I am only going to say this once, but if you'd prefer an actually factual account of what it is I do with my time, or some version of it, or at least a really similar outline...head over to my friend Alex's blog.  He's writing about what we ACTUALLY do here, and his entry "I Beat You Here, Obama!" is a much better story about the field study for our Copenhagen History class than I will ever write.

This is mostly because I consider (if you hadn't noticed) writing meanderingly about swans dying and the feeling of being an outsider better suited to my skill sets than documenting what happens on a daily basis.  Already, the almost six weeks of living here have become a generalized feeling, a sort of residual blur of Copenhagen and Denmark much more than a series of perfectly remembered events and outings.  The feeling changes many times a day, depending on how many times a Dane has bumped into me without saying "unskyld," how much coffee I've spilled on my shirt, and how many stairs I've fallen down, with my happiness usually proportional to the amount of time I've spent writing or reading in cafes about town.

Tonight, DIS "partially subsidized" (we'll see what exactly that means when I turn in my receipt tomorrow) a trip to the movies for my roommate and I.  We saw "Inglourious Basterds, which was an unusual experience on a few levels.  First of all, I had no idea what to expect, and had a surprisingly emotional reaction to the last half hour or so of the film.  Second of all, the scenes are performed in German, French, English, and occasionally Italian, and not always all at the same time.  Because this was a Danish theater, obviously, the subtitles were all in...Danish.  Meaning that I only understood, on my own, about a quarter of the dialogue.  

Fortunately, Mira was kind, and occasionally whispered translations to me-- she speaks all of the languages, and Swedish and Spanish besides.  I actually had a fun, if difficult, time trying to grasp at the situations where the spoken language was French or German.  I found myself reading the Danish subtitles pretty frequently, and to my surprise, I understood  a good 50% of the scenes through that-- and my rusty Spanish came in handy when I tried listening to the French.  I should mention that READING Dansk is a good dozen times easier than speaking it.  I understand a hefty amount of written Danish by now, but have yet to master the pronunciation, by Danish standards, of a single phrase.  I think Mira was a little taken aback-- and hopefully impressed-- with the amount I was able to glean for myself through the subtitles.  No offense to her native tongue, but Danish doesn't seem to be as nuanced or as direct as English, and that does make it easier to read.  I remember at one point, all Brad Pitt said onscreen was "No, you can't" or something, and the Danish translation was a good seven or eight words long to convey the same idea.

As for my thoughts on the movie, those are harder to articulate.  I've never seen something that so exuberantly revises history or so shamelessly eroticizes violence (except for other Tarantino films, naturally).  I was moved more than any other Tarantino film by the emotion of the idea, and I think a lot of the execution surpassed my own expectations.  The last third of the movie fell apart, in my opinion, but not to the detriment of the flabbergasting first two.  Overall, definitely worth seeing, and I don't think you can leave the theater without forming some strong opinion on it one way or the other.

P.S.  Since a few people reading want to hear my thoughts on the current/new season of "House," but even more people probably don't, I'll keep it short: still one of the best shows on television/not at all up to its own standard.  I more or less entirely agree with this short review by an enlightened TV critic.

Recommending and Otherwise

I am only going to say this once, but if you'd prefer an actually factual account of what it is I do with my time, or some version of it, or at least a really similar outline...head over to my friend Alex's blog.  He's writing about what we ACTUALLY do here, and his entry "I Beat You Here, Obama!" is a much better story about the field study for our Copenhagen History class than I will ever write.

This is mostly because I consider (if you hadn't noticed) writing meanderingly about swans dying and the feeling of being an outsider better suited to my skill sets than documenting what happens on a daily basis.  Already, the almost six weeks of living here have become a generalized feeling, a sort of residual blur of Copenhagen and Denmark much more than a series of perfectly remembered events and outings.  The feeling changes many times a day, depending on how many Danes have bumped into me without saying "unskyld," how much coffee I've spilled on my shirt, and how many stairs I've fallen down, with my happiness usually proportional to the amount of time I've spent writing or reading in cafes about town.

Tonight, DIS "partially subsidized" (we'll see what exactly that means when I turn in my receipt tomorrow) a trip to the movies for my roommate and I.  We saw "Inglourious Basterds, which was an unusual experience on a few levels.  First of all, I had no idea what to expect, and had a surprisingly emotional reaction to the last half hour or so of the film.  Second of all, the scenes are performed in German, French, English, and occasionally Italian, and not always all at the same time.  Because this was a Danish theater, obviously, the subtitles were all in...Danish.  Meaning that I only understood, on my own, about a quarter of the dialogue.  

