Charlotte in Copenhagen!

Bicycling Adventure Number One:

Charlottenlund.

20 minutes from Keops.So barely a bicycling adventure. But it feels like an adventure because Charlottenlund is so entirely contrary to the murky streets of Norrebro. The sea is beautiful – the day we went it was angry and violent. The fields are beautiful – passive and compliant. My friends are beautiful – fun and interesting and excited by life.

Bicycling Adventure Number Two:

Koge.

a MISSION from Keops. This days adventure deserves a little more attention… Myself, Sarah, Madeline, Ben & Malte set off. 10am. Roskilde. Ben wanted to got a Viking Museum, most of us were just along for the ride. Roskilde is about a 45minute car journey away, according to ever faithful google maps, so should’ve been about an 1 1/2 cycle is we stuck to a fairly slow pace. So we set off. About half way we decide this journey is simply too easy so detour to cycle through some Danish countryside (very beautiful, very green and added bonus – we got to see a Wooley Mammoth). Naturally we get lost.

5 foreigners stood on the side of the road, bikes in tow, in the middle of no-where, not a map in sight = Wonderful. We plough on without any real plan, not sure of our direction, and arrive at the ocean. Which was stunning (if the fields were beautiful, the ocean has to be stunning). The beach was untouched. The sea was baby blue and exactly the same colour as the sky creating an expanse that extended beyond the horizon. Arriving at the opening to the ocean was a ‘man-my-life-is-pretty-awesome’ moment.

After sandwiches and biscuits we continue on our bikes (bum getting a little numb by this stage). Still lost we wander along for a little while. Paying homage to the gas station for their directions, we resume the path to Roskilde. Get lost again. We stopped a guy in the street to ask the directions; he laughed at us because we were horrifically in the wrong place, when we told him we still wanted to go to Roskilde his response was “maybe you should look for another opportunity “. O dear.

Eventually we end up at Koge. A quaint little seaside town that looked like it had a population of about 500. After round two of sandwiches, we headed home. We got the train home – my very sore buttocks were not working in my favour. We cycled a total of 50km that day (30.1 miles for the old school folk).

I love bicycling adventures.

So let me tell you about Louisiana Museum of Modern Art…

I arrive at the museum with absolutely no knowledge of modern art. As far as I’m concerned squiggly lines on a piece of paper could be done by a five year old and hold limit merit to ‘explaining the world’ as I’m sure artists maintain.I left the museum with similar conclusions to those that I arrived with but my opinions were certainly challenged.

I went to the museum as part of the Danish Culture Course (so it was free – a definite encouragement to getting up at 9am on a Sunday to go to an art museum – which is most out of character for me). The day begun with a lecture from one of the ‘museum people’ (I’m sure if i did this whole art/museum thing more often I would be able to give you the official title of these people). I enjoyed the lecture. It taught me new things.

The first part of the lecture spoke of Louisiana as a museum; its heritage etc. Apparently it was fairly revolutionary. Typically museums are designed to draw maximum attention to the pieces they display. The plans behind Louisiana attempted to make the museum a piece of art in its own right. My conclusion: Louisiana successfully meets this goal. The museum is beautiful; it is set amongst precious green woodland with views looking out over the ocean. From the exterior the buildings grow of the earth and wind and tangle across the land. Wandering inside, the seemless glass walls mean you are never far from the natural scenery Louisiana boasts. None of the buildings are overpowering. The main entrance is just a doorway like you might imagine on a country house. Exploring Louisiana is well worth the trip regardless of the art.

The second part of the lecture was about this infamous art I hear so must about. I was discussing this with Sarah the other day; Sarah studies Art History, shes a songwriter, painter, photographer and a whole host of other creative things. I was explaining to her that I just don’t understand art. I don’t get it. I don’t understand how people create art. I don’t understand what constitutes art. I don’t understand why people would devote their entire lives to art when all they can achieve is something that looks pretty. I still don’t understand these things, despite Sarah’s best efforts, but Louisiana did shed a bit of light on this dark of murky world of ‘art’.

So my closing remarks: From a non-artist (and a self-proclaimed overly analytical mind) go to Louisiana. It’s beautiful. And interesting. Two pretty wonderful qualities in any day.

