Bells, Ruins, 2nd to last weekend in Copenhagen

[[Pre-note: 3.5 years ago, summer of 2008 was my first time in Europe (and Copenhagen). I made travelogs about it, sent to a few people, and am adding them (with retroactive timestamps) here. If you would like to go see them, they should be in the archives under 2008. Here's the first one. Here's the flickr set from that trip. (I plan on migrating it as my pro account expires). My favorite re-discovery is this, from one of them:


"Danish is very foreign. A swedish woman told me a while ago that it's very much like swedish, except the people speak like they have a potato in their mouth."


Honestly, after recently discussing the Danish noise used when one sees the letter ''d'', it's pretty close to what you'd say if you tried to say a(n English) word ending in the letter d, assuming you have a potato in your mouth.  ]]

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Snow of late was followed by fog. It looked very nice from my office window:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

And a less snowy, yet still foggy day when I was walking home yielded this picture:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Something about bells: 
My office in Illinois was across the street from the math building, which has a bell tower. I was pretty aware of the bells, being a good way to keep track of fractions of an hour and also sometimes a source of amusement when the carillon would (try to) play popular melodies between 12:50 and 13:00.

Here in Copenhagen, I live near the town hall (Rådhus), which also has a bell tower.

(it's the thing on the right in this picture:)

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

There are four mini-melodies, 1,2,3,4. If you've listened to a such a bell tower, you'll notice that one is played at quarter past, say 1. Then at half past, you get 1 and then 2. Quarter til, 1,2,3. The full four at the hour.

My friend remarked that each time he hears it, it sounds different.

Thinking about it, I realized that 4! is 24, and you *could* rearrange the bells so that you could tell not just the fraction of hour but the hour from them. E.g. if I heard '1,3' at half past, maybe that would be 2:30 am.



Carnival?
If I were in Germany, or any (nominally) Catholic country, I would have been recently surrounded by the sounds of Carnival. Well, Denmark, historically protestant, did a good job of outlawing (several times, with varying degrees of success) such festivities (Shrovetide, Shrove tuesday, Carnival, whatever you call it).

Results? Well, they celebrate...Fastelavn. Kind of. Used to put a black cat in a barrel and hit it until it got out, to chase off bad luck or such. Now it's candy/oranges in a barrel, and you get declared king or queen ''of cats'' based on whether you were the last/first to break into/break the barrel. It was pretty hard to find out about any festivities (read: there weren't any, really), although walking around on Sunday I saw a few kids dressed up in various halloween-y ways. Also, had some of the traditional pastries:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Flaky pastry dough, around (surprisingly not super sweet) cream (whipped with strawberries). It was really very good.

Other touristy things accomplished:



1. National Museet :  I actually went here 3.5 years ago, but what I saw was ''prehistoric Denmark''. This time, I wandered through the 1600s and 1700s. My visit then and my visit now didn't overlap at all, and neither cost me anything. It seems like the characterizing features of the time were expanding economy and wars with Sweden.

Danish West Indies, because everybody had 'em:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

The museum had several rooms that they'd re-assembled (the panels/ceilings and/or furniture from) in the museum, from the 1700's. Kind of weird. Makes you think about what similar displays in future museums of our times will look like. Oh, wait. It'll just be a preserved IKEA. :P

Bed in one of the ornate 1700s rooms

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

I think living in Austin for a long time made me partial to funky depictions of the virgin Mary. I dig this one with antlers, hung above the door on the way back to the main hall:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

2.Ruins of various castles (under Christiansborg Slot)
When I had first visited Copenhagen, I had wanted to see these and didn't end up making it. I'm glad I did this time. The history itself is interesting. First, how they found the ruins was during one of the more recent re-buildings of Christiansborg slot, where they dug up the courtyard, and found ruins of the original castle and the one following it (the successive castles had burned down a few times...). People thought this was nifty, so they decided to open it up to the public.

Some history of the castles:
I. Absalon's Castle:   
Copenhagen/København (formerly just 'Havn') really started gaining in size and importance in the mid-1100's, when Bishop Absalon was given control of it. He built a castle with giant white limestone walls, atop which he would put pikes with enemies' heads. The idea of the walls was to make it really easy to see, actually. As a kind of scare tactic (well, in combination with the heads). This castle lasted for quite a while, until enemies of Copenhagen/Absalon managed to conquer it.  It then took 47 Hanseatic stonecutters to level the castle, which they did a decent job of. Pieces of it were either left standing or re-assembled, not sure which, but you can see (in the background) part of a wall of Absalon's castle:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

The main things you could see down there are: walls from Absalon's castle, pieces of Absalon's outer wall of limestone, walls and pieces of towers from the next castle, and...''secrets''.

