Fast-forward

So it's been a while since I posted last. I decided to see if my blog were even still here, and it was... so weird to re-read my thoughts from years ago, and even though some of the posts were lame or over-stated, I decided to leave it entact.

Hopefully, I'll be able to detail my adventures as faithfully as I did abroad. Planning a Halloween party in a few weeks and have some fun things planned. Stay tuned.

last call

current music: "one step closer," u2

since arriving here on august 1, i have faithfully detailed my danish adventures. i have sat in the same chair, in the same kitchen, in very different states of mind. but it is all over. in fewer than 24 hours, i will be forced to bid a tearful good-bye to wonderful copenhagen. fernando and kurt left on monday morning, and i am still a wreck. my house threw a dinner party for the international students still left here, so i cooked the last of the food we all had in our cabinets, and we celebrated the end of denmark. even though our house was crammed with people, poker chips, and votive candles, i felt eerily alone and distracted. it seems that copenhagen has not only made an exhausting impression on me, it has consumed me. the only time i ever wanted to leave this country was when i woke up on monday morning to two empty rooms at the end of the hallway.
saying good-bye to nando and kurt made me cry so much that i felt dehydrated afterward. neither kurt nor fernando wanted to wait me up early in the morning on their way to the airport, so we agreed to say good-bye before we went to bed. even though we were all exhausted from cooking, cleaning, packing, partying, and good-bye-ing, we stayed up for as long as we could. finally, someone uttered "i'm going to bed," and it was all downhill from there. i turned the cornier into nando's room, saw him sitting quietly on his bed surrounding by luggage, and i lost it. i lost it big time. all i remember was fernando saying "it's been good, emily. it's been really good with you." i was crying so hard, and i hadn't even gotten to kurt. kurt met me in my room, and i was so sad i had nothing to say. i just hugged him and cried.
kurt shut my door, and i stayed in my room until the next morning. early the next morning i got texts from both of them at the airport. nando said that he was only at the airport and missed us all so much already. kurt's said that he was losing it. i read them, cried, and cried myself to sleep. the past two days have been a saddening haze of loneliness, reflection, and confusion. i got e-mails from bret, nando, and kurt today, all of whom telling me whati might have to look forward to. right now all i want is them back here with me. nothing else.
it seems that this city is barren without people i love to fill it. the streets, the bars, my house, just seem so empty without people to share them with. i miss them so much already. everyone says that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. it's my contention that it stings a little more when you did realize what you had before it left.
for now, my life is packed into two suitcases and a backpack. i have a plane ticket, tears in my eyes, and some of the best memories of my life. i have a special letter on my night stand from one of the most special people i have ever met and hopes that we will meet again soon.
i don't know how i am going to be able to convey the significance of this trip to anyone other than those i spent it with. it seems that studying abroad amounts to one big inside joke; a joke that i know will always make me smile. hej, hej.

