Still green but without leafs

- this is a very popular Danish song I always hear when I turn on the radio -

This week my fourth month of Denmark started. I can’t believe it's my forth month...time passed really fast and I'm starting to think that I should really use it smart. Sleeping and doing useless stuff doesn't help me build memories and feelings. On Monday, 1st of December, we had our national day. This was probably the first time when I didn't enjoy the idea of the celebration, because I never actually feast and I think nobody does. In stead of enjoying a long weekend like the people at home, I woke up at 7 and went to school to study history with my study group. We had 7 hours of history and my head was completely knocked at the end of the day. I couldn't sleep during the night, because on the 2nd I had the exam, my first one here and I was so nervous about how it was going to be. I built theories about the subject I'm going to get and tried to create answers.

Tuesday, the exam day, I woke up extremely tired. I realized that I think well when I am tired and I am able to concentrate better, because I stop caring about what I'm saying and doing. The exam was better that I thought...or at least that's what I'm saying now...I will see how well it was after I get my result. It was a hand written exam, and Hagen created a big fuss. Everybody was intrigued that in 21st century we have to take hand written exams and not use our laptops. I don't know if this is snobbish and arrogant but they all shared the same idea. Ohhh....these Western kids :). It was a 4 hour exam and I kinnda finished in the first hour. I had no idea what else to write and I was ashamed/afraid to hand it in so fast, because of being weird. So I reread it 4 times, searched in the dictionary for different words to check my spelling...till a girl got up and handed in her essay. I felt relieved for not being the only one and quickly got up and gave it to Hagen. It was good that I finished so fast, because the next day I had a presentation in law and was suppose to prepare my Power Point part of the presentation...and didn't :D. So I had time to do it through lunch in the State library.

We had to create a product and build a company with plans to expand somewhere in the world, talk about the type of clauses we will include in our contracts, type of clients we are going to have, transportation regulations and intellectual property issues(patent, trade mark stuff...etc). We made a Danish company - Greeny toys - selling organic wooden toys under the name of Greeny. We did it in a hurry and we were sure it was going to be crap comparing to the others. But we had a surprise on Wednesday after the presentation...

Anyway...after my exam on Tuesday and finishing our law presentation I went home. The girls were going out to Student House and of course I joined. I couldn't miss that, especially since it was the last International Student's party this semester. I'm glad I went because it was one of the best. I also met with the Romanian girls and shared some time together. People...donuts...mulled wine…games...painting and of course fussball. I won 4 crappy Christmas presents in a dice throwing game. I got 6 for 5 times but they stole one of my presents. I guess when you get unlucky in certain fields you become lucky in others...I should probably start gambling in this period...I might win something good.

Wednesday I had to wake up at 7 again...for the law presentation. I was feeling cranky and I was tired. I didn't feel like presenting anything and had a mean attitude. This helped me during the presentation, because I answered all the questions people asked very straight forward without hesitations...and in the end...this brought us the 1st pries. It was a total shock, because we thought we wouldn't get anything...but we won...a box of chocolates :)...sweet victory. This was good for our moral...we all felt good and appreciated. After the victory I went with Mara to the International Secretariat to sign my new contract and ask about the procedure and stuff. We convinced the girl there to reveal the secret information about the girl who will come in my current room, starting January. She is also from Czech Republic, like Marketa and studies Biology...that's all we managed to get…but it's more than enough...I hope she speaks English and I don't have to learn Czech and her and Marketa will not speak Czech all the freaking time :) I had a second presentation on Diaspora’s that day so, after a quick cake and chit chat with Mara in the cantine, I went to my next class. Half sleeping I managed to say what I had to say and head home. Home...but not for long. Uwe, my Diaspora teacher, invited us for dinner and movie at his place. The cold weather was making me stay home, in bed and sleep...but I went. Though he is living here for 3 months just like us you could see the difference between a student's house and a teacher's house...he had all his stuff here and it looked very personnel…like a real house. We ate humus with vegetables, rice in coconut milk with curry, pasta al forno and tiramisu. A bit too much I would say...but it felt good. I think I'm going to cook some of this stuff myself. I am really turning into an international chef. I almost felt asleep during the long Bollywood movie we watched. Not long after midnight we all went home. It didn't matter how tired I was...I couldn't stop enjoying the cold. The road was shining because everything was frozen. I wasn't afraid to go with the bike downhill on ice...I guess I got really use to it and I learned how to control it pretty well. There were no clouds in the sky and the stars were shining bright. I decided to learn some constellations and search for them. I am sure it would be a success...I'm building a new passion. I love to ride my bike by night, looking at the stars and going uphill on the road home through the middle of the street in all directions, listening to music...I'm becoming a selfish sentimental fool.