New Favorite Restaurant: Dalle Valle on Filostraede. This restaurant is pretty wonderful at the best of times – spacious and neat and the food is good. What elevates this into the position of favorite though is the fact that on Sundays, Mondays AND Tuesdays the entire menu is half price – o yes! That means you can get burgers for 30DKK, pizzas for 25DKK and steaks for 50DKK (thats about £7 for a steak), b.a.r.g.a.i.n. And when you consider you’re paying half price for it, the food goes from good to pretty damn awesome.

New Favorite Park: Østre Anlæg on Stockholmsgade. I now even have  a favorite spot in my favorite park. If you head down the slope in the park so that it feels like you’re walking into the lake there’s decking that sticks out and sits on the lake amongst all the reeds. Sat on this decking are two benches, one complete with table, where you can’t see a single building, car or otherwise and all you can hear is the rawkus of the ducks. Welcome to my favorite spot in my favorite park.

New Favorite Shop: Cinnober on Landemærket (nearKøbmagergade). I guess this is a book store, except its not really. All of the books are like mini pieces of art. And the shop displays are awesome. They also sell funky like paper products and prints and general gifty stuff (apologies for the vague description but it s a pretty vague shop). But I think its pretty awesome.

Today I got to dabble in all of my new favorite things. It was another day with weather of epic proportions and the desire to be outside is compelling. This morning I pumped up the tires on my bike, bought a new Hole-Punch (I trod on mine and it snapped – sad day for both the Hole-Punch and my foot), did some printing in the library and headed to my new favorite spot. I sat and ate lunch (banana chips and Coca-Cola) and began to do my reading for my Policy Advocacy course. Unfortunately however the glare from the sun was just too bright (I didn’t want to damage my retinas did I?!) so had to stop reading and have a snooze instead.

My snooze was cut short however because a group of kids on a school trip decided to occupy the bench next to me. At first my reaction resembled this: GRRRRRR. There’s an entire park. And you’re going to sit next to me? Really?! (Fergie – I am saying this exactly how you’d imagine!)
But I actually quite enjoyed watching them. Obviously they were speaking Danish so I understood next to nothing but its amazing how much you can read from the situation without knowing the words they speak. It was obvious who the ‘popular girl’ was. Obvious who her ‘i-walk-all-over-you’ friend was. Obvious who she fancied and obvious who fancied her. There was the shy boy that cowered at the back of the pack and the awkwardly tall girl that didn’t know what to do with all her beauty yet. People are crazy aren’t they. How can these same people be all over the world? I taught in Tanzania a couple of years ago and despite being entirely different from Copenhagen, it was exactly the same – every class still had ‘the jock’, ‘the bully’ and ‘the teachers pet’. People are fascinating.

The title of this post refers to my passionate love affair with my bike.

Lectures still aren’t running yet because of Easter and most people are still away which means plenty of time for me and my bike.

On Thursday I rode up to the lake near Bispebjerg, I believe it’s called Utterslev Mose (though its highly possible that’s wrong), which is really quite beautiful in its own little way. The lakes are very popular with runners – the Danes look magnificently stylish even when running around a muddy lake, when I figure out how they do it I shall let you know. It was refreshing to be able to cycle hard; normally when cycling in Copenhagen there isn’t much point in cycling fast because you will no doubt be slowed down by a passing stroller, red traffic light or granny weaving along at about 0.1MPH with her grocery shopping. I also enjoyed the fact that I could wear my tatty tracksuit and get as sweaty and muddy as I pleased because there was no way I was going to bump into anyone I knew; don’t you love it when you just arrive in a new city and this becomes possible again?

On Thursday my ride was fueled by Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – The Logic Of Chance. My new most favouritist album ever (don’t read too much into this for if you know me you’ll know I have a different ‘Absolutely Mind-Blowing Favorite EVER Album’ every week). I love it though and it is perfect to cycle to.  As UK Hip Hop goes its pretty aggressive with definite drum’nbass  flair, which I haven’t really appreciated in a while but Mr Sac certainly reminded me why I love it.