closing time

i leave copenhagen in a week- this time for good. i think that i'm going to have to be dragged onto the plane next wednesday 'cause i don't want to leave this place. it seems that this vacation is coming to an end. forever. as excited as i am to see the sun, hear english, and eat normal food, i love denmark, and i don't want to go. i can't really remember a point on this trip where i felt so far removed from everyone and everything that i wanted to leave. certainly being here for several months does little to alienate you from a place. copenhagen has grown on me every day since i arrived here. from its cobblestone streets to its hoards of baby carriages to its undeniable scandanavian charm. i'll even miss the jumbled, gurgled mess that constitutes danish. i'll miss trying to speak danish with people, and i'll miss even more the feeling i get when they actually understand you. bartending at the student house has allowed me to make countless friends, feel like a celebrity, and make a complete ass of myself alongside others doing the exact same thing. i'll miss my cozy little attic room with its peeling walls, trusty radiator, and my vanilla candles. i'll miss halling my computer into the kitchen to read my mail while fernando and kurt crack jokes. i'll miss the sound of georgia's heels clacking up the winding, wooden stairs and her ever-faithful "hello!!" as she turns the corner toward her room. i'll miss ben's politician hair, the smell of his mouse and hairspray seeping through the bathroom door, and his obsession with making sure that we always have an adequate supply of toilet paper. i'll miss the hours of senseless banter, stupid humor, and intectual talks in kurt's room. i'll miss his piggy-back rides and the sound of him cheering for the cal football team (even if he is watching a webcast of a game taking place thousands of miles away). i'll miss the pasta dinners with georgia, the feeling i get when i see a piece of my mail at the foot of the stairs, and our tiny, danish shower. i'll miss calling my cell phone my "mobile" and calling text messages "sms"s. i'll miss my bike (the italian stallion), netto, and days with three hours of sunlight. i'll miss the 2a, the 82n, lindevang, the automated lady who announces the metro stop s, h&m, and our rickety red stove. i'll miss tesdorpfsvej and the people who filled its house with me. i'll miss their unique charms, their stories, and their faces. this tiny little country holds a huge place in my heart. i hope that these next seven days are the slowest of my life. peace...

czech this out

current music: “rodeo jones,” sunny day real estate

ok, you can hate me- I know that I haven’t written in this thing in what feels like forever. even though I have been planted in front of my computer for some four days straight now writing my blasted terms papers, I will, nonetheless, keep typing, but this time, to you. I don’t even remember where I left off from my last blog, so I’ll just write about whatever I want to…
kevin (and for those of you who don’t know the identity of this mysterious “kev” character, I will suffice to say that he is my best friend from high school who now goes to dartmouth) came to visit me here in wonderful copenhagen. copenhagen isn’t exactly the place you choice to stay in for more than a week if you’re doing the tourist-y thing, so we jetted to berlin and prague for a week. berlin officially holds the title of my favorite european city, hands down. after waiting in the copenhagen airport for more than two hours and wishing I could kill the time with beer like kev, we finally boarded our plane and landed in berlin. we spent about two days there, and I wish (almost!) that I could have studied in berlin- I found the that amazing. kev and I saw the brandenburg tor (the famous gate napoleon came through years back); the berlin wall; and checkpoint charlie (the u.s. army checkpoint that once controlled entrance to both east and west berlin). kevin and I were being historically observant, ya know, talking history and its implications on present day, and I turn around (now facing west berlin), and I see one of the funniest (and most disgusting) things I had ever seen. I already knew that kev would find this equally as entertaining, so all I said was “kev, you’re about to laugh so hard.” he turns around, and I direct his gaze in the direction of a business sign that reads “snackpoint charlie.” perhaps this sign holds little humor to those not standing below it, but, holy shit! it was hilarious. you know there was a guy just sitting on top of this “great name” for a restaurant who couldn’t wait for the wall to come crashing down. you know the second people started chipping away at it and david hasselhoff mounted it to start “singing,” he ran out and patented the name. aside from its purported humor, berlin was also wonderfully modern. I researched online (yes, I did say “researched”) the locations of all the starbucks in berlin, but for most of the first day there, kev and I couldn’t find any. we boarded a tram (in the wrong direction, by chance), and I had my back to the street when kev yelled “starbucks!” without thinking (I don’t know, this animalistic- or capitalistic- urge) engulfed me, and I nearly barreled over this woman as I leapt for the “open” button on the tram door. I raced across the street and into the caffeinated haven that is a starbucks lobby. I love berlin. a lot.
prague was another story. you see, I love prague, but I’m not in love with it… keep in mind that throughout this trip I was sick. really sick. like, coughing until you puke, fatigued, no appetite (shock!), sick. a five-hour train ride brought us to the outskirts of eastern europe, known as the czech republic. by this point, kev was buzzing off his seven euro train station champagne, and I feel so sick I want to fall over. prague’s not on the euro, they speak a scrambled version of gibberish, and its effing freezing. after obtaining czech “kruny,” i.e., currency, we search for our hostel for an hour, and I use the term “hostel” loosely. very loosely. basically, kev and i take a rickety elevator to the top story of this shaft-like building adjoined to a bus station. covering the elevator and walls of the hostel are friendly little phrases welcoming us to prague. allow me to recount some of them. aw, yes, there was the ever-pleasant: “this hostel will kill you- run now!,” and then there was the “you might die if you stay here.” welcome to prague. I was already scared of the grafitti and trash that colored the streets of prague, and after having lived in the white-washed utopia that is scandanvia, I was tar-rippin’ hard core. denmark is almost too perfect: it makes you scared of the outside world, ya know, the real world where people are hungry and trash is just something that exists outside of perfectly-painted receptacles. I convinced kev that we should peace-out of that hostel, but we had the unfortunate task of wandering prague late at night in freezing temperatures with no map. we found a hostel, but prague left with me a bitter first impression. however, prague was as beautiful (and tourist-y) as everyone says. I know now why prague tops the list of “must-see” european cities, but I wasn’t as taken by it as kev or most other people. it seems that berlin is a shoe that fits me better. I took a ton of pics and purchased my obligatory flag, so I was content to just take in the cites and pay what felt like pennies for everything. yeah, this just in: copenhagen came in at #5 for the most expensive cities on earth, and half the cities that made the top four were ones that I have been to. yikes! where is my financial aid check (and job)!
from germany, the czech republic, to sweden for the u.c. thanksgiving in lund. all the kids from copenhagen trained it on over to sweden to pig out on actual food. by this time I was feeling slightly better, so I tried to eat like a pig because just seeing mashed potatoes made me way too happy. apparently danes care more about bikes than they do food, so we were all freaking out. kev didn’t seem too impressed but seeing as how he hasn’t been abroad, he didn’t hold our over-excitability against us… and practically hours after finishing our meal, I sent kev on his merry way back to the states. good times, man.and still more! I leave denmark in exactly two weeks, still have class, u.c. excursions, term papers, christmas shopping, packing, and a ton of other things to do! funny how an entire semester can cruise by then all of a sudden I am expected to actually do something. hopefully I’ll remember where I put my work ethic when I get home. for now, I have to crank out three more pages of my culture class paper, and do a ton more reading for my soc class. much more soon. peace…

