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).