Fortunately, Mira was kind, and occasionally whispered translations to me-- she speaks all of the languages, and Swedish and Spanish besides.  I actually had a fun, if difficult, time trying to grasp at the situations where the spoken language was French or German.  I found myself reading the Danish subtitles pretty frequently, and to my surprise, I understood  a good 50% of the scenes through that-- and my rusty Spanish came in handy when I tried listening to the French.  I should mention that READING Dansk is a good dozen times easier than speaking it.  I understand a hefty amount of written Danish by now, but have yet to master the pronunciation, by Danish standards, of a single phrase.  I think Mira was a little taken aback-- and hopefully impressed-- with the amount I was able to glean for myself through the subtitles.  No offense to her native tongue, but Danish doesn't seem to be as nuanced or as direct as English, and that does make it easier to read.  I remember at one point, all Brad Pitt said onscreen was "No, you can't" or something, and the Danish translation was a good seven or eight words long to convey the same idea.

As for my thoughts on the movie, those are harder to articulate.  I've never seen something that so exuberantly revises history or so shamelessly eroticizes violence (except for other Tarantino films, naturally).  I was moved more than any other Tarantino film by the emotion of the idea, and I think a lot of the execution surpassed my own expectations.  The last third of the movie fell apart, in my opinion, but not to the detriment of the flabbergasting first two.  Overall, definitely worth seeing, and I don't think you can leave the theater without forming some strong opinion on it one way or the other.

P.S.  Since a few people reading want to hear my thoughts on the current/new season of "House," but even more people probably don't, I'll keep it short: still one of the best shows on television/not at all up to its own standard.  I more or less entirely agree with this short review by an enlightened TV critic.

An actual entry with more questionable poetry

It looks like the Obamas may be coming to visit me here in Copenhagen this week and in December!  I'm touched.  Michelle probably wants an update on Whitney Young.  She didn't have to come all this way for my stories about our alma mater, but I will do my absolute best to entertain her while she's slumming it in Denmark.

Observed Rosh Hashanah last week and Yom Kippur yesterday, which I don't think I did last year at Oberlin.  It's interesting that my first year in college (2007), I celebrated the Jewish High Holidays at school, and being once again in an unfamiliar place, I celebrated them again this week.  There is something comfortable about ritual.  I thought of my mom and Julie and JRC in Evanston, and fasted for (almost) the entire day.  I'm sorry to any readers of this blog for anything I did to you last year and everything I'll do to you this year.

Including springing poetry on you unexpectedly.  It is a fact of life that no one likes reading poetry unless they write it themselves.  But it gets posted here because this one, at least, is another piece about Copenhagen.  My second Sunday here, August 29, I watched a swan die in the lake by my apartment.  It was really difficult to describe, though I wanted to, and this is the only way I think I could have.

Song

this swan had run herself

into a steel wire web

where streetlights hang above the running path 

that drapes around our lake

two girls and their mother

called “animal police” they said

in broken English when I asked

I didn’t know the beaks of swans

turned blue for any reason but

this one’s neck had broken

maybe because they are so graceful

she was still alive in silence

opening her mouth for air each time 

her head rolled and plopped staccato in the water

her vertebras no longer formed

that immortal swan shape you would recognize

other birds around her honked

one dragged the blue beak back and forth

it looked to us on the sand violent

we tried to shoo them off 

her dropping head was every kind of pain

not lessened by the other swans, the late animal police,

least by our witness

Not written by me.

Painting a Room

Katia Kapovich

Here on a March day in ‘89
I blanch the ceiling and walls with bluish lime.
Drop cloths and old newspapers hide
the hardwood floors. All my furniture has been sold,
or given away to bohemian friends.
There is nothing to eat but bread and wine.

An immigration visa in my pocket, I paint
the small apartment where I’ve lived for ten years.
Taking a break around 4 p.m., 
I sit on the last chair in the empty kitchen,
smoke a cigarette and wipe my tears
with the sleeve of my old pullover.
I am free from regrets but not from pain.

Ten years of fears, unrequited loves, odd jobs,
of night phone calls. Now they’ve disconnected the line.
I drop the ashes in the sink, pour turpentine
into a jar, stirring with a spatula. My heart throbs
in my right palm when I pick up the brush again.

For ten years the window’s turquoise square
has held my eyes in its simple frame.
Now, face to face with the darkening sky,
what more can I say to the glass but thanks
for being transparent, seamless, wide
and stretching perspective across the size
of the visible.

