A Graffiti Phase

I said in my application to study abroad that I was interested in Copenhagen because it's an great place for art and artists. I was lying, like I was in most of my application, about my reasons for going. In truth I was more intrigued by the low GPA requirement for the program as well as the convenient fact that it was estimated to be the cheapest study abroad location offered (hard to believe in such an insanely expensive place). But right now it seems like I actually have been harboring some fascination with art. Since first arriving here I have already gone to the National Gallery six times and actually enjoyed myself. I've even been drawing everyday, which is sort of a shame since I should be reading or writing more since I actually plan on making money with those skills some day.

In any case, it's obvious that Copenhagen has more artistic energy than the average metro area. In addition to the numerous private and public galleries, the expensive art dealers, and the modern architecture that everyone can see in any guide book, there is also great variety of entertaining graffiti covering buildings around town.

Many of the spray paintings and stencils I've seen have been cool enough to belong in an Urban Outfitters coffee table book. It seems like all the creative energy has overflowed from hands of the rich and high brow art of the ritzier areas of the city and developed into a strong community of anonymous street artists. Although most of the graffiti I've seen has been nothing more than the usual stylized typography, there's a lot of work out there that I would argue is genuine art.

But some of the typography is pretty rad in its own right:

In conjunction with my new drawing habit, seeing all this casual creation is making me want to try out tagging for myself. I've been learning enough about light and shadows to make a good stencil by this point without using Photoshop to filter an image for me. I've wondered if I have the skills necessary to free hand a big fist. Since I've never touched a spray can before, I can't be sure. It would be sweet though, I saw that a guy had already beat me to the idea in an abandoned building near Christiania.

On second thought, this looks like it may actually be a print that's been pasted to the wall. In that case, I don't feel so bad about not being able to replicate it with nothing more than a couple spray cans.

Trees and Beauty

So I've been getting into aesthetics lately. Denmark seems like an appropriate enough place to begin and artsy phase. They're all about beauty here. The buildings, the women, the clothes, everything around me is deliberate and captivating. The weed here's great too, and cheap, which makes it that much easier to take time to stare and appreciate my surroundings.

Case in point: Copenhagen's southern suburbs. Many of the residential buildings in town are built in striking geometric shapes that make any photo of them look like a work of modern art. My great grampa would have probably shat at the sight of these houses and apartments that would have maybe seemed natural in Metropolis.

I went out at night today to take some pictures of the buildings. Many of the buildings are made of vibrant colors that grab my eye even while I flash past them on the train. I had some trouble getting good pictures since it was black outside and hella foggy. My dicking around with the light settings on the camera probably didn't help either.

Shit, wouldn't you want to live in a place that cool? You can't see it very well from here, but it looks like each condo is 2 floors. Also not visible, but super cool, is the lame looking section on the bottom right of the building. During the day you can see it's a mountain range created by perforating the metal that covers the parking area.

I went around to the campus of Copenhagen University where I'll be studying. There's few cool buildings, but I was more interested in getting a closer look at the graffiti I've seen there. The university is tearing down part of the Humanities campus and rebuilding it. The demolition site is fenced in by a long wall of plywood that has been completely covered in artful spray paint designs. I liked this one in particular because stylized fonts can only entertain me for so long:

The dog is smoking a cigarette! Do you see that? Oh my God! The were maybe a hundred more sections that appeared to be from all different artists. There also were a couple art installations in the same area of the campus. I guess I can upload one for your viewing pleasure...

I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stay satisfied spending time standing around appreciating stuff. I think some partying is in order, but I'll wait until Thursday to see how that goes. I've heard of a bar called the Hornsleth (pronounced "horn slut") that has a sex theme. I've walked past it once and wondered whether the logo was an illustration of a vagina. It is.

Norrebro

I never thought I could ever enjoy being by myself as much as I do now. I suppose that the feeling also has something to do with me not meeting anyone I can see myself really enjoying myself around. Scratch that, I've met some people who make me smile, not the polite kind either, really smile. It's especially easy to tell when the smile is real because, lately, with all the Europeans I have been talking to, I've found myself nodding, grinning widely, and saying things like "Yeah haha" whenever I don't understand what someone's telling me. I follow body language at least, but in the majority of scenarios I end up coming off as an endearing, but retarded American. I figure it's better than the other option, which would be me asking the person to repeat themselves until they give up and pretend whatever they say didn't matter anyway.

I digress... Today I went on another of my solo adventure walks. I planned on heading to The Stanens Museum For Kunst (The National Gallery) because I've been doodling a lot in my sketchbook and wanted to see what Picasso could do with a pencil in his exhibition. My plans changed after I had walked for a couple of miles towards what I thought was the museum. In actuality I was headed perpendicular from my planned destination, into an area of the city called "Norrebro."

