almost a year since I graduated, and here's what i've got

being an adult is about keeping an open mind to the opportunities you get. never settle, but always be willing to take something you think is ordinary at the beginning—chances are, it'll turn into something magical.

to be honest, i never really thought about taking a job at a crafting publisher. i wanted to work on kids' books or Literary Fiction (yeah, i know, i sound like a tool, but i'm gonna be honest here). but i enjoyed working in publishing so much after my internship that i decided to apply to all presses around. i even begrudgingly applied to some on the east coast, despite having NO desire to move there (i hate bipolar weather, but mostly just the heat, and am not a huge fan of everything being flat)(also, NY publishing is totally overrated. west coast is where it's at).

ANYWAY, i was offered a job where i currently work and i took it. don't get me wrong, the entire time i was applying and interviewing and interviewing again i was totally excited. but still, it was more for the publishing prospect than the content of the books i'd be publishing.

it wasn't like i hated fiber arts or anything, but after potentially permanently disabling a sewing machine in my formative years, i wasn't exactly what you'd call a sewist (NOT sewer, thank you very much).

i'm still not, really, but my new job has opened my eyes to SO MUCH of a world i never really knew. i may have thought it was cool to DIY clothing and tried to make a skirt (unsuccessfully) once. i may have dabbled in hand stitching pillows and stuffed toys and weird scrappy things.

now, though, i can say i've made 3 quilt blocks. i've learned the ins and outs of how-to language. i've used a sewing machine that cost several thousand dollars (and it shows—oh my goodness it's a pleasant experience!). i've cashed in some street cred with my company name and gotten a discount at a craft store. i've assisted at a dog photo shoot where the dog was outfitted with several DIY projects from our books. i might be a hand model. my bedroom was almost used in a photo shoot for a book about sexy quilts (not actual name—don't want to accidentally disclose anything sensitive on the world wide web!).

and i've worked on some really, really interesting books—from my baby-clothes-and-toys books to my quilts inspired by art movements to the topographical quilts displaying maps (and using memory to recount maps). there are civil war quilts that tell histories, gallery quilts made by anonymous pioneers, architectural quilts that represent the homes of the U.S.

what's more, my job has made me remember one of my favorite essays ever, written by alice walker. i read this essay and loved it and wrote about it (like in three papers for one class, it was kind of embarrassing) back before i knew much about quilts or had worked with them (obviously, because that was in college).

i went back and re-read it and here's a fantastic excerpt that just makes me say YES

But when, you will ask, did [overworked Black mothers] have time to know or care about feeding the creative spirit?

The answer is so simple that many of us have spent years discovering it. We have constantly looked high, when we should have looked high-and-low. 

For example: in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., there hangs a quilt unlike any other in the world. In fanciful, inspired, and yet simple and identifiable figures, it portrays the story of the Crucifixion. It is considered rare, beyond price. Though it follows no known pattern of quiltmaking, and though it is made of bits and pieces of worthless rags, it is obviously the work of a person of powerful imagination and deep spiritual feeling. Below this quilt I saw a note that says it was made by "an anonymous Black woman in Alabama, a hundred years ago." 

If we could locate this "anonymous" Black woman, she would turn out to be one of our grandmothers - an artist who left her mark in the only materials she could afford, and in the only medium her position in society allowed her to use.

BAM.

yeah. take that, Literary Fiction.

i still love you, but it's hard for black words on a white page to compete with beautifully-designed art books. it's hard for the pretentious educated white male tradition of Literature to compete with the improvised tradition of those who couldn't read or write, didn't have the time for art-for-art's-sake—so they made beautiful, functional, creative, scrappy quilts out of what they had. it's a kind of subversion, a trick, a way of getting around cultural norms and socioeconomic barriers.

and i love it.

you do what you can with what you have. if you were born into a tradition of education and privilege, you have the luxury of creating in any way you want. if you weren't, then you have to be even more creative.

More Entries About Copenhagen Needed?

Okay, well, here's a poem I wrote about Copenhagen for my advanced poetry workshop back in forever ago. It's a sonnet! It is also formatted differently.

And I made it blue because I had to print out like 20 copies and my black ink was dead.

But someone said it gave it a cold feeling and affected the reading, so. HERE YOU GO. blue&classy.

lyset i København

No northern lights dance across the ether,

just days that burn from ten o'clock till three;

night cop car light shows paint my walls like fever

in this city where only cold is free.

Around the streets there is a murky blue

reflecting off the harbor's painted row

of wooden Lego structures, every hue,

that even in the winter seem to glow.

But on the coldest days the windows throw

the golden mead of Odin's warmest hall

from Islands Brygge to Bispebjerg S-tog;

from Satan street art to the mermaid small.

In fact, I missed the winter's cheerful numb

when summertime was plagued with midnight sun.

New Year's

TIME FOR MY ANNUAL NEW YEAR'S POST!

No, not really. I have been seeing Facebook post upon post of "Wow, 2013 is almost here. In 2012 I grew as a Person. I will never be the same. There were so many challenges but also so many fun times. Can't wait to see what 2013 has to offer!!"

Facebook friends sure do have hidden depths.

That made me think I should be writing about the upcoming year, but the whole New Year's thing is a litttttlllllleee dumb considering any day of the year is a New Year's Day. Like August 13, 2012? August 13, 2012 is totally New Year's Day if you started counting August 13, 2011. Wooo. Throw a party.

There are so many different New Year's celebrations in different cultures and frankly the December-January jump (I prefer the late March one. Springtime should totally be the beginning of the year for obvious reasons and Symbolism. Also, my birthday is then) is just an example of glorified colonialism.

