Danish Diaries #14: Putada

Putada 1: I moved out of my room 4 days ago. The clever thieves called Kollegiekontoret, the people behind the dorms of Århus, have included in the contract that when you pay your rent until a certain day you must leave 7 working days earlier (+ the weekend). So my contract ends on the 15th but I had to leave my room on the 6th. These 9 days are included in the rent, of course! Yes, of course! I’ve paid for something that is impossible to use by contract. Well done, Kollegiekontoret, well done.

Putada 2: Moving out means cleaning your room thoroughly, which makes the whole ”7 days!” even stranger, since at least in theory the room is perfectly ready for its next inhabitant. Anyway, I did clean my room thoroughly, took everything and moved it to Ana’s place (thanks Ana!). So the guy came and inspected the room. He had to use his almost UV flashlight to show me how ”dirty” the tiles and the basin were. Yeah. So, 30 euros deducted from my deposit because of some barely visible scale in the bathroom. Emphasis on the barely: I did clean it. It just wasn’t, you know, perfect.

Putada 3: While cleaning my room I had a big bowl of water for the rags I used to clean the surfaces with. Somehow, I’m not really sure how because I was very careful with it, water from this bowl (it must have been from this bowl! :{ ) somehow trickled on the desk and under my laptop, slowly frying it while it was still on — a little bit like the medieval recipe for goose that has it surrounded with flames and slowly being cooked alive. At first, Firefox just wasn’t responding. All of a sudden, BSOD. And that was the hard drive’s last hurrah. Its contact with water must have killed it instantly, painlessly. The rest of the laptop seems to be working fine; the water reached only the hard drive, conveniently only to destroy the pictures I had taken the past 4 months, all the great stuff I had downloaded (which, unless in the next months the Internet is transformed into the digital counterpart of Oceania, should all be easy to find again) but most importantly, my assignments for my Erasmus courses. And the deadline for one of them was yesterday. Cue RE HALL! My professors’ reaction were mild at best, Charless Ess even said something like: something necessary to convince you to be appropriately religious about backing up. I guess he’s right.

Putada 4: I bought two bottles of mead for gifts. The bottles were made of clay so they were more sensitive to shocks than normal bottles. Sure enough, both were cracked before the end of the day I bought them. Cue another, slightly more astonished RE HALL! I had to get rid of them before they had all of their mead leaked out of them, so one I already drunk with my Erasmus classmates in the farewell Sharing Is Caring dinner (I made some tzatziki, baked potatoes and the wonderful cinnamon spaghetti that got Giulia’s –the group’s token Italian girl– approval. I could have died right there). About the other botte, I don’t know. Maybe I can manage to stuff into a plastic bottle and take it home. But the bottles are so pretty and fitting of an old viking drink recipe that it really is a pity that I can’t use them as parts of the gifts themselves.

Putada 5: My digital camera, my beloved e-510, has been acting strange lately. Buttons not working, lenses malfunctioning… Electronics seem to hate me in general lately. Anyway. For the purposes of this story the putada was magnified by its empty battery. So I decided to whip out my beautiful but mostly not used OM2-n that still had maybe 12 shots left before the B&W film I’d had inside since April was ready for developing. Good shots I did take, especially from the ‘last beer’ goodbye party. I finished the film, wound it up with too much effort apparently… and opened the back of the camera only to find the film wrapped up outside of the cartridge (re hall). Paraphrasing the famous song: Light is like oxygen: you get too much, you burn your pics. As you may be able to imagine, that’s exactly what happened. 100% useless film of 36 images lost forever was subsequently used as party prop.

I’ve been also mostly sleeping in the library. It’s verty convenient cause I have to write all of my assignments again and can work without worrying about moving somewhere else to sleep. The Information & Media Studies library is extremely cool. In which other library do you get hammocks and comfy sofas whose purpose is to provide rest to the people that have worked hard all day and joy to everyone? The Danish library culture will be one of the things I’ll look back to the most fondly…

Highlights of Great Works of Art student presentations

What colleagues have presented so far in this course that I have loved:

Michael Kvium:

Nature

Culture

Alfons Maria Mucha (yes, this is the guy that made the Four Seasons hung on the walls of To Ναυάγιο in Mytilini)

Poul Anker Bech (surreal realism)

Randers Kunstmuseum by Liselotte Randers Kunstmuseum by Liselotte

Ron Mueck



Boy (this one’s in ARoS museum in Århus)                 Α Girl

From 2008 Latvian Song and Dance Festival. I expect two of the people who might be reading this to remember this sacred moment…

 

Skyward Sword and Zelda hype

A triumph. 10/10 (early EDGE Magazine review)

 

As if that wasn’t enough (it really is):

I might just love Skyward Sword because it’s the first Zelda with a fully orchestrated OST! The main theme is already etched in my head (maybe because it’s Zelda’s Lullaby in reverse? That alone brings me goose-bumps!)

What a time to love this music! It wasn’t but a few days ago people in LA and London enjoyed the Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Concerts… I’d post a few videos that have popped up on the ‘tube but they’re sure to be pulled down by Nintendo.

I don’t mind though because I have eyes firmly set on this.

I will only get to play it a whole month after it comes out. Maybe for the better: I wouldn’t want to spend my last month in Denmark playing Zelda… would I? If I don’t, I’m going to spend all Christmas avoiding friends that persistently will want to see me after 5 months.

Maybe, in the Information & Media Studies library, where they said they’d put some consoles for people to… do research… maybe there I can…*barely audible, almost insane laughter*

But no, no, I must not make these thoughts now, I have to finish A Link to the Past on ZSNES. I must be a good Zelda fan. Yes, that’s what I’m going to do.

Until November 18th, feast your eyes on this:

September’s GamesMaster had a 1,5m poster of this as a freebie. Did I buy the issue just for the poster when I found it in a Presbyrån in Stockholm? Did I? *another very scary bout of silent laughter*

 

Danish Diaries #1

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):