in copenhagen

I'm no longer in Copenhagen, but this post is related to some Copenhagen stuff so I'm writing it here.

I can't believe how unpredictable life is. One minute you're walking back to your hotel after buying food, the next minute you're lying on the road unconscious. It's a terribly disturbing image, I don't really want to think about it, but it's not just anyone, it isn't just something I read in the papers everyday and just say, Ohmygosh poor thing, but think it will never happen to anyone I know. It's really hard when it happens to someone you know.

When I first found out it was on Facebook and I thought it was some kind of joke group that his friends set up, but when I clicked on it, I realised that it wasn't poking fun at him, but it did seem like such a cruel joke. I read two news articles about it but it still didn't seem real. How can I imagine him lying in a coma when all the memories I have of him in Copenhagen are noisy, boisterous and full of life? He was the closest person I had in our residence, I think he knew everything that happened, the only one aside from my 3 BFFs that knew about my crushes, guys I made out with, and all the little gossip in between.

He lived across the hall from me, shouted my name from the street in the middle of the night, belted out songs that I could hear when I came back from school, held me up or rather hauled me up as I tripped up the stairs after one too many drinks in the common room, got pissed off at me for being late so we didn't have much time in the National Museum, jokingly asked me why I didn't like him instead when I told him about all the unsuitable guys I had crushes on, told me about how excited he was about how he was going to run from the bull when he went to Spain..

Please be ok JRay..

After spending a lazy Sunday wandering around and getting lots of sun, the best part was coming home and reading in bed, and having tomato soup (although instant) just before going to sleep..

Well I can't complain about my day though, I was woken up at 11 by the phone ringing, and although I didn't want to get up because I only went to sleep at 4am the previous day, I did anyway and it was mummy calling me for the very first time! I couldn't stop blathering on, I talked for about 50 minutes and she and Freak did for the other 10.. That was such a nice start to the day..

The night before we were at Park, which is so far away from everywhere, but so expensive that I couldn't get properly pissed and therefore couldn't go flirting with The Austrian.. The bartender was really really cute though so I got 3 drinks but I was still very sober.. The place was very fancy schmancy but there was this weird Danish dude in a polka dot shirt who kept trying to prance around us.. I just tried to keep out of his way cos he was seriously freaking me out.. It was pretty fun, William and I danced a bit he was so hyper so we were basically jumping around, then a bit with Christian the first dance partner I had at Mambo but he left early, and 'gyrated' with Arnie for a while.. It was kinda crazy but I was watching The Austrian all the time he looked really really cute.. Except I couldn't forget his black socks at Roskilde.. Bleah.. What's it with Europeans and their capris and black socks that come out of their shoes?!?

Speaking of which, Roskilde was great! We saw the cathedral, which was both gothic and roman, and had lots of dead kings buried there.. There were lots of marble stones on the ground and all the people were buried underneath so we were like stepping all over them and that was kinda freaky.. We went into the crypt of Empress Dagmar, the mother of the last tsar of Russia, who was going back to Russia that's why her crypt was open for a while.. There was a room with monuments to Kings Frederik I and III, and in between there was a pillar measuring the heights of a few kings and queens, including King Chulalongkorn (previously of Siam), Queen Margrethe (Queen of Denmark) and the current Thai princess as well as Frederik I (measured as 2.03 m tall but was actually about 10 cm shorter). We also went into a room with frescoes preserved from ages ago, it was previously covered with limestone, so the fire that broke out in the late 1960s didn't hurt it, which was such a miracle cos a lot of it was destroyed. The cathedral was really beautiful!

Then we went on to have lunch and a stroll around the city, we ate pizza and had ice cream for dessert.. Yummy! We met at the cathedral again after lunch to go to the Viking museum, which just had a few remnants of Viking ships and was not interesting at all.. The fun part was when we got to actually row a little boat that was supposed to be like a Viking ship.. It was such hard work but a lot of fun.. I got separated from the girls and was in a boat with Alaina and some other girls that I didn't know but it was cool we got to row and sail, I helped to pull the rope that controlled the sail on one side! There were all these people watching us as we tried to pull out of the harbour and crashed into another boat.. I'm sure they were laughing at us but they didn't try it! That was crazy but that meant the end of our trip..