But I'm really not one to talk, as I happen to be spending New Year's at a country club.

lol.

If it's true that the way you spend your New Year's is indicative of the year to follow, I'm going to spend 2013 hanging out with friends at a golf course and enjoying an elite lifestyle, complete with truffle oil pizza.

Maybe that means I'll finally get a job? (I mean, not really finally, since my internships haven't ended yet, but it feels like forever that I have been mooching off my family. It has essentially been forever to me; it's what I've been doing my entire life. Except for a couple hundred bucks I've made from odd jobs. Like, really odd.)

Yes, that is my New Year's resolution.

Get a job.

CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY, DAMN YOU.

Book Review: Naked by David Sedaris

As if David Sedaris needs any more praise by an unknown blogger, right?

WRONG.

Naked is the second book I've read by Mr. Sedaris and I loved it. The first one, Me Talk Pretty One Day, was also amazing.

Here's the thing about me. I don't laugh by myself. It's quite rare. I only laugh at funny things when other people are around because I have the Need to Share Laughter to show them I'm not a robot or something? I actually have no idea, but whatever. It doesn't happen.

Well, okay, it does. But only VERY VERY rarely. I still think things are funny, I just don't physically laugh unless something really catches me off guard or is just hilarious in general.

David Sedaris makes me laugh.

Actually, David Sedaris makes me do that laugh where you're alone but in a public place and something is just so funny that you're kind of laughing into your hand and disturbing the peace and whatnot. Similar to when you get a ridiculous text message from one of your friends. It happens. But when you get a text from a friend, it's almost like you're NOT alone because it's like a conversation from afar. Reading a book is different. Completely.

So anyway, I laugh. And laugh. And it's really embarrassing. But still I keep reading. And laughing.

That is my review of David Sedaris.

Facebook drama

is literally the stupidest thing ever. The whole defriending blocking "waa i don't like you" thing.

In other news, I am making baby dark chocolate cupcakes with panuche frosting tonight! For actual friends, not just Facebook Friends (part of that new vernacular due to technology: calling someone your "Facebook Friend" means they're on the lowest existing rung of acquaintance. Like the kind of person you'd see in a store and avoid).

Is blogging about internet passive aggressiveness any less passive aggressive than the original propagators of internet passive aggressiveness?

GHSF #1

I am friends with a self-promoting DJ on Facebook and he invites me to events all the time. You'd think this would come in handy but for some reason they are always at high school dances or at sports bars in Pleasanton.

I think I'd rather go to the high school dances.

Book review: The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker

My mom had a Barnes and Noble coupon that was going to expire the next day, so she went to buy stuff for us before we went on our annual family vacation. She saw this book in a magazine and got it for me. It was pretty hyped-up, and the blurb was mainly about how it was Walker's first novel and she'd received a $2 million advance and already sold the movie rights, etc.

The cover is awesome and I like it a lot.

The book was an interesting read, to say the least. The book was definitely literary fiction, which is not always a good thing in my opinion. Sometimes literary fiction tends to take itself too seriously. And it usually has a superiority complex when it comes to commercial fiction. That being said, obviously a well-written book is a great thing to see. But I have to wonder: when a work of literary fiction does so well commercially, what really separates it from commercial fiction?

Whatever. Anyway.

SPOILER ALERT!! (Note: spoilery things will be ALMOST INVISIBLE as per my amazing HTML skills.)(Drag your mouse over them to read them if you want.)

The book is told from middle-schooler Julia's point of view. Julia is a rich suburban girl from rich suburban San Diego County (seriously though, there's ONE character with a single mom. It's the same ONE character who lives in, gasp, an apartment. Also the mom is super young. And suffers from bad parent syndrome. And her daughter is obviously a bad seed--drinking and fraternizing a bit too closely with the boys. This was one of the things that irked me right off the bat. A little too perfectly stereotypical. Maybe that was the point, but it didn't exactly endear me to the book). One day, Julia wakes up to hear on TV that the world has begun to slow. Literally. They begin to gain minutes with each passing day--by about the middle of the novel, each daytime period is 24 hours and each night is 24 hours. And it just keeps getting worse. This affects lots of things, of course. Gravity, for one. Birds begin falling from the sky and dying. Humans get sick, too. And then comes the radiation.

Sounds pretty interesting, right?

But... after reading the book, I had the sense that nothing much really happened. Which is ridiculous, right? I mean, essentially the world ended (oh, that's the ending--Julia is in her twenties now and nobody has any hope left; days are 60 hours and nights are 60 hours or some insanely large number). That kind of chaos is pretty big. But somehow it didn't seem big. Julia was more concerned with trying to keep her friends, getting the attention of the boy she liked and figuring out what was going on with her parents. Maybe that makes the book more realistic. But the dreamlike way it was written--the unconcerned voice of Julia, whose world is literally ending--the news-like reporting of each new development and effect of the slowing--made it seem, well, anticlimactic.

I am so typically a product of American films. I need that kind of story structure. It's lame, I know. But I want a book to make me feel (lol). Yes, there was a climax, but it was anticlimactic.

