3 Week Crashcourse in Europe! Lesson 1: Finland

And thus it finally began, my dream of 'shoe-stringing'/backpacking through Europe. I had three weeks to travel on my own in Europe. The first week was with my marine biology study group in Finland. Above is a bottom-up shot of a really cool monument dedicated to Finland's most famous musician. (This also explains why I haven't updated my blog in a while, cause I was traveling! Woohoo!).
I had no clue what to expect when I got off my plane in Finland. After all, who had heard of Finland for real?I had a friend in school who was half-Finnish, but the only Finnish thing about her was her traditional garb she wore during our graduation ceremony. Being in Scandinavia (Denmark), I knew that Finland was not regarded as being totally Scandinavian. When we reached there, we had a tour of Helsinki, the capital. It was then I realized that Finland wasn't quite Scandinavian like Sweden, Norway and Denmark. They had Russian influence due to the Russian occupation some time ago, they still have quite a few minority tribes like the Sami living in the north. The Finnish language (besides being another crazy language) also does not have Nordic roots but shares the same Uralic family root as Hungarian and Turkish! It's not as homogenous as Denmark that's for sure.
I loved Finland. Helsinki was a modern city with much history and nature! I loved the topography because it was slightly hilly. Being from the hills myself, I got really excited to see hills and not just flat land. There were real trees on the sidewalks and tiny parks scattered everywhere.
I was a little shocked in a good way, the clubbing scene in Finland was awesome! Maybe it was because I was hanging out with my really cool study group people, but I just didn't expect such a vibrant night life in a country stereotypically known to be somewhat dormant and cold.
Prior to Helsinki, we were in our field station to conduct our experiments (a dusk shot from our field station). Oh yeah, after our hard and intensive work, we finally did what we all had been looking forward to, the FINNISH SAUNA! See below for my previous account about this.
30 mins of sweltering heat in the Finnish sauna and jumping off the jetty into the freezing Baltic Sea was simply put, amazing. Despite me not knowing how to swim, I did it three times. The night was perfect as well. It was a full moon. That in a way was a little disturbing because it provided excellent light to make sure we saw people jump off naked and come out of the water, including my marine biology professor! I won't elaborate, but let's just say it's not everyday you see your own professor naked...in a legitimate and 'professional' manner, of course ;-)
This was the suana house which we all headed to after our hard day's work (photo: J. Hausman).
The Baltic Sea, lo and behold! The jetty which we all jumped off from into the Baltic Sea (photo: J. Hausman).

I can't believe I've done all this. Looking back at the pictures even just brings out a deep appreciation for how beautiful and diverse the world is, and for having the opportunity to experience even a fraction of that. Ok enough nostalgia for now, next stop: Berlin, GERMANY!!

Please spare my ears! My rant for the month

Why the heck is Ashlee Simpson coming up with a SECOND album!!!??? To me, that's like digging a grave, my own grave for crying outloud! No thanks Ashlee, I'm too young to do that. As if the first one wasn't bad enough with radios everywhere playing her "Pieces of you" song ALL the freaking time last summer! Not to mention her embarrassing lip-sync stint on SNL. Then she had the audacity to blame it on her band, the only ones who had some sort of musical talent on stage!
So why am I picking on poor Ashlee when she isn't the only one who solely through intense marketing and no talent made it 'big?' Maybe because I found out that she's coming up with another album (help me) and want you to sign this petition. Ok I haven't actually signed that form but it's quite funny. I ain't hatin' but the larger question (in my opition) remains, why do talentless people hog up the limelight when the ones with the real talent aren't even given a chance!?? She isn't the only one who falls into the former category, the list could go on forever, just watch some of the videos on MTV (not all, of course). Of course this is not something new. Sorry to all the Ashlee fans, but really, just listen to her 'live' and you will come out of your disillusioned pink trance. It's her bad luck that she was one of the 'singers' among many others caught lip-synching but it just goes to show what the music industry is really like. All that said, I'm not going to be hypocritcal and pretend like I'm not interested in POP culture. I am. I am a self-proclaimed 'popaholic,' but I am an even bigger music fan (hopefully), and I am NOT a fan of people like Ms. Simpson(s) who really should not be solely using marketing schemes to promote their music when there are other artists who deserve our attention a LOT more. So someone please advice Ashlee that there are probably a lot of other things she could do and probably a lot better at than singing.
For those wondering and thinking what are my 'finer' (and obviously flawed) recommendations, here are a few:
Youssou N'Dour
Especially love 'Seven Seconds' with Neneh Cherry, Eagle Eye's sister