Then I wash the brushes and turn off the light.
This is my last night before moving abroad.
I lie down on the floor, a rolled-up coat
under my head. This is the last night.
Freedom smells of a freshly painted room,
of wooden floors swept with a willow broom,
and of stale raisin bread. 

From Gogol in Rome, 2004
Salt Publishing

Copyright 2004 Katia Kapovich.
All rights reserved.

Rules for Living Abroad (#1 & #2 of an ongoing list)

(photo above copyright Christopher Raun, found via Google)

1.  Walk through every park you can.  

Example:  I found a fantastic monument to a woman named Natalie Zahle in Orstedparken, the Central Park-like reserve by my flat.  The statue looks like a grave marker (it isn't, but might be a replica of one) that shows this woman, whoever she was, as a girl, a young lady, and an older woman.  I liked it so much I'm working on an oil pastel imitation for my wall:

2.  Bring evocative music for every mood you'll get into.

Examples:

Musicals go well with psyching yourself up and getting excited about life.

Sample lyrics: "On a clear day/How it will astound you...You'll feel glad of every mountain, sea, and shore."

A girl's acoustic vocals, such as "Country Mile" by Camera Obscura, pair well with homesickness. (audio only)

Sample lyrics: "I won't be seeing you for a long while/I hope it's not as long as these country miles..."

Getting Personal

This blog is read by more people than I keep track of, and linked to the school where I study (who, by the way, have yet to feature my writing here).  Those are two good reasons who I shouldn't post my own poetry.  But this one is called "Copenhagen," and was written here, so that excuses it.  Also, everything in this journal is written by me, and this is no exception.

Copenhagen

Describe a lake as seen by a young man who has just committed murder. Do not mention the murder. 

-From “The Art of Fiction” by John Gardner (1983)

Two white curtains in a rented room

sit heavy on their dusty sill.  Her body already aches

for this place, braces for the separation.  The visa in her coat

is counting days.

At the window, she thinks of

two men who never saw this city, and tries to measure

how long she will watch the cars, smell the smoke, 

rinse reminders off her palm.

America is only a place

where great aunts sewed dresses and great Depressions

hung fathers.  She threw that story away

and came to the old world to breathe its harbor air.

Describe a city as seen

by a young woman who has lost.

Do not mention the loss.

Other People's Pictures

My friend Caitlin took a few good pictures of me on our Western Denmark trip (almost two weeks ago already!).  That's her in the photos below-- the one that isn't redheaded and goofy.  In the bowling alley, I'm almost hidden in the long exposure to the far right.

And the last one is me-- yes, me!-- crossing a ROPE BRIDGE high in some trees at a semi-local castle.  We did it for the view.

Don't know what's up with my font today...

Horoscopes are a polarizing phenomenon.  Most people have a strong opinion on them one way or the other.  Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle.  I think unchallenged belief in anything is problematic, but I also think that decrying everyone who occasionally reads astrology as foolish or gullible is a little extreme, and probably says more about the decrier than the decried.

I was sent this today for Gemini: "The Moon's visit to your 5th House of Fun and Games allows you to temporarily avoid more serious issues. Although you have significant decisions to make, now is not the time to be weighed down by your past or your future. You have a unique opportunity to step outside your normal world and take in an entirely different spectrum of possibilities. Luckily, what you learn now will help you when you return to your regularly scheduled responsibilities."

Now, I have no idea where my fifth house is or where to find the fun and games, but I like the advice that "now is not the time to be weighed down by your past or future."  And it's true enough that I "have a unique opportunity to step outside my normal world and take in an entirely different spectrum of possibilities."  On a semester abroad, the possibilities really are endless, and that is a unique and privileged place to be.  I am very lucky, and I also can't forget that in 3 months (today!), I will "return to regularly scheduled responsibilities."

Last night was my first visit to Tivoli, and I took some 300 pictures to make sense of how beautiful it was.  What a place!  It's aggravating, intellectually-- you pay $9 for a cup of hot chocolate and $8 per amusement park ride after exorbitant entry fees-- but on the aesthetic level, it's brilliant. 

AND I got to see a concert, the Danish (but English speaking) group "Infernal."  It was Madonna meets eurotrash techno-pop, and no, I don't really know what any of those terms mean.  But it was something to see!  I even got a plastic "Tivoli" cup of Sommersby Apple Cider to warm me up.  The Danes hate it, apparently, and it does taste like a sour apple Jolly Rancher melted in cheap beer, but it's not very strong and suits my uncultured palate nicely.