I think that if the book hadn't been so hyped up, I would have liked it better. And, to be honest, I did like it a lot. I read it very quickly and kept doing the whole "oh, the chapter's over? Well... I guess one more won't hurt" thing. But I wonder if this was me just waiting for something to happen. Something BIG. I imagine if the world really slowed, governments would try to do something. Something stupid and irrational, but something that humans do when they are scared and have enough power. Like coming up with some scientific gadget that would turn the earth at a normal rate. Magneticism, anyone? Messing with the gravitational pull? Creating a GIANT FREAKING ARM from the North Pole to the South to spin like a globe?!? Okay, so probably none of these would work (you tell me!)(don't try it or really bad things happen. Read the book for more deets). But at least there would be a Massive Attempt to Fix Things. Instead, everyone just tries to adjust--to the point that they are literally afraid of the sun and can only go out at night. To the point that the world is overrun by annoying bugs, all the birds are gone and kids are dying too.

To go back to my previous point (privileged suburban kids being privileged and suburban), there was hardly any focus on the rest of the world. Two, maybe three times, Julia said something like "things were much better off here than they were in poor countries." I wanted to know more! Famines and droughts were hinted at. Obviously Julia is a middle school student and god knows when I was in middle school I didn't know what was going on in the rest of the world (minus Iraq because we'd just declared war and it was in the news a lot). Still, I wanted more perspective. If the most impoverished character in the book is someone who lives in an apartment in freaking Escondido, CA (or wherever), I'm just not as inclined to feel sorry for these people. Yes, their world might be ending, yes, they are going nuts, but what about people who can't escape radiation death ray (i.e. the sun) or stock up on packaged and canned foods?

THAT WOULD BE MORE INTERESTING, I TELL YOU.

Because it's not like the rich San Diego Countyites suffered more from the slowing. That would also have been more interesting! To me. They suffered much less. Like, come on. Throw the developing world a bone once in awhile! Screw the privileged elite for once. It's fiction. We know it's not really going to happen. It's okay to do impossible things in books. Fun, even!

Sigh. And that is the end of my rant. I don't know why or when it turned into such a rant. I really did like the book. But I have been trained by Academia to be more critical of things than not. Because if everything in a book is really really really good, what point is there in talking about it?

I want to end on a good note, so I will talk about something that I thought was really well-done in the book. And that is the time debates. See, the world is slowing down. Days are 40 hours long or whatever. Each day, a couple minutes are added. What do you do? Keep up with the sun/obey your circadian rhythms? Or stay on a 24 hour clock schedule? It stands to reason that our society could not function without a strict time-keeping system. The last time we did that, trains ran into each other and all kinds of bad things. That's why we changed it. Anyway, the vast majority of people in the novel decided to be on "clock-time." How else could governments, schools, businesses really run? Those who chose to stay on "real-time" woke with the sun and slept at night. These guys were mostly hippies. Wanting natural stuff and everything. They created colonies out in the desert, such as Circadia (LOL). But being on real-time turned out to be nearly impossible after awhile. I mean, sixty hour days? You can't sleep 30 hours and stay awake for 30 hours. Maybe it's possible, but that's not any more natural than being on clock-time. The fact that society was so far divided was very interesting as well. People lost friends and family over this issue. The community turned on those who chose real-time. They were run out of town. People who found out that their loved ones had chosen real-time FREAKED OUT. Anyway, this whole time dichotomy and its driving force throughout the book was one of the things that made it seem very real.

Overall, I truly did enjoy the book. And I am hungry. This is abrupt. I apologize. Hej hej!

Blog reclaimed.

It's been awhile! I failed at blogging while studying in Copenhagen, but decided to start again now that I graduated college and am a Grown Up and whatnot. I have a tumblr, but reblogging is kinda dumb/tumblr is 2 hip 4 me/lyf, so I'm back on here!

And no, I'm not in København anymore. But how could I get rid of this name? Haha. Insert something about how my experiences in Copenhagen will always stay with me, and I will go back at some point. Also, I finished one of my novels there, so that's good enough right?

This is just the first entry, so nothing too fancy. I'm thinking it'll be pictures, random stuff, reviews... etc. Since I want to be a writer or whatever, I should probably get on this whole blogging thing as it's The Future and whatnot.

PIZZA REVIEW #2

Hej,

Here's my second pizza review!

PIZZA REVIEW #2:

PIZZERIA dá MISTO

Leifsgade 2

2300 København S

Jose and I went to Pizzeria dá Misto after taking a long walk around the city center and down to Amager (the southern island, where the South/Humanities Campus is) with two friends from UCSC (identities protected?). We were so hungry that as soon as we saw this little place on the way back from South Campus, we decided to stop by. This is the place I was talking about that had both pizzas and "borritos" so we decided we'd be coming by again to try those... We got two drinks (Mirinda, which I think is a Fanta knock-off? But still just as good, and much cheaper!) and the smallest size of pizza, which ended up being more than enough for both of us.

There is a legit looking restaurant on the corner of Leifsgade and Njalsgade (which leads to South Campus), and a small room next door for pizza pick-ups. Naturally, we went to the small one because we'd been seeing signs for pizza around that was MUCH cheaper than 100 kr. The room was seriously tiny. The man working there didn't seem to speak much English, but the man who was waiting in front of us in line with his little girl helped out a lot. We were able to order exactly what we wanted and pay (even before our Danish lesson - and it was only about tres kroner including drinks... meaning 60, not 3). We waited a little bit before our pizza was ready and then we got it and left! The only problem was that we had to walk back a few blocks and across a bridge, so the pizza was nearly completely cold by the time we got back. But that's either our fault or the fault of the weird pizza boxes here, which close differently and don't seem to keep in the heat as much. Plus... I mean... I kind of stopped on the bridge to take pictures of the two sides of the city... just for a little bit...