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Here are two ``secrets" (described in the text above):

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

II. Copenhagen Castle : 
After Absalon's castle, another was needed, so they built (and renovated several times) ''Copenhagen Castle''.  Walking around the next day, I saw the outside of Copenhagen's Museum, which includes a model of Copenhagen during the time of that first version of Copenhagen castle. It's in the top background of this following picture, the thing with the very rectangular tower:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

It included use of such advanced technology as hollowed out logs for ''pipes''. No, really: 

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

   Hundreds of years go by, and a few renovations. Here's Copenhagen Castle circa 1700:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

However, it was not popular with the critics. They thought it was ugly and small and dirty.  Just to prove this, we were given quotes of said critics:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

So, they tore down Copenhagen Castle and built Christiansborg Slot/Palace. Which then burnt down twice. (1794 and 1884)

3.Fredriksberg
Fredriksberg is a city within a city. It actually is a city, and surrounded (now) on all sides by Copenhagen. It's home to a lot of cool little shops and this neat building side/sign:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

It of cours also has a palace/castle, which is on the only hill I've seen here. It has a nice view:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Nearing 4 weeks in Copenhagen

The weather has turned quite cold, here (down to -8 and -10C during the day). Homeless people dying in Poland and Ukraine, and Heathrow canceled a ton of flights last Sunday. It snowed Sunday and Monday. Here's the view out my office window (from Monday):

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

I did go do something touristy last Sunday, but it was a bit hampered by the cold. Turns out, -8C and windy is not good weather to go explore something that's sort of mainly outdoors/something to look at. Christiania. Interesting place. The ''Green Light District'' was some incredibly blatant/straightforward, calm...well. Selling of wares that would be illegal other places besides Amsterdam. No picture-taking allowed, so I can only tell you that it was interesting, and that the internet has sufficiently many pictures to entertain. This was next to where I entered.

So, rather than continue on about touristy things, I'll tell you about odds and ends of living abroad/in Copenhagen.

1. Immigration:  On the surface, it seems like Denmark is better to its immigrants than Germany. There are free Danish classes for foreigners, e.g.  Everyone speaks English, which makes it easy/not stressful at all to order food or buy groceries or anything like that.  What I was told is that Denmark likes its foreign visitors, who are guaranteed to leave after a limited time. To actually immigrate, however, there's some weird points system for becoming a citizen. Lots of points for going to an Ivy League school or a Scandinavian school, etc. They also don't like allowing in spouses of Danish citizens when the spouse is less than 28. Supposedly to block arranged marriages (is this an oblique reference to Islam? I don't know). My impression is that Germany likes to pretend that it has no foreigners. 


2. Currency: All kroner (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) are seriously devalued. 5 Danish kroner per USD, but it costs 50 Danish kroner (crowns) for a half liter of beer, 100 dkk (Danish crowns) for a winter hat, 300-1500 dkk for shoes, etc. That is, the buying power is not reflected by the ratio to USD or euro. As a result, the lower level coins have been disappearing. There are no coins for anything less than half a crown. I saw a sign by a train station advertising the halting of use of the .25 dkk coins (or, that's the gist I got; it was in Danish).
   
   The result?  Rounding. Their stores have the same deceptive prices as in the states (albeit, they all include tax). E.g. Yogurt for 13,95 dkk.  So, what happens if your bill totals to something like xxx.65 dkk?  Or xxxx.14 dkk? Rounding, up and down, to the nearest coin in use. It makes sense. And would also never fly in Germany. Makes me think of how nice it would be to not have pennies. :)



From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)



3. Bikes: It is pretty exhilarating to be in a town with bike traffic. Bike traffic lights, bike lanes, and cyclists that signal turns and stops (which they have to, otherwise there would be accidents, an no one wears a helmet). It's definitely more fun than normal traffic, and I haven't seen any traffic jams.


4. Bread: So far, not impressed by Danish bread. Much more pricey than what I expect of European bread (compared to Germany and France), and overall underwhelming. However, interesting side-note:  The import of the merchant Sephardic Jews to Denmark in the 1600s brought with them their baking habits, including covering their breads with poppy seeds. The hebrew word for these yielded the word in Danish, which is now commonly used to refer to (any) roll -- birkes.


