The trip is over...

Sadly I am back in Australia...

It was the hardest day of my life leaving Poland. Poland I hear you say? Well i'm not sure if it was mentioned but I met a Polish girl who was also on exchange in Denmark and we are together now. Right now I have mixed emotions. On the one hand I am able to see my friends and family again, on the other I am leaving behind someone who I really didn't want to. Needless to say I am planning my return at the end of year, but to Poland this time and possibly long-term (I hope).

I'm not sure if the fact that I have returned means the end of this blog. Although, I haven't posted for quite some time. You know it's been awhile when you have spam comments in the chatbox that you have to delete!

For now I am not posting anything much more unless I am overwhelmed with comments regarding this. If anyone is interested I can blog about my life in Australia, although it's not nearly as exciting as it was in Denmark.

Adios.

A third lot of photo's

1-3) Carnival.
4) Alberto's bike problems.
5) Pablo's 4WD in Poland.
6) Party in Luna Kollegium.
7-8) Krakow and 4WD'ing.
9-10) Copenhagen.

More random photos

1) Carnival (randoms).





















2) Davide and I.

















3) Birthday party.





















4) Davides Farewell.

I exceeded the limit on how many photo's I can upload to Flickr quite some time ago, so I am reduced to uploading them here
until I find somewhere that has unlimited hosting for free. If anyone knows of such a site please let me know.

Pictures (In order):
1) Celebrating the championship win by Aalborg FC!
2) Carnival time! I was coerced into wearing makeup. It didn't matter, everyone was dressed worse than me!
3) Carnival time! Drew dressed as fuck knows what.
4) More carnival action.
5) It was a fairy theme.

Final exam on Thursday!

I realise it has been quite some time since I have posted here, this is not without due cause. June is really the only month where you have to put your head down and do some solid work and that is what I have been doing. Or at least trying to.

On Thursday I have my 'oral defence', as the Danes call it. Basically I have to face two examiners and one censor and answer questions on the written project that I submitted back at the end of May. Right now I'm shitting myself, I just want to get it over and done with.

Earlier in the day I went to the Aalborg amusement park (Tivoli or Karolinelund). The main attractions were the two big rollercoasters which cost 30-50DKK. Unfortunetely the biggest one was closed due to strong winds so we had to make do with the smaller one and some of the other rides. The highlight was when we got on the dodgem cars however. Myself, Alan, Drew and Christoph were on by ourselves until halfway through when the man working there decided to join us. When he hit you it actually hurt! He would drive like normal towards someone then throw his full weight forward at the last minute inflicting maximum damage. We were impressed with this guy.

Of course there were sideshow games you could play and one of them where you have to use a big hammer and try to make a ball hit the top of a meter (numbered one to ten). Drew went first and scored 4, then Christoph scored just over 4 and I managed to score 8 two times in a row! of course I gave the other guys shit for this being smaller then them.

Right now I'm studying for this exam and if all goes well I will be in Poland this Friday.

May- Sunniest month ever!

May has been Denmark's sunniest month ever, according to this newspaper story.

Last Saturday I went to the beach with some mates. It was an hour long trip on a bus to a place called Blokhus, a very popular location in summer. Unfortunetely our bus broke down three kilometers from the town and we had to walk the rest of the way. There was a lot of younger people around, they can't have been any older than fifteen, they were all carrying copious amounts of alcohol. One of my Danish mates told me that Blokhus was a very popular location for younger Danes in summer who come to take drugs, drink and try to get laid.

We finally found the beach and it was impressive. At least it was, until I saw all the cars parked up and down the entire length of the beach! Aside from that fact that it can't be good for the environment, it made the beach look like a car park. I expected more from the Danes.

We set ourselves up on one of the dunes and went to check out the water. It was about 28 degrees but noone was in the water. I soon found out why, it was bloody freezing! Still, I decided that swimming at a beach in Denmark would be good for laugh later on, so I jumped in. I survived probably five minutes in the water before I felt like my feet were going to drop off.

