men at work

current music: "don't turn away," brandhagen

so last night1 could have been the best night of my life. well, except for that one night i hung out with rivers cuomo from weezer. wait, that never happened. damn.
so, yeah, bartended at the student house, or as they say here: studenthusset. the free beer was flowing like, well, beer from a tap, and i can't tell you how many new people i met. apparently all of austrailia decided to study in denmark, so i was behind the bar with all austrailian guys. it was so money!!! not only was i mixing drinks like it was my job (even though i had just learned what the hell to do an hour earlier that night), i hooked up so many people with free alcohol that i became a virtual celebrity. i absolutely love being the center of attention, well, under circumstances that i can control (read: not like tripping over my own feet in the middle of a crowded street- type attention). i met this hot, hot, hot aussie name johnathon, a.k.a. john, and we were inseperable the whole night. we hung out before, during, and after our shifts, and i really felt like a rock star, man. it was so kick-ass... hot guy, free booze, and tons of people my age all crowded into a smoky, dirty, fantastic bar. probably one of the best memories of my life, and definetly my favorite part of copenhagen thus far.
i leave for france in a couple of hours. what a fantasy life i lead over here. as trying and lonesome as studying abroad can be at times, if you pass up the chance to do it, you're a fool. well, maybe not a fool, but you are definetly way to sober for your own good.
more to come when i get back from glorious paris! peace.

the world according to emily

current song: "I will buy you a new life," everclear
taking a cue from my friend brian, i have decided to compile a list of things that i find interesting/amusing/perplexing:

1) the word "execute"
the only word that i know of that can connote the beginning or end of something. for example, the execution of a plan or the execution of a person.

2) idioms
timeless expressions used to explain or ameliorate certain situations. for example, "the teapot calling the kettle black" or "out of the frying pan and into the fire." i just never tire of such cliched, blanket expressions, especially when offered to you under a veil sincerity or seriousness.

3) graduate schools
paying exorbitant amounts of money to read and sit in classroom all day, every day in the hopes that you can some day sit in an office all day, every day. i can't wait to work overtime to pay back the mountain of loans that stifles my financial credibility. yet i will do everything in my power, including kissing the asses of already phd's, in the hopes of landing at the nerdiest possible institution of higher learning.

4) judging books by their covers
the bookshelf in my house hallway contains stacks of books from students past. i selected a book entitled "the drought" based on its cover art. turns out that "judging books by their covers" has been rewarding. for example, "the da vinci code" cover is dull and predictable- just like the plot! "the drought," however, intriguing cover, intriguing storyline.

more to come soon. very soon.

dude, where's my bike?

