Τις τελευταίες εβδομάδες ξυπνάω νωρίς και πάω για ύπνο σχετικά νωρίς. Μπορώ να πω ότι η ολοκληρωτική αλλαγή στον βιορυθμό μου είχε θετικές επιδράσεις στην διάθεση μου. Το προτείνω ανεπιφύλακτα σε όλους τους ξενύχτιδες. (τώρα ξυπνάω την ίδια ώρα που πριν 4 μήνες έπεφτα για ύπνο).
Το φθινόπωρο έχει μπει για τα καλά. Είναι 8:30 και ο ήλιος δεν έχει ανατείλει ακόμα. Όπως κάνω κάθε πρωί, ανοίγω το πισί πρώτο και διαβάζω τα νέα της ημέρας. Αυτό έκανα και σήμερα. Διάβασα τα μεγάλα νέα της ημέρας. Αποφάσισα πως ήταν ώρα για πρωινό. Συνήθως τρώω γιαούρτι (το πολύ υγρό, που είναι στην συσκευασία του γάλατος, είτε με γεύση μπανάνα/αχλάδι, είτε με φρούτα του δάσους — κοινώς αποδεκτά ως φράουλα και βατόμουρο — είτε με γεύση πορτοκάλι) με μούσλι, όμως το γιαούρτι μου τέλειωσε χτες. Πάω στην κουζίνα να μου φτιάξω ένα σάντουιτς.
Ανοίγοντας την πόρτα και βγαίνοντας στο κοινόχρηστο σαλόνι, ανοίγει την πόρτα και ο τυπάς από το δωμάτιο νο. 5, ένας από τους έξι Δανούς που μένουν στο κτίριο (οι υπόλοιποι έξι εκ των δώδεκα είναι ένας Έλληνας — εγώ –, ένας Βόσνιος, μια Ιαπωνέζα, ένας Ισπανός, μια Ουγγαρέζα και ένας τυπάς αγνώστου υπηκοότητας, μάλλον Ιταλός, ο οποίος φοράει καρέ παντελόνια, μαγειρεύει κάτι περίεργα πράγματα και παίζει Νeed for Speed και ακούει Red Hot Chili Peppers στον κοινόχρηστο χώρο). , ευτυχώς όχι ο πραγματικά εκνευριστικός, σχεδόν επικίνδυνος ούγκανος γορίλλας που μόνο από το όνομα καταλαβαίνεις ότι είναι Δανός, τρέφεται με πρωτείνες της συσκευασίας απορρυπαντικού και κάνει πουσ-απς στο σαλόνι βαρώντας παλαμάκια. Δεν ήταν αυτός που ξύπνησε την ίδια ώρα με μένα, ήταν ο άλλος, ο πιο συγκρατημένος, αυτός με την μηχανή έξω στην είσοδο, αυτός ο οποίος συνήθως παίρνει τον ρόλο του διαμεσολαβητή και μεταφραστή για τις άναρθρες κραυγές του γορίλλα που θυμίζουν Δανέζικα (κάποιοι θα υποστήριζαν με ζήλο ότι τα Δανέζικα ήδη δεν απέχουν και πολύ από άναρθρες κραυγές) όταν έχει εκνευριστεί που η κουζίνα δεν είναι στην εντέλεια της καθαριότητας και σπάει τοστιέρες πετώντας τις στο πάτωμα επειδή “ξανά, κανείς δεν πέταξε τα σκουπίδια”.
Μετά τις καλημέρες στις οποίες συνήθως περιορίζεται η επικοινωνία μας, έσπασε την αναμενόμενη σιωπή σήμερα λέγοντας «Η Ευρωπαική Ένωση σήμερα έσωσε την χώρα σου, τώρα δεν πρέπει να πληρώσετε όλα σας τα χρέη». Τον κοίταξα και με έναν αναστεναγμό του απάντησα: «το ξέρω, μόλις το διάβασα» και πήρα τον δρόμο για την κουζίνα, θέλοντας να δείξω ότι θα προτιμούσα να μην μιλήσω για το συγκεκριμένο θέμα. Εκείνος συνέχισε, με ένα ύφος λες και εγώ προσωπικά έφταιγα για το χρέος: «Τώρα ελπίζω τα πράγματα να μην ξανακυλίσουν. Η Άνγκελα Μέρκελ είπε επίσης ότι άλλες χώρες από την ανατολική Ευρώπη θα πρέπει να πάρουν τις ευθύνες τους στα σοβαρά . Αυτό πρέπει να γίνει αν θέλουμε η ΕΕ να πετύχει και να μην χρειαστεί η Γερμανία να τις βοηθάει όλες να κάνουν ό,τι θα έπρεπε να έχουν την σοβαρότητα να κάνουν μόνες τους!»
«Δεν είναι βοήθεια αυτό. Το χρέος μας θα διπλασιαστεί μέσα σε λίγα χρόνια. Το κούρεμα είναι απλά ένα τέχνασμα των μέσων για να μην πουν στα ίσια ότι είναι χρεωκοπία και πλήρης παραχώρηση των εξουσιαστικών δικαιωμάτων».
«Δεν ξέρω, τι άλλο θα έπρεπε να έχουν κάνει;»
Θα μπορούσα να έχω πει πολλά πράγματα εκείνη την στιγμή. Πολλά πέρασαν από το μυαλό μου. Αλλά απλά είπα ένα
I can’t remember for how long it’s been a dream of mine to see the Northern Lights. To be overwhelmed by their sheer other-worldliness, to lose myself in this phantasmagoria, the proof that magic is nothing supernatural, nothing more “super” than nature at its very best.
