Yay. Tomorrow I get to eat the 1st chocolate on my advent calendar - v. exciting. have extended stay slightly - leaving 9th Jan., going to visit Kathy in Bangkok for a few days, heading to Jakarta to visit Sarah, going to Bali or similar to expose my overfed, undersunned body to repulsed natives & then arriving back in Sydney on 25th Jan. This is all assuming that I remember to pay for my flight ticket.

Hello all,

Living it up here in Dk. Unfortunately nothing of interest to report, just thought I should write in my diary as it's been a while. Am still cleaning the same office as before, as well as the boss' house, just for a few extra crowns a week. Fortunately the 3 old drunkards/weirdos I used to have to work with are finished for the season, so I don't have to put up with slurs of "Oh Elena, why do you always wear that sexy Madonna dress?" or people asking me to go and investigate the dead cat smell wafting out from under the floorboards. Am going to be starting some uni prep. science classes either this week or next month. Have booked a plane ticket home via Indonesia to see Sar. Should be getting home on 16th Jan. - unless I discover that I have copious amounts of cash, in which case I might extend my stay in Indonesia a week or 2. Yep, that's about it. Looking forward to seeing you all.

As usual, forgot to write about something in the last blog & will give a brief overview of June's Roskilde Festival now. Ate lots of terrible food eg. cold frankfurts & stale bread. Showered once in 8 days & was rudely photographed by Daniel while making an attempt at personal hygiene by shaving my armpits outside the tent. Worked in the parking lot in order to get a free ticket. Only encountered a few crazy people, amongst them an incredibly stoned couple who couldn't remember where they'd parked their car & wanted us to help them somehow, a guy who couldn't afford a ticket and absolutely could not understand why they wouldn't let him in for free & a Swede who was quite convinced that I was directing him to a hash stall rather than the car park exit. Saw some great & some amusing bands, including Metallica (obviously they fall into the second category), Beth Gibbons from 'Portishead', Asian Dub Foundation, Iron Maiden, Melvins, Tomahawk, Blur, The Cardigans, Queens of the Stone Age, Massive Attack & Björk. All in all, a great festival.

I think I forgot to mention in the last entry that I saw Nick Cave in London - Twice! (7th & 8th June). The first night I was sitting next to two middle-aged Aussies who had been fans right from the days of his old band, The Birthday Party, and had seen him many times when he used to play in a pub in Brisbane which had disco on one floor, piano music on another and punk bands in between. The band's set was fantastic and included a lot of old songs, some which I'd never seen live and were wonderful such as 'Christina the Astonishing' (which was dedicated to Blixa, who was in the audience that night). The second night was even more incredible, basically because I had a 5th row seat and was therefore able to run to the front when the band came on stage. Nick danced on my hand & hit me (accidentally, of course) with the microphone cord. Was the Boatman's Call tour all over again. Yes, apart from seeing Nick, had a great time in London. Stayed with Mat Ho again & did more bumming around his place than actual sightseeing but that was fine with me. We did make it to Camden markets amongst a couple of other places.

As for everything else...

I have a part-time job as a glorified dish pig in a restaurant in a fun park in the middle of the deer park. Most of the job involves scraping cream potato and fried eel remains into the garbage bin but it's really not so bad. The people are friendly, I get to practice my Danish, I get free dinner & beer & best of all, I get money. It's in a really beautiful area. To get to work I ride through the forest, down the coast and through the deer park.

Sarah Holmes from high school has just been staying with me for a few nights, which was really nice. Didn't actually show her any sights - think I'm a bit over doing the tourist thing in Copenhagen. Having said that, I'm going to a museum tomorrow...) I did show her a copy of the Little Mermaid in my language school, which has to be worth something. After all, it is an 'official' copy. Speaking of language school, am going back in late August. Will hopefully get another part-time job before then. Have applied for supplementary uni courses in chemistry, physics & maths & hope to start them in October.

That's about it. Oh yes - coming home! It's not definite yet but I've found a ticket which may be my best bet (hard to get a ticket at the end of the year - all the bloody Aussies want to get home for Christmas & all the Europeans want to escape the hideous cold up here). Have reserved the ticket & if I buy it, will be home a couple of weeks into January. So save me some Christmas champagne!

I got my Danish passport today! Hurrah! it doesn't expire until 2013! Hurrah! I think I'm lactose intolerant & anaemic! Damn. I was wondering why I felt ill after eating yoghurt for breakfast every day and the answer finally dawned on me after drinking a glass of chocolate milk and feeling unbelievably nauseous. As for my constant lethargy of late, I'd assumed that I had become really addicted to coffee - to the point where even drinking 3 cups in a row didn't make me feel any more alive.

Apart from all that, I'm lying around enjoying the good weather here. At least I was until it started raining all the time a few days ago. Have being trying to keep up my Danish through reading etc., as I finished the main part of my course a few weeks ago. The exams went very smoothly & now I don't have classes again until the end of August.