current music: “dosed,” red hot chili peppers

last weekend, the u.c. center here sponsoring a field trip to odense to see the egsekov castle and the birthplace and home of hans christian andersen. so about 20 of us packed sack lunches and permission slips in preparation for the days events. the castle was on another island whose name I can’t remember how to spell and I can’t write out phonetically because, well, because danish doesn’t afford itself such a luxury. the birthplace of h.c. andersen was so god-awfully boring that instead of following the tour-guide like a bunch of overly-photogenic tourists, I convinced georgia, hillary, and erin to duck into a bar and chill until we had to meet back up at the busses. our study-center advisor, jane, saw us as we were attempting to run away and instead of reprimanding us, she was like “there’s the bus- be back by 5.” at that moment jane became one of the coolest people in the world. you all may remember jane as the concerned yet understanding adult figure who chaperoned me during my visit to the e.r. in bornholm. the bar was cool, but the danes drinking there at 3 in the afternoon were not. the next day, my danish culture sponsored a tour of a danish viking museum and some church, again, whose name I can’t remember, which was, perhaps, equally as boring as the trip the day before. however, I discovered that kurt and I are have officially bonded as housemates, and, dare I say, as friends.
turns out that kurt can’t stand georgia. hooray! contrary to my previous assumptions, kurt is the only person here who sees through georgia’s thin veil of intelligence and actually sees her for the obnoxious, dangerously self-righteous person she is. since kurt told me what he thought of her, we have been inseparable, but not in any way other than housemates, so slow down with your ideas for an upcoming “real world” episode. kurt and I biked to the carlsberg brewery and the guinness book of world records museum all on the day just because it was pouring rain but we wanted to cross some sites off on our list of things to see. turns out that, unlike georgia and most people here, my initial assessment of kurt was incorrectly skewed. though an athlete on scholarship at cal, he actually has a brain and uses it. what a concept. kurt reminds me of my guys from home in the sense that he and I are on the same page in terms of humor and opinion. for example, the other night, kurt had 5 guys over to play poker, and when I stumbled upon them in the kitchen, so I went to close the door because it seemed like the appropriate “womanly” thing to do because it was “guys night.” so, naturally, I offered to bake them cookies as I paraded around in a mini-skirt ;) but kurt was like “no, emily, you can come back. don’t worry, guys. emily’s cool,” and went on to tell them that I am not some gossipy, annoying girl and that whatever was said was guaranteed not to leave the room. however high school that sounded, it still meant a lot to me because for the first time here, I felt like I had been established as a personality here. so basically, kurt and I hang out all the time, watch “family guy,” and talk shit on people who we don’t like. that’s basically what most of my friendships consist of at home anyway, so it’s nice to have some of that here J but I must say that no one here, guy or girl, comes close to matching the number and sincerity of compliments and well-wishings that anyone from home gives me. not even close. J
partying in copenhagen is still a skill that I have not yet mastered. turns out that the formally simple acts of “drinking” and “meeting up” are complicate by language and lack of direction. there are so many students from so many countries who party at different hours and at different places that it seems easier to teach asian people to drive than to go get a drink. georgia, kurt, mike, hillary, and I went to a potluck sponsored by the soc department. georgia and mike decided to not-so subtly sneak away and make out in this abandoned stairwell, so kurt and I decided to peace and leave georgia to fend for herself. fortunately for us, georgia has locked her bike to kurt’s, so we unlocked both and masterfully rode all three back home. georgia, still at the party, discovers that the bike she had borrowed from our bitchy, french housemate was missing. she frantically calls kurt and me, we play dumb, insisting that we don’t have it and question how on earth she couldn’t see it. we leave her and mike there for almost an hour searching this small strip of fence for the bike. kurt pretends to be asleep when they call an hour later, and he says that he will just bike back to the party, find the bike, and bring it home. so georgia and mike leave, kurt sleeps, and in the morning georgia is convinced of her own idiocy for not being able to find the bike. kurt and I are excellent actors and it worked like a charm. the bike was at home the whole time and georgia still thinks that any idiot could have found it. so funny! so I have my first night of bartending on wednesday and leave for paris (and olivia!) on thursday, so great things are on the horizon. got a hilarious e-mail from brandon today that absolutely made me laugh like before I left. I have also been talking to nick a ton lately, which makes me smile so much when I hear i.v. in the background. I also got a great e-mail from my mom and a card from blair today. blair said she is going to send me a card a week, and has def been holding up that promise :)
apparently this guy from s.b.’s excursion club, who is now studying in bordeaux, wants to meet up with me and hop over to the u.k… two hurdles here: 1) the balance of my checking account, and 2) did I mention that this guy is best friends with a guy I used to be in love with? yeah, that’s your “real world” episode; more on that as it unfolds. ok, so much more to say, but it’s 3 a.m. here, and at such hours I tend to be anything but coherent. love you all- peace.