This dream of mine was never closer to being fulfilled than now. From the moment I learned that I would be coming to Denmark I started planning my Great Pilgrimage to Hyperborea. The cheapest, if by far the most time-consuming, way to get as close to the Arctic Circle as possible was, I soon found out, to InterRail all the way up from Denmark to Northern Norway. It was not hard to find two other people that shared my dream and felt like joining me. These are some of our stories, of three travellers hungry for adventure, out to see the magic of the world and finding it. Even if not exactly as we expected it when we first set off…
Ana and me woke up early on the 13th day of October. We had a train to catch — the first of many. We packed our bags full of food like bread, carrots, apples, La Vache Qui Rit-type cheese, baked beans… we had heard legends of people going to Norway and dying of starvation because supermarkets were too expensive. We definitely did not want to suffer the same fate. After we made sure that our bags would weigh less than half as much on our way back, we set off. We saw the sun rise over the lazy cow-dotted plains of Jutland, passed to Fyn and before we knew it we had already crossed Zealand and were in Copenhagen Central Station. This was our rendezvous point with Cedric. We didn’t have difficulty spotting him coming out from the train from Hamburg, he was sporting a backpack almost one and a half times larger than my own. If my own bag contained roughly equal parts clothes and food, Cedric’s was almost bursting at the seems from the weight of several tins of ravioli, bottles of wine and beer. We would soon be very thankful he had been extra mindful when it came to food… And so it began.
What will stay with me from this trip:
• We did not see the Northern Lights. Mission failed. All of our nights north of the Arctic Circle were beautifully overcast. But even if they hadn’t been, people told us that it wasn’t a good time of the year to see them. “The aurora is at its most impressive after a big drop in temperature… The best time is in January or February, when it’s really cold and there aren’t so many clouds”. Then why do so many sites say that October is a good time? As far as the Lights go, this is indeed our theme song for the trip.
Play us off Keyboard Cat!
• Cedric’s cool. Riding from Malmö to Göteborg, the city in which, in a parallel universe, we would have changed trains for Oslo, Cedric realised that something was missing from his otherwise stuffed backpack. It was his wallet. Of all places, it had to be Sweden where we would find our pick-pocket. How many of us think of Sweden when we hear about pick-pocketing? I’m beginning to get tired of Nordic nimble fingers. Of course we couldn’t just leave Göteborg and ride into the unknown before Cedric had exhausted all possibilities regarding the whereabouts of his wallet and, most importantly, its contents. He had lost his money, his bank card and his ID. What would you, dear reader, do if this had happened to you on the first day of a long-awaited trip? Ana and I agreed that, for one, we would be freaking out badly. Cedric, however, kept his characteristic cool during all stages of grief. “I’ll get by, I’ll survive. I’m just annoyed that we had to miss the train to Oslo and our plans got messed up”. The next day, in Oslo, when the German embassy told him that at least he could take the next train back home, he didn’t hesitate even for a minute to follow us through. Again, “what’s the worst thing they can do to me? At most they’ll just send me back to Germany. It’s where I’m going eventually anyway.”
• Jan. He was our host in Bodø, the small town we stayed the longest in Norway. He took us to lots of very Norwegian places around the town in his car (including Saltstraumen, even though it was at high tide and wasn’t at all impressive), showed us some new for us electronic music (he was a big fan!) and some documentaries about Life, the Universe and Everything with him, one of them he had made himself. W even talked a little bit about video games.
He helped us a lot by taking us to Fauske where we begun our…
• Hitch-hiking. On the 5th day, we had to hitch-hike from Fauske to Narvik (οur CouchHost Jan was so good as to drive us from Bodø to Fauske. In retrospect, if he hadn’t done so we might not have made it through to Narvik at all). With good spirits we prepared our cardboard sign. On one side it read “NARVIK” and on the other “N↑”. For hours we tried and tried on the side of the E6, aka the Arctic Highway — a name that makes it sound much more majestic than it really is. We jumped around at incoming cars, thumbs outstretched, our best smiles as bright as tiny flashlights in the afternoon light.
Tens, hundreds of cars passed us by, few drivers gave us any kind of sign, let alone stopped. Later, we realised that the reason was probably because no-one wanted, or had enough space to carry three extra passengers. We were in the middle of nowhere, 100klm north of the Arctic Circle, moose crossing signs around us, Narvik was 250klm away. Disappointment set in. We began to make our way back to Fauske where we would make our way back to Bodø by train, our ultimate Plan B. And then the unexpected, the unreal happened. A car stopped in front of us after we had already started walking back. A big man in a blue sweater came out.
“Do you want to go to Narvik?”
“Yes!”, I said. This was strange. We were going to the opposite direction, with Narvik facing our backsides and already half-empty backpacks. How did he know that we wanted to go there?
“We will take you there. We will take you to Narvik!”
I froze. I did not know what to make of it. These two people — this man and his wife — were obviously not going to Narvik. However, they wanted to make a detour, a 10-hour one both ways at that, to help us out. In my mind appeared a pair of scales. Weighing down the one side was fear, disbelief, the kind of feeling that would never let you hitch-hike, the feeling people transmit to you when they tell you that in every CouchSurfer lies a hidden serial killer just waiting to kill you in the most tortuous of ways; on the other side there was trust, willingness, adventure, the sense that everything can happen if you just give it a chance. It didn’t take long at all for the latter side to win this recurring internal battle.