The Duhks
My new favorite folky group










Clannad
I'm a big sucker for Celtic music










Henry Threadgill
For all you jazz fans wanting to defy the norms and borders of what encompasses your idea of jazz, Henry takes it to another level. I've actually met him and he is one of the nicest and coolest people as well as being an amazing musician.







Nusrat Faten Ali Khan
R.I.P. Hearing his music when growing up in India, I used to get scared. It was only later that I realized that his music, his voice, were simply haunting me with the sheer volume of his dexterity and talent.







Amos Lee
Some call him the 'male Norah Jones,' but don't let that limit Amos Lee for his own unique and mellow flow.









Shivaree
Yeah, I first heard this duo on the Kill Bill, Vol. 2 soundtrack.










Salif Keita
Oh my gosh, can I recommend you listen to Salif Keita with a nice bottle of Pinot Noir by your side and some friends...pure bliss









Tori Amos
She never ceases to amaze me with her never ending creativity










Anthony Hamilton
As you can probably tell by now, I'm a big fan of mellow/chill music, and Mr. Hamilton just happens to be one one of my favorites.








Juanes
To be honest, I feel in love with Juanes when I heard his duet with Nelly Furtado. This album is no exception to his well known artistry.








Well, this list is not exhaustive by any means, but hopefully you'll like maybe one or two from the list, otherwise, go ahead, judge me! ;-)

Three frogs and an ex-Danish boyfriend

ser·en·dip·i·ty the lucky tendency to find interesting or valuable things by chance (Cambridge dictionary)


Maybe you've seen the movie 'Serendipty' (with John Cusack ...yum;-)) or maybe you haven't but at least you know the meaning of the word or even better, maybe you've actually gone to the restaurant in New York (where you wait for freaking 2 hours but it's worth it, trust me) and had their amazing desserts! Either way, this entry is truly 'serendipitous' so try and stay with me.
Ok, it starts off like this: a friend of mine from India came to stay with me for a couple of days. Since it was her last night here in Copenhagen, my friends and I decided to get some Indian food for dinner. We found this tinyyyy Indian take out place called 'Jonathan.' Anyway, my friends and I go in and find a Danish gossip mag. In case you don't know me that well, I'm a sucker for celeb goss. Anyway, while my friends and I are talking loudly (as usual), discussing what an ugly dress Teri Hatcher wore to the Emmy's, this blonde Danish guy turns around and looks at us. I see him from the corner of my eye and I'm thinking, "oh, random Danish guy who probably thinks we're too loud or something." Well, it doesn't stop there. This dude comes up to me, smiles and says, "hey, don't you recognize me?" ???? It took me a few seconds but I finally got who he was...my 'ex' Danish boyfriend from middle school who I hadn't seen for 8 years... yeah, I know, totally surreal.

Well, we got each other's phone numbers and are planning to 'catch up' over a cup of joe sometime this weekend. I was dumbfounded though and still am a little bit. He doesn't even live in the area yet he was craving for some real Desi khanna (he did grow up in India for part of his life which is when we met in school...ha! 'Puppy love' or whatever you want to call it) and decided to come over to my neighbourhood for some takeout. I asked him how he knew it was me and he said, "I recognized your voice."

We finally parted, me with my butter chicken and him with his palak paneer (of course, how could I forget, he's Buddhist and vegetarian), still a little stunned with our newly added cell phone numbers.
Oh yeah, the first part of the title refers to the fact that I saw 3 frogs on 3 different occasions that same day. Some people say it's good luck to see frogs ;-)

Hygge!???

Yes, yes, it's a Danish word. Actually, it's a concept. A concept that loosely translates to 'cozy' or 'cozyness' in English. I can't really describe it either but maybe the picture can. It primarly consists of candles but surrounding it are 'key' ingredients for hygge: good food, good friends, good conversation and more importantly, good atmosphere. Yeah, one of them 'you-gotto-be-there-to-experience-it' Danish things.