obeying borders

so i figured out why everyone encourages everyone to study abroad: it's one huge vacation. granted this vacation does not provide drinks with umbrealls in them or sunny beaches, but i do have nothing but time and vast expanses of the unknown in front of me. my dad shot me an e-mail today with a really good point: he notes that he was born an adventurer, but doesn't know how he would fair exploring in a forgein country. that is exactly how i feel here. you see, denmark, though relatively small in comparision to most capitals cities, is still largely unknown to me, and exploring it takes a lot of map-reading, "excuse me's," and courage. it has been great seeing copenhagen by bike, but even that has its difficulties. however, the last thing i want to do is explore this place with americans constantly at my side, not only because danes don't like forgeiners, but because, frankly, most people "act" like the steroetypical american student while they are here. like the other night when some of us were going to meet up at a club, some people tried to buy alcohol after 8p.m., were denied, and proceeded to argue that they should be allowed to buy alcohol because of their age, not the time. it was so lame. even worse are the kids here who think they are so "cool" when they walk (or worse yet bike) with a 6-pack of c-bergs. but i must admit that lately i have been pretty proud to call certain parts of myself "american." i met this one german guy who was obsessed with american comedians and i love that everyone here loves american songs. half the time people don't even know what they are singing (i.e., a short, skinny, polish kid singing along to 50 cent). for as much as people in other countries claim that they don't like the u.s., half of what they know and love would disappear if the u.s. did.
after receiving that e-mail from my dad, i was also left to contemplate what peoples' parents think of their childrens' decision to study abroad. now i know every parent thinks that their child is the best, but i wonder what the parents of the people i know here really think of their children. take georgia, my housemate, for example. she comes from the berkeley hills, never lets people forget how rich she is or how long her legs are, is not that attractive before you get to know her and certainly not afterward, and her parents absolutely adore her. it's the weirdest thing. she has the typical sorority personality, cannot look you in the eye if there is a mirror near you two, and believes that asking "what year are you in school?" is a more important than asking questions that actually have depth to them. she can't leave the house without make-up or a meticulously-planned-out wardrobe, has the worst fake smile, and can only talk about "intellectual" ideas if they pertain to a class she has taken (meaning that her "ideas" are actually taken straight from lectures at ucsd, thus appearing informative and novel when in reality they are just well-rehearsed sets of vocabulary and reaction). her parents are "so proud" of her and all the "work" she is doing oevrseas. at times it's difficult to keep form rolling my eyes or vomiting in front of her. that's why i love my dad's e-mails- i know that he knows exactly why he is proud of me for studying abroad. he'snot just saying it because i am his daughter or something. my dad knows that i am here to study and discover myself abroad, not to spend his money and have sex with someone from every continent. i am here to work and savor my time here, not float through my days here deciding what to wear or what country i will vacation in next year. my dad knows i don't have to rub my accomplishments in others' face and i am ok with letting them discover them on their own. i am so glad that my parents haven't raised children like soem of the people here.
so i spoke with olivia today and turns out that i can hop a trian to-and-fro paris for half as much as much as i was expecting to pay. i can't wait. i still have not decided if i am going to go to oktoberfest, though i would love to. i am going to research it, but i need to amass a travel crew because i cannot be left to my own devices during such a time as oktoberfest, meaning that i don't want to break my nose again :)
oh! funniest story ever: so my sis, blair takes her friend and my bro, henry to mexico for a fun-filled day of undrinkable water, pick-pocketers, and fake gucci purses. so my sister buys my bro some fireworks (among other commodities), they proceed to cross the border. so the authorities confiscate the m-80's my sister had in her car and ask to see everyone's i.d.'s. and my bro, being the covert secret agent that he is, doesn't have an i.d. so the authorities detain him for questioning. apparently his blue eyes, light hair, and california accent are not enough to distinguish him. so funny. i told blair that she should have just traded her friend in exchange for henry's relase, but she said something about "friendship" and "legality," but i wasn't really listening. so they make my bro recite (from memory, right) the address on my sister's license. so my bro got a 100%, a gold star, and "permission" to proceed home to suburban america. i'm sure that while my bro was being interrogated, about sixteen illegal aliens probably slipped right by. classic.