When a Danish newspaper ran a comic featuring a caricature of Muhammad, I was taken aback by the mammoth shitstorm that followed. That was five years ago, and the newspaper still is threatened my terrorists who got pissed off after seeing, or hearing about other people seeing, an image of Muhammad. Without the benefit of research, I always imagined Scandinavia as just being populated by a race of tall Arians who eat well-rounded diets. After seeing Norrebro though, two kabob stands on every block, the phone shops with signs only written in Arabic, and the clothing stores strictly catering to Islamic fashion, it was clear that there was a huge Middle Eastern community in Copenhagen.

I had been hoping for a place like Norrebro ever since I saw my first restaurant menu that refused to dip below the ten dollar mark. Just minutes after crossing the bridge into the district, I found a kabob joint where I bought a gyro for a very American four dollars. It was good too! I didn't find a single bone shard, which is more than I can say for any of the cheapest restaurants in the US (I'm looking at you, McDonalds).

This is one of the light posts on Dronning Louise's Bridge,

which leads to the land of cheap kabobs

As much as I wish otherwise, I wasn't able to spend my entire trip to Norrebro eating delicious delicious delicious Middle Eastern cuisine... mmmm. Another cool part of the area - aside from the plentiful graffiti, which covered buildings in areas that would require a ninja or Solid Snake to reach - is a huge graveyard that houses many (all) of the Danes who make Danes proud to be Danes. It's called Assistens Cemetery, under its soil lie such greats as Hans Christian Andersen (Little Mermaid... other stuff like that), Soren Kirkeguard (Philospher I hadn't heard of until yesterday), and many people no one outside of Denmark would bother making a trip to see.

It was a pretty park that was open for cyclists and even dog walking. I was surprised by the latter, since Danes seem to think of dog shit as a natural part of the ecosystem rather than shit. But, even after passing probably a dozen dogs I did not spot a single nugget of feces on my entire walk through Assistens, although I probably stepped in some.

While exploring Norrebro, I found some shops that drew my interest far more than the obscenely expensive retailers of downtown. There was an electronics store whose esoteric collection of transistors, computer ribbons, and tons of other items that I would be scarcely prepared to identify if I were an engineer. And I thought Radioshack was overwhelming... It looked like they had all the necessary materials to build your own computer, from the chips to the cooling fan. I would have spent more time there annoying the staff by asking what everything was and not buying anything, but you had to take a number and stand in line if you even wanted to make eye contact with a worker. So I moved on.

The other good find was a thrift store with prices so low I could swear I was in a refugee camp. They were selling working lamps for five dollars, tacky but real paintings for twenty dollars, and many other things from silverware to teddy bears for prices I didn't think could exist in the third most expensive city in Europe.

See, if I went with other people, they would have just been whining and talking about how badly they wanted cake instead of wander around in a creepy graveyard (yes, owls were hooting), going into smelly second hand stores, or an spending unnecessary amount of time on taking pictures like this one!

It's a swan! They've got tons of 'em here.

The Black Diamond (With a little on beds)

My bed has been broken for the past few days now. I wish I could blame it on many bouts of rough and satisfying sex, but that privilege goes to the previous owner. I merely sat on it the other day and heard a crack. After that the bed had a distinct dip on the right side that left me waking up feeling like an old man with osteoporosis. I got around to seeing my landlord about the issue after a couple of days of sleeping on the crack testament to IKEA's craftsmanship. I was proud that I actually woke up in time to get to him during his 8-10am office hours while giving myself enough time to make class at 9. It was too bad that he told me the international office handled all issues students had with furnishings. Later that day I managed to get to the international office and wait in line before it closed at 3 in the afternoon. The woman there defiantly informed me she had 80 homeless students and that my bed was not one of her priorities. After some coaxing, I managed to get her to tell me I'd see a new bed before the first of next month and I should, in the mean time, take the legs off the frame and put in on the floor. Fuck, I wish I had thought of that myself.

The woman's callous advice worked wonders, and it felt like I was in a real bed for the first time in days last night. It felt unbelievably comfortable from the moment my back sunk into the luxuriously level surface of the mattress. I found myself admiring my unusual comfort even in the morning, when I surprisingly woke up to my alarm at 7:30. I decided I was better off giving my spine more time to recover and skipped class. Oh man, what a great decision.

What I did end up doing with my day was getting a free tour of this!:

It's "The Black Diamond," the latest add-on to Denmark's Royal Library. I have been excited to go there ever since I first saw it from the outside. I'd never seen a library that's so big! I mean, I've been to the National Archives and the Library of Congress in the US, but the public can't see much of either. But this library actually circulates books, books that even I can check out! Wow is right people!