Enter Lisbeth and Finn-Ove. They saw us trying to hitch a ride while they were going back home after shopping. “I feel sorry for them”, said Finn-Ove. “How sorry?”, asked Lisbeth. They turned around, picked us up, filled the tanks in Fauske and stopped home to leave the stuff they had just bought before setting out for the road trip. What they had just went out to shop were huge boxes of kitty litter. Turned out that Lisbeth and Finn-Ove are professional cat-breeders. My cat-loving side went a little awry at the thought (mind: it’s the same side that feeds my distaste for small dogs) but once I saw the care they put into their pocket felines, my heart melted. Their house was situated in a small Norwegian village under craggy mountains, over delicious fjords and next to deep forest that serves as a home for curious moose… AND a houseful of beautiful and tame cats, a large home cinema and a fresh box-set of Star Wars in Blu-ray (Finn-Ove’s been a fan “ever since he saw the films on Norwegian TV”). What else might a man want?
The next five hours we spent in their car, talking about life, hitch-hiking, cats and their group hierarchy (“fertile females are the leaders”), Star Wars and Norway while outside the windows, fantastic mountains, forests and fjords (and a few moose we stopped to see) were being greeted by the Arctic October dusk that slowly but surely painted the skies black…
Finn-Ove and Lisbeth saved us out of nowhere. We hitched a ride with them for over 250klm of Norwegian countryside. They were an inspiration and a delight to meet and helped me add another experience to fight my fearful and cynic side, a much-needed one: semi long-distance hitch-hiking.
• Betty and her Brain Balancing. Day 7 found us in Stockholm. As usual, nowhere to stay, hey, at least we had a train station to fall back to if all else failed, or at least we hoped that a train station in a capital city would stay open through the night. We sent out an SOS to the world, aka a Last Minute CouchRequest. And voila, one hour later Betty sent us a message telling us she can host us. Off we went to meet this lady that was to be our host in Stockholm, a city which from the two nights we spent there I can say that I loved. It’s a city made of bridges connecting its many islands, with parks and cliffs right next to the river/lake/sea in between. And would you imagine? We saw deer grazing in Betty’s backyard in the morning. Stockholm: breath-taking to walk around in, both at night and during the day.
Back to Betty. Born in Sweden by Hungarian parents, had a daughter (our age) with a man from The Gambia. And I thought I was a child of multi-culturalism… After a much-needed dinner consisting of bread, butter, raspberry jam and Nugatti (read: Norwegian Nutella, only like 10 times better than Nutella), Betty revealed her current profession to us. She is a Brain Balancer. “A psychologist?”, ready to ask was I, but she was quick to add: “Literally, what I do is balance brains. Every brain is to some extent unbalanced. What I do is let the brain listen to its own brainwaves and correct itself in order to move out of ruts and behavioural vicious cycles that activate in situations of stress and fear. This balancing will not alter your personality whatsoever, just open up your possibilities and allow you to step back from your own behaviour in order to be able to observe and modify it.” She invited us to try it ourselves. There is a system monitoring and recording your brainwaves and playing tones into earphones that create a feedback loop for the brain. It is actually very hard to put into words but from what Betty described and from what I can see it looks like a mighty interesting idea. It might sound completely crazy but if I had the money I would try it (ten 90-minute sessions that should be enough to have a permanent effect carry a price tag of close to €2000). I asked her if there is a way to obtain the same results for free and without the brain balancer. She answered that if I purposefully observe myself in weird or dangerous situations and the way I react in order to first be able to witness behaviours programmed into me (do I freeze or go into fight and flight mode?), with some meditation and inner silence I should be able to create the same effects as brain balancing would. Read more here. The interesting thing is that Betty found about this a few years ago through a CouchSurfer of hers and was obviously thrilled. Before that she was a textile designer. Now we learned about this also through CouchSurfing… Around, goes the world.
• Karlstad and Narvik. Two of the nights in the North we had nowhere to stay. No Couchhosts, no money, nothing. I can tell you this: Sweden and Norway are NOT good places to try your life as a homeless person — even though I think that if you have no home, in Denmark at least, the state provides you with shelter. So, in this respect and for a few hours we were far worse off than any Nordic homeless would be. Train stations locked tight, shops and bars closing early, even MacDonald’s providing only temporary shelter and franchise coffee until midnight. A bit of Cinderella magic there. These town were public spaces that after 11PM became non-spaces… In both cases we were outside until the early hours, walking around the city, having our usual incredibly long, deep and often pointless discussions with Cedric (to Ana’s probable annoyance), playing football with plastic coffee cups or trying to sleep at temperatures very close or under 0 °C. Layering clothes didn’t help much to keep warm, nor did running around on the brightly lit but oh, so cold and inhospitable station platforms — the appearance of a semi-friendly fox in Karlstad station, though, at least cheered us up a lot.
But let me tell you, for all the shivering and biting cold, the moments of salvation more than made up for it. When our train from Karlstad to Oslo arrived, all warm and cozy inside, or when the station master in Narvik opened the doors half an hour earlier than we expected, at 6:30 instead of 7AM… It was happiness, the same kind of lizard-brain happiness you see in your dog’s or cat’s face when they lie curled up at your feet.
In Lizbeth’s and Finn-Ove’s car, I told Cedric: “When we get to Narvik, we have nowhere to stay…” -“I know…”, he replied, “I look forward to it.”
• In Oslo, outside the central train station, we asked some police people (how would you call a police man together with a police woman?) where we could find the police station. They kindly drove us there in their police van, putting us in the little cage they have in the trunk reserved for criminals, hand-cuffs and all. We went crazy. Made me want to steal something so that I could travel in this thing again. Guaranteed nice views.