I had a job... until I quit it after 1 day. It was a really shite telemarketing job which involved calling people in England, lying to them heaps & then trying to make them so scared that they wouldn't say no when you casually yet firmly mentioned that you were going to send them a 'small' package of lighting tubes & who should you make the bill out to? The company also had some great sales techniques figured out like rambling more bullshit lies at the the poor people on the other end of the line & then saying "right?" at the end of the sentence. The theory is that once the person has said "yes" about 5 times, they're in such a trance that they'll say it again when you tell them that they're buying something.

After telling the manager that I didn't feel morally comfortable in such a job, I went out and looked for another in the nearby theme park (the oldest in Europe or the world or something, apparently). Found myself a much more honest part-time position washing dishes & something else (could have been frying... my Danish isn't perfect & I didn't want to make the fact even more obvious by asking the woman to repeat). I have a trial for that in July, after I get back from the Roskile Festival, which I'm going to on Sunday. I'll be working in the car park again, with 2 friends this time. I pray that I'll be as lucky as last year & nobody will piss on my tent.

Hello again, I feel ill from eating too much sweet, sweet Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate & too many Tim Tams, both of which were kindly provided by Colin's family (thank you!), along with amongst other stuff, an Aussie phrasebook, in case I'd forgotten how to speak Australian. Turns out that I'd never actually learnt it properly in the first place... did anybody else know that a drink used to seduce women is called a 'leg opener' or that toilet paper is referred to as 'poo tickets'? Some great Aussie names are also mentioned - Bazza, Kezza, Johnno, Muzza, Gazza, Tezza, Kazza, Shazza. Oh dear. Come on you Aussie...
So apart from immersing myself in the great Australian culture, I've been looking into doing a biology degree here in Denmark. Is still in the earlier stages of investigation, but will hopefully have a clearer idea of whadz gaan-on soon. The semesters are all crazy like over here anyway, so if I do start uni here, it won't be until next September. still planning on returning this Nov./Dec. though. As for jobs, the latest hope is an ad that I saw in the paper today, "English native speaking (hmmm) sales consultants.... if you speak fluently English (again I say, hmmm)......... call already today (hmm, should I have called already? Before I saw the ad or what? or maybe they were just using cool American lingo - 'Like, call already! Today!)" Sounds like they desperately need English speakers, if their lousy ad is anything to go by. I called & spoke to a lady who asked where I was from, as my accent was perfect. Nice to have my accent useful for something rather than it being a hindrance, such as it is in my Danish class (my teacher told me today that she has no criticisms & I can continue to the next level - but my pronunciation is a little Australian. Hmph. I'd call that a criticism.) Back to the point (what was it again?). Yes, I'll know more about the job after speaking to a guy who's meant to contact me. Not that harassing people to buy things sounds like a great career, but money would be nice.
What else.... celebrated my 22nd birthday a few weeks ago - gah, am getting hideously old. We went to the beach (needless to say, there was absolutely no swimming), had a picnic, smoked apple tobacco from a huge water pipe which Kamal had just brought back from Egypt & then went back to the kollegium & ate layer cake.
Next month, I have 2 Nick Cave concerts in London (eeeeee!!!!!!!!!!) + Roskilde Festival (at which Björk is playing!) to look forward to. I'll be working in the car park again at the latter, along with a couple of friends. Hopefully there won't be the same weird/scary wanna-be army guys helping out in the car park this year. They're all misfits who weren't accepted into the army & have formed some military resembling group instead. Basically, their most important task is looking after car parks at festivals. They turn up clad in full army gear, complete with army issue coffee mugs & pocketknives (just what you need for those rough, festival conditions). Last year there was one guy who spend the entire week-long festival in the car park workers' tent & in the car park - even though he only needed to be there for a total of 24 hrs. & had a free pass to the festival. His work was carried out with all the solemnity & concentration appropriate for a serious military operation. What a deadbeat. That's about it for now. Congratulations to everyone who graduated from uni recently. And here I am, still not having started.