5. Canada Goose coats: This is sort of random, but it seems like the next big thing in coats (at least here) is the brand Canada Goose. These suckers run about $600 USD (in the states) in my experience, and are Arctic-expedition levels of warm. I've seen at least 50 people here wearing them. I tend to see 5-10 people in them every time I walk around for any extended period of time. Not sure why, as we're not living in particularly arctic conditions. Maybe it's a status symbol. 


6. Recycling?: So, Germany recycles some crazy amount of their waste, 85% or such. Here? I have seen the occasional glass-recycling bin, and plastic bottle collectors at the grocery store, but overall, I'm told they don't recycle here, they incinerate, and use it to heat the place.


7. Heating: On the topic of heating -- all the buildings (so says the apartment rental guy) plug into the same central boiler system. I imagine there's some redundancy to protect against things going wrong, and to keep anyone trying to fix it from suffering 600C steam burns, but I find that pretty interesting.


8. Danish: About as crazy as English, with a worse number system. :) Here's some Danish that helps you get by:  
• Biograff = movie theater (don't ask me, I didn't do it) :) 
• Smørebrod = ''traditional Danish food''. Don't bother. Go find yourself some of the super-dense schwarzbrot in the store, cover it with mayoand a piece of breaded fish, voila. ;) 
• Tak = thanks
• Unskyld = Excuse me 
• Bøf = steak, oksekød = beef 
• Kylling = chicken 
• Skinke = ham, Swinekød = pork 
• kød = meat (said ~ ''cool'')
• dag = day (Said the same way, roughly).  Tirsdag, Ondag, Torsdag, Fredag, Lørdag, Sondag. Only weird one is the name for Saturday. It's comes from a word for washing/doing laundry. So, Saturday = laundry day. 

The worst part is that they have the same greetings as English. So, if someone says Hi/Hello/Hey, it does not mean that they will assume the conversation will continue in English instead of Danish. At least with German, I can hear the difference between ''Hallo'' and "Hello".

I was asked pretty recently if I miss anything from the states. Outside of the obvious (friends, affordable alcohol), yeah. Since I'm on a roll with lists, here's another:

1. Netflix. Man. I miss being able to just put something on, of my choice. Don't get me wrong, I've been pretty impressed so far with the frequency of decent movies on the Danish television, although it's hard to figure out what'll be playing as they translate most of the titles into Danish. E.g. tonight, they're showing ''Slothed og Fordom'', an ''Amerikanisk romantisk drama fra 2005''. Stumped? Here's a hint: it stars Keira Knightly and was written by Jane Austen. Also, there's the daily showing of ''Venner''(friends) and ''Greys hvide verden''(Greys Anatomy).


2. Cheap, good coffee. Even in Berlin, I could get an espresso for a euro. Here, I'm lucky to pay 4 USD. 20dkk (and that's a deal!).


3. Customer Service. Man. Something happened, my internet's out. There's no company for me to harass, so I have to wait for the apartment rental agency to harass them. However, they both keep limited hours (9-4pm, at best), which is shocking. that is, there is no one for me to call at 6pm or on the weekend to say ''Hey, my internet's out. Please fix it''. 


4. Craigslist. Not for now, but the future. It just doesn't exist over here. Why? What do people do with their old stuff? Burn it for fuel? 

I also kind of miss Americans. I find Scandinavians (and Germans) pretty reserved. I was talking to a guy about this, and he said the Netherlands are worse, that you wouldn't talk to someone unless you knew them since elementary school. Bleah.

On the practical front, I think I have a place to live for March, and theoretically, April onwards (well, I put down a deposit, so I ought to). I am resigned for now to pay out my teeth, especially as there is no Craigslist with which to cheaply furnish a place, so I would have to factor in the cost of furniture when thinking about renting, on top of the actual cost of rent/utilities (and probably also courtage/provisions/i.e. commission fees for the realtors).

The ''lakes'' (glorified moats/puddles or maybe dammed up canals) have frozen over. I walked by about sunset the other day (before the complete freeze) and took some pictures:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

They have swans:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Copenhagen, after 2(.5) weeks.

I feel I owe at least two posts at this point, and I should probably write at least one before this gets away from me :). This will be mainly pictures, and I will endeavor to provide a bit more content soon.