• I had an amazing time with Cedric and Ana. I had never travelled for so long with anyone I had not been romantically involved with before. Many laughs, similar, relaxed and happy attitudes to things going very wrong. It’s true that travelling with people is the ultimate test of friendship and even though I’ve only been friends with these guys a few months I think we passed the test with flying colours.
• Avoid relying on trains if you want to take in the scenery. You will fall asleep more than you would like. You will also read much less than you expect.
• Most of our expenses in this trip were not for food or alcohol, but forcoffee (thank you, Seven Eleven). If you plan to take it cheap (or free), be sure to be able to find or make cheap coffee. We spent €0 on accommodation, if you exclude two of the nights we spent in trains. 5 days of travel in 10 cost us €169 each.
• If you want to go to Scandinavia to drink, you are probably much better off in every way in your own country.
• Catching trains while having a hangover at the same time is very possibly the definition of Not Fun.
• Who’s up for the next travel to Hyperborea? This time to really see the Lights?
It’s the equinox, the middle of the seasonal change. This time of year, day gives way to night three minutes every day at my latitude, at its annual max. Every night from today til the Winter Solstice will still be longer than the previous one, but getting longer at a slower rate. The slowing will turn into a grinding halt on the Solstice itself, also known as Christmas, when the day will start gaining ground again. And long and cold nights they will be, here in the north. Let’s hope they’ll be hyggelig as well.
So it’s the first day of Autumn, if you’re one that prefers his astronomical seasons to the arbitrary calendrial ones. If you’re like me. A lot of leaves have already put on their jackets for the coming cold (it’s already ~12C every day here). They’re very pretty in their last days of life, their colours saturated with deep, earthly reds. As the days pass, more and more leaves will find their beautiful deaths on the wet streets. It feels wrong drying them, preserving them, when their rightful place in the circle of life is death and non-preservation, becoming food for bacteria and fungi.
This environment is quite perfect for going to lessons and having to preoccupy yourself with creative ideas. Perfect environment for sitting at home when you’re not out walking in the rain listening to music or Spanish lessons, doing your assignment for Media Management and Journalism 3.0 in the Digital Age, on Search Engine Optimization and Croud-Sourcing… What’s better than being at a Great Works of Art class, it pouring outside and you analysing Monteverdi and Vivaldi inside, in the cozy warmth of knowledge, academia and the body heat of art-thirsty colleagues?
University classes have started (first lessons last week for Media Management & Journalism 3.0, I still haven’t had a class of Digital Media Ethics or Great Works of Art, although I had to listen to Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beate Vergine as preparation for the first class — listen to it if you like big band Baroque!) I’m meeting more and more people (and I thought the ~100 people of Destination DK was a lot; how about ~1500? That’s how many exchange students are here for the semester!), and, to be honest, the novelty is starting to wear off.
Just yesterday, it was “the biggest Friday bar of the year” (every department has its own Friday Bar which opens in the afternoons of, get that, Fridays, to accommodate thirsty and tired students from all of the week’s stress. Generally, just another excuse to chug beer and party.) So, yes, yesterday was the biggest Friday bar of the year. Close to the university park lake there was a stage on which there were teams playing Beer Bowling, with a large crowd surrounding the stage and loud club music blaring on the speakers. I found a lot of other exchange students around there but I wasn’t feeling like socialising under those conditions, it was too crowded and brainless and I could honestly see no fun in it. I mean, I’d like to play Beer Bowling with friends, but as a spectator sport?
Looks like fun. If you're Danish.
I’m trying to decide… What kind of fun do I like? On the one hand I really like quiet, personal, hyggelig situations with or without friends, watching a movie, discussing over good, just-cooked food — oh it feels so great cooking, I wonder why I wasn’t doing it all these years?! Thanks Ana and Cedric for helping with get in the hang of it! — playing a board game, subtle fun I don’t get very often these days except with very certain people. On the other hand, I can enjoy big parties and loud music, I like dancing (the alcohol percentage in my blood is inversely proportionate to my musical eclecticness, big surprise!) and I like meeting people, but yesterday I just wasn’t feeling up to it at all. Yes, there were even some girls that I wouldn’t mind talking to in there, some that I had met before and others that I wish I would, but just couldn’t. You know, I find it hard to just talk to strangers but even harder to talk to people I’ve exchanged a few words with already. I don’t know whether it’s shyness, indifference, dismissiveness or one of these masked as one of the other two…
Anyway, I decided I wasn’t having any fun and just walked from the university park back home, mp3 player alternating between the audiobook I’m currently obsessed with and Primsleur Essential Spanish… Actually I do this quite a lot these days, walking from Skoldhøjkollegiet to Århus and back. It takes around an hour, it’s good exercise, I listen to audiobooks and my favourite music, it fills me with positive vibes and it’s free, unlike taking the bus! This is the optimal walking (and I also presume biking) route, my stride took only 59 minutes yesterday. τ^^ Rain will most definitely be a problem now that winter is coming, but eh, I’ll worry about that when winter is here.
Two weeks ago my Danish classes restarted, this time in a more serious environment. I have two lessons every week, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. At the end of September I’m going to sit for my first test in Danish. If I succeed, I’ll jump from complete-beginner Module 1 to almost-beginner Module 2. All I need to do to pass is speak about either a topic of my preference (I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT I SHOULD CHOOSE TO BABBLE ON ABOUT! Greece? Food? Denmark? My hobbies? Aasfgfdlfkg?) or one of three books I’ll have to read beforehand. Oh, I had forgot the sensation of language exam stress! Missed you old chap.
I was in the mood to record some Danish for you tonight, maybe try to work on my pronounciation a little. I used a text I wrote almost a month ago for my Destination DK classes. My Danish is not much better today, but I can spot some mistakes I made back in August when I wrote this. I left them in for historicality.