the mail species

hola, peeps-
today rocks, i must say... i got a care package from my mom overflowing with peanut butter, tortillas, and well-wishings. i almost cried as i dug through the forty-pound monster of a box that arrived on my doorstep today... it was really funny to see the food labels in english. it's even weird to look at u.s. currency now. i found a quarter in one a my pants' pockets, and it was as if i had never seen one before. i spe nt the entire metro ride examining it, which i'm sure reinforced the idea that americans are simple-minded bastards. nonetheless, i am sittin' pretty with a cupboard full of cocoa pebbles and preservatives, and i'm all smiles...
miek and i decided that we would form a study group for our socilogy class, so the "cykel club" as we now call it, is in full effect... you see, the sociology faculty (building) is like this huge house, complete with lectures halls, dinign areas, a bar, and endless hallways. even better, all sociology students are given keys (yes, keys) to the building so we can go there to study whenever we want. i might be hard of hearing, but i could have sworn that "studying," roughly translated from danish to english, means "party." so the sociology study club plans to hold weekly "study sessions" around the soc bar...the adminstration lady just handed us our keys- god bless the government funding of education. hey, my money here is technically paying for the school, so i have a right to take advantage :) i love that k.u. doesn;t have to prove its prestige to anyone else like most schools in the states. k.u. is over 500 years old and is the first public university in scandanavia and nordic europe so ain't nobody gonna talk ish on it... so they let students party in their classrooms and the faculties provide free alcohol every friday... too good to be true :)
mike and i chilled after class, grabbed some lunch, and met with our u.c. advisor.. turns out that, in addition to alcohol, k.u. also likes to give away units to its students. i will walk away with 28 units of cousework here. dude, everyone should come to copenhagen- it's like disneyland (well, for everyone who isn't an immigrant). my classes have been going well in spite of the fact that lectures here are claustraphobic and pretty boring. i have, however, learned quite a bit already about the welfare state here, so i think this semester will be exactly what i was looking for.
ben (my crazy housemate with four majors, politician's hair, and a sense of humor that makes gilbert godfrey seem like dane cook) had a dinner party last night. not only did ben attempt to minimize "american presence," he invited like all of france and italy. guido cooked italian food and all the french people smoked.. it was the most culturally-enlightneing and cliched experience ever.. ben also donned a tuxedo for the event (and to give you some idea, i wore jeans and kurt didn't even have shoes on), and ben vidoetaped everyone doing everything.. apparently there is something about watching people wait in line for thebathroom that needs to be immortalized on film. after the dinner, everyone eventually left, leaving me, kurt, georgia, ben, and fernando in georgia's room.. it was so incredible to see us all sitting there and enjoying each others' company (eventhough we look like the cast of "the real world," complete with the token slutty girl, heavy gossip, and the token minority). we all chilled for about an hour talking about life in denmark and the cast of gay men that share walls with us. i think that it was one of the best nights i have had here: no talk of politics, money, or difference. it was actually really nice. it was also cool to bond with kurt. earlier that day, he invited me to go watch "open water" with him... we sat in suspense and were stunned at its ending (if you want to know what it is abotu and how it ends, go to ruinedendings.com)... so we spent the rest of the day speculating about it trying to make sense of what we had seen.. that afternoon, i felt really comfortable here: watching a movie with a friend, talking about it, and enjoying the sights of the city on our bike-ride home... it was really nice to feel that way- i've missed that.
i have gotten some really great e-mails form people who i haven't spoken with in a while, and i have been all smiles for the past two days.. it's amazing the effect a two-line e-mail or a forty-pound package can have an your attitude... i didn't even notice it had started raining ot that my classrooms smell like mold and french people ;)
alright, time to finish unpacking my care package... ileave for france in two weeks, also! i hear that i will love it, and i can't wait to see the sights as well as olivia! and i also think that i might have a place to live when i get back to i.v... but, of not, i will have to save the cardboard box that i got in the mail today for refuge... love you all! for those of you in the sb area and didn't get my e-mail. check out the band "brandhagen" (brandhagen.net). they will be playing a series of shows in sb and they rock so hard core... go see them! but for now, peace!