"Free" ass-groping clubbing

A couple of friends and I went to a club known as VEGA (Enghavevej 40 1674 København V) on Friday night. There was an awesome DJ from France called 'DJ Dimitri from Paris,' spinning at the club and so there were a lot of people who were clamouring to get into the club. He's pretty well known so I guess it explained the amount of people waiting outside.
All over the world, clubs are clubs, DJs spin, people drink, dance, talk…but there was something different about this Danish club I went to. I’ve been to a few clubs in the US, Spain, Thailand, India etc and I’m not an ‘expert’ by any means but to my surprise there was no what we girls term as ‘ass-groping.’

None of my friends experienced any form of inappropriate touching, like guys pinching/touching our rear ends, dancing too closely without our consent etc. Of course there were some sketchy guys who were trying to break into our circle to dance but no harm done there.

I’m glad none of my friends and I experienced any inappropriate touching, but it also made me think as to why there wasn’t any (not that I wanted, of course). However, a drunk guy did try to act a little weird with one of us, but the bouncer came over and talked to him! Well, we were talking about this with a few Danish girls, and they told us that it's considered very rude for guys to be like that, since it's also a violation on women's rights/equality. Wow, that is suppose to be the case in countries like the U.S. as well, where women are suppose to have equal rights, but here in Denmark, it's for real and is evident even in the clubbing realm! Whatever the case may be, we all just had a super time dancing to great music and enjoying our ass-groping-FREE-night!

Skål ('cheers' in Danish) to the Danish women who worked hard for benefits like this!

artsy fartsy

I love drawing but I don't do enough of it. Ever since I took my first art class during the last year of my highschool, I haven't done any. However, my art teacher then told me that art never goes away once you do it. That gives me hope and is comforting just because I love drawing. That said, he hated my reproduction sketches. He always wanted me to draw from life, and the last picture is an attempt of a 5-minute line drawing from 'life.' Here are a few of the ones I enjoyed doing.

Pic: Pencil sketch done during senior year of Christy Turlington on a TIME magazine cover during the yoga craze





Pic: Love him or hate him, but I used to (and maybe still do) think that David Beckham was simply amazing (on and off the footie field). Drawn from a Hello! magazine insert.




Pic: Line drawing of another member from my art class

Cute Danish guys, Tuborg, football: Denmark vs. Turkey, qualifying match

World Cup 2006 is just around the corner!
Denmark is in a group with Greece, 2004's Euro champs, Ukraine (who have been unstoppable!), Georgia, Turkey and someone else.

So I'm kinda debating whether I should play club football here in Denmark. But whatever the outcome may be, we were all invited to the club party last night to dine, watch the Turkey/Denmark game (crucial game for Denmark), and partaayyy later!

The picture was taken when the Danish national anthem was being sung. It turned out be a 2-2 draw, but a very exciting match. We danced for a while later but one thing I noticed, Danish guys for all their looks etc., are not all that great at dancing. LOL! Well, nobody's perfect ;-)

Norse gods and goddesses!

"Hot Danes are flooding your peripheral vision"
Seriously, there are like hardly any 'ugly' or 'unattractive' Danes...guys and girls. Did I mention that my next door neighbour is a Norweigan guy who really looks like a Norse god straight out of the mythology textbooks?? Whatever they lack for in looks, they dress up to make up for it. I guess that has positive and negative sides but I'm not gonna be discussing virtues etc here....just my first impressions. On a funnier note, this girl I met here from Illinois made the cutest but funniest comment. We're in Denmark, a Scandinavian country, land of the Vikings etc and she says, "Jeez, I've never seen so many blondes."

