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).