Walking back up to where we were located, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a naked woman. This is pretty common for Denmark but this particular woman was huge! She was lying on two beach towels but really she needed a padded tarpaulin. What was even funnier was a young boy who was poking her nipples with a stick. They were like car aerials, I kid you not. It was a surreal scene. Child with stick poking fat ladies nipples. You don't see that every day do you?

We were on the beach for a few hours before we decided to head back to Aalborg. We were about 100 meters from the bus stop when I saw a bus pull out.
'Don't worry ours doesn't leave for twenty minutes,' my friends told me.
Wrong. That was our bus. We looked on the wrong timetable and the next one wasn't for three hours. We decided to hitchhike. The reason for this is Denmark is a very safe place and we knew people that had hitchhiked around before without any trouble.

We were waiting for maybe ten minutes before a car pulled up. The driver was a young guy and he had his son in the back who was about six years old. I thought he was very trusting to pick up three strangers especially with a young kid in the car but we were greatful. It took half the time that the bus took and we had a nice conversation with this guy about Denmark.

He dropped us off back in Norresundby (top end of Aalborg) and I noticed that I was badly sunburned. Even though I used suncream i missed some spots and now my legs and feet look like the colour of the Danish flag (the red, not the white). When will I learn?

Comedy gold

Wow! Four posts in one day! I'm excited:

The following is a story sent to me over Facebook by one of my mates. It happened to one of his Hungarian house mates who is, shall we say, a bit simple. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

'Drash was serious when he told me this, I actually thought that I was going to die from arterial bleeding as my sides began to split

Drash, his sister, and mini drash are on the train from copenhagen to Copenhagen airport, a short hop, should be no dram.
They get off the train, amazed at the automatic doors on the train. Once in the airport sister Drash realises that she has left her phone on the train. Being a true gentlemen Drash runs back to the platform in the hope that the mobile phone is still there, sister drash and mini drash proceed to check-in.
With a sheet of sweat on his forehead and a pounding heart he manages to get back on the train, finding his sister's seat he also finds the holy grail, the mobile phone. Whislt celebrating like a premiership footballer he notices that something is wrong, despite the train being at a standstill the scenery appears to moving along gradually moving faster and faster. Running to the door he realises that the train is leaving the airport behind. This is bad, with the sense of direction of an egg, and with no map, Drashmeister does not know where he might end up.
Everyone else knows throughout Denmark that the next stop after leaving CPH International Airport is........................

...... (put the big gap in to build up the tension, wait for it)

























Malmo, not Malmo Denmark but Malmo in SWEDEN!
Not only does the train go over the biggest bridge in Scandinavia but also under the Baltic Sea which must of caused him no end of trouble! Anyway the conductor didn't give him the whopping fine you can recieve for not having a ticket and let him get of the train at Malmo without paying. I would like to tell you how he managed to get back to Denmark but i was on the verge of death, I hadn't been breathing for about 2 mins, was choking on a piece of cucumber and my stomach was in agony from trying not to laugh.
He's back safe and sound though.'

Polish cure for stomachache

Krakow & the disco:

Karolina and some of her friends from the university arranged a trip to go to Krakow, one of the most beautiful cities in Poland. The day we were supposed to go I woke up and felt like shit. I had a terrible stomachache and felt like I was going to throw up. I didn't want to let down the other people going on the trip though so I said I would go. Well Karolina's mum took one look at me and said that I wasn't going. You don't want to argue with a Polish woman, trust me. I was relieved in a way and the trip was rescheduled anyway.

I then went to bed and lay in agony for a few hours with the family dog Bocek to keep me company. When I woke up Karolina had a shot of vodka with cracked pepper in it. Courtesy of her mother. Apparently this is the Polish solution to a stomach bug. I must say I thought it would make me throw up, yet amazingly I felt better. Don't worry about those antibiotics folks just get yourself a bottle of Polish vodka and some strong cracked pepper.

That night we went to a disco that her friends had organised at a local place. Bojor had told me that it was a dodgy place and that I should carry a knife so I didn't have the best impression of the place in my head when I arrived. We met her friends at the entrance and went in, they were really nice but I thought it might be a little awkward since everyone still had a fear of speaking English to me.

