some really distant blasts from the past, it feels weird but it's very nice.

The weather today is beautiful, warm and only a fraction of the breeze there usually is. I'm writing my application and getting ready to go play some Irish music at Kennedy's pub later.

Have a nice weekend :)

Gilleleje

Two Saturdays ago we hosted our first Airbnb-ers, and wanting to give them space, we rented a car and got driving. Leo and I only recently got our licenses and a) haven't had much practise in a manual car before and b) had never ever driven on the right hand side of the road. (Note, as a foreigner in Denmark you get a fairly decent discount on car hire! We went with Sixt this time and the service was fantastic).

The first few hours were stressful for all involved. Practicing the night before, in the dark, and the rain, we were a little fearful for our lives, but Saturday was dry and sunny, and the roads aren't as scary in the light of day.

Leo drove us through the city, and then I took over and brought us out to the countryside. We stopped in Helsingør and he took over, passing through a few nice villages, and stopping to eat a junk food lunch in the form of toasties, hotdogs, chips and Coke. It felt just right for the day that was in it.

Gilleleje (reminds me of Galilee every time I say it) is at the northern tip of Sjaelland, the island Copenhagen is on. It is a quaint fishing village, and we actually witness a couple hop onto a recently returned boat and pick fish right out of the net to take home.

We stayed at an Airbnb ourselves, and after exploring the town retreated to the comfort of our apartment for a dinner of fettuccine and some True Detective on the laptop. I'd like to go back in the summer to eat seafood and spent time by the water, it was too cold this time round for more than a cursory glance.

On the way home we stopped at the tiny beach village of Ejby for sandwiches and even more True Detective in the car and made a pitstop  in Roskilde before taking the motorway home.

Ok, so I overdid it on the pictures in this post, but I just can't get enough of that Danish design. Yellow washed buildings are everything to me.