that's news to me

current music: “pink moon,” nick drake

at coffee today, mike asked erin what she was going to do with a biology degree. erin, pressing her index finger to her lips, whispers, “mike, we’re in dreamland. we don’t talk about that kind of stuff here.”

this week has provided me more new experiences than any other in, perhaps, my entire life. I write this blog on the eve of kevin’s visit, days before my eastern europe trip, and only thirty-three days before I permanently fly out of copenhagen. with so many thoughts and insights swimming in my head, I am having an especially difficult time anchoring them in print.

this week I was told that I have a beautiful soul. this week I felt no reason to shrug and disregard the comment as frivolous. this week I learned the extent to which “friendships” can be tested, specifically with kurt. this week, a shy danish guy waited all night for me to finish my shift at the bar just to treat me to one dance and kiss my hand afterward. this week I hung out with my australian, john. this week I felt the slight sting of rejection and the silent pride behind realizing that it didn’t matter. this week I finally partied at the l.a. bar. this week I did body shots, had strangers lick salt of my chest and photograph it. this week I owned that bar. this week I was propositioned to partake in a three-some. this week I said “no, thanks.” this week I biked home through freezing rain. this week I couldn’t feel my face for a solid fifteen minutes afterward. this week I got a cheerful card from blair that showed “I miss you” written in the sand. this week it snowed for the first time this year in copenhagen.

today’s epiphanies:
I love green olives and classic black & white photography; my favorite c.d. was burned for me by a friend; I hate save ferris; I miss the sun; I don’t have a picture of the most gorgeous person I’ve met here; think I might go to boston after ucsb; you can’t go wrong with an acoustic guitar and a cello; people want the same basic things from life- what causes problems is when people want them at different times.
peace.