More photos are available on Facebook (it takes forever to upload them to Blogger) here.

Bread! Butter!

These are main food groups!

I may have mentioned it, but in Denmark, "danish" pastries are called "weinerbrod," meaning Vienna bread.  I read that in Vienna, they're called "Kopenhagens."  Anyone else seeing the flaw in giving food place names?

I was about to go grocery shopping when I realized all I had on me was a 50 kr. bill (about 10 dollars-- Sept. 17 was the lowest exchange rate of the fiscal year so far).  So I popped into the bakery across the street (so convenient!) and bought "dagen's brod," which may mean "bread of the day."  It's very hearty, full of grains and nuts, and so fresh it's hardly recognizable to an American as a food product.  I grabbed it (16 kr. is  a good deal in Copenhagen) and brought it up to my flat, where I smothered it in smor (Danish butter), also ludicrously fresh.  The butter reminds me of when, as little schoolchildren in Chicago, we'd get to go to the "Farm in the Zoo" at Lincoln Park Zoo and eat the freshly churned butter made by an elderly woman in a pioneer costume.  It's so good you can't even remember how different it is until you have it again.

I should still go grocery shopping (I know my mother reads this blog).  But it's best not to go food shopping hungry, right?  I'll just go get ONE more piece of smor og brod.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRUCE BOYER!

Week four, day 23.  Homesickness starting to settle in this week like quiet background noise.  It gets louder when there's less going on, and during classes and activity I can't hear it at all.

The rented closet I call my own has become spectacularly untidy in the past three and a half weeks, and no wonder.  I'm not a neat or organized person even when my bedroom is four times this size, so trying to cram everything I need for school and living into this room is like trying to stuff Marilyn Monroe into the dress Audrey Hepburn wore in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."  Scratch that; it's like trying to stuff Anna Nicole Smith into an Olsen twin ensemble.

Not that I'm complaining.  The quietly bohemian life Mirah has let me into is wonderful.  Last night, we went to Blockbuster and curled up in her room watching "Pretty Woman."  It was a first for me, and I loved it!  In spite of everything I thought I'd hate, not least of which was watching a classic American love story while living in a foreign country, I had a blast.  Mirah had to watch it for school-- she's a graduate student at a Meisner theater institute here-- and prep a bunch of notes on structure and plot for class today.

My classes are just as great.  Favorite so far is definitely "European Film History," during which half the class falls asleep.  It's not their fault; the teacher is sort of quiet and so far we've been studying the silent film era, and if that's not your thing, I'm sure it's boring.  But I love it!  We watched "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" yesterday and clips from "Nosferatu" today.  Silent film is its own art form.  It's incredible.  I can't believe it took me until now to discover it.  Twenty years, wasted!  I could have been studying Greta Garbo's early work and Melies' film experiments of the turn of the last century for ages.  What have I been studying neuroscience or psychology for?  Everything about human experience is captured on those old film strips.

But this isn't a film blog.  It's not even really a culture blog.  It's a travel diary for the public (also known as interested friends and family; I love you all).  So I will post again when I have more of those stories to share.  As for now, life is a lot of settling in and cozying up as the weather gets chilly and damp, school kicks into high gear, and making dinner and doing laundry get easier (and therefore hideously boring).

Western Denmark

From early Thursday morning until Saturday evening, DIS took each "core course" class on a different itinerary through Western Denmark (mostly Jutland, the region that's always the first to get occupied by Germany because it's a peninsula connected to mainland Europe).  That means I was with 34 other kids and two chaperones/guides/teachers traveling throughout a country smaller than the state of Florida for two and a half days straight.  

[Needless to say, I needed a lot of alone time and sleep after that; it's exhausting to me to be with Americans and exhausting to be with people my own age.  They're nice enough people, but a girl needs her peace and quiet-- especially a girl like me, who is internally a lot closer to a 65-year-old tee-totaling librarian than a fun-loving twentysomething.]

This is a small Photoshop experiment combining a few of my favorite pictures from the weekend.  We visited a castle, the tip of Jutland (Skagen), an art museum, a prison, a folk high school (nothing like our high schools), the place where the North (Atlantic) Sea and Baltic Seas meet, a bowling alley, a hostel, a motel, a brewery, and Odense, the town where Hans Christian Andersen was born.  I think my favorite part may have been the ferry ride from Zealand to Jylland, pictured above.  I was reenacting a scene from "Yentl."