Well, I should have taken a knife. Not because the place was dangerous, but to stab the DJ who played the worst songs possible. There was about twenty people there, some of them I had already met and others I had not. I sat next to one of Karolina's friends planning to force her and anyone else to speak to me. All the guys seemed to be clustered up the other end of the table. Anyway, things weren't going to badly and I managed to talk to quite a few people. One of the guys, Slifka, came and got me and asked if I wanted a shot of vodka at the bar with all the other guys. Who am I to refuse vodka? The vodka itself was pretty good as fair as vodka goes, and we chased it with some sort of sweet drink. Unfortunately none of the guys except Slifka spoke good English, but all the same I appreciated the effort they made to include me.

Later on I was forced to dance to the music I detested, I still consider myself to be a terrible dancer but I think I held my own in a weird kind of way. The DJ was beside himself with happiness that people were actually dancing, until then noone had being. Looking back, I wish I had taken some photos that night.

We left late and got a lift home with some of Karolina's friends. If it hadn't of been for the Polish vodka I wouldn't have survived the day.

Krakow, for real this time:

A few days after the disco we woke up far too early to catch a bus to Krakow. Four of Karolina's and Gosia's friends from the university were coming with us. Fortunately for me they were all studying English philology and spoke very good English. It took about three hours to get to Krakow which wasn't too bad considering the quality of the roads (pretty shit to be honest, sorry Poland it's true). When we got off the bus we headed for the old part sections of the city. On the way I saw a pigeon with a piece of bread trapped around it's neck. When it walked it had to hang it's head due to the weight of the bread. How on earth the bread got there in the first place I will never know...

The old sections of Krakow had some beautiful building including a church, which we bought tickets for. I was amazed just walking into the place and then I looked up and saw an intricate web of gold lacing and paintings on the ceiling of the place. It must have taken an eternity to complete. You had to pay extra to take photo's and I didn't have the right ticket so after awhile we left. Next stop, big tower with too many steps.

We climbed the tower for at least ten minutes and as it got closer to the top the staircase got narrower and narrower until you felt semi-claustrophobic. The view up the top was quite impressive however, with four different viewpoints to look out on. Of course you had to pay extra to take photos but we didn't see the sign until the grumpy old man yelled at us for doing so. Senile old bugger still had good eyesight. We left the tower and went to the nearby city square.

It was pigeons galore. We took some great photo's of all of us with all the different statues scattered around the place. We then walked through the market which was being redeveloped. There was the typical touristic type items on display so we went and found somewhere to eat lunch. We ended up at this place recommended to us which turned out to be crap, so I won't post the details.

Time was going by very quickly but we still had the royal palace to visit. Inside was mainly old tapestries and nude paintings adorned 75% of the place. In each room they had a fierce looking woman stationed to prevent the taking of photo's. What is it with the no photo's policy in Poland! A palace is a palace in my books although I did buy a bottle opener in the gift shop.

All day I had been hearing from the others about this statue of a dragon that breathes fire, so we headed there next. We learned that to get the dragon to breathe fire you had to SMS a number which would charge you and subsequently the dragon would breathe fire. Apparently it used to be free. I wasn't going to pay for it so I just waited until some other poor fool did then we got photo's with it. Cheating the system feels so good.

It was getting late so we decided to head back to the bus stop. On the way in one of the main streets everyone stopped me and informed me that now a guy in the street was going to draw a caricature of me. I sat down on this little stool and the man started drawing. I was getting worried because everyone was laughing and people I didn't know were watching him draw the picture. Ten minutes later it was done. I was impressed, he had given me the body of a kangaroo (Karolina's influence) and I truly looked stupid. I will try to upload a picture here. our final stop was McDonald's for coffee and then we headed back home. I really enjoyed Krakow but to be honest I prefer the smaller towns in Poland, possibly because they remind me of where I grew up.

Join this facebook group, force my mate to get a tattoo

1000 members needed (Click here).

Cheers.

Example video of Polish street punk

This is an old video but you get the idea. Our concert was much more crowded as well.

Apologies

Sorry for being a slack bastard lately...
Work has finally caught me up but I will try to write more posts this week.