The weather has gotten quite cold here. It was -8ºC a few minutes ago, and between -5ºC and -7ºC all day. Despite that, I still biked in this morning. I am inching closer to breaking down and giving up my spare kidney for proper gloves and maybe a better coat.

Recent good news: my diploma arrived in Germany on February 1st, so no one can argue with me whether or not I have a Ph.D. any more. :)

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Walking around Copenhagen in the cold -- the canals freeze and thaw (you'll notice, perhaps, lumps on the water? Those are rocks people threw from the bridge.):

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

A view alongside a bridge across the canal, heading towards the university area:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

The birds walking on the ice and swimming in the water:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

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This past weekend's touristy excursions were:

1. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (regularly 75 dkk, but free on Sundays!)
2. Kastellet (part of fortifications of Copenhagen from the 1600's)
3. Lille Havfru (the little mermaid statue)

Around the corner from the museum is the town hall:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

1. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (New Carlsberg Egyptian Museum)
The view as you walk up:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

A note: this is adjacent to Tivoli, which is (sadly) closed while I'm here, so I won't get to see it. It does make sense for it to be closed during winter, with the outdoor rides. The story is that Walt Disney got inspired by it to make his own amusement park. Also, after Michael Jackson visited, he offered to buy it.

If you don't know, I'm a big fan of ancient Egyptian/Greek/Roman/Etruscan/Babylonian/Assyrian stuff. That's what I tend to go look for when I get to a museum. And that was (most of) this museum.

The museum had a winter garden. Not a garden full of things that do well in the winter, but a garden where the climate is relatively constant inside and you can visit in the winter.

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Egyptian and antiquities museum. Including some Assyrian (Babylonian?) stuff, such as this:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Nearby was also the following lion. It was one of several animals there from a large gate.The gate (the smaller of a pair of gates) is on display in Berlin, at the Pergamon .

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

One really nice thing about the museum is that they're conducting research (in combination with the university and some other institutes) on detecting the original coloration of ancient statuary. This uses some combination of UV-light exposure and other techniques. They then made a mold of the original and displayed it with the recovered colors.

Here's a good example, original on left and 'restored' model on the right:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

And another, this time of Caligula:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

The museum also had some Etruscan grave/tomb paintings, which is something I hadn't seen before:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Here is the side of a Roman sarcophagus:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

I would hazard a guess that these mummies come from Ptolemaic Egypt. There was an interesting blend of cultures at that time. I will just pass on what wikipedia has to say:

``Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter invaded Egypt and declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to Cyrene to the west, and south to the frontier with Nubia. Alexandria became the capital city and a center of Greek culture and trade. To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves as the successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life.''

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

2. Kastellet If you've looked at a map of Copenhagen, maybe you've noticed the star-shaped piece of land. That's what I headed for, and it turned out to be an ancient fortification.

Größere Kartenansicht

I have to say, picking something that looks weird on the map and walking towards it sometimes works out. Ah, also: Kirkegård=cemetary. Kind of a weird thing to have as a last name.


Another wikipedia quote:  

``Kastellet, located in Copenhagen, Denmark is one of the best preserved fortifications in Northern Europe. It is constructed in the form of a pentagram with bastions at its corners. Kastellet was continuous with the ring of bastioned ramparts which used to encircle Copenhagen but of which only the ramparts themselves Christianshavn remain today.''

Here's a cool map of the thing, as you walk in.

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

I entered along the bridge in the south and exited north. It's still used by the military, apparently, but open for people to walk around in, and I saw several people jogging along the ramparts. It was quite cold out, but I'm glad I went. It was pretty neat.

View inside:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Some views from the ramparts. You can kind of see the star-shaped ness of the ramparts.


A requisite cannon (no ancient military fortification is complete without one):

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

And of course, a moat. Also, a view of the north bridge.

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

3. The Little Mermaid. People keep saying how disappointing the statue is. I say, you have to just tack it onto a trip to the Kastellet, or maybe the King's garden and Kastellet, then swing by the statue. Going all the way out there *just* for the statue might not be worth it.

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

There she is, pretty as a postcard:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

Around the corner are some funky buildings:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

I liked the mix of old and new architecture. I'm sure some of it was due to the money you'd need to build around the harbor area, but the new buildings around there were new and nice to look at, which I appreciated.

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I will finish with a lovely view at sunset around the corner from where I live:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

After 1 week in Copenhagen

Time elapsed: 1 week
Time remaining: 5 weeks

So, what's life like after a week in Copenhagen? Honestly, still surreal. I'm very happy to be here. I don't know how you could look around at this place and not be happy. It's very beautiful.