Anyway, it was quite good even though it was coldish, and the people there were much friendlier than in Vesuvio. We were excited to have found cheap pizza very close to the campus where we'll be taking most (if not all) of our classes.

The "old side" of the city from the bridge at night.

Coming from Amager. 

Jose carrying the pizza... Try to keep it warm! 

The front of the pizza box. Kind of how we suspected the kitchen looked.

Mmmmm.... pizza... it may have been cold, but doesn't it look delicious?? Totally worth 7 bucks!

Another shot (displaying the awkward box).

See, in a cold place like Copenhagen, it really makes more sense to have a super insulated pizza box. Maybe I should invent some really magical one and become famous here.

Also, note how the pizza HARDLY FITS IN THE BOX. So fantastic. Yummm.

Mirinda! It was pretty cheap, considering...

Location: pretty good. Not quite as nice as Vesuvio's, but it's right in between South Campus and the canal which is nice. Too far away from where I live, though. :( 5/10

Seating: there wasn't any since it was such a small room. But it didn't take long, so no complaints here. We were just picking up. Still... to be fair... 2/10

Music: pretty sure they were playing music in Spanish again. 6/10

Price: awesome! Best value for price we've found so far (besides cooking, of course). Seriously. A large, delicious pizza for $7? That's cheaper than Domino's (and much better, may I add). The drinks were cheap (for here) too, only $2 each. But it was the pizza price that really gives it a... 10/10

Service: the man working there was very nice and the clientele was friendly and helpful. 8/10

Beverages: Mirinda was pretty good and I liked it, especially the name and holding it up to bright lights. 7/10

Pizza temperature: aww... Misto's losing out here. It arrived piping hot so that must be taken into account, but unfortunately we didn't get to taste it at the same temperature so we don't know the true rating. 5/10

Pizza presentation: it barely fit into the box, but I like that. It means there's more pizza... and the box was cute too. 8/10

Crust: yumm. I bet it'd be even better warm... 8/10

Cheese: not as good as Vesuvio, but still tasty! 7/10

Sauce: likewise.. quite good. 7/10

EXTRA: +5 points for quick preparation time and explaining things to us in English!

Overall: (rounded average) 7/10

Tied with Vesuvio! Well... not exactly.. but I'm rounding (especially with all the pizza)(that was dumb, sorry haha).

Definitely going back to Misto once I can splurge on a $7 large pizza again!

More reviews soon, and some more blog entries with pictures (Little Mermaid!) and tons of fun Danish words. Wooo!

Hej hej!

PIZZA REVIEW #1

Hej og velkommen til min første pizza anmeldelse!

The pizza reviews are an INTEGRAL PART of my blog and function in a way similar to the "Pizza Contest" of lore; however, since I'm not exactly comparing three or four pizzas in one sitting it is necessary to adjust the rating system. Thus, it will basically be unorganized and may or may not include an actual rating system.

Pizza reviews will be made of each and every pizza I eat, not including "repeat" pizzas (i.e. Express Pizza in Nørrebro, where I have already eaten multiple times). The pizza review will be accompanied by a photograph if available. The pizza review will take price, quality, service, vegetarian options, beverage, location, weather, ambiance, wildlife, music, etc. into account. The pizza review may be edited, if reviewed pizzeria is revisited and the overall experience is thus changed. In the case of the edited review, a new blog entry will be posted so stating the editing of the former pizza review.

Anyway! Legal business aside, here is the first review....

PIZZA REVIEW #1:

VESUVIO

Rådhuspladsen 4

1550 København K

Vesuvio was the first pizzeria Jose and I went to in Copenhagen. We were walking around the town square (or Rådhuspladsen) and the surrounding area, trying to get a feel for the city. Since it was our first night we decided it would be okay to pay extra for some pizza, even if it was in a place that catered to tourists. After bypassing a cheap all-you-can-eat pizza place (very popular here - usually with names referring to New York or Italy), we decided to go to Vesuvio. I don't regret it (though my kroner stash might); the pizza was pretty amazing overall. It was also our first experience with Danish pizza, and taught us a few things:

• Danish pizzerias seem to blend Italian food and Mexican food together. Some of the hole-in-the-wall pizza places have pizzas, burritos, calzones and nachos. Even upscale restaurants like Vesuvio have "Mexicansk" pizza. And the music there was definitely in Spanish, not Italian...
• When Danes eat pizza, they eat a LOT of pizza. Our neighbors got a pizza each, and they were huge (Jose and I split one, and we didn't even finish our halves. There goes the gluttonous American stereotype, I guess?). They actually charged us an extra fee to split the pizza.
• You have to ask for your check.

When we got into the restaurant, the host seated us wayyy in the back. Maybe because we seemed like obvious tourists with our English-speaking and backpacks; maybe because my bright green coat and cherry red rain boots look slightly outlandish compared to all the dark colors people wear in Copenhagen. Who knows? It was nice, though, as we were next to a little fire and the window. There were some cactuses (not cacti) in the window, with ribbons around them, which was a nice touch.

(Why aren't my pictures aligning properly? :/ Sorry...)

The fire and the metal candle in the window, with the street outside.

The cactuses with ribbons in the window!

The view from our table. The Square Hotel and whatnot

We got a menu that was in both Danish and English. After going through it, and realizing that there weren't many vegetarian options (or low prices) we decided to get the Pizza Margherita. It was a ridiculous 106 kroner... but at the time we were too hungry and touristy to care much (we also didn't know if this was just the standard price for pizza there or not). So we split a pizza and each got a soda (for another expensive amount that I can't remember at the moment).