know these songs//know me:
"brandy," looking glass; "beasts of burden," the rolling stones; "sarah smile," hall and oates; "love my way," psychedelic furs; "

reeking havoc

current music: “avalanche,” ryan adams

I feel like never drinking alcohol again. I’m not hungover nor does my aversion to drinking have anything to do with my drinking at all. once again, an equation:

recovering alcoholic, mike +
bad news from his semi-supportive girlfriend, georgia +
depressed mike’s friends bringing him to a bar and then leaving him there =
mike passed out hours later in an alleyway blocks from said bar

you see, after i finished writing my blog last night, georgia received a text from mike reading: “shivering, can’t move.” after all-but-forcing her to call him, georgia discovers that mike had stumbled drunkenly to a side street where he proceeded to vomit and experience the beginning stages of hypothermia. because georgia and mike had “fought” that night, she thought it wrong to “bother” mike and insisted that we leave him:

“he’ll be fine.”
“no, georgia, he won’t.”

at this point, mike’s teeth are chattering so violently and his speech so slurred that I tell him to stay put (like he could move, anyway) because we’ll be right there. we call greg, mike’s “friend” who elected to babysit mike’s misery with alcohol. greg lives much closer than us- can he go out at 4 a.m. and look for him? he can, but not before he clears our call to sleep a bit longer. I layer shirts, sweaters, and jackets and tell georgia to do the same. I stuff a blanket into a plastic bag, grab taxi money, and venture into the freezing night with georgia. we take a cab to the bar where we call greg. he find him, sprawled out in an alley, convulsing and drooling. it takes three of us to pick him up, walk him to the street, and hail a cab that will actually stop for a drunk person. apparently keeping one’s cab vomit-free takes precedent over getting the drunk to safety. greg leaves, and georgia and I spend the next half hour keeping mike from passing out.
the next hour or so is spent helping mike vomit his feast of a dinner: beers and what smells like tequila. before turning purple, shaking, and crying, mike passes out on georgia’s floor. the next hour was spent making sure he stayed on his stomach and making sure he was breathing. in the morning mike thanks me and tells me he owes me a cup of coffee as gratitude. I offer: “I’m just glad it’s coffee you’ll be drinking.” but I don’t believe it. I have no reason to.
this wasn’t some friends having a good time and one drinking too much. this wasn’t about getting sick from not abiding by the sacred “beer before liquor…” rule. this was a man whose body was taken over by a monster; a monster that can never really be slain. there will always be another round of bad news and the allure of a round of beer as consolation. but it’s not my battle to fight. I have enough of this in my family already. I always hear about people “reeking” of liquor, and when mike half-consciously leaned against my shoulder, I caught a whiff, an all-too-real glance of what alcoholism does to people.
I couldn’t sleep. I felt that monster under my bed, reminding me of the havoc it continues to wreak on those I hold closest to me.