Also, the streets are exceedingly clean. Add to that the flat fronts of the brightly colored buildings, and it feels like something out of a movie set,like I'll round a corner to Gene Kelly dancing towards me. Seriously:

I mean, sure, there's stuff that's hard. Grocery shopping is it's own special puzzle (had to go to four different stores to find salt, e.g.). I keep getting lost on my bike ride home. I miss my friends, especially when I see places and things I think they'd like. There's still a pile of stuff to fix and work out with respect to moving to Hamburg, hindered by bureaucracy and German technical jargon.

 This week's grocery finds: bread (for < $7USD/loaf), peanut butter and coarse salt:

I'm settling in to the math department here, and am really looking forward to helping out with their grad student seminar, which is being run on the stuff I work on.


The math department owns a fleet of bikes which it loans out to guests, so I am borrowing a bike. This saves me the trouble of buying my own, since they're pretty indispensable here. I'd say it takes me ~ the same amount of time to get to the uni by bike or by bus, and it's really very nice by bike. I cross a canal, and get to see ducks and those weird birds with white feet.

However, I managed to get lost two days in a row on the way home (by bike), Wednesday quite epically, in part because my landmark for getting home was the Strøget (roughly ''Stroy" (as in ''destroy'')+"ya" (yum without the m)'), which was not labeled on the tourist maps that you will see around the city. It had gotten very cold and I couldn't quite feel my hands by the time I made it home---my winter gloves are thin leather lined with thinner cashmere.

Tuesday, I made it out to Studenterhuset (a student space/bar) for the weekly free swing dance night. The music was a bit older and overall faster than my usual taste, and the crowd showed amazing energy and endurance. Especially as I'd peg the median age somewhere in the early/mid-30's with a standard deviation of about 8 and a roughly normal distribution. I still felt pretty exhausted by the move, and cut out ''early'' (11pm).

Sometime during the week, I discovered that the television in the apartment (a sleek, decently sized flatscreen, placed below an ikea futuristic wall shelf full of antique Danish-history books, had quite a few channels, including 4 of the German standards (Das Erste, ZDF, RTL and NDR). RTL hosts ''Wer wird Millionär?" which I find both entertaining and educational, and I caught a 2hr special of it Friday. Also, TV with commercials in a language you don't know is less annoying.

Friday was also remarkable for the clearing of clouds:

Saturday, I made it to Pauldan Bogcafe, which had been a book store and print shop and had an explosive thrown into it during WWII because of stuff that had been put in the window in protest (of the Nazi regime). Post-war, it's been rebuilt as a chic cafe (and bookstore). I sat there for several hours and did some work, including resubmitting my paper and working on the next.

I've decided that I should try to do (at least) one ''touristy'' thing per week(end). This weekend I picked the Danish Jewish Museum, which is housed in the King of Denmark's former boathouse, with interior designed by Libeskind.

Heading towards said museum:









The thing on the right is the national museum.

Canal by the palace:

Palace:(Christiansborg Slot)

King's Library:

The Danes have an interesting history regarding Jews in their country. When the sephardic Jew(ish merchants) were having troubles in Portugal (1600s), the King of Denmark invited them over, with the aim of expanding his country's trade and trades.

Speeding forward to WWII, Denmark has been lauded for saving its Jewish citizens. Between 400 and 800 Jews went to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, with only ~50 dying, and 7000-7550 were aided in escaping to Sweden. The government of Denmark was able to get a promise that they would not be moved to the camps in Germany (which I think made it easier for the Danes to further intercede on their behalf).

I also walked around and took pictures before settling in to Cafe Retro, the very hip coffee shop nearest me. I think at least 5 different languages were being spoken in there today (Danish, French, Spanish, English, Norwegian? (I knew it was Scandinavian, not Danish)) [Edit: I also heard something that could have been Russian/Polish/Ukrainian]. The prices are decent, and it's non-profit, which is interesting. Despite being open quite late, and being a coffee shop + bar, all noise dies down by about midnight.

I am amazed that I can be in the center of town and yet it is so quiet. I am sure some of this is due to good construction (brick with brick insulation, faced with more brick?).