The waiter was surprised at our order. He reminded us that if we split a pizza, we had to pay 25 kroner (I have decided not to tell you how much that was because it's embarrassing to look back on - but we rationed that if we got two pizzas it would be an extra hundred, not just 25).

 

The orange Fanta (not Tuborg beer) that I got. I was trying to be super sneaky at taking pictures, because I already felt like the people were staring at us a lot.

Finally, our pizza came! It was served on two plates with a big leaf of basil on each... and it was unsliced. We had to cut our own slices, which was interesting (and a bit torturous at first when we reallyyyy wanted that first slice).

Our pizza!

(Whaaat? The text is over here now? What is this blog doing now? I have no idea and I apologize for its mysterious picture-aligning activities. I feel inept at blogging/computers/life).

So despite the overwhelmingly expensive 200-something kroner for a split pizza and two drinks, it was pretty amazing. It was a thin crust pizza, as you can probably see, similar to a New York style crust. The mozzarella and tomato sauce were delicious and the crust was just the right balance of crispy and crumb (meaning the fluffy inside part). The basil, as the "green" of the pizza margherita's flag (named after Queen Margherita and meant to represent the colors of the Italian flag), is a staple when it comes to making this kind of pizza. Although there was simply one leaf, it was still appreciated.

Once we were done, though, we realized that it was no easy task to get the bill. We waited a long time for our waiter to return, but we didn't see him anymore. Finally, after waiting probably an hour after we were finished eating, we had to ask another waiter if we could get the bill (and a to-go box!). The new hostess had also, meanwhile, seated a couple right next to us (and I mean right next to us, like an arm's length away, in a pretty empty restaurant). They didn't talk much to each other (most of the time, they sat in silence - I think they guy even brought some reading material with him) but the thing they did the most was stare at us. It was kind of awkward, especially since we were done eating, and we just wanted to get our check and get away from them! Jose and I spoke Spanish just so they couldn't understand us because it was just plain creepy.

Finally we got our check, did NOT tip, and left. That sounds rude, but tipping actually doesn't happen here. Unless the service is SUPERAMAZINGSPECTACULARBESTEVER you just pay whatever it says on the bill. And tax is already factored in to the individual food item price, so there's no tax added to the end (or at all, to your knowledge). Since tax is high here, food prices are high - along with prices of almost everything else. This is one of the reasons why we thought the pizza price at Vesuvio may be the standard... But as you will see soon enough, this was luckily not the case... Not in all places, anyway.

Anyway, here is my attempt at a points-based review! I'm going to try to be really discriminating in giving ratings that are too high. Just because. I know I'll find the perfect pizza place somewhere in Europe, and when I do, I want to be able to give them 10s!

Location: pretty fantastic. It literally opened to the town square of Copenhagen. 9/10

Seating: also nice, since we were right by the window and had a view of the street as all the buildings lit up, but our neighbors definitely jeopardized this rating a bit. Seriously, why seat someone so close when there are plenty of other tables? 6/10

Music: in Spanish, so that was cool I guess. Kind of weird to mix with Italian food, but whatever. I don't remember what they individually played but it was an eye-opened to the future mixing of the two countries we would see! Haha. 6/10

Price: ughhhh. Not good. But I'm sure there's pricier pizza out there as well. 3/10

Service: well, they were very polite... just not too friendly, I guess. Haha. 5/10

Beverages: mmm, orange Fanta. Too expensive, but that'd be included in price. 7/10

Pizza temperature: perfect and straight from the oven! Yum... 10/10

Pizza presentation: not sliced and a bit awkward on the two plates, but really delicious looking....with that basil leaf too haha. 8/10

Crust: yummm. The only complaint is that it was a bit hard to cut through when slicing it, especially since I was hungry! Haha. 8/10

Cheese: mozzarella and delicious. And lots of it. The combination of the cheese and sauce were the best part of the whole pizza. 9/10

Sauce: fresh tasting and slightly sweet. 8/10

Overall: (rounded average) 7/10

I would have expected it to be higher after thinking about the quality of the pizza, but the price really was a factor in it all. Maybe that's just because I'm thinking from my point of view right now - I'm down to my last 100 kroner! So I've been bargain-hunting like crazy, and finding things like 6 pieces of pita bread for 6 kr. and baguette for 10 and cheese for 5. And don't get me started about the discount candy store right down the street we discovered yesterday...

Anyway, this was a great place, if a bit touristy and expensive. It was a nice restaurant, but I still can't imagine pizza costing that much at even a pricey place in the US. I guess it has to do with what I mentioned earlier - the tax being so much higher. And, of course, the quality of the ingredients (maybe Vesuvio is the Danish Chez Panisse?) and their accessibility. California grows everything, jeez.

I am still hunting for the perfect pizza! I can't wait to go to Naples... but until I do, I'll continue to search in Copenhagen (and yes, I do have more reviews coming up soon).

Hej hej!

I wanted to go to Ballerup but instead I went to Hellerup...

Title=true story. :/

Anyway, yay for another blog entry. I will try to catch up!

So after our arrival on New Year's Eve Jose and I spent a few days exploring the city. We found this really cool pedestrian (sometimes?) street called Frederiksberggade, which is basically my middle and last names put together by a bad speller... It has a lot of shopping on it and goes from the town center across the downtown area. And if you take Jorcks Passage, it takes you pretty much right to the university. So we had an easy walk from the hotel to the main campus of the university - Neils Brocks Gade to HCA, then up to Frederiksberggade and through Jorcks Passage. Unfortunately, now that we've moved to Keops, it's not as close... haha.