Greetings from a warm(ish) country up north. Ah, finally - the sun I've been waiting for. The days are steadily getting longer, though we're not up to the only a few hours of darkness period quite yet. It's a Friday night & I'm sitting at home drinking chamomile tea while most of the people from my kitchen are out at a Uni ball meeting the queen. Hmph. Am now extremely close to achieving my initial goal - have applied for a 10 yr. Danish passport & should receive it in a fortnight! I thought the whole thing was going to hell when I couldn't understand the very first sentence that the office lady said to me in Danish ( I swear she had a strange Jutland accent...) Could have been dodgy, as one of the conditions of my getting the passport is that I have to speak Danish. However, was all ok - I understood after she repeated it a couple of times. Phew. Similarly, I went & asked a guy about a job in a Greek restaurant the other day, but didn't understand the first sentence he was saying due to his heavy Greek accent. After a fair amount of pushing, speaking Danish in order to demonstrate that I could, telling the guy that I was a mountain climber (only a slight exaggeration), am strong, etc. etc., convinced him to let me have a one ady trial as kitchen assistant. Asked what time I should come in - "I can first be here at 1 pm". "Ha, we open at 11 am! You can't make it". He looked so satisfied, the smug, sexist git. Can't say I'm overly disappointed at not being able to be in his employ. Tomorrow night is the annual party at my old kollegium again. This year, my birthday's the day after, so I get to spend it hideously hungover - hurrah. At least can use one of my favourite Danish expressions - "Jeg har tømmermænd" (I have a hangover). One of the first phrases in my Danish textbook. Highly important in Danish society. Learnt an even better word the other day though: a slang word for a bottle opener is a "samfundshjælper" (LIT.= society helper). Another one is a dustball, a "nullemand" (rough lit. translation = a squashy, yukky man).

Arghhhh, damned Microsoft Word. Surely it is the work of Satan. How can you tell when you've been using Word too much? When you make a mistake in everyday life, your brain automatically thinks 'Ctrl+ Z'. Am never ever going to use a template again as long as I live. Never!

So, aside from formatting problems, everything's just dandy. Looks like I'm going to be here for a little longer than expected, as the university entrance test that I want to take before I leave is state controlled & only held twice a year, the next one that I should be able to sit for being in November. Hopefully will still make it back in time for a sweltering hot Australian summer.

Spring, at last! Strangely, last night (on the day of the Equinox), my dreams were filled with snow.

Yesterday I discovered yet another strange Danish tradition. As I was leaving for school at 7:30am, I heard loud screaming & assumed that it was dedicated students protesting against the war. However, what I saw upon rounding the corner was people running about chaotically, blowing trumpets and throwing minature bread rolls at one another. I spent the whole day quite puzzled, and only later discovered that this was an Equinox tradition (this version particular to my kollegium).

Apart from that, nothing spectacular is happening here. Colin left a couple of weeks ago & is now happily sunning/intoxicating himself back in Oz. How I long for a VB... We had a bit of a party for him before he left and then went to the annual marathon bar at my old kollegium, where after only a few minutes of dancing/thrashing to a live metal band, Colin & I had managed to scare all the soft Danes off the dancefloor. I think I also elbowed Colin in the ear... thankfully he was too drunk to really mind, as was I when I smashed my hand into the stair rail some hours later. These marathon bar things are dangerous.

Well, enough procrastination - it's verb conjugation time again.

Blixa Bargeld has left Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to persue other interests.

Oh, happy day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M GOING TO SEE NICK CAVE IN LONDON ON 7th JUNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- "It's a wonderful life, if you can find it" - Nick Cave

Stupid html codes. Grumble grumble. Gave up on tripod & resorted to blogger. Just wanted to post this great SMH bit on Pauline Hanson (who, to my horror, has moved to NSW & is running in the elections) :

Ms Hanson rejected criticism that she knew nothing about NSW politics.

"I'm not a boat person; I do live in this country," she said.

Hello,
Will be a brief update as about to be picked up. Is by an Italian though, so could be any time between now & next Monday. Finally got the internet in my room - hurrah. Am living in another kollegium now - further north & virtually in the middle of a forest. If lucky can see cute little squirrels jumping in the trees outside the kitchen. V. excting. Last week I went to stay with Kathy in Aachen, Germany for 4 nights. had a great time, mainly just slobbing about, talking & cooking tofu. We did get in some sight-seeing though. Saw some smelly sulphurous Roman baths & some of the town. On the last day, we drove to the point where the boarders of Germany, The Netherlands & Belgium meet. Was a very strange concept to put my hand in 3 countries at once. We then went to Belgium & I drank some tasty Belgian beer. I was quite confused driving through Belgium, as the signs kept switching between German & French as we passed through towns, so I was never sure whether or not we'd crossed the German boarder again. Here's an update from Colin:

Hey everyone, whats going on,

its been a hectic sort of week or so...left Barcelona
with no real aim in mind, met another interailer on
the train, Emily from America, so we've been going
crazy on the trains, in three days we went
Barcelona-Cerbene (on French-Spanish
border)-Strausburg-Zurich-Vienna-Rome-Genova, just
going wherever the trains were going, got some nice
green in Zurich, but then had to give it to the
Italian police at the border....oh well....Stayed a
couple of days in Genova, crazy city, very steep, lots
of stairs and stuff....ate plenty pizza, bought nice
new Austrian army jacket, then Milan, more pizza, too
much wine, we just made a train to Amsterdam, now been
here for a couple of days, head off tomorrow or the
day after, Berlin then Krakow, hopefully further East,
but we'll see, my plan to spend heaps of time in
eastern Europe is being thwarted by the ease of
getting trains around western Europe, anyhoo,

seeya

the Dread Pirate Rogerson
Lord of the High Seas
Queen of Australia

On 27/12/02 (exactly a year after my leaving Australia), I at long last made it to France. Despite managing to forget the pin numbers for both my Australian bank accounts, the week started off well, arriving in Paris to a delightful 13 degrees (and I don’t mean that sarcastically - Denmark was, at the time, around the minus 5 mark). Caught the train to Saint Nazaire, Brittany, where I stayed with Pierre, along with Tine & Chino (from Denmark). We stayed for the week in Pierre’s father’s apartment, which was situated right near the beach & harbour, with a close to 365 degree view. Had an incredibly relaxing week; walking, eating brie & baguette, drinking cider & practicing making that French nasal sound. Tried to refresh some of my French using a book that had an interesting conversation about how somebody’s grandparents were coming over on the weeekend, so they had to wash the living room walls (naturally... that’d be the obvious thing to do -?) And this was after having just been reading a Danish culture book which discussed how Danes don’t like to wear sexy clothing & will most often just wear jogging clothes or raincoats. How have I been here for almost a year & not noticed this?
New Years was excellent. We had a party at Pierre’s, during which we ate lots of good food & drank a lot. Unfortunately, my drinking came to an abrupt halt when I realised that I had developed the same alcohol related rash-like thing on my face as the one I got after my 8 day drinking spree before leaving Australia. It was probably for the best.
On 03/01/03, I left for Paris, where I stayed for 1 night & did nothing notable. Glimpsed the Eiffel Tower (which I found quite ugly & unimpressive) & Notre Dame, but hastily retreated from both due to masses of tourists. On 03/01/01, I visited Jim Morrison’s grave, which unbeknownst to me, was also a popular tourist attraction. The rest of my day’s plans for a long walk around Paris were spoilt by a sudden snow storm which caught me off-guard & saturated me in a matter of minutes. However, the worst (& far far worse at that) was still to come. Due to snow, my plane that evening was cancelled. I was offered a possible seat on a flight 13hrs later - if indeed that flight wansn’t cancelled as well. And so, I spent an exciting night camped out on the airport floor, being reminded of the Roskile Festival as I pathetically sat on the ground clutching a bottle of cider amongst the masses of bodies. Luckily, I did make it onto the plane the next morning, after forcing my way through the hundreds of other unfortunates whose flights had also been cancelled.

And here, to completely change the subject, is a nice quote from the Sydney Morning Herald, apparently in retaliation to The Copengahen Post's slagging off of Prince Frederik's Australian fiance, Mary:

"What we want to know is whether this Prince Fred character is good
enough for our Mary, a hard-working, down-to-earth eastern suburbs girl.
Here is a man who picks up women in Sydney bars by baring his hairless
chest at them. Here is a man better known for his tattoos, his chain
smoking, his diving naked into pools in French palaces and his dating of
wannabe pop stars than he is for his princely behaviour. We can only
hope he shapes up in time for the wedding."

Yep, sounds like a Dane to me. Thanks for the quote Marion - much appreciated.

Me being lazy again... here's a report from Colin instead:
Morning Everybody....

How's everyone going?, I hope you all had good
Christmas New Year thingy parties and such.....

Its got rather cold here, not really surprising
really, but there you go, It snowed on the 2nd, and a
bit more since then as well, so now its very white in
places, and very filthy and brown and slushy in
others. Lots of fun for riding around in, speciallly
when I pinch Elena's mountain bike. My 25 year old
ladies bike doesn't hold on the slush quite as well as
her big fat tires....still, in a way its more fun on
my bike coz theres a bit more sliding.....All the
lakes and such are frozen here too, which is cool.
There's a soccer field near us which is very poorly
drained, so is always covered in water, which is now
frozen, so people go skating on it, not now though
coz its covered in a foot of snow so you can't see
where the ice is.......

anyhoo, other than staying inside, I'm not up to much
at the moment............looking forward to traveling
around soon ,then coming home. Still not sure exactly
when I'll have a party.....that dependsa bit on you Mr
Watson, and when you're going of to the wild west, let
me know what your plans are, and assuming that Mr
Watson ignores my request like he did last time, maybe
Mr Scott or Mr Whitford or anyone else who sees him
might give him a gentle reminder......

OK Seeyallater

the Dread Pirate Rogerson
Lord of the High Seas
Queen of Australia

P.S. There have been certain parties questioning my
claim to the queenshipness of Australia, anyone else
who has a problem with it may wish to join Mr Allen in
challenging me to a dual at the abovementioned party.

thanks for fixing my web page Hilton! I just love the cutsie little footprints & the bit about me being well nice.