To further illustrate how centrally located I am, here are some things that are within spitting distance:

• The King's library.  
• National Museum 
• The Ruins of (the two) previous castles under the current castle
• ThorvaldsensMuseum
• Jewish Museum
• Egyptian Musuem/ Ny Carlsberg Glyptoteket
• Strøget

Here, have a nice picture I took of the plaza around the corner. That's the ''stork fountain'' in the middle: 

Days 0 and 1 to Copenhagen

Yesterday, I took the train from Berlin to Hamburg and Hamburg to Copenhagen. I was going to stop in Hamburg and look at an apartment that I am likely to sublet for the month of March (through a friend of a friend), but due to some problems, our train took ~ 4 hrs instead of 1hr 40min to get to Hamburg, which meant I had only enough time to fill out some paperwork with Deutsche Bahn to get some kind of refund, buy some food, and get on the next train. 

The train to Copenhagen was delightfully punctual, by contrast. The fastest train (which I was on) takes 4 hrs and 45 minutes. Also! It boards a ferry. The train. And then picks up again on the other side. You're required to get off the train during transit, so I went up and bought a bottle of water and a Rittersport with chocolate over a butter biscuit.

Random fact: This route between Hamburg and Copenhagen is called the Vögelfluglinie, i.e. the train line that goes as the bird flies. I know this because I've been watching ''Wer wird Millionär?"(German version of ''Who wants to be a Millionaire?")

I brought maybe 70% of my belongings with me and left the rest with my friend in Berlin who I was staying with and who has graciously agreed to let me store the rest.

As a result, I had my pack (this sort of thing)with some things strapped to it, my 24'' suitcase at maybe 60lbs, and my carryon bag also at max capacity. I'm sure I was a bit of a sight, and was definitely glad at what help I got entering and exiting various trains. I did not have the foresight to take a picture, but I promise one when I go to Hamburg. You can then all marvel at my packmule-ishness. 

I kind of regretted my packing decisions when I reached my friend Daniela's apartment (I stayed with her last night, and got my apartment here today). It's on the 4th floor OG., i.e. above the ground level. If you start counting at 1 instead of 0, then it's the 5th floor.  That was…well. I earned the chocolate I ate earlier :). 

I made it today in to the department, met people, got various keys, and my office. I include a picture of my view. My office number is 3.14. :) 

I would say today is honestly the first day it has really sunk in that I've moved to Europe, during my walk to the grocery store. 

I actually had a sort of surreal, magical walk to the store. En route, I crossed a plaza, near the Strøget, which is major pedestrian-only shopping area in the city center. I live around the corner. There was a group of musicians, with keyboard and violin, playing a waltz (and quite well). I took a little video to prove that I'm not making this up. :) I expected to see tango dancers materializing from thin air, but no such luck. 

The streets are so quaint and clean. It's hard for me to tell which are pedestrian-only, since the sidewalks and streets blend together. There are probably signs, which I don't understand. 

In other news, my stovetop appears to be broken. I ventured out to a different store (a Netto, this time) to grab some rapeseed oil so that I could bake dinner instead of frying it, as the oven works. 

For shopping and generally getting around, knowing German helps out.

Examples: 

Danish:  Torsk German: Dorsch (English: Cod) 

Danish:  Grønkål German: Grünkohl (English?: it's like very young, very curly kale?)

Danish: Rosenkål German: Rosenkohl (English: Brussel Sprouts)

Danish: Blomkål German: Blumenkohl (English: Cauliflower)

Danish:  Ingefær German: Ingwer (English: Ginger)

I've included a picture. This all ran me about 250 dkk, which is a bit less than 50 USD (conversion is about 5.5 dkk to 1 USD, 7.5 dkk to 1 euro). What I got: 

Müsli (750g)

Bag of apples

Bag of frozen Grünkohl

4 frozen Cod fillets 

500 g Brussel sprouts 

Ginger

2kg Yoghurt

1 dozen eggs

1kg rice (could only find parboiled)

lemon juice 

1 head of Broccoli 

~400kg dried chickpeas

lotion

I did feel kind of like I am some how research the lives of Homo Europeans or such with my logging and cataloging-type photo. I remember seeing a picture (probably in National Geographic) of the week's worth of groceries for families of different countries and different sizes, and how much it cost, and thought it was pretty neat.

[A few Copenhagen pictures, and the aforementioned movie.]

Europe: the Move, part 1

[Fore-note1: Lacking any current and awesome pictures, I will include a mural from Berlin from this summer

Fore-note 2: I debated whether people might be interested in this, the sort of ''behind the scenes'' stuff about the move, and figured I'd write it and see. Also, Megan said she'd read it ;)]
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People keep asking me if I am excited.