I took a lot of pictures. But it's kind of hard/annoying to post a lot of pictures on here, so someone should recommend a good photo sharing website (other than Facebook, where you can find all of them too!) so I can dump them all on there and link it here. But I will post some...

Jose and I also met up with two friends from UCSC and we walked around. They showed us how to get across the canal and to the south campus, which is where the majority of the humanities classes are (plus our Danish language course that we're taking right now). We got pizza, haha.

Then we got our keys and moved up town! We're living at Keops Kollegium. I'm in building 10 and Jose is in 12, but there are only two so we're still in buildings next door to each other, haha. I'm on the eighth floor which is the top one! I have an amazing view from my room, too. First of all, the hallways on each floor are outside so from my front door I can see the S-train stop below, as well as this huge snowy field that turns pinkish orange at night from the lights, and more apartment buildings across the field in Nørrebro. Then, from the window of my room I can see the opposite direction, across town all the way to the cluster of buildings in the city center. I think I seriously have the best room in the whole building in terms of location... Now if only I could figure out how to make it not smell. :/

When I met my room, it was very clean and spacious, with hardwood floors and pretty high ceilings, not to mention the giant, almost-a-whole-wall-sized window and a tiny balcony. It has a bathroom that's actually bigger than at the hotel, which is nice... I was sort of apprehensive at first because there is no separate shower, just a pull-around curtain and a drain in the ground. But it's worked out okay, with minimal flooding, haha. You just have to figure out how to take a normal shower without getting everything else in the bathroom wet.

I have two hot plates and tons of kitchen stuff, including plates, silverware, glasses, cookware, etc. The tenant before even left me some food! I have canned tomatoes, two bags of rice, Corn Flakes and some other stuff. I had sardines, too, but I gave them away...selvfølgelig. There's a smallish cabinet/closet and a large desk with shelves on it. There's also a small table and two chairs. But the chairs are too high for the tiny table, so I made it into a dining table. You just have to sit on pillows on the ground... but it's fun! Haha. The guy before me left a blanket, sheets and two pillows so I just used those for the chairs. And the blanket is nice with lots of fish on it! A lot of people got things left behind (someone even got a bike!) but I'm not complaining; my blanket is excellent.

Well, okay, I am complaining a little, just because it smells so bad. At first I thought the person before me was a smoker but now I've realized the smoky smell seems to be coming from the hot plate vent between the stove and the fridge... :/ So I emailed the housing office and hopefully they'll do something. I just hope it's not a gas leak.

A couple days after we moved in, classes started! Well, pre-semester Danish language ones anyway. I found out that I am pretty hopeless at Danish. It's hard... :/ Despite posting words on here, I'm like the worst in the class. I'm always wrong, haha. I don't know how some people remember all this stuff. I think it has something to do with the fact that it's a lot easier to learn languages if you've learned multiple ones early in life. So these wonderkids from all around the world who speak three or four languages fluently can of course speak Danish well too! ...at least, that's what I've been telling myself. It's probably even harder for them, because the class is taught in English, so... :/

Danish classes have been going on since last Wednesday the 5th, so almost a week. It's a lot of work. We have mini oral tests every day, and I really should be working on memorizing my sixteen dialogues for tomorrow... :/ (I wonder if anyone actually does?)

Whew. That was a quick update on everything, I guess. I still haven't gotten my actual CPR card and they won't let me get a bank account without that. On top of things, I got a letter today saying I must state my bank account to the government or something. But I got a metro pass, which allows me unlimited (2 zone) rides on the metro/s-train/bus for a month. And I got a Danish SIM card! There's this pre-paid service called Lebara where it costs about $0.01 for every minute and $0.03 for every text (both in Denmark and to the US). I'm not really planning on using it to make calls, though... Or that much at all. Just if I need it - otherwise I'll be using skype!

Hmm. I think that's about it. But I will post some pictures, along with your Danish vocab words at the bottom! Remember to tell me about photo sharing websites if you want to see the full collection, haha... OH AND I LEARNED HOW TO ROTATE THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF UPLOADING. Yay! Sorry about the earlier ones. I'm lazy, haha...

A street in Copenhagen! (Shocking...)

This is the street our hotel was on. It was basically gutted with all the construction going on. Also, there's a lot of graffiti here... a LOT. And people don't seem to care as much as they do in the US. Like almost every train is individual because of the different graffiti. It's not just tags either. It's pretty elaborate. It's really cool to see it all around, and for people to actually be treating it like art instead of vandalism. :) Though there are some people who just tag everything. For example, "Satan" and "Easer" are everywhere...

Another street in Copenhagen. With the Danish flag! 

I got in an interesting conversation about flags with some international students in my Danish language class actually. They all were talking about how Americans love their flag, and I was like "Not too much where I come from..." and they asked why, because they really like the US flag. Weird, huh? But they think it looks nice. I dunno, it's just surprising I guess. I assume everyone from other countries hates everything US-patriotism-related, but there you go.

I'm still not a big fan of our flag though. :)

More construction. This shows the streetlights, which hang overhead and are generally a lot more interesting looking than ours. Floating lights! :D

Near city center. This is town hall actually. I think. It opens out (on the opposite side of the building) to the town square.

This is atop one of the tallest buildings in town square. Signs of American influence are everywhere... :/

"Probably, but we're just not entirely sure" - the Danes are more modest than us, haha

Hans Christian Andersen!

Inside a tourist shop, just for fun. Apparently Troll dolls were invented by a Dane. Which is not really something to be proud of, in my opinion.