When I woke up:

Poland seems like a long time ago now, but I will try to fill you in on what happened. I woke up the next day after having a few hours sleep, Karolina was already up but noone else was home. I ate some more Kielbasa (sausage), damn is it good! Homemade too. Karolina's crazy dog Bocek (Bacon in Polish) was going mental, it almost looked like a case of rabies. Luckily I saw a vaccination tag. Panic avoided.

The town we were in was quite small, with only 5000 or so residents. It was situated in a valley, in the winter time the nearby slopes are used for skiing and snowboarding. There are also huge ski jumps like the ones you see in the winter Olympics on some of the hills. We ventured out of the house and began to walk up a massive hill that leads to an old church. The surrounding hills were dotted with thousands of tall, straight trees. As it was the beginning of spring only some of the greenery was beginning to poke it's head out. It was beautiful nonetheless.

The first thing I thought of doing was going for a dirt-bike ride. The hills were perfect and I could see trails everywhere. Unfortunately I was without a motorbike so this wasn't going to happen. My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when I saw a squirrel. That's right folks, a squirrel. I remembered that when my dad went to Canada the only photo he took on the whole trip was of a squirrel. Since then I have held a fascination with them. It looked at me with it's tiny little face and I tried to chase it, I just wanted to pat it's furry little head. And perhaps pull on it's tail for a bit.

Karolina thought I was mental, understandably really. I had my fun with the squirrel and we moved on up the hill that seemed to never end. Near the top was a church that was a few hundred years old. Karolina made me stand next to a giant crucifix and took a photo, she knows I'm the Antichrist so it was funny for her. We then went to visit one of her friends who's father had died recently. Unfortunately he wasn't home, but the rest of the family was. None of them spoke English and there was a small boy who kept on trying to get me to play with his toy motorbike. Of course I had to push all the buttons to hear the different sound effects and it seemed to make him happy. We didn't stay for long and went back home.

Karolina's mum got home around 3pm and immediately asked me if I was hungry, Polish hospitality is second to none I swear! Of course I couldn't say no so she prepared a million items of food for me to eat and then asked me if I was still hungry. Honestly it didn't matter what I said I could still look bad. For example if I didn't ask for more then she assumed that her food was not very nice, therefore I had to eat more than usual. Food politics I tell ya!

After dinner we went to visit some more of her friends at the only 24 hour shop in town. The owner was called Marek and his son Yaramesh was also there. Also Karolina's sister Ania and another friend called Bojor were there. We brought Bocek as well, Marek complained about the smell of wet dog but he put up with it. Marek and Yaramesh didn't speak much English but Bojor had spent a few years in the UK so he spoke very good English. Ania could speak good English too but at first she was afraid too, a fear shared by most Polish people I was to learn.

The shop was very convenient. There were couches out the back and some crates to sit on as well. We sat down and I drank my first Polish beer, bloody good by the way. Nearly cheaper than water for the record... (In the Czech republic this is actually the case). I was half expecting having to sit and listen to people speak Polish all night but luckily Bojor was a cool guy and we spoke on and off the whole night. After a few hours Karolina and I walked home and went to bed still tired from the previous night.

We woke up fairly early the following day, typical in Poland. Karolina's mum woke up at 4:30am every morning! Soon enough someone knocked on the door, it was one of Karolina's best friends called Kobitzka (sp?). She was really nice, but again, afraid to speak English. I couldn't understand it completely, I mean I speak very little Polish, not even enough to have a basic conversation. I would not judge anyone who tried to have a conversation with me harshly. Karolina told me that a lot of Polish people share this fear, it would have to be the biggest difference compared to Denmark where everyone speaks English. After Kobitzka left we went and visited a lot more of Karolina's friends. And now I'm going to fast forward a few days.