freedom flights

current song: "company calls epilogue,’" death cab for cutie

alrightly then- time to write a bloggy mc blosterblog… so I booked a flight to paris after only kind of consulting the people I know there.. something tells me that someone will meet me in the airport and show me the country even if it is some smelly bearded-man who insists that he is a tour-guide even though he has no uniform, customers, and french accent. just to be safe, I am 5’6”, 130 lbs. with blond hair, blue eyes, who responds to the name emily and occasionally “engaucho” or “drunky” depending on where I am… so if I don’t post any news blogs for, say, a week, contact the u.s. embassy and tell them to look for me :)
aside from that, everything is cool here. this one hottie aussie did some self-promoting for his b-day/hat party, and georgia and I decided to check it out… I threw on a hat and threw down some shots, and we headed out… all was well until georgia decided that she had to party with mike, a guy from sb who she is currently getting’ it on with, so plans went to hell… after threatening to sleep with another if he didn’t come to this party, georgia “masterfully” convinced mike to go… we met to at “the moose,” this dive bar with more cigareete smoke and trashy couples than good drinks, I managed to hoard mike, georgia, two other couples, and drunken greg onto a train to this party… after getting wrong directions by phone from fernando, the couples proceeded to make-out by the train station while greg wondered aimlessly in search of more alcohol. again, another night in which my plans went to shit at the expense of others’ selfishness. so you know what I did? instead of trying to babysit these people and make sure they make it to the party, I hung up on getting directions, and left the group to find their own damn ways home. I found a train, and boarded it just in time to get hit on by a random (austrailian) guy who I’m sure is a hell of a lot cooler than anyone at that party, anyway… turns out that my mom was right: you just can’t count on other people. ever. this morning, kurt asked me how my night went, and when I told him, he actual said that he felt bad for me and told me how cool I was for being above all of their bullshit. I would have actually taken what he said to heart if he wasn’t bending-over-and-taking-it in his efforts to nail this german girl from class, but the comment was especially warranted, so I’m glad that he redeemed himself, if not just for the moment.
lately I have realized that the people here are disgustingly desperate to hook-up and/or find long-term relationships here. I seriously don’t get it. these people model their lives after what they should say and do for the sake of hopefully attracting someone they can hook up with and like bring home with them as if people are some sort of sexual toy/souvenir that will eventually fit neatly into their suitcase and country when the time comes. then I talk to these people, and most of them love it here, but can’t wait to get home… what the fuck? so, I have decided that I am not going to straddle the fence anymore. I am not going to shamelessly promote myself as single nor am I going to shamelessly promote myself as wanting to be friends with people who I just don’t like… I was just talking to olivia about how people are so exaggerated: they are so rich, so conceited, so annoying, so where are the normal people? I always have the problem of making friends whenever I go somewhere new, like when I moved to murrieta, santa barbara, and I guess now to copenhagen. here’s the catch: I have good people in my life, not just good friends. I have the same friends from sixth grade and I know I will know them, in addition, to my sb friends, for the rest of my life… so I’m not going to pretend to be someone I’m not and waste my time here being with people who make me uncomfortable, miserable, or embarrassed to be who I am. I want to be around people like the ones from home: the people who litter my e-mails with exclamations points and smiley faces, people who tell me I’m beautiful, and understand that my laugh is, well, what it is ;)
so, for now, this leg of my copenhagen trip might be especially lonely (even though I hate that word!), but it’s something that I need to force myself to do… on a lighter note, I ordered volumes one and two of ‘aqua teen hunger force,’ was the first person to wish my mom a happy b-day today, and I’m going to france- things are well, I guess. I have also been listening to ‘death cab’ a lot lately, which has been reminding me of this guy I used to pseudo-date.. this guy’s best friend goes to sb and wants me to also visit him while I’m in france, so I will keep you all posted on the can-I-get-yo-numbah-and-not-call-ya-back-siutation… should make for an interesting blog down the road.. thanks to everyone for continuing to send me such nice e-mails, cards, and hilarious blog comments- I love you all so much! peace.

