It's a small world: sort of...

Finishing a very long post, that was supposed to be an extremely positive counterweight to the previous more negative ones, I pressed 'Publish'... and everything disappeared...
"Due to maintance activities Blogger is down for the next hour"

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaattt :(

Crap...

I managed to salvage some of the text. You'll get it later, don't feel like writing much again now!

Me? Faults?????

"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones."

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Easy

A deep breath...

...and at least some hours of deep sleep have helped. The anger has subsided, and no matter what: with some daylight everything looks a lot different!

Yesterday, after writing the previous post in my anger (which I am still not decided whether I should leave or not), I needed to talk someone I felt comfortable with and who knew me well, and fortunately I found that special someone.
We spoke for many hours, enjoyed each others' company tremendously, as physically distant as we were though, and I listened to some of the best relaxing music I know in the meantime (i.e. Ocean Colour Scene's 'B-Sides, Seasides & Freerides' and Yann Tiersens' soundtrack to the movie 'Amelie Poulain').
Eventually my anger was soothed and a smile broke through again. And actually, in the end, I even went to sleep with a smile! (gracias!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So, even though I for the first time in my life thought of drinking for all the wrong reasons, I didn't... and I won't. It's just not me. I am just not that kind of person.

I still stand by my words, as full of anger as they are, but at least I realise again I am not the only one who thinks the guy is scum, and what he did to a good person is unforgivable.
Perhaps my anger can be found in the fact that such malice would never even enter my mind.

Well, it's a new day. Am going to take a shower to wake up, and I'll continue the work I started this weekend: re-organising the piles of research I have lying around...

Here we go!

(eehhhhhhh????????? I just saw a carriage with 2 horses going by, with 2 guys in an 17th century outfit... am I still sleeping and dreaming???)

Moral Question

So where do you stand morally?

This test only has one question, but it's a very important one. By giving an honest answer, you will discover where you stand morally.

The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation in which you will have to make a decision.

Remember that your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous.

Please scroll down slowly and give due consideration to each line.

-------------------------

THE SITUATION

You are in New Orleans to be specific. There is chaos all around you caused by a hurricane with severe flooding. This is a flood of biblical proportions. You are photo journalist working for a major newspaper, and you are caught in the middle of this epic disaster.

The situation is nearly hopeless. You are trying to shoot career-making photos. There are houses and people swirling around you, some disappearing under
the water. Nature is unleashing all of its destructive fury.

===============================================

THE TEST

Suddenly you see a man in the water. He is fighting for his life, trying not to be taken down with the debris. You move closer. Somehow the man looks familiar. You suddenly realize who it is. It's the President, George W. Bush. At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take him under forever. You have two options - you can save the life of the President, or you can shoot a dramatic Pulitzer Prize winning photo documenting the death of one of the world's most famous men.

===============================================

THE QUESTION

Here is the question, and please give an honest answer.......











Would you select high contrast colour film, or would
you go with the classic simplicity of black and white?

Too bad or not too bad, that's the question

So, I just drank my last cup of Korean rice tea. No more in the box! Mmm, got to find some more somewhere!
It's simply the best non-medicinal remedy I have ever encountered to settle an upset stomach. If you know me a little bit, you know whatever it is, it goes straight to my stomach!
And since we yesterday afternoon had a huuuuuuuuuuuge lunch in order to celebrate Sara and Guillaume's graduation, you will know that we ate waaaaay too much. (Thanks again, Sara!!)
My stomach is still full and hurting...!

So, I reached once again for the best thing I know, the rice tea I got as a little present of my former Korean room mate last summer.
Nice guy, and although quite unknown and inexperienced to the art of going out, get pissed and be irresponsible for a few hours, he had the perfect remedy to help me the next day. He saw how fucked up I was one day, and was so kind to help me out! hahaha...
So, when he left, he gave me a whole package, 'for future use'. Very decent of him.

And yes, it has helped me on various occasions again, settling the stomach, and soothing it.
But now, I have no more... I refuse to reach for pills and other crap like that, so I'll go out and have a look at the various Chinese stores that are around. Perhaps I could be lucky and find it there!