Jeg hedder Dimitris Hall. Jeg kommer fra Grækenland, fra byen Nea Smyrni i Aten. Jeg er 22 år gammel. Jeg studerede kulturel teknologi og kommunikation til fem år på Ægæisk Universitetet, på øen af Lesvos. Min mor er græske og min far er australsk. De er sklit 20 år. Jeg har ingen søskende. Jeg bor i Århus to uger på Skoldhøjkollegiet og vil bor her i et halvt år. Jeg har mødet mange udvekslingsstuderende. Danmark er grøn med mange træer, skov og cykler. Desværre, jeg har ikke cykel nu, og jeg har ikke mange pengen. Men jeg finde Danmark og Århus hyggelig og jeg er glad at være her. Grækenland er ikke samme måde med Danmark. Grækenland er varm og ikke grøn, de har ikke mange penge der. Men Danmark og Grækenland har mange øer og jeg kan lidt øer og havet.
Translation:
My name is Dimitris Hall. I come from Greece, from the town of Nea Smyrni in Athens. I am 22 years old. I study Cultural Technology and Communication for five years at Aegean University, on the island of Lesvos. My mother is Greek and my father is Australian. They’re divorced 20 years. I have no siblings. I’ve lived in Aarhus for two weeks at Skjoldhøjkollegiet and will be living here for half a year. I have met many exchange students. Denmark is green with many trees, forests and bicycles. Unfortunately, I don’t have a bicycle now, and I haven’t got much money. But I find Denmark and Aarhus nice (cozy!) and I’m happy to be here. Greece is not the same as Denmark. Greece is warm and not green, they haven’t got much money there. But Denmark and Greece have many islands and I like islands and the sea.
Το περασμένο Σάββατο, το Studenterhus διοργάνωσε μια εκδρομή στο Skagen. Δεν μπορούσα να την χάσω, ήθελα να πάω στο Skagen χρόνια τώρα. Από τότε που ο Andy, ο υπέροχος μισοταϊλανδός-μισοδανός τύπος που φιλοξένησε εμένα και την Άλεξ στην Κοπεγχάγη πάνω από τρία χρόνια πριν, μας είχε πει πόσα όμορφα ήταν εκεί και πόσο επέμενε ότι έπρεπε να πάμε, ενώ μιλάγαμε στο ισόγειο του ξενοδοχείου που δούλευε και είχε καταφέρει να μας μπάσει τσάμπα. Και από τότε, δεν ξέχασα αυτό το όνομα: Skagen. Που, όπως πρόσφατα έμαθα, δεν προφέρεται Σκάγκεν αλλά Σκέι(ε)ν — το ε στην παρένθεση το προφέρετε μόνο αν θέλετε, αν νιώθετε πως έχετε την διάθεση ρε παιδί μου, έτσι είναι η προφορά των Δανέζικων, μπορείτε να μισοπείτε-μισομασήσετε μια λέξη και έτσι να είναι πιο αυθεντικός ο ήχος…
Πήγαμε λοιπόν στο Skagen με όλη την συμμορία από δω, ή με σχεδόν όλη. Η τιμή ήταν απαγορευτική για μερικούς: 350kr — κάτι λιγότερο από 50 ευρώ για μια μονοήμερη. Όμως είχα ελέγξει τις εναλλακτικές για να πάω μόνος με τραίνο: έβγαινε ακριβότερα και λεωφορείο δεν νομίζω να πάει εκεί πάνω. Οπότε για μένα τουλάχιστον ήταν μια μοναδική ευκαιρία και παρ’όλο που το παραδάκι μου ήταν μικροσκοπικό, τόλμησα να το υποβαθμίσω στο επίπεδο του “σχεδόν ανύπαρκτο” και να πάω κι εγώ. Όχι που θα κώλωνα.
Τι είναι λοιπόν το περίφημο Skagen; Είναι πολύ απλό. Είναι το βορειότερο ακρωτήρι, το τέλος της Δανίας, το σημείο που δύο θαλασσίτσες συναντιούνται και άλλες δύο θαλασσάρες μπλέκονται, δύο θαλασσάρες στις οποίες ανήκουν, θεωρητικά πάντα εφόσον όλα είναι θέμα ορισμών, οι μικρότερες θαλασίτσες. Στο Skagen, το Skagerrak κονταροχτυπιέται με το Kattegat. Aυτές οι θάλασσες θα μπορούσαμε να πούμε ότι ήταν για τους Vikings ότι ήταν για τους Έλληνες το Αιγαίο. Στο ίδιο σημείο, η Βαλτική μπλέκεται με την Βόρεια Θάλασσα. Και το ανακατεμένο αποτέλεσμα, με τα κύματα των δύο θαλασσών να έρχονται από αντίθετες κατευθύνσεις, δημιουργεί ένα σημείο που η οργή του Βόρειου Ποσειδώνα δεν κατευνάζεται ποτέ.
Τα ρεύματα πανίσχυρα, τα ναυάγια πολλά. Τα ρεύματα μεταφέρουν πολύ πράγμα το οποίο προστίθεται στην ακτή και επιμηκύνει το Grenen, όπως λέγεται η τελευταία άκρη του Skagen, περίπου 8 μέτρα κάθε χρόνο. Και έτσι, αφού ότι είναι τώρα θάλασσα σε λίγα χρόνια θα είναι άμμος και χώμα, πολλά από τα ναυάγια των περασμένων αιώνων είναι τώρα διάσπαρτα πάνω στην δυτική ακτή. Ποιος ξέρει τι περισσότερο θα μπορούσε ένας δεινός δύτης να βρει σε αυτή την περιοχή; Όχι πως θα ήταν ότι πιο ασφαλές, γιατί εκτός από υλικά τα ρεύματα έχουν το κακό συνήθειο να παρασέρνουν και ανθρώπους που νομίζουν ότι μπορούν να κατακτήσουν την θάλασσα, και γι’αυτό το κολύμπι γύρω από το Grenen απαγορεύεται.