After that we went back and after a good long shower I went to Aboulevard for dinner and dress up with the girls.. It's always so fun to dress up with them and get opinions on how we look, borrow makeup, get our hair done.. We did that on the Oslo cruise and I think we will again on the Berlin trip, except Emma won't be with us!

Well about the Sunday.. I decided to go to Rosenborg to see the crown jewels, and Tanya wanted to come along so I met her at Norreport and thank goodness she can read maps or we would have gotten really lost.. But when we got there there were police cars and policemen everywhere, and people were just hanging out outside of the castle.. We didn't find out what happened but it looked pretty dodgy anyway.. After waiting about 15 minutes we were let into the castle at last..!

Rosenborg is one of the most elaborate places I have ever seen, the carvings on the wall and on the objects (cabinets, cups, etc) were so ornate and detailed it was scary.. There was a mirror room, a porcelain room, and we even saw the toilet of one of the kings, that was covered in tiles and had this little very deep hole.. The toilets in the past were kinda gross.. Then we went to the Treasury and that was when we started taking lots of pictures of the jewellery and the crowns, which were dripping with pearls and other gems.. Tanya even pointed out one of the crownlets that Princess Mary wore.. After that we went outside, and one of the Royal Guards was SO HOT so we took pictures of him and it was kinda blurry so we waited for him to come back to take some more.. He was trying not to laugh but as he walked away we could see him smiling to himself.. He must have been thinking that we were absolutely nuts.. We did get a few good pictures of him though, including a slightly blur one of him looking at us out of the corner of his eye! We saw Statens Museum for Kunst and it has all the French masters on exhibition here, Matisse, Degas, Manet.. So Tanya and I are gonna go on Wed morning before my class, cos its free and that'll give us about 3 hours, which probably won't be enough but will give us a good feel of the museum.

Then we went to Norreport station to wait for Emma to come down to go to Nyhavn for a few beers and some people-watching, and there was this ambulance there cos there was a guy in a wheelchair stuck in an elevator.. Nyhavn was beautiful and sunny and lots of people were around.. We got hotdogs and beer and settled down when this girl walking past on crutches suddenly had an episode and the people around were really helpful, the girl from the cafe brought her a chair and orange juice, this guy pushing his baby lent the mini umbrella and carried his baby, guys stopped just to help the girl into the cafe where she could get some shade.. Then Emma and I went to get ice cream and when we came out there was an ambulance there! But it was ok in the end, she probably had too much sun and needed a little rest.. At about 7 we decided we had too much sun so we headed back home and I spent the evening doing nothing as usual.. I did finish my Danish homework but have to get started soon on my individual assignment for Intercultural Communication and the group report and presentation, and I might redo the last part of my Danish dialogue..

Today we will be going to Christiania, the free state in Copenhagen where people don't pay rent or taxes, but is in a very central part of the city.. That will be really cool, but first I've got a group meeting in half an hour and then class til 5.. I hope today will be an interesting session because I'm tired and starting to get hungry again despite the milk and cookies and crisps and pasta sauce I had.. Ok that wasn't a real breakfast/lunch but still.. I managed to finish my readings though.. It's time to get ready and head on out!

I went to Oslo over the weekend, and it was pretty good. We had to find our way to the DFDS terminal first, and we got there pretty early cos we went for our Friday girls brunch at Floras Cafe. The room was teeny but the toilet was pretty good, probably the same size as the one I have in Svanevej. When duty-free opened we went and bought gin and drank a few G&Ts before we went for dinner, and got all dressed-up and pretty, which no one else was so it was a bit weird but we looked nice and we were all slightly drunk so we didn't care. After dinner, we went back to our cabin to drink some more, and Liz discovered that the door of the cabin across from us was open and that they had a view, so she barged in, thinking they were CBS students, and admiring their view and inviting them to our cabin for a drink. Well they were from Sweden and students, but not from CBS.. It was fun though there was a cute Swedish guy he's a medical student somewhere in the north of Sweden and we got talking a bit but we didn't exchange contacts or anything. I don't think I can even remember his name, but Liz has a picture of them so I can remember how he looks like.