I was especially excited for today's tour because I skillfully avoided paying the 6 dollar fee that all participants were supposed to pay a week ago. Take that, socialist library! The tour wasn't nearly as fascinating as the building it was held within. We found out that the library was originally called "The Black Square" and that it has 500 kilometers of bookshelves (or something like that). It was built in three years and blah blah blah look at this place!

There are even study rooms that I can use! Pretty cool right? One thing that did jog my attention during the easily ignored tour was the little factoid that there is, somewhere in the archives, half a copy of on of the original 500 Gutenburg bibles. Of course, the public has no access to it and it's not even on public display. Lame, right? But I will gain a certain degree of satisfaction when I study in a building I know houses a piece of history the Danes stole from the Germans during WWI.

International Cafe

One thing I thought was going to turn out to be great when I first got to Copenhagen was the unbelievably high female to male ratio in the student population. I went to the university's "International Cafe" last night. The "Cafe" had a DJ, a bar, and no baristas, so I'm not sure why it's called that, but there were a ton of girls. Out of probably 200 students there, I was one of maybe 30-40 males. It was great in theory, especially since I'm at the top of my game at this point in my life. But in reality, many of the girls were bitchy beyond belief.

I know, maybe it sounds bitter or whatever, but almost every girl I talked to frowned at me from the start of our interaction until the awkward end. Most of the time I asked questions as benign as "How are you doing?" but they still found reason enough to treat me with as much contempt as they would if I were asking them to blow me in the bathroom. Even then it would have been a little excessive. Afterwards, my roommate confirmed my theory. I told him I was surprised international girls were the most standoffish (bitchy). "Man, I could have told you that." He treated the information like it was just another fact tourists don't know until they finally get on the ground. At least it's not just me.

Besides the suffocating sexual inadequacy I experienced most of the night, I had a great time at the cafe, called "Studerendhuset" I think... I got there before anyone had started dancing, and I was wasted before I even left the house. I was prepared to have a good time whether the rest of the people in club wanted to join or not. I got the DJ to play "Like a G6" by convincing him that it didn't matter since I was really the only one listening.

By the end of the night I found myself making regular trip outside trying to coax people far more sober than me into giving me cigarettes. It's really the only time I smoke, when I get wasted and listless. I managed to convince a quarter of the people I talked to into bumming smokes, and when I gave up I offered a beer I had bought at a 7-Eleven for two and got a taker. Bad trade? Yes.

After I left with a one of the girls who also went to Madison, we found that the train was shut down for the night, which I thought was impossible. It was 3am when we got to the station. We waited there, for no reason at first. "What are we going to do?" she asked me helplessly. "I don't know, walk? What else are we going to do?" I was not about to pay Copenhagen prices on a Copenhagen taxi. "We can't walk!"

"There's no way you're gonna walk back." A guy with a piercing in the center of his bottom lip assured us in a Danish accent that we would need to take a bus if we wanted to get back before morning. We talked to him and my new German roommate who was also waiting for a bus until one finally came. On it, I met an excitable Dane who preached about the benefits of marijuana and sold m a gram for less than 6 USD. Pretty sweet deal, too bad I spent close to 40 USD on nothing but booze and cigarettes that night. I guess rice and oats are gonna be my best friends for the next couple of weeks...

The Only Christinia

Today I went with another group of international students in a part of Copenhagen called . I heard it was supposed to be scenic and have a lot of pretty architecture, but what really got my heart pumping were the things my Danish roommates were telling me about it being a place where community members chose to completely disregard Denmark's drug laws.

I met with the group at the Christianhavn train station. There were only six of us students on this outing. It was a small improvement compared to the groups of ten or more that we usually traveled in. I still got caught going to a bakery and a 7-Eleven before getting out of sight of the train station. It wasn't all bad though. The bakery had items I had never seen before in the US, and they were made pretty enough to make the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.

This was the prettiest one I saw. I don't know what it's called (a tart?), but it sure is pretty, right?

The destination of the day was not the pretty, postcard Christianshaven I had heard so much about, but the small anti-establishment community built within it, Christiania. Christiania was only a couple of blocks from the train station where we rendezvoused. It was clear we were getting close to the district as we began to get strong whiffs of marijuana and started seeing people carrying around gigantic joints while casually walking past us on the sidewalks.

Eventually we found ourselves walking over unkept sidewalks and later dirt roads. Grafiti completely covered many of the low buildings. After walking through a winding path covered in ice, we found a huge dump truck covering in spray-painted designs. I man photographed it using an expensive camera with his back turned to a sign depicting an similar camera with a thick red line slashing through the middle of the lens, "NO PHOTOS." This was it.

Past the sign was a scene that could have come out of the Scandinavian sequel to Mad Max. There were flimsy buildings and gravel roads that were dotted with trash can fires surrounded by the most under-dressed people I had yet to see in Copenhagen. Towards the entrance to the area were small head shop stands manned by keepers who were invariably smoking some of the biggest joints I have ever seen. The stands we well stocked and carried everything from grinders and paper to bongs and baja sweatshirts.