Just realised once again... I have become a true globalist... in the proper sense of the word.
While finishing this writing, in the center of Copenhagen, I am listening to some seriously old-school hiphop, Eric B and Rakim, drinking my Korean rice tea, looking at my Finnish mobile phone, my Mexican rain stick, or Indian incense oil burner, thinking of the French dinner I will have tonight, or the Spanish restaurant I will work at tomorrow evening, or just the coffee with the Greek friend I had last night...
Shall we continue? I feel blessed...

Another day...!

Another sunny day to wake up to! I like September so far...

The view from my window isn't that bad either...

At the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics

This Blog Sits at the...

Some of the first articles I read back then when I started studying here in Denmark were by Grant McCracken, a Canadian anthroplogist. He has written some extremely sharp, funny, insightful and simply great essays, books and articles on contemporary culture. Even a book on hair cuts, called 'Big Hair!- A Journey into the Transformation of Self"
(He tells Steve Paulson that Margaret Thatcher and Dolly Parton represent two different kinds of big hair; that we use hair to express, or transform, our self-image; and that men are just as vain about their hair as women -- they just don't admit it...)

Anyway... I really enjoy reading his work, as he loves to play devils' advocate and nudge your mind a bit to make you think a bit out of the box.
So I wanted to tell you about where to find his work. On his website you can find digital versions of parts of his work (try and download his book called *Plenitude*), and like everybody else he keeps a weblog, with a daily post about everything under the sun.
I am amazed of the connections he is able to make and how the topics that are touched upon are of significance in our mostly complex contemporary view on our culture and society, and most of all how we seem to construct our own social reality, making and discovering new and old complexities, putting layer upon layer.
It's nice to have a mirror in front of you sometimes!

...And for someone (moi, if that wasn't clear...) who has been told by many professors that he thinks by association, rather than structure, it is great reading, and great food for thought...
So, give it a try! (there is also a link in my blogroll on the right)

To pass the time...

...until the next real post:

the Gefion fountain in Copenhagen, finally working again, after many years and many millions...

A sweet wartime story (and something else)

To set the mood:
We're in Copenhagen, Denmark, in the spring of 1945, the last months of World War 2. Times were tough, the last bits of the extremely hard winter of '44/'45 were still lingering, and there was a lack of everything.
And even if it was there, it was rationed to the extreme.

So...

A woman, 7 or 8 months pregnant, has to go to the doctor and the midwife to get a check-up. Next to her walks her little firstborn, a boy of not even 3 years old. She tells him: "So, let's see if there is a baby sister for you today perhaps, who knows?" He nods approvingly and trods on happily next to his mother.

After the physical exam they walk home and suddenly the little boy stops in his tracks and says to his mother, with mixed tone of wondering and disappointment:
"Well, mom, that was too bad they didn't have a baby sister this time either. They are probably on short rations as well...!"

(The woman is my grandmother, the little boy my uncle, and the little baby sister they were expecting actually was a little girl; my mother... I heard this story over dinner yesterday. It was great to see my grandmother so vividly and fondly remember that very moment her infant son said that, who was obivously so used to hearing the word 'rationed' a lot in those days)

And 'now for something completely different... (and unrelated)
As my avid readers know, I have started this blog to write about what is going on around me, and try to make some sort of notebook in which I can record fun stories that I have been hearing, experiencing and making over time, with the great number of great people I have met from all over the world: friends.

Now, ever since I have added a statistics counter to the page, I have been able to follow a bit who is reading when, and where they are. (And even gained readers whom I don't actually know personally)
However, there are sometimes 'hits' that I cannot explain, simply because it is quite hard to keep track of what everybody is up to, and where everybody is. (Even when I am the 'nexus' of so many links and connections, as one American MBA put it)

For example, there is a regular reader that is located in Luxembourg, and I have nooooo idea who it is. I know people that live in the surrounding countries, close to Luxembourg even, but as of yet I have no idea who this is...

Also this one, this person even has me in his/her boommarks (thanks), and comes back once in a while, but I have (again) noooooooooo idea who it is. Seem to have a very interesting location though (not that I know how my writing could add to the studies at a Naval Academy anyway, but ok...):

Datum & Tijd: Sep/09 02:11 IP Adres: 131.122.62.106
Land: United States Stad: Annapolis
Organisatie: United States Naval Academy
Referrer: bookmark

Funny business, that blogging thing... (:he says, while shaking his head in wonderment at the social, societal, sociological and antropological implications of online 'diarys' like this...)