The day in Oslo was very very blurry, I don't remember much except that our tour guide was this cute grandmotherly Norweigian lady that could walk really quickly and liked to say "oo-keh" all the time. She was pretty funny I thought. The walking tour was a bit too long, though the cute royal guards perked it up a little. We were all so tired we couldn't really think or walk straight. After the tour we went to the Vigeland Sculpture Park which sounded a bit silly but was really worth going to. There were so many great sculptures and the park was big and green with roses that looked and smelt fab. We had lunch overlooking the harbour, and there was a jazz band playing, so that was really fun and relaxing.. They were giving out free milk so we got some of that and it really helped cos I was so thirsty.. 24 milk is yummy! Oslo is a very small city, even smaller than Copenhagen, everything is literally within walking distance, it's very cosy but a bit too small for a capital city I thought.

We got back to the ship really early, and took a nap, which helped cos everyone was falling asleep on their feet. But after we finished dinner and went out onto the back deck I started feeling a little seasick cos the wind was really strong and the boat was rocking so I went back to the room to sleep at 9.30, and missed out on the entire night, which I hear wasn't much fun anyway.. I'm glad I didn't throw up all over, it was a good thing I realised I was feeling sick and stopped drinking it would have been disastrous otherwise! We were not supposed to get breakfasta, but we did anyway for both days so that was great, the baked beans were yummy!

Yesterday started off pretty well, I woke up on time to go hand in my Oslo receipt, pick up my Tivoli ticket, and even go to the library to do a bit of research. Of course I still need to do a lot more but to get it started was good. At the meeting we decided on all the stuff we needed to do so now I'm thinking about Hofstede 24/7. I tried not to look at the Austrian I flirted with terribly on Saturday and he didn't seem to notice me too so I was like whatever.. But at the end of the class the other one who I noticed from the very first day said hi to me and I was telling him not to remember Saturday but he seemed to think it was lots of fun so ok that wasn't so bad..

The canal tour yesterday was pretty good fun, it was only one hour long but we got Ben&Jerry's cookie dough ice cream which was totally yummy cos it was such a hot day. And what's funny is before that we were saying that we wanted to go buy B&J's after the canal tour was over! Well no need for that..

We started at the Opera House, saw the funny square black library aka the Black Diamond, round to the Little Mermaid, past Amalienborg Slot, saw the old German church, as well as lots of people in their apartments, in their boats, just relaxing by the side of the canal.. And so we waved, like crazy.. I spotted a hot topless guy waving to us! We went under loads of bridges as well, and Tanya was saying how in Paris there's this bridge that lovers should kiss under for good luck, and I remembered seeing that, so under the next bridge I kissed her for good luck, on the cheek of course! And then it was Liz's turn, and under the next one T and I wanted to kiss Emma but she turned around to try to get a pic of T and I kissing but we weren't going to anyway. Finally we got her to stay turned around and we just reached over and she screamed pretty loudly the whole boat must have turned around to see what the bunch of crazy girls were doing.

We went for beers after at Nyhavn, along with Emma's friend from class, Selena. Turns out that she lives in my building, in the room JUST below mine! And that we've kissed the same guy! Haha. But he's not someone we wanna keep going out with so I've ditched the idea of liking him. We stood at the stairwell and talked about stupid guys for ages and ages and it was great cos we hit it off so well at once. I'm so glad I got to know her! I've promised to find out about one of The Austrians for her cos we both think he's cute. He already thinks I'm an idiot so I don't have much to lose.

Well, gotta get started on my project now, I wanted to go to Magasin du Nord to shop but I can't cos every night is gonna be busy and I won't have time to do anything if I don't start now! Today is the 4th of July so Liz, who's American, wants to celebrate somehow; tomorrow I'm meeting PM for dinner, which is pretty exciting cos I'm really looking forward to seeing him (he really did call me after he got back from Roskilde!); Thursday is Tivoli night; I'm gone to Oslo over the weekend.. Bleah. But still it's group work so I totally can't procrastinate!

The sun was streaming into my room at 9am this morning, after I had only gone to bed at 4. I covered my head and went back to sleep, but I felt like shit cos I had way too many drinks yesterday. I can't even remember quite a bit of what I did, apparently I yelled at one guy, he said I yelled at him for quite a while but he found it funny so that's not so bad but I can't even remember doing that..! But when I woke up today I remembered some stuff and I felt mortified..