skurting the issue

current music: “great wide open,” tom petty and the heartbreakers

tonight I received some bad news. I was told that I was “long-winded.” ironically this presumably “vital” piece of information came at the end of a way-too-long, “sermon”-like reprimand by my housemate, kurt. sitting at his feet receiving a back-rub, georgia nodded in concurrence; she knows better than to bite the hand that feeds her.
it started two nights ago when my housemate, elise, decided to celebrate her last few days in copenhagen by pumping her fellow roomies full of french champagne and desserts. a few bottles of champagne and wine later, the conversation turns sexual, with bret holding the microphone and brimming with questions. as a gay man, he confesses, he knows little about, well, female genitalia, sexuality, etc. thinking back to my favorite class at ucsb- the infamous soc 152a- I remember that I received a virtually perfect grade in that class. the stage is set for information. as soon as everyone realizes that I wasn’t kidding about acing that class, a sea of inquisitive hands shoot up. kurt leaves, visibly frustrated. I don’t care: the drinks are as good as my company, and I love talking sociology. enter: tonight. georgia is having some problems with mike. ok, standard girl-advice time. no, not tonight. enter:
kurt’s self-righteous, asshole side: “emily, do you ever have a short answer for anything?” enter: emily’s “fuck you”-face, emily’s disgust for people who don’t think about things other than themselves. after a few “excuse me”s, I deduce kurt’s annoyance with my need to discuss thoroughly issues of importance to me. and because I make earnest efforts to voice aloud issues of concern to people aside from myself (read: the exact opposite of what kurt does), I speak thoroughly about almost every topic that leaves my lips. excuse me for not giving the brush-off to everything that doesn’t immediately benefit me. excuse me for wanting to see past the surface of things. perhaps this explains why kurt is dating a psychotic bitch from back home. oh, yes, that’s it: she’s pretty, so her deeper, monstrous tendencies are overlooked.
perhaps I just got the “long-winded” gene from my dad; the man infamous for beginning a conversation about car tires and concluding it with his final thoughts on why labor unions might eventually be taken over by massive corporations. kurt should realize that if I just judged him by his surface or never coaxed him into talking about anything at length, he would have received my “brush-off” months ago. he should be so lucky that I am still digging to find his depth because, jesus christ, it’s hidden pretty damn well.
so georgia just came in my room for the second time tonight, eager to talk to me about her “boy” situation, eager to receive some shred of advice, eager for me to listen. I must be doing something right. here’s my equation: big mouth=big heart. some people stand to benefit from memorizing that formula. peace.

george, jury, and executioner

current music: “electrolyte,” r.e.m.

instead of “ranting and raving” about the results of this year’s horrifically-disappointing election, I will dot this blog with a few choice thoughts. first, while napping between classes this afternoon, I dreamt that election officials in ohio opened absentee ballots, saw a shaded circle next to kerry’s name, and proceeded to throw the ballot away. this pattern lasted the duration of my two hour nap. the even harsher reality: it probably wasn’t so much as a dream as a visual channeling of the actual vote-counting proceedings. second, I feel as if my country is under some sort of ever-powerful monopolistic regime. I’ll say that the u.s. closely resembles the regime of sadaam hussein except the home regime will target homosexuals, abortion, and secularism. both regimes target certain middle eastern population, rig elections, hinder attempts at female autonomy, and, oh yeah, are ignorant assholes. third, I don’t like when danes tell me how mad they are at election results. you’re mad? you with your gay marriages? you with your free health care? you with your 99% literacy rate? last time I checked, you weren’t allowed to sympathize with a country whose people you hate. last time I checked, you don’t have to finance your graduate education in the face of a recession. last time I checked, your little brother won’t be drafted and sent to north korea. last time I checked, you don’t out rightly voice your hatred of all americans but obsess about its political situation because you are so desperate to talk about something interesting because your government is so hell-bent on blending into the shadows that it produces nothing in the way of political debate of its god-damn own. fuck the danes who sponsored the halloween party and named its theme: “dress as a group you hate.” fuck the danes who dressed up as gun-toting, southern-accented texans and “native blacks” with face paint and bones through their heads. anyone who says that north americans are racist needs to look further than just our laws and a few harmless jokes.
sometimes I can’t bear the thought of venturing home to the u.s.. sometimes I can’t bear the thought of staying here. everyone is ignorant, racist, harmfully self-righteous. denmark seems like the hallmark of scandinavina stereotypes with its clean streets, abundant welfare system, and healthy white couples pushing baby carriages. the united states seems like the hallmark of western freedoms with its sweeping boasts about the virtues of democracy, entrepreneurial immigrants making lives for themselves, millions of people having the freedom to worship the gods of their choice. it’s all bullshit. people starve to death, feel repressed and helpless, kill their fellow citizens, deny each other the right to be somebody. none of it makes sense. everything everyone says I have heard before, agreed with, argued against already. I have typed these same words on this same keyboard before. the only emotion that have retain its novelty is fear, be it fear of the unknown, the known, the going-to-know.
read an e-mail from Tessa today that made this day even worse. not that any news from Tessa is meant to upset me, but this particular one inadvertently did. moved into her new apartment, which provides her a view of the channel islands, Tessa spent halloween with all those near and dear to her and I in santa barbara. it’s hard to stomach news like this when I have no idea where I will end up in a few weeks, and my life seems so shaken up. I keep getting more bad news from my family, and the insurmountable task of deciding which parents’ house I will spend christmas at makes me want to curl into small ball and cry until I fall asleep. I don’t know what state my family will be in when I get home; I don’t know what my country will be like, either. I need things to be ok for me and my family until I can even begin to worry about the world in front of me. some days are just plain saddening.

