Aalborg costume parade

It's been a month since we went for a trip outside of Aarhus. The weather these days was really crappy and not invinting for trip actually. But we had a hunger for leaving again, especially since I will be leaving for good in one week and a half and we decided to go with the Spanish group to Aalborg, where there was suppose to be a carnival. We went with Paki's car and this was official my first car drive in Denmark. There is no point in praising the roads and comparing them with the ones at home...its a hopeless case. Aalborg is small city 200km away from Aarhus, also in Jutland. We got there really fast cause Paki is a fast driver and a skilled one too, to our luck. The weather was super good, specially made for the parade...we couldn't have asked for more. I think that's why Danes are the happiest people in Europe, you never, ever know what to expect from the weather, but when it's sunny you enjoy to the maximum. The parade already started when we got there, so because we were lost from the guys who came with other cars we just blended in the crowd. We were Mexicans :).

Typically Danish, the event was just another good reason to get totally wasted. But they are very inventive...as I could tell from the costumes. At the end the whole city looked like a dump yard and I thought it would take them 3 days to clean it up...but in the evening, in 2 hours the city was sparkling clean, except for the places where people were still hanging out. Me, Paki, Marketa and Diego slept in the car, because again we got separated from the others and we wanted to leave together. We woke up at 4 am to and called them...but they said that the are already in Aarhus...so we waited for nothing, "cultural misunderstanding . We left soon...and got home even faster...and now Paki's driving skills kinnda helped us...190 km/h, a deer, 2 sec and 50 cm...pfff...we are alive.

My poem

Ca lacrimi mari de sânge
Curg frunze de pe ramuri, -
Şi-nsângerat, amurgul
Pătrunde-ncet prin geamuri.
Pe dealurile-albastre,
De sânge urcă luna,
De sânge pare lacul,
Mai roş ca-ntotdeauna.
La geam tuşeşte-o fată
În bolnavul amurg;
Şi s-a făcut batista
Ca frunzele ce curg.
(Amurg - G.B.)

What do IS do on Wednesday night?

They sneak in on the window in the University's music room and make their own concert :)

The week of the "last" is starting and everybody is waiting for his or her turn to go off the leaving list. I am next in my group. Alice left this Tuesday with tears in her eyes. We had a great good-bye party last Saturday for her, we watched Eurovision in an international atmosphere and went to yet another Skojlhodj party...probably the last one for me too. Everybody is getting glued together and we want to do as many things as possible together. We invented an international student's football championship with games every weekend and we even started making our own concerts. I am trying to think about the goods and the not so goods this experience brought in my life and the many lessons I have learned. I hope that by the time I will leave Aarhus I will be able to make a list...and draw some conclusions. Till then...I am enjoying my "last".

May weather in Aarhus

ISS Facility Services

About four months ago, in February, I went job haunting with Maketa and managed to find a cleaning job. Now, the semester is ending, we are getting ready to go home and soon work will also finish. Marketa had her last day today, but I still have 2 weeks and a half...I guess I am more hardcore. Even if I can't wait to stop waking up at 4 in the morning from Monday to Friday, I think I will miss it. Our supervisors, Susanne and Henrik are super nice and care about us a lot. They are always open to talking about issues that come up. Henrik enriched my knowledge about the Danish culture, he is very talkative and he comes almost every morning...he's just talking to me and following me...and I don't mind, though it was a bit strange in the beginning. This job made us heroes among my classmates and our friends, because they thought I would quit after 1 month...and to their surprise we kept going...a thing most of them admitted they would not do. Even the people working in that place got used to us, and ask us about school and stuff. I am definitely going to miss it. They promised me to get the job back when I come back in October, but I was thinking and talking yesterday to Marketa, and I think five months of this are enough…I feel a bit like moving on…I don’t know where…but I need something new again…something that would allow me to live on my own and bring me more professional satisfactions. I would not do this for my whole life, I don't know how Susanne and Henrik manage. The pay is good...but it's cleaning.

So...the ISS girls strike every morning in offices, toilets and kitchens :P

Kapsejladsen

Mihai went home, to Bucharest, yesterday...it made me think about me going home and what it would be the first thing I'd do. I miss home... I realised now that I miss it a lot and the thought of not being there during summer makes me miss it even more. I will not go to our Mangalia summer residence :((. I miss my friends so much and I don't want to imagine loosing contact with them because of my wild thoughts about discovering the world. I miss Ana, her super fashionable self, talking about boys and clothes. I miss her calmness and her pacifistic way of seeing every situation. I miss Irina. I miss her wicked little devil tail and innocent observations...I miss her being late and unpredictable...though I got my dose of that here with Marketa as well...but still it's not the same. I miss my family and the cosiness and safety net they provide me...I miss everything and everyone.