Μερικά χιλιόμετρα από το Grenen βρίσκεται το Skagen, μια σχετικά βαρετή πόλη η οποία ευδοκιμεί χάρης του τουρισμού που προσελκύει αυτό το πολύ ιδιαίτερο σημείο της χώρας (ναι, μιλάμε για πολύ τουρίστα, πριν πάω στο Grenen φανταζόμουν πως θα είναι κάπως έτσι:
όμως ήταν κάπως έτσι:
Στο Skagen έζησαν στα τέλη του 19ου αιώνα πολλοί ζωγράφοι οι οποίοι εμπνεύστηκαν από το μοναδικό φως του Grenen και δημιούργησαν πολλά έργα εμπνευσμένα από την καθημερινότητα των ψαράδων και των κατοίκων της περιοχής. Τελικά η παλιά Δανέζικη ζωγραφική μου αρέσει πολύ, απ’όσο τους είδα στην πινακοθήκη του Skagen αλλά και στο ARos.
Μερικά χιλιόμετρα νότια ακόμα, βρίσκεται κάτι που πραγματικά δεν περίμενα να βρω στην Δανία. Πρόκεται για το Råbjerg Mile (Ρόμπ-γιεα Μίλε), μια αμμοθίνη που εκτείνεται για ένα τετραγωνικό χιλιόμετρο περίπου και στο ψηλότερο σημείο της είναι 40 μέτρα. Για να μην πολυλογώ, είναι σαν να πήρες ένα κομμάτι της Σαχάρας και να το έριξες στην μέση –ΟΚ, στην άκρη– της Δανίας. Με την διαφορά βέβαια ότι η Σαχάρα δεν είναι 1 τετραγωνικό χιλιόμετρο, αλλά 9.400.000, για να καταλάβετε την διαφορά, αν το Råbjerg Mile ήταν ένα τετραγωνικό εκατοστό, περίπου ένα νόμισμα των 5 cents, η Σαχάρα θα ήταν μια έκταση 32μ x 32μ… This is some serious desert…
Το πιο παράδοξο είναι ότι γύρω από την περιοχή του Råbjerg Mile υπάρχουν δάση, λίμνες, ανεμογεννήτριες, στο βάθος … Οπότε το σκηνικό κάνει την εμπειρία αυτής της θίνης ακόμα πιο σουρεαλιστική. Το Råbjerg Mile αποτελείται και αυτό απο “κινούμενη άμμο”: κάθε χρόνο μετακινείται ανατολικά γύρω στα 15-20 μέτρα. Οπότε, γύρω στο 2200, θα χάθει μέσα στο Kateggat. Eξωγήινοι, αθάνατοι και λοιποί αιωνόβιοι, προλάβετε! Αν και τουλάχιστον οι Δανοί το 2200 θα αποκτήσουν μια καλή αμμώδη παραλία στην ανατολική ακτή, γιατί τώώώρα…
Η δυτική ακτή της Δανίας είναι όλη περίπου σαν τις ακτές του Skagen (και μου θύμισε τo Scheveningen κοντά στην Χάγη που είχαμε πάει με την Νένη πέρσι, αυτή την απέραντη αμμουδιά…) Το Aarhus είναι στην ανατολική ακτή. Ένα θα πω για την ποιότητα των παραλιών και της θάλασσας της ανατολικής ακτής: κάτι ήξερε όποιος την ονόμασε Βαλτική…
Πολύ θα ήθελα να είχα μείνει περισσότερο σε αυτά τα μέρη, όμως το αυστηρό πρόγραμμα της εκδρομής μας άφησε μόνο λίγη ώρα σε κάθε ένα…
The past few days haven’t been all that much to write home about. The main reason for this is my almost complete lack of money. I knew before coming here that costs of living would be extreme, I thought I was prepared (was I ever…) but I didn’t expect that even going to the supermarket or downtown could be so frightening to my wallet and the full range of its contents. That together with a few unlucky money-sucking occasions have meant that I’ve been forced to put a few limits to my wanderlust and learn to enjoy the finer pleasures of looking at the four walls of my room and my laptop’s screen. Fortunately it’s not as bad as it sounds; I’ve got company in my kronerlessness, as well as grass and trees around Skoldhøjkollegiet.
For you to understand exactly how easy it is for money to disappear in ways unexpected, allows me to disclose a recent episode of my dorm life. Every week two of the twelve rooms in Spobjergvej 58 have to do the cleaning up. One is responsible for the kitchen and the other for the other common areas (the common room, the staircases and corridors etc). An inspection takes place every Tuesday to determine if everything’s clean as it should. If not, little notes are left for the respectiverooms to notify them of what they have to do by the following day. If they still fail to clean they are charged completely unreasonable amounts of money for the cleaners that do the job for them.