THIS is something to be proud of. Hand-knit sweaters, each one different... I would totally have bought one despite the steep price if they came in any size other than emaciated infant.

On Frederiksberggade!

The sidewalks here have two lanes: one for pedestrians and one for bikes (sometimes I forget and bad stuff happens). This was marking the pedestrian lane and reminded me of the Steadfast Tin Soldier story by Hans Christian Andersen!

Nutella and cinnamon sugar crepe. Fantasticccc.

We walked into King's Gardens, and this is the sign. :)

So pretty! There'd be a lot more snow now, though...

Looking out through the gate back at the street

The gardens

Statue in the gardens.

More gardens

Winter trees in the gardens

There's the sign for the bike lane!

Looking back down Frederiksberggade on the way back; sunset at like 3:30 p.m.

Walking across the bridge into Amager (left side)

Bridge structure

Shot from the bridge again. See all that ice??

Late afternoon in wintery Copenhagen

The view from my room!

Sunset towards the city center, sort of.

More of my view from the window

More view

Ooh, sunset

First bus ride! Super artistic but mainly just because I was embarrassed about taking pictures on the bus in front of Legit Danes (i.e. not me). 

(You should see my other ones. There's like nothing in the shots. Haha.)

A tagged HCA looking at construction

Waiting inside a bus stop...in front of a bakery. Yum!

Bakery window. Yummmm. We didn't get anything because we had no money, but it turns out it was super expensive there anyway (tourist trap!). Uptown it's cheaper...

Here's that snowy field that I can see from my front door that I was talking about briefly. There's a giant wolf running across it! Yay! But..you can't really see. It was far away and moving fast... Yeah, this isn't from my floor; it's from the path that leads behind the design college thing to the Nørrebro Bycenter (aka mall-ish thing that serves as a warm passageway whenever we're walking to Nørrebrogade!)

Okay! Now time for some Danish!

œble: rhymes with Mabel. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not. (F in Danish: GO)

"Officially" means: apple.

Really (according to me) means: appel, pre-sin.

kylling: oh, wow, Danish. You're a little terrifying. Why is my Danish class teaching me the word for killing? It must mean killing! That or some other horribly violent thing!

"Officially" means: chicken.

Really (according to me) means: Danes enjoy killing chickens? Potentially...

killing: jeez, Danish. You sure surprised me with that last one. But - wait - "killing?" That sure looks like killing. This one must be a really, really violent word -

"Officially" means: kitten.

Really (according to me) means: Danes enjoy killing kittens?? Jeez...

hjœlpen: try pronouncing it. Really!

"Officially" means: helping.

Really (according to me) means: yelpin'. That's how it's pronounced anyway... as in, "tak for hjœlpen!"

indbyggere: now try pronouncing THIS one.

"Officially" means: inhabitant

Really (according to me) means: eenbooyeid, or something.

indvandrergrupper: part two of Large Words section.

"Officially" means: immigrant groups

Really (according to me) means: too many syllables, but really probably only two.

statsborgerskab: final word of Danish politics lesson.

"Officially" means: citizenship

Really (according to me) means: an amalgamation of some truly awful words: "statistics," "burger" and "scab." Three negatives make a positive?

Okay so that's it for now. More later! Tak for lœser, or something to that effect!

Hej hej!

New Year's Eve

Hej everyone,

I am writing a legit blog entry! Yay!

Jose and I left on the 30th and went to SFO, where we found out that our plane from Chicago to Copenhagen was delayed until the next day... which meant that we would have to be on that plane for New Year's. Ugh... Since there's only one flight a day from Chicago to Copenhagen, we'd have to do that... unless we figured out something else from SFO. Thankfully we had a really awesome airline assistant helping us out and after a bunch of calls she was able to put us on a plane to Frankfurt and then one to Copenhagen. She was so nice! She said that her parents were Jewish emigrants from Europe who went to Uruguay, where she was born. When she first went to Europe, Denmark was the first place she wanted to go, partly because when Jews were being forced to wear stars on them, the Danish king came out with a star on him and told all the other Danes to do the same! Anyway, she was really helpful. The next woman, who checked our bags at the international terminal, was great too. She let us check my extra bag for free! And she told Jose how to get his checked for free too (gate check-in). Everyone was really nice that day, and we had two really good flights. 

We were in United Express to Frankfurt which means we had extra legroom. I was at the window and Jose was in the middle, but since the flight was only half full (even with the second story, which I didn't get to see unfortunately :( ) the guy on the aisle moved and we had a whole row! Nice... There were only two problems... I was technically in a window seat but there was no window, haha. No idea why. And the light from the constantly-on TV a few rows in front of us kept me from sleeping too much. Even when I scrunched down to let the seat in front of me block it, I could still see all the flashing colors and stuff. It's so hard for me to sleep on planes... But it was a really good flight otherwise. The food was good, too. We had pasta, bread and salad and it was legitimately kind of delicious. Ooh, and a pretty amazing brownie for dessert. The next morning (sort of? I didn't really sleep) we had yogurt (no gelatin! I haven't found gelatin in yogurt of any country except the USA so that just proves how cheap our food industry is) and juice and a pastry and a cookie. Once the flight was over, that was the end of our time in a primarily English-speaking bubble...

We got off the plane in Frankfurt and actually walked down to the tarmac, which means we've officially been in Germany, haha. It was cold and beautiful and snowing really softly and everything was really quiet and peaceful. We caught a bus that took us to the terminal. After waiting a bit we got on our plane and headed off to Copenhagen!