kerry-ing the election

haven’t written in this thing for some time, so instead of apologizing I will just catch is up on what’s been going down over here in glorious daneland. Olivia came to visit for a week. for those of you not familiar with this supposed “Olivia” creature, I will simply say (because I could probably talk for way too long about her) that she is one of the coolest people/starbucks employees/norcal natives who I have ever met (and you’ve got to know that she is cool if I’m willing to look past her faux pas by virtue of being from a city more north than santa barbara). thought I would be cool and bring Olivia her favorite beer (chilled and with an opener in hand) to the airport. after she greeted me with an ever-flattering “hey, beautiful,” I present her with her condensating “hooegarden,” I was brutally upstaged! not only does Olivia present me with a huge bottle of absinthe there was also a huge bottle of absolute citron! lets just say that these two bottles set the tone for the next five days during which we partied hard-core and caused some good ‘ol american debauchery. I would say that the highlight of the week was after this lame-ass halloween party we went to that was sponsored by this bitch from sb. so after we blew that popsicle stand, kurt decided to hammer throw some random person’s bike into the middle of the street before retreating to eat kebobs after which we stole the bitchy sb girl’s bottle tequila and drunkenly meandered the streets of copenhagen. I would say that by all accounts we celebrated halloween the american way. well, we weren’t drinking budweiser, supporting the war, or incarcerating black people, but we were being loud idiots. but as with everything good, it came to an end. saying good-bye at the airport felt unexpectedly heavy for me. I think it is because Olivia won’t be in sb when I get back; she has a year abroad, so it felt as if I were being said good-bye to instead of being the one giving the good-bye. but enough of all that mushy, introspective nonsense.
talked to the dad on the phone this morning. I can’t tell you how nice it is to wake up to family issues. I have been slowly accumulating an arsenal of emotional trauma that I hope to one day release while writing scholarship essays because, as we all know, pity pays.
kevin comes at the end of the month, and we are heading to berlin and prague before jetting to sweden for thanksgiving. I would be looking forward to such a rendezvous but the balance in my bank account is about as high as a b.y.u. student.
grrr, I have class tomorrow and that small part of me left over from high school has been urging me to actually go (and pay attention!), so I guess I should sleep. for those of you who voted (for kerry), I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed with you. until next time- peace.

you take the good, you take the rad

as a result of my cultural immersion, i have compiled an ever-growing list of rad danish facts:

1) the word “lego” is actually a combination of two danish words: “lege,” play, and “godt,” well. the danish-born toy suggests that the builders of such should “play well.”
2) denmark uses more wax (as in candles) than any other country in the world.
3) “starving students” do not exists here: the danish welfare system pays students (from b.a. to ph.d) monthly stipends if enrolled in school.
4) denmark’s suicide rate is one of the three highest in developed countries for both sexes ages 16-50. an average of 12-15 people kill themselves every day here.
5) the danes will admit that they lack two things: warm weather and a beautiful language.
6) make a danish friend: say something nice about the danish monarchy.
7) make a danish enemy: say something nice about the swedish monarchy.