There were a couple areas in between the barns that lined the main road that openly sold marijuana and what I thought were expensive mystical rocks that I figured out were blocks of hash. There were around twenty different stands selling weed, hash, pre-rolled splifs, and some very dry, very old looking hash cookies.

I went in on a tobacco-free joint with one friend and finished around a tenth of it before being told by a second Chistianite to move along. We had been standing and talking loudly next to one of the flaming trash cans since it was extremely cold. I could understand why they wouldn't want tourists hanging around. If they didn't tell them to move along there would be more outsiders than Danes in Christiania, which already had a tourist trap vibe even without a bunch of people dawdling around asking Danes to take there pictures in front of stuff.

On the way out we passed an arch that was inscribed in English with "You are now entering the EU." It was a cute protest coming from a community trying to show the world how great anarchy can be, while only achieving fame as a quirky drug-pushing district. They don't even have garbage men! The whole place really just amounted to a city park populated by squatters.

Past the arch I proclaimed loudly that I can take pictures "because I can call the police outside!" A grizzled Dane looked up from his cigarette and yelled at me, "No fucking photos!" I was afraid to cross him. But I wasn't afraid to walk across the street and then cross him.

The Mall

I found this store at the mall (Field's) across the street from my apartment. It's good to know there's such a high demand for sex props in Denmark that they can have stores like this taking up the same rental space as fancy department stores.

New Class, New People

Today I had my first anxiety-free experience in Copenhagen. Ever since my plane landed I was worried that my stay here would be filled with nothing but stress and poverty. Things looked a little better when I went out on the town to get a CPR number (Danish equivalent to a social security number) with a group of the international students I take my impossibly hard introductory Danish language course with.

All but one of us succeeded in getting our CPRs, which was a considerable surprise considering everyone's failure to get student IDs the previous day. I never expected something so complex to end up going right in such an infuriating bureaucracy.

After we registered with the Danish government, we went traipsing around town, looking at what there was to be looked at. We went to a coffee shop that had lattes so thick you'd swear you were going to choke on the cream. We also hit up a deceptively designed store that sold everything from toothpaste to head-massagers, to garden gnomes. The displays were laid out in a sort of labyrinth that forced all the customers to walk past all the stock in the store before reaching the one-way exit.

During the tour I thoroughly enjoyed being the only male in my group. Apparently 70 percent of Copenhagen University's undergrad population is female. It's looking like a great semester.

First Day Doing

I was hoping today was going to be extremely productive. After waking up at 5 in the morning (gotta love the jet lag) I wrote out a list of eight things I wanted to accomplish. It included starting a bank account, registering with Danish immigration, and talking with the university's international office to find out what the hell they want me to do about a mysterious meeting tomorrow at an undisclosed location at an undisclosed time.

After writing the list of eight things to do, I started feeling like person should after waking up at five in the morning, extremely tired. I laid in bed for probably an hour and opened my eyes to the surprising realization that it was not one in the afternoon. I figured I would have to cut my list short for the day since many of my goals depended on normal business operating hours. I decided that I would register with immigration and talk to the university international office.

I managed to easily find the right train station and even got off without missing my stop. I was fairly confident I would be able to find the university from there, since the Google Maps print out I had showed it it to be a block away. But the print out didn't show all the tiny pedestrian street the cut through the blocks. After an hour of guessing my way through street names I could barely pronounce, I began to look for the most touristy business to find directions.

I found a sign that said "WE SELL SOUVENIERS" and talked to the cashier. She handed me a map of the city and told me I had wandered completely off of the little square on my Google print out. She gave me directions and I sort of followed them until I thought I was lost again. I asked again for help from this guy who sold bagel sandwiches who told me that the school was by a church. I looked outside and it was a block away!

Yay! I got to the international office to find that it had closed fifteen minutes earlier. But the woman there was able to tell me where I am supposed to go tomorrow and when I should be there. Hopefully I'll be able to wake up in time to find the place by nine o'clock.

Arrival

I got to Denmark after eight hours of flying, one our of waiting through baggage claim and another hour attempting to find where my apartment was in a city of 1.5 million people. I succeeded, which meant saving around two hundred dollars US.

I think I'm going to go around taking pictures tomorrow. They don't ID for alcohol here if you look like you're over sixteen. Maybe I'll take a picture of that.

Oh, by the way, power adapters don't compensate for foreign voltage. I blew three fuses already and shorted three appliances I attempted to plug in to the malicious wall outlets provided by my apartment building. When I plugged in my alarm clock and my power strip the outlet sparked and the power went out in my room. It wasn't until one of my Danish roommates reset the fusebox that I had power again.I guess I'm going to have to waste some money on overpriced Danish electronics...