Enjoying the last rays of summer

Monday evening, it was just a normal monday evening.
We ended up with some people in the bar called Drop Inn, where there is live music every Monday evening.
And this evening some fairly famous Danish artists would come and jam for a while. They were some old hippies basically that have been making all kinds of folk, rock, danish samba music for over 35 years, and have been collaborating with artists that are worldfamous (in Denmark...)
Stig Møller and his companions.

Brilliant to watch these old guys (older than my mom!!) jam the hell out of the place. Passionate (and gooooood) guitar play, phat bass, and everyone knew all the songs and sang along to some of the cheesiest (and some quuuuuite sexist) lines I have heard in a loooong time!

And they looked like crap. One guy remarked: "If I would meet that fat guy on the street, I would give him 10 kr for his homeless beer".
Hilarious to see. And of course none of us had any camera with us.
The only ones dancing were some old hippies that seemed totally stuck in time. Big bushy beard, absolutely off his head, and dancing like a monkey.
...Why didn't we bring a camera!!!

Yeah, it was a good evening.

Oh yes... and yesterday Memo, Jochem and I decided to go for a pizza. Just around the corner from me, in Nansensgade, is probably one of the best pizzaria's you can find in Denmark. The guys are Italian. Very very Italian. Every stererotype applies... With the sunglasses on the head inside, the cazzo di merda's flying around, and hitting on anything blonde and female that walks in...
Aaaaaanyway... We got our pizzas and walked down around the corner to the lakes and sat and enjoyed them in the last rays of sun. Well, as usual, the pizza was incredibly tasty, the problem was that I had fairly big problems eating it. I had been so stupid to order one with all kinds of quite liquid toppings... In other words, impossible to eat. Eehhh... (Thank you Jochem, to take such lovely pictures...)

From Korea to DK, and somehow back again, I guess...

Finally I can sit down at write about that delicious food I had on Friday.
A friend of mine, dear Laura, had invited me out for dinner, as a thank-you for helping her with a number of things over the last months basically.
If you know a bit about the restaurant business, or perhaps just use your common sense, you will realise that trying to go out for dinner, the 1st Friday after everybody has received their salaries, will be a fairly difficult task.
But, after lots of phone calls, changes, and recommendations we were off to a restaurant in Vesterbro, which turned out to be a fairly traditional Korean restaurant.
Interesting!
The name is O Mo Nim, whatever that might mean... ;) It seems to be owned by a Korean family, and they do it all by themselves.

Even though it was totally not what was expected, the food actually was fabulous.
A Korean style barbeque, with all kinds of side dishes with rice and fresh vegetables. Lovely, very very tasty for sure. Warmly recommended!
There obviously were some dishes I would never order, but I avoided those and had a brilliant evening.
The funniest part was me for the first time trying to seriously eat with chop sticks... Hmmmm, a good reason perhaps why we were one of the last ones to leave the restaurant ;)
Actually, if 'German' Peter, who actually is in Seoul, Korea, now, has this kind of food, I think he will be alright!!

After a pretty shitty nights' sleep I finally managed to go out and enjoy the sun yesterday afternoon, and went for a walk through the great parks of Copenhagen. Time and again I am surprised by the amount of green 'breathing hole' (åndehuller) here in CPH. It's great.
And as the sun is shining brightly these days I managed to take some more great pictures. (tonight I'll try and catch the sunset at the lakes)


In the Botanical Gardens...


In the Botanical Gardens...


Yup, real 'agave'!! Let's make some serious tequila!!

And then, in 'Østre Anlæg', a great park behind the National Museum of Art that is created out of the remnants of the fortifications around the old city, I encountered for the 1st time in 25 years something that I didn't realise was still there...
Last time I had been there was with my grandfather, to go and play there...

Yeah, it was a beautiful day yesterday!



Oh before I forget, one last thing: as part of this whole growing-up-and-moving-on-thing: yesterday was the big semester opening party at my old residence, and I didn't go!!!
Unbelievable..
And I just got a message that it apparently was a brilliant one ;) Oh well...