flakes, trains, and automobiles

current music: “a lack of color,” death cab for cutie

normally i only "blog" when i am feeling insightful or excited about something in my life, however, i am alone in my house tonight, and i feel like talking to my keyboard instead of bartenders, housemates, or drunken strangers. classes started this week, and let me tell you that they are about as easy as a typical girl in isla vista. turns out that danes encourage people to do most of their "work" outside the classroom, translation: a reader that costs barely $15 and an online textbook; 5-day weekends, and grades derived from a single final exam. cake walk. viva universitet kobenhavn! k.u. has no centralized campus, no sports teams, clubs, or mascot because college is not seen the same as it is in the states, and as much as i would like to have a student bookstore or a t-shirt from here, i like the idea of having a class next to the royal castle on wednesdays and next to historical monuments on thursdays. my school also allows you to take all your exams orally, so i am glad that my fast-talking might finally be rewarded.
my danish culture prof seems cooler than anyone i've met here thus far... he is what i always envisioned professors to look and act like... he wears tweed jackets, smokes a pipe during our break, is so scatter-brained i don't even know if he knows where he is sometimes, in addition to the fact that he mutters under his breath his opinions about important events in world history.. for example, he is “hardly impressed” by the vikings because they were “more tall” than they were “dangerous”.. he even looks like hitler (if he had lived to be about 60), complete with the little ‘stache and everything… anyway, ben, georgia, and me decide to go to the bar, ‘wall street’ tonight… after waiting for both of them to get ready (read: for ben to shave with a safety razor, locate his suspenders, and call his mom to ask her how to wipe his ass, and for gerogia to decide “the black boots or the other black boots?”), we finally leave the house… I told my mentor i would meet up for happy hour because he owes me a ton of drinks for editing a proposal he had for work… we get there, and, literally, within one minute, georgia and ben decide that they all of a sudden just cannot handle the smokey bars here for a second longer… what they didn’t mention was that they could care less about that shit; ben’s friends flaked on him as we walked there, leaving him with the frightful task of having to order his appletinis in all seriousness because his friends wouldn’t make it seem like some joke, and the guy who georgia is now sleeping with decided to watch football before calling her to hook up …
in that moment i realized that the majority of my time here has been spent forcing myself to see “the good” in people here, and it’s a load of shit… I don’t care about our “cultural and linguistic differences,’ and. frankly, there are just some people who I out rightly just don’t like- this includes the cali’s with whom I live. tessa always laughs at the crazy analogies i come up with to make sense of situations, but I thought of one that seems all-too-fitting: the people here are like stale, flavorless gum. I really want to chew gum, so I settle for gum that I don’t really enjoy, but, hey, it’s gum, right? but while I am chewing it, I keep thinking of how tired and old the gum is, and I consistently search for a fresh pack.
wednesday night was international night at the student bar, so my housemates and a shit-ton of other people braved the freezing cold in 2-hour line to chill and drink cheap c-begs… because I really don’t like anyone here, I struck up a conversation with one of my housemates’ friends.. did I mention that while we were in line, he “came out” to me, told me that he hasn’t had the nerve to tell anyone here that he’s gay, and that there’s “something about me that makes him comfortable enough”… hmmm, haven’t heard that before ;) at I-house I met a guy named ted who plays lacrosse and is friends with a guy I know here.. ted is from massachusetts, goes to school in n.y., and didn’t try to get my number within five seconds of meeting me, so I’m intrigued if not overtly interested… in a couple days I will write in my blog how he asked for my number but never called me, so I’ll let you use your imagination for the events leading up to the inevitable.
my phone just rang. it was olivia, my shining star for the good ’ol beezies. she just made my night, so thanks, liv. no worries, my faithful readers.. tonight’’s blog was unintentionally laden with emotion, and I promise more coherent entries loaded with stupid humor, sarcasm, and possibly drunken photos-stay tumed. until then, good night and peace…

sKan-dEN-nAVy-uh

current music: "heavier things," john mayer

so I just wrote the longest entry of my blogger career, but the demons inside my computer ate it. every last word.

:: tear ::

deep breath. ok, here’s round two:

i am fresh back in copenhagen after a ten-day whirlwind tour around scandinavia. yawn, I am as tired as a fat lady after jazzercize. it all began last friday as I strolled late into danish class*, discovered that I passed my exit exam with flying colors, grabbed georgia and my classmate, bron, and hopped a bus to oslo, norway.

* it should also be noted that danish is not fit for study by those other than the solitarily confined or mentally unstable. I did, however, receive a “9,” which, in danish schools means that I scored about a b+/a- on my exam. you see, for those of you not present during my feeble attempts to study, all I did was try to read whatever I had scribbled in my book, which usually ended up being pictures of cake and various pastries…

oslo rocks, but not in the ways I expected it to. olso, for me, was a uniquely “human” city. by this I mean that it has visible flaws on its exterior, but became even more beautiful as I got to know it. norway is surprisingly diverse, and I was even more excited because I got to speak spanish to some random guy on a bus. people make much better guides than maps. georgia knew this girl who studied at her high school as an exchange student, blah, blah, so she was with her the entire time leaving me to chill (read: tolerate) bron for three full days. like my housemate, ben, I wondered how I acquired my astonishing sense of patience in addition to wondering who would be paying me for my babysitting services. bron bitched about everything from the bus to the hostel to the food to her life. for a while during our trip I wondered if I might even have to change diapers or find day-care so I may have some god-damned peace and quiet, but instead of saying “yeah, uh-huh” to whatever she said, I found it easier to just blatantly ignore her. I still managed to see tons of museums, an insanely beautiful outdoor statue museum/park, cafes, and bars before retiring to the hostel to make bron her nightly warm bottle. it should also be noted that norway is brimming with gorgeous men. I decided that this fact should not go unnoticed, and made a point of telling a random door-guy that he should be on the map because he is the best-looking thing in oslo ;)