It was my turn to clean the common areas last week and of course I didn’t want to make my already atrocious financial situation that much horrible. So I took extra care to vacuum every carpet and linoleum surface and mop anything that could be mopped. Alas, Tuesday’s check unequivocally concluded that my vacuuming had been unsatisfactory. To top it all off, before I knew it, the common room floor surfaces were covered with grass and mud again — it was a rainy day and my flatmates were not paying much attention, why should they, it wasn’t them that had to clean up, was it? I begrudgingly did my part and slept easy, believing I had escaped the villainous clutches and voracious wallets of the cleaning ladies staff (they’re very serious about gender equality here, it’s even reflected in their language. Not that I disapprove, of course). Next day I was greeted with a beautiful 154 kr. (~20€) for “cleaning performed due to insufficient cleaning”. If they had chosen to be a little bit thorougher, costs of unwanted cleanliness could have easily reached 400kr for the likes of “vacuuming the furniture”, “keeping escape routes free” and “washing the lamps and tables”. At least they were kind enough to add “the hall of residence will collect the amount for the cleaning on the next month’s rent of the relevant resident”. Oh, it’s OK, I don’t have to pay it right away, only with my next month’s rent! >:ε What strikes me as the oddest is that none of my flatmates seems to know with any amount of detail what the cleaning entails or just care about it for that matter. The three weeks I’ve been here it’s not the residents that have done the cleaning but the company. It shouldn’t surprise me now that I think about it; my flatmates do strike me as the kind of people that would rather pay than clean up themselves, out of sheer boredom most likely.
My new Andalusian friend Ana and I have made a habit of going for walks and cooking dinner together every evening — Spanish, Greek and new experimental recipes. We are in a compatible economical situation (one that does not permit lots of going out) so we can make the best of our limited means. That includes buying beer with the highest price-for-alcohol ratio (but still the cheapest) and watching documentaries on Youtube. Joy: I’ve found yet another friend with which I can agree about how the entirety of our world is a social construction! Our discussions are sometimes limited by language barriers at a higher level, but hey, she’s already trying to teach me Spanish and doing a good job of it too, so ¿quién sabe? I totally used Google Translate for that, by the way.
Apart from cleaning, being with Ana, watching In Treatment and How I Met Your Mother (almost done with season 6, finally!) most of my past days I’ve been trying to make my laptop work with Skype. That would be an easy task normally. Thing is, I’ve been trying to run Linux for a few weeks now and I promised myself that this time I WOULDN’T give up and return to Windows after the 50th time I would be forced to do something the hard way, if at all. Well, this time, I’m not so sure. PulseAudio is driving me absolutely crazy. I’ve been scouring the web for days trying to get my microphone to work but it’s all been little more, or should I say less than a headache. And it’s not just Skype and all the friends and family I’d love to actually talk to instead of merely hearing. What I was also looking forward to was posting videos of me trying to speak Danish! Now I can’t do even that.
Sorry Linux, I love you just as I love free stuff and sticking to my ideology and beliefs –not to mention doing my part of anti-conformity– but sometimes you just can’t resist that […ooh, as if I’d share with you my forbidden pleasures… ~^,]
By the way. If I love something more than receiving postcards, letters and packages, it’s receiving them with no prior notice. For everyone that might want to surprise me and make a grown man cry tears of joy, here’s my address here in Denmark:
These days have been everything about being out and meeting new people, most notably a few Spanish and Mexican girls that have turned my opinion on Spain, the Spanish language and the Spanish people by 180 degrees. Hi-fives to Ana, Dulce, Ileana and Henar!
Studenterhus Århus continues to organise lots of stuff every day to keep us entertained, like taking us to ARoS ([state of the — pardon me for the pun] art museum, loved everything, from the super po-mo stuff that didn’t make sense to the super po-mo stuff that made lots of sense to the early 20th century Danish painters that I’d normally find quite ordinary) or having a speed meeting (I can tell you, I have never been so thrilled AND tired of getting to know people at the same time, most of I’ll never see again because they weren’t actually from our Destination DK group but from some other summer university program of AU that was about to end). I’m starting to really like the people of Studenterhus and the place itself which is not too bad at all for a beer or coffee.
Monday was the first day of my Danish class and we have classes every day starting at 8:45. Living 30-40 minutes away by bike from the university campus in Århus where the lessons take place doesn’t help things, but I enjoy biking there and home. If only it wasn’t so time-consuming! Sophia is an excellent teacher, exceptionally cheery and informal, laughs out loud a lot, loves to talk to us about her life and Denmark in general. I’m very happy to be having lessons with her! Danish… Hvad hedder du? Hvor kommer du fra?Jeg har ikke en kærester. Jeg har et seng, to border og tre stoler på min værelse. Jeg cykler mange i Århus. Well, it does taking A LOT of getting used to and believe me, it sounds absolutely NOTHING like it reads. After four days of lessons already and ten days in Denmark, I think I might have started catching words on the street or in shops that are not common with or in any other way remind German. I still think I have a long and winding road ahead of me before I can even start catching spoken Danish; unless of course it was spoken to me veeery slowly and clearly, in which case I doubt whether it would continue to claim the right to be called Danish anymore.
The atmosphere is great in the lessons and I’m having a lot of fun each day. Of course there’s another 7 or 8 classes just like us, most filled with complete Danish beginners!