On Thursday, fate played in my favor. None of my student group people could come for our learning meeting so I got to sleep 1 hour later...till 8..the babies started their normal artistic program after, so I had to wake up. It was Marketa's birthday so we gave her hugs and kisses in the morning and the little gift we got for her - a pair of one fingered green gloves. She planed her party for Friday so today we had the day off. We all wanted to go to Den Gamel By, but Lina had some problems and I only went with Mara and the Latvian girls. Den Gamel By is some sort of old village museum. They have there some houses from the region, tolls, furniture and other stuff they used to use in the old days. This is the place to be if you come in Aarhus. A ticket is pretty expensive (100 kr.) but in the Christmas period it's free for students. Also you can find people dressed like in the old days there, sweets, cigarettes and drinks like they used to be...and also children's games and books. The Danish are really keen on their traditions and the national obsession is everywhere even in the Christmas tree...there is no Christmas tree without at least one Danish flag in it...holidays are not holidays if the tree doesn't have the flag. I don't honestly think it's worth paying 100 kr. for this place - I bet the modern art museum is better at the same price...but anyway it was for free. The most interesting part about this whole Gamel by thing was our way to it. At one of the big crossroads we have to pass on our way to the centre we saw from the distance 2 fireman cars, 1 ambulance, one police car and one G4S car. We thought something really bad happened but when we got there we were surprised to see a car, Skoda, bumped into a traffic light. The front part of the car was damaged but it wasn't that bad. Still, all these cars where there and the traffic was blocked.

Everybody has Christmas decorations around their houses except for us. It would be a bit stupid to buy Christmas stuff when none of us is here for Christmas. I bought some wooden snowflakes from Den Gamel By…and made a candle decoration thing…just for me…I also stole a little Christmas tree branch and put it in the kitchen :)

Friday started pretty well and ended even better. In the morning I had my usual cornflakes with bananas and karnemelk breakfast and than went to my student group meeting. We are trying to figure our next exam on accounting. We are 5 in the group - me, Benjamin, Tone, Luci and Louise. Except for Luci who is from Brazil, the others are Danish. For this exam I am preparing only with Benjamin and Tone. We are meeting every morning till the 15th when we have the exam. We have one week to prepare for two exams...but I'm sure it's going to be ok.

After that we went to Lina's house, where Marketa made her birthday party. It was a total blast. A lot of dancing, jello shots, home made - use it only once Twister, guitar singing and ahm...other stuff. I realised I almost became an expert in rolling cigartes, and when I get a bit dizzy I can actually play the guitar :)). I decided not to tell people where I am from anymore and let the guess. Till now I got 3 France and 2 Spain - not really expecting people to think that I am from France, but anyway. We stayed till really early in the morning and it did not matter that the next day I had to be in school at 9 in the morning.

This night Saint Nicholas came at home and he didn't find me there I guess. I didn't get anything here either so he must have lost me. :( uuufff....

The rest of my weekend was and will be a countinuig accounting exercises pleasure. I love it.

To learn:

- how to make humus

- how to make jello shots and get people really drunk without noticing

- how to make curry

- how to make the super great Danish Christmas rice, milk, almonds and cherry souse thing

...and speaking of food, I bought the most diguisting thing ever - blood salami. That is actually pig blood with fat. I was curios about it and after tasting it I threw it away because it was horrible.

I cannot believe that in less than two weeks I will be home, in Bucharest, with my family and friends. I have mixed feelings about this, but they all include some sort of excitement  I don't know how I should act, what I should say...I am afraid of being strange and saying stupid things that may not be understood the way they are meant to be.

My flat mates

I realized that I never posted anything about the girls I've been living with for the past 3 months of my life. Last week I was thinking about how close we became, and about the fact that I feel more related to them than to my friends at home. This is of course because I never actually lived with my friends for 3 months in the same flat. The relation we built is very special because we have very different characters forced somehow to live together, but still we take care of each other and get worried when one of us comes home later than usual.