Things To Miss and Giving Directions

Sometimes, being an expatriate is thrilling and exotic.  Today, en route to my flat from DIS, I passed by an Indian couple speaking in perfect, lightly accented English, arguing about which way to go.  I stopped and asked if I could help, and pointed them towards the pedestrian street Stroget (pronounced Stroh-gill).  It felt really good to help people who are probably not my fellow Americans but with whom I share a linguistic identity.  I'm making a point to help as many confused English-speaking tourists as I can.  They don't have to know that I've only lived here 16 days, as long as my directions are right.

But today also marks the first day of public school back home, a day I was a part of for thirteen Augusts and Septembers.  To recognize the start of the year, President Obama is giving a speech to American students today.  It's the first time in my life I'm not one of them.  Even though it's been three years since I attended Chicago Public Schools, I'll always be a product of them.*  Maybe that means that every fall, I'll miss those years, but the feeling was definitely underscored today by being altogether on a different continent.  It's also the first time in my life I'm homesick for a president!

*Whitney Young High School and LaSalle Language Academy shaped my life in ways that would be hard to summarize in a short blog post, especially one that's focused on my college travels.  

Warning: Angry Danish Twentysomething Sings

My Danish Language and Culture professor, Nina, believes in teaching us about Danish Language and Culture through pop songs.  I love her for this.  Well, less today when she made us listen to a really crummy rap duo known as Nik og Jay, but more last week when she introduced us to the hilarious and genuine Sys Bjerre's hit song, "Malene."  

I've included a YouTube cut of the song with VERY roughly translated English lyrics from a bilingual Danish fan.  The gist is that the singer's boyfriend cheats on her with a girl named Malene, and she (very justly) dumps his possessions all over various parts of Copenhagen (the words that aren't translated are streets and neighborhoods here) and burns down his flat.  But saves his cat.  (I love their sense of humor here.)

The hook is a mix of Danish and English, with Sys Bjerre asking the nameless boyfriend if they can agree that it's the last time he...messes with her.  There is some strong (English!) language, so if that offends you, you can skip this post.  Or just listen to the first minute or so of the song in Danish.

Some pictures and a song

In the spirit of my mother and two musical-loving friends who read this blog (Holland and Niki), I think I'm going to do my best to include whatever song I'm singing to myself during my varied adventures in these posts.

Edit:  I meant to write more and post pictures, but my internet is pretty sporadic and I couldn't.  Here, at least, are the pictures.  I'm going out now for a walking tour of "Hans Christian Andersen's and Soren Kierkegaard's Copenhagen."

Some excellent graffiti by DIS and the bakery across the street from me.

Laundry!

Laundry here is, by the way, completely impossible.  It's like an obstacle course, full of physical challenges I'm not good at and with the power to break even the strongest will.  For one thing, we have to hook the machine up to the only kitchen outlet and to the only sink in the flat for the entire two hour ordeal.  And when I say "hook the machine up to the only sink," it is as inconvenient and as industrious as it sounds.

There's a part that detaches from the regular tap, and another part that you attach to the faucet so that the doohickies on the washing machine connect properly.  These are far too complicated for me to ever do quite right and well beyond my ability to describe, but the main bit involves a spring, latch, and ball screw.  You then turn on the faucet and, if all goes well, the pressure DOESN'T fling the pipes off and spray you and the kitchen with water.  But of course, it's a learning process, and that must happen several (dozen) times for you to learn your lesson.

There's also the matter of dragging the machine out from under the minifridge in the first place.  It looked easy when Mira did it on my first or second evening here as a demonstration, but like all Danes, Mira is several times more fit than me, and the process of unlocking the wheels at the bottom of the machine and dragging it the three feet to the sink was an arduous fifteen minute task itself.

But even if you manage to move the machine, hook it up to the outlet, and attach it semi-correctly to the faucet, there's still the fact that its powder detergent, liquid additive (still don't know how to translate the bottle-- maybe fabric softener?), and every itty bitty button are in Danish.  And don't be fooled by the numbered dial, because that's not minutes.  The Danish measure laundry time in SPINS.  Cycle spins.  Of your clothes.  Consequently, the numbers on that dial stand for degrees.  Celcius.  The temperature that the machine will turn your tap water in order to properly wash your clothes.

I just did my first load of whites, and so far so good.  I'm more apprehensive about the darks.  We shall see.  

DIS gives us Wednesdays free, which are usually to be taken up with field studies, but which for me today is entirely devoid of activities.  I've contented myself with wrestling the washing machine for three hours and singing "I Have Confidence" from "The Sound of Music" loudly to myself when cheerleading is needed.