Friday. Another day. Another cycling expedition. Friday was far less energized than Thursday; I set off listening to Tracy Chapman which pretty much set the standard for the day. I know plenty of people that can’t stand Tracy Chapman but her music is so indulgent. I cycled around the canal in the centre, stopping frequently to drink in the sunshine and read a little of my book. I’ve been reading a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver. I brought it for 3 euros from a book market in Amsterdam; I’d love to tell you it was one of those rare and magical finds but that would be lying – the book is pants. But its small enough to fit it my pocket so I very often find myself sat on a bench ploughing through it. I then wondered over park just past the CSS University buildings where I invested in an ice cream and nestled in under a tree for a brief afternoon snooze.

One day soon I will get a camera, then I can document all of these adventures properly.

I am slightly embarrassed to note that I only wrote 4 posts in March. Oops. I could’ve sworn I was writing more than that.  Aprils Resolution: Write more.

I actually have a number of April Resolutions:
Study more.
Spend less.
Eat fruit.

So anyway. This week I made a small voyage back to the motherland. It probably sounds like I’ve been going home loads (to be fair twice in 3 months is entirely unnecessary).
This is my justification:
i) If I wasn’t going home I’d be going to Stockholm with everyone else and I can’t really afford to do that.
ii) If I couldn’t go home and switch my winter clothes I’d just end up buying new spring clothes out here.
iii) Last time I stayed with the boyfriend, this time I stayed with parents. Different trip all together.
iv) I’d run out of shampoo and toothpaste. I can steal shampoo & toothpaste from home. Which is free.
[You may have noticed I'm a fan of lists. Sarah has a Listography (I'm not really sure what it is either) and I may get one]

If I’m honest I spent most of my time at home working. I loved having no plans. No plans mean no distractions, which is handy when you have exams pending. I’m in a slightly different boat to most of the exchange students here (I’m not really sure why – probably just because my home university suck). Most people can take whatever courses they’d like and just receive a Pass/Fail Grade, so the marks don’t matter as long as they pass. Maybe its because I’m only in my second year of study but I still get graded on everything I do; first by my teachers here in Denmark obviously but then I have to create a portfolio of all my work, which I can then send back to England so it can be remarked by my lecturers at home. And because I’m in my second year the grades are pretty important; the grades from this semester will make up a quarter of my final degree grade. Consequently I can’t afford to do badly.

I was also really keen to take the Oral exams because we don’t have the chance to do them at home. However because my Uni is lame they won’t let me take any Orals. Naturally I made a fuss about this (if I’m on exchange in Denmark, following the same program as Danish people, surely I should be able to take the same exams as everyone else?!) and they’ve now allowed me take 1 Oral. SO before June 3rd (when I fly to Italy – woop!) I have to write two 15 page papers and complete one 30 minute Oral exam. Whats concerning me though is the Petitum’s (the Danish version of a kind of Bibliography), which has to consist of 1200 pages of text. So I have to have read 3600 pages (1200 per course and despite the fact all my subjects are quite similar you aren’t allowed to use 1 text in 2 Petitiums) by June 3rd. Which strikes me as quite a lot.

PLUS continuing the theme that my Uni suck, I have a distance learning project for them that I have to complete by June. I wouldn’t be too concerned about if it wasn’t for the fact that this Research Design Project is the prerequisite for my final year and without it I won’t be allowed to continue on my course. SO in conclusion I should stop writing about all this work and actually do some right?!

To be honest though I think I’m one of the lucky ones. Lucky because I love what I’m studying. I’m sure admitting to the fact that I love politics won’t earn me too much street credit but I honestly do and it makes studying a thousand times easier when you enjoy it. At the end of the day I’d prefer to read an article about European Union Integration Theory than a trashy romance novel. One of my dad’s friends asked me why I chose to study Politics while I was at home and the question caught me a little off guard. Why do I love Politics?  (….maybe I’ll write a list!…)

• I used to want to be a lawyer. Literally since I was about 12 its all I wanted to be. Then as I grew up I realised lawyers didn’t really have enough power – I was going to have to make the law.
• I want to put the world to rights. I am that idealistic naive kid that thinks she can change the world.
• I am a natural politician: I’m good at bullshitting.

My brothers in the process of deciding whether he wants to go to Uni or not. My advice is this: Find what you love and do it. If that takes you into University then you’ll enjoy studying but if it doesn’t then so be it. As studying what you love makes this whole rigmarole a whole lot easier.

I’ve written 859 words without talking about Copenhagen one bit. Not the best sign for a travel blog about Copenhagen. Oops.