Polish Street Punk:

Bojor and Yaramesh had bought Karolina and I tickets to a hardcore street punk concert, in Polish and featuring 'The Analogs'. It was in a basement type location in the nearby city of Bielsko Biala. When we got there the bands were just warming up so we bought some beers. The first band started to play (I can't remember the name) and it was actually pretty good. Up the front near the stage was a dangerous place to stand however. A big group (mainly guys) were jumping around and pushing each other. And I mean hard. The funny thing was when someone fell over they would all help to pick them up, and then resume the beating of each other. There looked to be a few neo-Nazis in the crowd wearing suspenders and big black stomping boots.

More people started to arrive and pretty soon it was quite packed. By the time the last band started playing even I was in the carnage. Karolina too. Bojor was crowd surfing and at one stage he was hanging from the roof kicking like a crazy man. It was intense. After a few encores we left with Yaramesh and Bojor and they gave us a lift home. That is one thing I would definetely have thought I would not be doing five years ago.

Stay tuned for the next post involving a Polish disco and the Polish cure for a stomachache.

First night in Poland

Part 1 of Poland:

In the last post I left the British and met up with Karolina and Gosia. We had a plane to catch from Copenhagen to Warsaw at around 10pm.

We had to wait around at the airport doing all the usual security bullshit/check-in stuff. Of course whilst going through the metal detector the alarm went off for me...
'Take your belt off sir, and shoes,' Says the security guard.
I did as he wished and of course my pants immediately fell down. He then patted me down while I was standing on this little stool and as I had to raise my arms above my head my pants fell down again. Luckily I am now used to this happening, besides he was the one who had to come uncomfortably close to my groin area.

Karolina and Gosia thought it was good for a laugh, this was good in a way as it was their first time flying and may have settled any nerves they were having. We moved into the lounge to wait for boarding to begin. When boarding began, the airline woman looked at my passport and then at me, then back at my passport. Great, I was thinking, what now.
'What happened to the long hair?' She asks me.
She was asking because in my photo I have dreadlocks, whereas now I have very short hair.
What do you think happened lady? I got a fucking haircut. This is what I wanted to say but she looked nice so I told her it had been time for a change.

The plane trip was pretty uneventful and we landed in Warsaw at about 11pm. Karolina's sister, Ania was meeting us at the airport with her boyfriend to drive us home. It was a long drive, five hours in total. Both Gosia's and Karolina's parents had no idea that they were coming home, it was a complete surprise. First we dropped off Gosia at her house, it was nearly 4am by this time. Ania then drove Karolina and I to her mums house and we went inside. There dog, Bocek went mental and half woke her mum up. Karolina then went into her mums bedroom and her mum started screaming, it was funny and scary at the same time. Then her mum saw me and I spoke the Polish I had being practicing over the last week. I will write what I said in English.
'Hello Marishou (Her name is Marion but Marishou is a very nice way of saying that), my name is Jesse and I am from Australia. It is nice to meet you.'
She was impressed (I think) and immediately wanted to prepare food for me. It was 4am! I couldn't refuse, in fact I don't think anyone can refuse food from this woman. She prepared some Kielbasa sausage and it was the best I've ever had, homemade too. Meanwhile Ania came home and it was like a family reunion, they were so happy to see her it was a good feeling.

It was a really nice house too, apparently over 80 years old. It had a really nice old wooden staircase that led to the second story, and my bedroom. I was damn tired and so was Karolina, so we went to bed with her mum promising a smörgåsbord of food the next day.

Copenhagen

On the twelfth of April I caught the train from Aalborg to Copenhagen with my British mates: Lauren, Alan and Drew. We were going to stay in Copenhagen until Tuesday and meet up with Laurens boyfriend from the UK. On Tuesday I was meeting up with some Polish girls and heading to Poland for one week.

The train trip lasted six hours and we passed the time talking 'codson' (British expression meaning 'to talk shit'). We arrived in Copenhagen at around 2pm at the central train station. Lauren and her boyfriend were going to be staying in a hotel whilst Drew, Alan and I were staying in a hostel. First we found Lauren's hotel and it turned out to be a bit of a dive. The hallways were so skinny that even a hobbit would have had trouble walking down them. Her room didn't even have a toilet and the view would have made a happy person want to commit suicide. You get the picture dear reader.