Stupid Australian bar.. Omg. I flirted shamelessly with the Austrian guys and I went and hung out outside AG's door for the longest time and left him a note when I got back after taking the night bus home alone. I saw him dancing with another girl and I was so upset.. That's stupid cos I was dancing with a whole bunch of other guys and we only got together once but I really do like him for real. I feel really comfortable with him and it's like totally no pressure, and he's cute too. It's weird now cos we usually hang out together and it's so shit. Now everytime I walk past his door I hope that he doesn't suddenly open it and I hope that I don't meet him on the stairs or whatever. I am soooooo mortified now. I just wanna be invisible and I don't want anyone to know I exist.

We went to the beach today, it's really far away at Lergravsparken which is at the end of the metro line, but none of the trains went there so we had to change to a bus at the Christianshavn station. The weather was perfect, very hot and very sunny, a big contrast to last week which was stupid and rainy and freezing. So I kinda have a funny tan line now cos of the bikini I wore. We couldn't find the others so we stayed in another spot for a while, until we were found then we moved over and just lay there doing nothing. It was nice to get out, otherwise I think I would have spent the entire day in my room. I got back and immediately ran to my room and locked the door and I'm not gonna step out tonight. Tomorrow I have a meeting and then class so I have to go out but unless absolutely necessary I'm staying in.. There's the Canal Tour tomorrow though and I'm looking forward to that cos it looks very touristy and fun.

I need to do some work and try to be invisible right now.

It's been such a busy week I haven't had time to do anything, what basically happens everyday is I get back to my room at about 12 or 1am, shower and hop straight into bed. I'm rarely in my room nowadays, so it's a luxury to have some time to myself today. We went to Helsingor and Louisiana on a day trip today, to see Hamlet's castle and the Louisiana museum and Sweden across the water.

We met at 9 at Kobenhavn H, which is the central train station, just outside of the Tivoli, which we will be going to on Thursday. I absolutely could NOT wake up to meet Emma at 8 cos I only slept at 4 last night, so effectively I've had 3 hours of sleep and very very sore feet from dancing in my (very cute) orange heels. We took the train to Helsingor, it was really a bit like an airplane with armrests, neck rests, overhead lights and headphone thingeys. The trip only took 40 minutes though it was pretty quick.

Hamlet's castle is pretty on the outside, but very draughty on the inside. It's more like a big mansion really. But there was this king who was 38 and he married a 13 year old girl.. That's just kinda weird now.. The grounds are very nice, we had a picnic in the garden with sandwiches and potato chips.. It was great.. We also saw swans and cygnets and ducks so that was kinda cool. We had lots more time to spare so we went to get ice cream, and we saw the cutest Danish baby ever. He was such a flirt, flirting with Tanya, Emma and I. Well of course it didn't help that we were busy cooing over him and stroking his chubby cheeks.. SO adorable.

The Louisiana museum was kinda crap, like being in a posh IKEA store, so we ended up in the gardens looking at Sweden and just lying in the sun talking.. It was a real fun time.. Then at 4 we decided to go to the train station, and we were supposed to wait for the rest to come back together but we decided to go back first cos the train came. I found a shorter route to get back home instead of going all the way to Kobenhavn H so I'm back earlier than anyone else.

The past week nothing much happened I think, my classes are great. Intercultural has very few Danish students and a lot of Austrians, but they are pretty cute especially the one that I've been eyeing since Day 1, or rather Day 2. We have to do a group project so that's a bit taxing cos I can't do things at the last minute like I would with my own stuff, it takes a lot of consistent work cos we have to meet up regularly. My group has the best variety of all the others, we have one from China, one from Denmark, 2 from Austria and I. The poor Austrians had such a hard time finding a group cos the professor Katalin wanted at least 2 nationalities in the group. Danish is so difficult, the pronounciation is a killer. The soft Ds and glottal stop and everything is terrible.. Well hopefully it'll come to me slowly..