Marketa Vosatkova

Marketa is a second year bachelor student in psychology. She is from Czech Republic, city of Brno. She is here on Erasmus for one year and so I will share one year of my life with her by being her flat mate. At the beginning I didn't feel so related to her because she was desperate to build a social life and meet people from all over. I initially thought she doesn't have a boyfriend and she is in desperate search for one. But one month after we got here a guy was singing on her laptop...and it wasn't Youtube, it was her boyfriend :). That's when she first told us about him. I've never seen her crying or being depressed when we got here, but I guess the strong self cooling system psychologists have is very developed for her too. She doesn't smile a lot and she seems a little bit flat in her reactions. I've never had a serious conversation with her till now outside the psychological domain. But I'm not complaining because I love it...and I love the way she talks about gender differences especially when it comes to depression (she had a presentation on this). Still she brought the whole psychological department in my life and turned them into my friends...and for this I thank her because they are all great. She is very bad at organizing things...and when she got lost in Malmo she proved that she's not that good with problem solving and fast reactions either. Still she has a wicked look sometimes and makes me think there's more to her than meets the eye. She likes to clean just like me :D and we share the washing the dishes and laundry part. I hate it when she uses my milk because she's out of...even if she buys a new one the next day. She always takes post cards for me too when she goes in a pub and I do the same with her. We both have postcards on our room walls and we started putting them in the kitchen now too.

Mara Ose

Mara is a last year bachelor student in...I don't really know actually. It's something with culture and cultural relations - the idea is that she's studying Danish (Scandinavian culture). She is from Latvia, Riga. She is also an Erasmus student but just for one semester. So in about two weeks from now she will become another very good friend I have somewhere in the world and hope to see again in this life. I hate it when this happens, because I build very strong relations with people who I'm very likely never to see again in my life, but would like to have close to in special moments. I hope our roads will cross again because I really like her. She is just like me, not so keen on socializing and going out at night. The first thing we shared was peeing on the side of the road in the middle of the night on our way home from the centre  We didn't have bikes back then so we got off the bus in a place we though nobody could see us. She told me then that she's very happy she can trust somebody here and share real life things not just artificial smiles. I liked that and it made me feel good. Through her I got to meet all these Latvian guys and get a sense of their patriotism. I always relate to her when it comes to the history of our countries and the mentality of people. Romania has a lot of social things very similar to the ones Latvians have...still they are somehow viewed better than us. She doesn't like to clean and I hate this so much - she never washed the laundry (me and Marketa wash hers too), she never vacumed in the common areas and we have to tell her when she should buy something for the flat. Still she's very helpful when you ask her for something. She brought us the delicious Latvian candies when she went home during her holiday in October. I met her parents when they came to visit at the beginning of November - and they are nice people. She talks to me a lot about her boyfriend and what she would like to do. She's a lost soul just like me and she would like to discover the world and travel, but not alone. She promised to visit us next semester after she passes her bachelor exam :)...I hope she will...I'm going to miss her and having her in the flat.

Out of the ordinary

Though the week didn't pass, November deserves more posts especially because it has been such a prolific month. Or maybe I'll just make it a long post I'm going to add stuff to until the end of the week so that I will have a complete week registration. On the emotional side I'm in a big hole, and the gap isn't going to be filled so fast I guess. Let's say this is just one of the lessons I have to learn about life and take it as it is. Ana and Irina decided that this year we should have a posh new year’s celebration. This is going to be a switch in our usual way of life as for one night...one important night...we will become the people we don't like and talk bad about. But it's going to be a good experience since you have to be ready for anything in this life. This might also be our last new years together...I'm not making a statement out of this but it looks like the fading borders of our country are carrying us beyond. Who knows where we will be next year and what we will be doing? But there's a first time for everything and the beginning is the most difficult I guess.

Next week I start my exams, so this has been very much a learning week.

Waking up in the morning after long sleepless nights seem to make the process go slow. Still, today it's Friday so I guess everything passed fast. I don't feel smarter but I feel like I'm doing something - culturally. The long struggle with books and infinite texts on law and history became effervescent yesterday. After waking up at 7 in the morning and falling asleep till 8 while eating breakfast in bad...I managed to get to school (not in time). The 15 minutes rule we have here, the "European" excuse for always being late made me lazy. At the beginning I was first in class but now I'm one of the ones who comes later and has to say a shy "Hi!" to the teachers while trying to make as little noise as possible when sitting. So… yesterday after school I went to the first Hindu temple of my life. Uwe made an arrangement and I went with my Diaspora class to visit a diasporic built temple next to Aarhus. The guide was only speaking in Danish so we didn't understand a thing...but it was nice to see how they managed to transform a warehouse in a spiritual house, where they performed rituals and brought gifts to their Gods.

I got home kinnda late and I knew the girls were in one of the dormitories watching Danish cartoon. I was sorry to miss that but fate was in my favour  Just 5 minutes after I got in Marketa came to get more wine. Knowing that they will stay longer and not having school today pushed me to join them. This is how I got drunk last night, came home after midnight and for the first time in a week managed to sleep and wake up rested and ready. I guess the fresh start is on his way.