That plane was a little less comfortable but it was really short. And I had a window this time... I actually fell asleep for about an hour and when I woke up, I looked at how much time we had left to see 12 minutes! We had to go through a lot of fog and pretty much as soon as it cleared, we were touching down!

It took awhile to find our bags just because Jose's guitar was oddly-shaped and was in a different place. There were two options for customs and we went through the "nothing to declare" door, passports in hand, to find that it simply led outside. So, that was easy enough haha. We had to haul our giant bags to a taxi but it wasn't far (the metro is much cheaper from there but you should have seen our bags - I had William, a messenger bag, a gigantic rolly bag, a bag with my bedding stuff and my umbrella and big coat... and Jose had a laptop bag, his backpack, his guitar, a suitcase bulging against the limits of the carryon girth and a gigantic duffel that I could have fit in). Anyway, the taxi ride was pretty short and I took some pictures. 

Here's what we saw as soon as we left the airport! The outside of the airport... (I uploaded this one a different way so it's small and awkward... :/ sorry)(actually, as an afterthought, I probably should have uploaded them all this way so it's not as hard to work with. Next time!)(after-afterthought: the other ones shrunk as well. Oh well haha)

We got to our hotel and slept. A lottttt. We woke up at like 11:30 pm hahaha. So we took a walk around our neighborhood and looked at the fireworks that everyone was setting off. I didn't see any official, city-sponsored fireworks shows but seriously, someone on EVERY corner had fireworks. I think Danes are really into fireworks... at least from what I've seen. They started setting them off on New Year's as soon as it got dark, and they were still going on around 3 in the morning and probably longer. I thought it would have stopped then but almost every day I hear or see them still... it's already the 7th! What's going on? Haha. Anyway, I didn't get very good pictures of the fireworks but here's some from looking around and stuff... Sorry about the sideways ones. I'll figure it out eventually!

 Fireworks a block down our street!

 More fireworks!

 Smoke after the fireworks

 More on our street

 A little further away this time; that blue thing is from Tivoli Gardens and so those fireworks are closer to the town square.

 Yay for right side up pictures! Looking towards Tivoli

The rest of these aren't actually fireworks pictures, just other ones that I took that night:

Man on a sidestreet 

 Moster Olga

 Just in case it didn't look cold enough... Flash tells you the truth.

Street name on the side of a building 

Sticker on a light post (Jose's favorite) 

Our hotel 

This one's sort of a fireworks picture. That light in the sky is a dying ember from a firework that didn't go out in the sky for some reason (don't ask me - it's cold enough). It was drifting towards that building 

There's the ember again, only in a super artsy manner of course. 

Hotel sign in the window across the street. We had to go around because it was too icy 

Haha. So I tried to get on Facebook but it was all "we don't recognize your location" i.e. a bank account or something, and it made me type in words so it knew I wasn't some European robot or something. And, of course, the words it chose were perfect for Denmark...

As my mom would say, the Danish really know how to use their space! Unfortunately... we didn't fit very well into it... :/

Impressions of Denmark: one of my first thoughts was that it was like a postcard. It's so pretty here. It's like some place you don't really think exists in real life. Even the freeway is prettier here than at home. There's snow and trees right along the side of it, and people just go along living life normally and stuff. Haha. I don't know, it's just so different that I want to keep telling people, "Excuse me, do you know that you're living in the most beautiful place ever?" But they all seem more impressed by warm places. I can understand that, of course (my feet can too, after nearly getting frostbite today... no storm drains plus lots of snowmelt plus apparently not very good quality rain boots means freeeezing feet). Jose and I just keep telling each other, "We're in Copenhagen!" because it's still hard to believe that we're here for a half a year. It's like a dream come true. I guess most people wouldn't think so because hot weather is so popular, so they'd want to go study abroad at the beach or something. But I've never lived in the snow before and it's a lot of fun! Haha. It seriously feels like the complete opposite of the Dominican Republic in a lot of ways... but similar in other ones as well. I think that the D.R.'s history as the first European colony in the Americas makes it a lot more Europeanized than the U.S. Of course, I'm used to the west coast. In places like Boston it does seem a lot older and more European. Anyway! If I could sum it all up, I feel like I'm living in the Christmas village at my mom's house. If it had a metro.

I didn't go to Danish class today because my phone's alarm stopped working (thanks Lebara!), but I was also feeling sick. Hopefully I won't get much worse if I rest up this weekend... :/ So instead of going out and getting anything for dinner I went to Jose's and we ordered pizza, yay! I have so many pizza reviews, seriously. They will come soon. We ordered the pizza online, so we had to navigate through all the Danish there (even using Google translate it doesn't make that much sense... for example, Danish translated into "expedition" means delivery and all the syntax is mulched up). So here are your new Danish words to learn:

levering: not actually having to do with levers. I hope.

"Officially" means: delivery

Really (according to me) means: pizza kommer til mig!

ost: as in "most important part of a pizza" (this does not express the opinions of the Copenblogger and is merely used as an explanatory device as the Copenblogger could not possibly attempt to make such judgments)

"Officially" means: cheese

Really (according to me) means: a very unappetizing word that possibly explains why I haven't seen much cheese usage here.

hej: because I keep using it.

"Officially" means: hi (it's pronounced like that, too). Well, one "hej" means "hi;" two "hej"s means "bye."

Really (according to me) means: I can never tell if someone knows English or not at first.

Of course, your previous vocab word of skinke was extremely popular when trying to find a pizza choice online...

That's all for now. More later, and I eventually will catch up to real life time! Haha.

Hej hej!