But I met P at the supermarket and he looked great.. He said he'll teach me Danish and I'm excited! He has a girlfriend though so it's a bit hmmmm.. Not my favourite thing but I'm living with it.. At least she doesn't live with him.. He's gone to Roskilde and he said he'll call me when he gets back on Monday so we'll see if that actually happens.. But it was funny cos I was complaining about Danish and he said he'll teach me blabla and I was like yeah great ok I'm going to the supermarket bye, and then 15 mins later I get a call saying he's at the supermarket and where am I.. That was so great.. He's a hottie hot hot hottttt..

We've been hanging out on the terrace here quite a bit, including one night when it was absolutely freezing but no one wanted to go in. I was wearing like 3 layers of clothes. On Thursday I went for the International Dinner for a while then went back to the residence where they were having a bbq and just hung out.

Yesterday was supposed to be the World Cup party but it was just some drinking and mostly dancing. I have blisters under my little toe. Then on the way back when we stopped at 7-11 this old Danish guy said something to me in Danish, so when he left I asked the guy at 7-11 what he said and he was like the guy said I was cute. Omg why can't the young hot ones think so? Speaking of which, there are so many hot guys in Copenhagen!!!!!!

We went for brunch yesterday afternoon supposedly, but it turned into lunch cos I couldn't wake up on time. The girls in my residence went bar-hopping along Nyhavn the night before and I was a little smashed. Then we had to pee really bad so we found a public toilet and 4 of us went into it, but it was kinda big though. Anyway brunch was at this place at Kobenhavn H just a few blocks down called Flora's cafe, the food was great and piled high onto the plate.. We have to go back there.. It was cool people-watching also, we saw lots of hot guys and this weird old guy wearing tight leather pants with long frizzy white hair.. Freaaaaaaky.

Well my feet are kinda trashed from dancing around last night, so I've gotta take a rest and get a shower before I head out again tonight to the Australian bar. This will be one of the last clubbing events until the middle of the month.. Tomorrow is beach day too, so I think I shouldn't be drinking too much tonight, or the bikini will look absolutely disgusting tomorrow..

We ended up not going to Christiana cos apparently everything there is closed on Mondays.. There were 8 of us in the end, Tanikie, Heather, Nicole and myself, as well as Lauren, who lives across the hall from Tanikie, and her friend Leslie who lives at Holger Danskes Vej and decided to come visit, and Nicole's neighbour Geoffrey whom we met last night while raiding rooms, as well as his friend on the first floor Tom.

So we decided to go to this Thai restaurant near Frederiksberg station which is really close to CBS called The Green Papaya. Their food was really yummy and tasty but not too salty, lots of great flavours and stuff. We initially ordered stuff for ourselves but ended up passing our plates around so we got a taste of everything. It was really fun!

It was like 10pm after dinner, so Tanikie, Heather and Nicole decided to head back cos they have class at like 8.55am, and the rest of us went to Kongens Nytorv to watch the rest of the Ukraine-Switzerland match. We met a few of the Austrian guys from class at the bar, but they left soon after we got there. We thought the game would end at like 1045 cos by the time we got there it was already 1030 and at 88 minutes, but it went into 2 extra times, and by the goal-kicks it got reaaaaaally exciting.. Haha. That was fun.. Then the others decided to keep going but Tom and I were like dying so we headed back to Svanevej.

When I was going into my door I met Jason from a couple doors down and he was leaving his room to go downstairs to one of the other rooms and he asked me to go along, so I did, and it was great I met more new people, Renee, Priya, Rich and Chris (whom I actually met before but didn't recognise today), all from Penn State. They were drinking beers and playing Kings, and I got roped in to play too. It was really quite fun and I had such a good time with them even though usually I have this thing against Americans but those I've met on the trip so far are really cool and they don't look down on us at all.. We stayed in Rich's room til like 2.30am, Jason and I were so tired but I think I had a bit too much to drink cos I would sit down immediately after standing up so he had to help me up the stairs.. Luckily we stay on the same floor so that was great..

I had such a good time today, class was fun, and the company after class was fantastic.. Well tomorrow is the walking tour from 6-8pm, and then the France-Spain match, I'm supposed to meet Veronique and the others at Tivoli at 8.30 so that should leave plenty of time.. I need to go get France colours though, cos I'll definitely be supporting them! And tomorrow is my first Danish lesson! Soon I'll be able to pronounce things like Norrebro and Frederiksberg and Solbjerg properly..