Yesterday it was the University Festival...which is actually a good reason to start drinking from 11 in the morning and be totally wasted by 17 and continue till Sunday evening, because Friday is a religious holiday and a free day, of course. This is actually a competition between the University's departments, where groups of students have to come up with different scenes, costumes and boats for the rover and anything else to make it spectacular. It was nice...all the students in Aarhus, or most of them, must have been there...and it wasn't really about the competition as it was about hanging out and again, drinking. The weather was super shitty, but better than the last days. The rain wasn't so hard, but the wind was strong. I am wearing my winter jacket and gloves in Aarhus in May. My department had a breakfast before the competition, so I went there straight from work and ended up getting home late in the evening. We stayed of course with our uber Spanish friends, who started telling me about how great my friends in Romania are and how much they enjoyed when we met :). I guess they pushed the button to the end by saying these things...I have so many mixed feelings...I don't want Aarhus to finish, but I want Bucharest here and now...ah...

Kiss the Cook

I never cooked before coming to Aarhus, anything...maybe fried eggs a few times and sandwiches and salads if those count as cooking. But, since I am here I somehow had to cook if I wanted to eat something warm and tasty (the food from the cantina doesn't have salt and spices, so I don't really like it). This is how I turned cooking and eating into a pleasure...and it's even visible...stains on my cloths and fat around my belly :D. I'm not the only one getting fat here, so I don't feel so bad, actually I'm one of the "not so bad" ones. Still we are lucky to have the Turkish Bazar close and eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruits.

I learned to cook sour soup. It was my first cooking and a major success, the girls loved it at least and of course I liked it.

Some of my cooking and other stuff I am eating in Aarhus:

1. Meetballs in cabbage (sarmale :)

2. Kaernemelk and cornflakes (fall semester's breakfast)

3. Pancakes (tones of pancakes with marmalade, nutella, cheese, yoghurt, fruits, sugar)

4. Fried vegetables with meat

5. Kasia's dinner (French fries, meat, crème and dill)

6. Rice with vegetables

7. Pasta with vegetables

8. Backed potatoes with chicken and lots of spices

9. Pasta with meat

10. Boiled red cabbage with tomato sauce (it was a bit too salty)

11. Mucenici

12. Beouf salad (for Easter with Laura and Cata)

13. Backed aubergine with vegetables (lots of them) and moulded cheese

14. Spanish Omelette (Spanish tortilla)

15. Pasta with champignons and liquid whipped cream (our special piskeflode) and cucumbers, garlic and piskeflode salad

16. Pasta with

       a) tuna, tomato sauce, paprika, olives and corn (Marketa's recipe)
       b) bacon, tomato sauce and sun flower seeds (Laura's recipe)

17.Baclava and Turkish sweets

18.Oat, sunflower seeds and raisins (spring semester's 4 am breakfast)

19. My favourite Danish cheese

20. Karry fish salad

21. Pesto with sesame dried bread

Last month

I sadly have to introduce May, my last month in Aarhus. It's not going to be my last month this year, as I will probably return in October, but it's going to be my last Erasmus month. Even though I am not an Erasmus student here, my whole year was spent with Erasmus people, people who will leave in June and never come back, except maybe to visit me. It's funny how, again, towards the end we are getting closer and closer. I love this type of ending, because it makes the friendship continue even after. We are making plans about where we can all meet next year in Europe and make a big trip together, about how the girls can come and visit me this summer in Madrid, about how we can all come to each others homes in our own countries and live for a while and even about how we will all attend each others weddings and make them international. I decided with Edita that I will plan her wedding and she will make my wedding dress as payment :). Though we are laughing and enjoying, there is a slight feeling of sadness in everything, because at the end of every event we think about the fact that it's the last one. I really hope the knots are tight enough and we will really maintain a long lasting friendship, even if it's going to be a thousands kilometres apart friendship.

This is such a bummer because things are getting settled. Marketa started dating Diego, our apartment looks like a house finally (we made it hugelig and we even found mirrors yesterday in the basement...and now someone else will enjoy it).

Kamilla was here this week and she is a proof that people are really related to this city and we will for sure meet each other here again. It was a good week with Spanish dinner at Lina's place.

Friday it was the 1st of May, Labour Day of course, a day that is work free in most of the countries, except of course for Denmark. On the 1st of May in Denmark you have to work at least half of the day or work the whole day but get paid as if you worked a day and a half. Those are the rules and since I am a member of the Danish working class I have to obey them. This is how I worked for the first time in my working life on the 1st of May and how I missed a great trip to Samso (a beautiful island in Denmark which I have on my list for next year now). At least we went to a good, yes good, Romanian party in the kolegiet on Friday night.