Oh yeah...this Monday I saw the first real snowflakes this winter...in Aarhus :)

This morning - that is today, Saturday the 29th - the babies that live above woke me up again. Since we moved here every morning we have the same alarm - voices of babies. Above us there's a young family and they have twins. Across the door from them lives the father's brother who himself has 1 baby. The babies are less than 2 years but they are so noisy. The run, they jump, they drop things, they scream, they cry, they play the piano, they sing loudly...everything. I don't know how the parents keep up with that. It's funny though that they only do it around 8 in the morning till 9. It was terrible at the begging and I hated them. I wanted to go up and shout at them and tell them to shut up and stop waking me up every morning. But now I got used. And it's nice to hear baby voices as the first thing when you wake up. Also they always look at me and smile when I see them from my kitchen window. They are like little devils, smiling because they know they are doing something wrong but knowing that they are sweet and there's nothing I can do against them. The parents are so calm...and so many times I witnessed them calmly trying to convince the toddler not to scream and cry. Anyway they are the cutest babies in the world...they make me think about my own...how he/she will look/act/cry/drive me nuts...I think I would like to have a love-child that I can raise on my own and share all my joy and sorrow with. It will probably be difficult to achieve but who knows what will happen in 3 or 4 years from now :)

Anyway to switch the subject from the dreamy stuff...last night we went to theatre  It was the first play I saw in Aarhus. We went to the Russian academy of theatre and the play was in English, specially made for foreigners. The play was called "Dancing in Lughansa" by Brian Friel. It was a combination of family drama (sister drama), music and choreography. We enjoyed it very much, especially because the room the play was in, was really small and intimate and it gave you a nice vibe with the actors. All this cultural stuff I'm doing makes me want more and dream more about the things I would like to do. I'm sometimes thinking if I've chosen the right carrier...maybe I would have felt better as a teacher or an artist of some sort or an actress

.

We initially left home earlier yesterday because we wanted to see the Christmas parade. All the Christmas stuff already started here and the spirit of Christmas is everywhere. Christmas beer, Christmas songs, Christmas outfits, Christmas sprees, Christmas decorations. The difference between here and Bucharest, where we also have all the lights and Christmas decorations, is that here you can feel it some how being pure. People really enjoy themselves and they embrace the spirit and share the joy...even if it's not December yet. Anyway...we didn't get to see the parade because we were too late/early/in the wrong place, but we took a walk through the multitude of people and lights...eating caramelized almonds :D.

Saturday we went to the bazar they sent up in Studenternhus. It was the first time when I went shopping for clothes with the girls and we make a good team...We tried on thousands of dresses, sweaters, jackets, shoes and t-shirts. The bathroom was full with us…exchanging clothes and looking in the mirror. I think I got closer to them than I actually am with my friends. We get naked one in front of the other and talk about all the stupid, girly things that go through our brains. Anyway...in the end I bought 2 nice, short dresses (black and grey), 2 Jackie Kennedy jackets that go with the dresses (green and grey), a nice scarf and 2 very vintage hairpins (one that goes with the scarf and a black leather one).

We finished one of our last weekends together with a fire on the beach and moulded wine. It's illegal to make a fire on the beach here and you can only do it if you have permission from the Police - which of course we didn't. This Sunday was the first Advent - this means that there are 3 more Sundays to Christmas and the first Christmas candle was lighted. From this day forward Christmas is officially coming and candles and lights will fill the city. The fire on the beach was really nice. It was my first time on a beach in almost December...it was my first fire on a beach and the feeling we got when we walked on the mole in the sea was unique. The dark was all around us and the sound and smell of water made us scream and dream to go forward. It was just like the bath I took with Ana at home at night in Vama Veche.

We left the fire because it got windy and our wood was almost over. Other people preferred to stay longer, but we decided to go to a coffee shop down town  The road down town from the beach is the nicest and most romantic place I've been in. I'd like everyone to see it because it's really special but I guess that's hard to share. There's just a bike lane and on one side you have the cold Nordic Sea and on the other you have a deep dark forest. In front you can see the lights of the city and imagine the life that is calling you. We got to the city pretty fast because the Aarhus is small. We went to this really nice coffee shop where we ended the day with some warm tea and hot chocolate. Now I feel ready for my next week. This month passed to fast and there are only three more weeks to go. We will try to make the best of them because they will pass even faster.