I’ll sign off for today with some videos showing Skolhøjkollegiet, my dorms (I’m in no 58, room 3 by the way):
One big change brings another! I had it cut just before flying out to Denmark… I’ll skip the relevant sentimentalities altogether (you DON’T want to get me started), it’s hair and it’s gonna grow back before I know it…
Yes! My Erasmus is on, I’m writing this using some stolen unlocked invisible waves from a nearby dorm… And I’m sick. My throat is killing me and I must have a fever. Must be from sleeping everywhere I found a suitable surface in Prague airport (where I had an 11-hour stopover) and in a park in Prague itself, so sleep-deprived was I… I don’t know where I caught the bug but right now it’s killing all of my energy and fun. Anyway…
I’m in Denmark two days already. I like it VERY much. The area in which I live is in the middle of nowhere, almost 10km from the centre of Århus, but that means that it’s really quiet with lots of beautiful nature everywhere. It’s also in a side of town which is considered a “ghetto”, and so yesterday when riding home on the bike I rented from Studenterhus Århus I saw lots of Muslim and black immigrants. I also found a few local supermarkets run by immigrants that had all sorts of spices, Turkish products, an aroma from the Middle East and shopped at a couple of them. I can’t shake the feeling that they overcharged me because they realised I was a foreigner but then again that might be my subconscious little anti-multiculturally indoctrinated side speaking. From what I found out by visiting another nearby supermarket today, things are expensive everywhere. Three bell peppers of various colours: 15 kr. A little can of Somersby cider: 20 kr. Pears: 2,95 kr per piece.
By the way, 1€ =~ 7,5 Danish Kroner. Do the math yourself. 😛 Yes, things here ARE expensive.
The University in all of its grand location in the middle of a large park and in the city centre, complete with lakes etc has been a big help already and I can feel that they’re really caring for the exchange students, what with organising the language and culture course that’s taking place in the next few days, ensuring everyone is OK etc. On arriving they gave me a big bag with merchandise, including a raincoat! Even though the weather as long as I’ve been here has been excellent, something tells me I’m gonna need it!
God! I feel terrible. I so want to continue writing, there’s SO much to share already but I’d rather just lie in bed… Some pictures (from my Denmark flickr set):
I’m sitting on the floor aboard European Express, one of the worst ships of the line that connect Athens with Mytilini. Very few seats, the lounge has some weird round tables that are useless and it’s almost entirely made of huge spaces with lights too bright. Never mind. I’m travelling to Mytilini with a mission.
Get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
The past few months I’ve been preparing, mentally and practically, for the next big thing in my life. That is my Erasmus. I’d been dreaming of doing it for many years now but this year was my last and best chance since I’m also moving out of the place I’ve called home for the past five years.
So I did pursue it. I sent out requests, I got denied, I meddled with bureaucracy and had my share of incredible stories anyone going through this brutal procedure no doubt have as well. My big thanks to the Aegean University International Office who helped a lot along the way while also tolerating my sluggish ways with filling in applications, agreements, doing this sort of paperwork thing.
In just 14 days now, in the early hours of July 26th, I’m flying to Denmark and I’m going to be living there for the next six months. More specifically I’ll be studying at the department of Information and Media Studies in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark. The first few weeks of August I’ll be doing a language and culture course and September will see the beginning of my three courses! I’m so very excited about all the things I’m going to experience and learn there, the different cultures I’ll witness and sink my teeth into, the trips I’m going to make, the sights I will behold, the parts of me I will create and explore all at the same time.
But here I sit, comfortably numb from it all. When changes come creeping closer I never find myself ready to deal with them and flow along as I typically do. In fact, the closer they come, the less active I become. I find myself getting lazier and lazier (and I’m not THAT lazy under normal circumstances) instead of taking advantage of my countdown. I hate it when I do that but it’s very strong with me, for some reason. It’s something I’ve come to call προθανάτιος μηδενισμός in Greek, something you’d call pre-mortem nihilism in English if you’d want to sound especially obnoxious (it sounds obnoxious in Greek too but sometimes the minimum common denominator is not fit for the very truest of verbal expressivenesss). There, I did it again.
That is part of the reason I haven’t written anything about all this until now, the reason I’ve been writing less on here in general. Another reason is that I was afraid of writing this in particular because it is, inevitably, a sort of farewell post. If I’m not good –nay, if I get really nervous, anxious about– at something, it is farewells. Is anyone…?
It’s a farewell post to the five years that changed me from deep inside. The place that was chiefly the background for this change and my coming of age. It has been the equivalent of discovering the New World for myselves. It is a chunk of spacetime, the kind that burns itself into our memories really close to our scent centres, wherne I can say I had the most fun and significant experiences till now. Of course, I met lots of good people during this period some of whom became my friends, others something more, yet others something less. With certain people (I wouldn’t be able to point them all out yet) “Mytilini was the first chapter”. For most, as it happens, it’s also going to be the last chapter. I’m not sure how I feel about that — at least for now.
Now my mission, as stated above, is to push on, pack in and move out of Mytilini in the minimum number of days in order to buy some time to see friends, family and everyone that, if I won’t be seeing for over six months, I’ll miss (in case they don’t visit me in Denmark, of course ~^,) Truth is, I’m not really feeling it. Maybe that’s the reason I’m comfortably numb. It’s the difference between having played a new game for ten minutes and having only read the manual: knowing something and knowing about something…
Who knows? Maybe the empty boxes and the sight of things lying around as they do when a change of residence commands it will kick my ass into (emotional) action. It’s just as possible I’ll only realise the gravity of the impending change when I’m already in Athens, Denmark or somewhere else…
Great, obscure Danish ’70s prog. This, along with The Wall and Calling All Dawns, is the soundtrack of my last days here… Thanks Villy for sending me this.
4 days later
After four days of more lazying around and finally “accepting” what lay ahead I did what had to be done. The empty card boxes I gathered from around town I filled with my stuff. Most of it anyway; I’m leaving a lot of things behind, such as cutlery and kitchenware, dead cockroaches and all of my furniture. If I had the time I would have tried to sell it but it seems its destiny is to stay here waiting for the next resident of 1, Lavyrinthou St.
The moving company came this morning and picked everything up to take it to Athens.
After I’m done writing this, I’m packing my remaining stuff, shutting the windows, locking the door and leaving. I never locked the door.