after three days, I decided that I wasn’t really ready to have kids and bid bron a sour farewell.. thank god her classes started early so she had to get back; what a pity. I met up with georgia and we hopped a bus to stockholm, sweden. our hostel was laughably ghetto and we were the only girls in an 8-person room surrounded by obsessively-political germans and hermit australians. we talked politics for the better part of the first and second nights, which was cool until I realized that georgia, my only other american confidant, chose to rebuttal with the phrase “well, whatever” during our opinionated debates. sigh.. but, my parents would be proud because I was actually able to defend our country on some issues, which was surprisingly satisfying for me. sounds trivial, but I just recently was able to start saying that I am an “american” and not a “californaian” when asked where I am from. ok, blah, no talk of politics or self-enlightenment, lets keep this journal light-hearted. four days in sweden allowed me to see the royal castle (the biggest one still in use with over 680 rooms- thank you tourguide book), a cool sarcophagus church, tons of little shops, parts of the swedish parliament, and the inside of a few bars…

on my last day in sweden, georgia and I ran randomly into shannon and hillary, 2 u.c. girls in our program here, in the streets of stockholm. turns out that that night they were taking the same ferry to finalnd, and later that night we discovered that our cabins were right next to each other. the ferry to helsinki, finland was for sure one of the highlights of the trip. georgia coined this point in the trip “baltic booze cruise 2004” because the ferry was equipped with saunas, hot tubs, a happy hour, a few cute finns, and tons of old people who were drinking away their welfare states’s monthly social security check. so much fun. hillary was propositioned by some random guy in the ship’s own “club fun” while an old, asian lady sang an enrique iglesias song.
17 hours later we arrived in helsinki with backpacks full of duty-free liquor and stolen towels. our finnish hostel was sweet, too, boasting a sauna and some of the most helpful people I have even met. georgia and I cruised the city, took in the sights, managed to grab some american newspapers, and even caught a glimpse of bbc world news on t.v… we saw this crazy old brick church, which was absolutely astonishing (tons of pics to follow; check the ‘ol e-mail accounts).

then it hit.

the sickness.

no!!

turns out that the only souvenir from my trip is a killer cold courtesy of fall in finland. I slept for most of the second day, and by the third, I was even worse and we were both ready to go home. by 8.30a.m. we re-scheduled our flight, got our money back for the rest of the nights at the hostel, and took a taxi to the airport. we were back in denmark by noon. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy to return to annoying housemates, danish-speakers, and my small, cozy attic room. I am still really sick, and my housemates are still really annoying, so I have quarantined myself to re-coup physically and mentally. many dollars, miles, and sights behind me, I have decided that I really like the scandinavian and nordic countries, but still prefer good ‘ol sunny, smoggy, california to any of them. but i am still adjusting to the epidemic that is “man capris,” I am still baffled why men’s pants are tighter than women’s here, and I still cannot understand how people willingly live in such cold weather. I have also decided to collect a flag from every country I visit, which is a charming addition to scrapbooks I am growing on my walls here in copenhagen.

classes start for me on wednesday so I am about as happy as a fat kid on a diet. although my mentor tells me that I selected great classes and I’ll be fine, I’m still not excited for my lack of skateboard and morning lattes… it’s amazing how different I already feel in spite of the fact that I live with mostly californians who remind me of why I hated ucsb my first couple of years. but at times it’s easier to just completely write off my housemates as spoiled idiots and think how much more rewarding my life will be because I actually worked for it. sometimes, I guess, you just have to except the fact that seeing jesus in the supermarket is more likely than seeing peanut butter or salsa; that my friends back home are the most amazing, supportive, and charismatic people I have ever known; and that it is, indeed, possible to have pride for your country in spite of its political policies.

those of you who managed to read all the way down here: congratulations- I’ll give you a 9. also, I have changed the settings on my blog so now anyone can post a comment, not just registered blog users, so silence yourself no longer.

alright, time to bust out the nasal spray and cough medicine: it’s gonna be another crazy night! I miss each and every one of you reading this right now, and, without a doubt, I think of you every day… peace.