First day of classes: Marine Biology and naked people

woowhooooo!! I'm so excited about my classes!! No, I'm not being a science dork by saying that. We get to go traveling in Finland for one whole week etc. One of the 'must-do' things which many people have told me, including Hannah who did this last spring, is to go to the Finnish saunas and after 30 mins of sweltering heat, jump naked in the freezing Baltic Sea! Sound like something that would give you a heart attack? Well if you see my Naga butt naked you would too so I've decided I best retain some clothing while attempting to do this. Anyway, more postings on this when the time comes

Pic: A common jellyfish found in the North and Baltic Seas

Friends...ahhhh

So DIS is a very American university oriented program and so there are about 450+ students from American colleges this fall. I've met some really cool people, guys and gals, and I'm glad I've found them. I guess why we seem to be 'bonding' quite easily is that we're all kinda similar in wanting to go beyond our comfort zones by coming to a foreign place and being willing to learn and try new things. Good enough, I can deal with people like that.

Art imitates life: royal families, Baroque gardens, Hans Christian Andersen

So it's an old saying that 'Art imitates life and vice-versa.' In the beautiful city of Copenhagen, it could not be more tangible.

The Director of DIS, Andres Uhrskov, was our bus tour guide yesterday. I was happy to be in his group because he has the coolest Danish accent and plus, he just has a way of making everything sound even more poetic than it already is ( I will be posting up pictures soon so for the moment bear with my frugal lexicon to 'paint' it for you)

We went to a few of the 'key' areas in Copenhagen, a better word for 'touristy.' Among those places were the City Town Hall, the Queen's palace (one of four in Copenhagen alone), The Black Diamond, the Little Mermaid statue and a few royal gardens. As Andres said, "any self-respecting Japanese tourist would go and see the Little Mermaid even if they had 2 hours in the city." Sure enough, there were Japanese tourists at the Little Mermaid site clicking away from every possible angle with the latest digital cameras.

The thing that struck me about Copenhagen's most famous statue, the Little Mermaid, was how 'normal' it was, in terms of size and artisty, but yet how alluring it was in it's simplicity. By the way, Disney like always, COMPLETELY warped the real story by Hans Christien Andersen. In the real deal, the Little Mermaid dies and becomes what all mermaids become when they die after 300 years, sea foam...not marry a blond, blue-eyed prince...sorry to burst your bubble honey, but that's reality...ha!

So before I get too side tracked, the point of me calling this life imitates art was in a big way because of the statues we saw during the tour. At the castle, there's a hugeeeee statue of Fredrik V in full roman regalia riding a horse. Denmark went through a series of changes regarding the role and power of the royal family. Fredrik was the 2nd to last absolute monarch, one who had the ultimatum, save for God who was still above him, symbolized by the cross on top of his crown. He also was a drunk and a womaniser, but that's besides the point, the poor artist had to depict him in all glory no matter what. Though in reality he never went around in Roman clothes like Julius Ceaser, his absolute monarchship deemed it fit for him to wear the attire of what symbolized what a 'true' monarch wore...roman gear... despite it being the late 18th /early 19th century (Frankly speaking, I would prefer my true monarch to be in anything but a skirt).

By the time Fredrik V's grandson, Fredrik VII, was in rule, Denmark had changed. There was no such thing as an absolute monarch anymore. The power of the royal family was greatly reduced and instead democracy of some sort was instated, though the king still had what Andres called, 'symbolic power.' To pay respect to that fact but also to be in realistic with the changing attitude of the people's idea of rulership, Fredrik VII's statue is a more modest one. It is closer in size to a real person, not perched up as high atop 7-8 feet of a marble base and more importantly, he is wearing a military commander uniform instead of a Roman one. His pose, unlike his grandfather's bravado pose on a galloping horse, is one of a relaxed and composed man, yet the slight tilt of his hips with his two fingers resting on it and his straight-on glance indicates a dignified, if not an authoratative person.

Well, I guess I could go on...but on to other things...like socializing with the Danes on my floor!

Kollegium!!

Woohoo! I love my room!! It's super spacious with nice IKEA furnishings and I got my own bathroom too! My kitchen view is amazing. On a clear day/night, I can see the bridge that links Denmark to Sweden and of course Sweden!

You can see Sweden in the far background

Joined blogtown for a GOOD reason!

View from the top:
I finally created my own blog account after months of pushing it aside. I'm in Denmark and with my classes yet to start at Copenhagen for my study abroad program, I got the time and the desire to share my thoughts on Denmark, the Danes, Europe. Let's hope I get to update it often.... enjoy!