Mostly, I worry.  I try to remind myself, though, of what I've already accomplished and the good things going on. 

• Have a job, or, will, in March. 
• Living in foreign countries. 
• Learning a foreign language. (No offense to the Danes, but I think I'll stick to German for now. )
• I have a local (German) bank account and cell phone. 
• I found someone to take over the lease to my apartment in Urbana (no meager feat)
• My worldly possessions are reduced to about 250 pounds of assorted stuff. 
• Schlepped said stuff across the ocean at very reasonable cost.
• Will have a nice place to live and math to do for 1.5 months, in Copenhagen, before Hamburg. That is, I will not be homeless or burning through all of my money before I even begin to work. 
• Have an appointment with the people who will give me my residence&work permit. 
• The people who grant residence&work permits speak/read/write English.
• I have made contact with some people about health insurance. 
• I have figured out which neighborhoods I'd like to live in, what websites to search, and what search criteria to use, and with the results made a spreadsheet to work off of. 

On to the stuff that is (somewhat quietly) freaking me out. The most prominent are 

(1) Finding a place to live in Hamburg 

(2) Getting health insurance 

(3) getting (1) and (2) so that I can get a residence&work permit on March 6th. 

I think I will tackle some of my troubles with housing and leave the health insurance debacle for another time. 

First, a word on the general state of the housing market in Hamburg. 

There were protests in October about the crazy rent increases. There is a severe shortage of housing. I read somewhere that it's in the top 4 highest-rent cities in Germany. 

I've found, I think, every website I could be searching for an apartment or a room (i.e. shared flat) on, and have subscribed to their emails where they send me daily the new ads that fit my search criteria. Great, ok. I have also touched base with the university's new group dedicated to ''housing for international guests'', which apparently I qualify as. 

Based on what I've seen, I will probably not get away with paying less than 500 euro rent pre-utilities, which can be ~ 720 euro after utilities, etc. My friend pays 330 euro pre-utilities in Berlin for a place that's nicer and bigger than any place I have any hope of renting in Hamburg for less than 575. 

To be fair, if I were willing to live >10km away from the uni, I could get cheaper rent. 

Various hurdles/concerns to do with the apartment-search:

Fees:  Most of the places are rented through a firm, and there are non-negligable fees, at 2.83 times the ''cold rent'' (pre-utilities cost, or base rent), >= 1700 euros (current conversion is about 1.3 euros/dollar).  

Deposit: To be expected, but is ~3x the ''cold rent'', so >= 1500 euros. 

Viewings: If you're lucky, there is a viewing date set in the ad, and you can make it. 

If you're not, you email them (and don't hear back or call them and leave a message on their voicemail. When they accumulate enough interested parties, they set a viewing date and time. I'm guessing this is random, or maximizing annoyance for the average interested party. 

Language: I guess this is obvious that it would be easier if I knew more German, and knew the German renting-phrases. Esp. as I need to leave voicemail. Here are some examples.

"n-Zimmer Wohnung": Ok, wohnung is apartment. In the states, n would be the number of bedrooms. Here, it's the number of rooms that are not (a) a kitchen, (b) a bathroom or (c) a hallway. 

"Miete zzgl NK" , despite what google translate tells you, is ''cold rent'', i.e. rent before heating/utilities 

NK=Nebenkosten = utilities, sometimes includes heat

"Nachtspeicherheizung", literally translates as "Night"+"storage"+"heating". What's that about? Why, of course they must mean *electric heat*. Which, by the way, is rather undesireable, being significantly more expensive than central/gas heat. 

EBK = Einbaukuche = '''built in kitchen''. This can mean sink+stovetop, or that plus any combination of the following: oven, fridge+freezer, dishwasher.

That is, there are places that have...maybe a sink? This blew my mind. 

For the interested, my search criteria: 

Min size (Min Große):  40 m^2  (~ 300 ft^2)

Min # ''Rooms'' (Min # Zimmer): 2        (e.g. bedroom + living/dining-room)

Max. Rent (euros):  500 (or, more recently, 550) 

Neighborhoods:  near the university (i.e. within a 6km circle), not in the red-light/former-red-light/punk areas. [Eimsbüttel, Eppendorf, Hoeheluft (Ost & West), Winterhude, Harvesthude, Lokstedt, some of Barmbek]