We left Lauren and found our hostel nearby. It was nearly twenty stories high and looked brand new. The lobby was huge and their was a classy bar situated near the entrance. It looked nothing like the hostel we were expecting. We rocked up to the front desk only to find out that the hostel had some stupid system that canceled any booking unless you came in before 6pm. Luckily for us they had room so we re-booked. The guy behind the counter was an Australian who informed us that alcohol was forbidden in the rooms. He also informed us that noone would come in the room while we were there and we could find the cheapest alcohol in the supermarket. Legend.

Our room was shared with three other people whom we never actually met. It was on the ninth floor and the view was bloody fantastic. It was better than Lauren's room and she was paying double the amount!

We unpacked all our gear, well, when I say unpacked I mean we put our backpacks on the floor. Then we set out for the night to see what Copenhagen had to offer. The streets seemed quiet even though it was Saturday, but we managed to find a karaoke bar called 'Sam's bar' that was full of people. There was one guy who wouldn't give up the microphone to anyone else. This would have been fine except he couldn't sing for shit and most people in the room were starting to look murderous, especially when he butchered 'Stairway to Heaven' (Led Zeppelin). None of us were in the mood for singing that night so we moved on.

I'm writing this two weeks after the trip so some things are hazy in my mind, however I remember the first night was pretty uneventful. We visited about four more bars, most of them Irish funnily enough and then we went home.

The following day we were a bit more organised and walked around central Copenhagen to take in the sights and snap the obligatory touristic type photos. After awhile we found a nice park and sat on the grass. I had the bright idea of getting some photos of Alan and I up a nearby tree. You can guess what happened next. I tried to pull of an orangutan stunt dismount that failed dismally, and I plummeted to the ground landing on all fours. I wasn't hurt but everyone in the park thought I had died. This was accident number one and we all know that these things happen in three's...

After walking around some more we decided to take a canal tour in a sightseeing boat. It was about as interesting as you would expect but it did help us to get a better idea of the layout of the city and some places that we should visit. When we were leaving the boat at our stop Drew made a passing comment to me: 'Don't trip off the boat mate'. As I was walking up the steps that join the boat with the dock I somehow tripped and slammed down on the metal bridge. The noise was tremendous for such a small trip and immediately everyone on the boat looked at me. Unfortunetely another group had just boarded and the boat was full. To make matters worse the boat had a see-through roof and I could see an old couple laughing at me. Fucken brilliant.

I made my way off the boat and tried to get away as fast as possible with Drew and Alan both laughing hard as you would expect. I wasn't hurt at all but the embarrassment levels were high on the Richter scale. Number two accident complete.

Later on we found a cheap bar called 'The Moose'. It was a bit of a dive but it had character and the beers were cheap. The barman also happened to be a crazy DJ whom we had seen in Aalborg a few weeks earlier at a ghetto soul night. In keeping with the moose theme we found another bar on the way home that had a moose's head on the wall. At 3am the moose started to talk. Both Drew and I saw it and we told Lauren, who refused to look. Her boyfriend Steven saw it happen but he wouldn't admit it and Lauren refuses to believe it happened to this very day. When Drew and I got back to the hostel there was a couple sleeping in the hallway and Alan was fast asleep as he had gone back earlier. As punishment we took photos of him while he was asleep with us in them.

The final night in Copenhagen we found a venue that promised live music. The place had around fifteen people in it and six of them were band members. We were doubtful at first of the bands ability, especially when they told us that they were gigging together for the first time. The music was supposed to start at 10pm but the band decided to wait for more people, a mistake as by the time they started playing at 11pm nearly everyone else had left! Fortunately they were great. The singer, a woman, was amazing. The rest of the band were great as well. They mainly covered well known songs but the woman brought something unique to each one. By now we were literally the only ones in the section of the venue with the band. We felt sorry for them because they really did deserve a bigger audience with their level of talent.

To show our respect we stole their drumsticks at the end of the night and followed the bass guitarist to an underground alternative bar. The bar was cement and soon enough we had made friends with the barman, a twenty something with nearly as many piercings on his face. We started talking about the nastiest shots of alcohol that he had and of course we had to try them. He agreed to shout us the shots, probably because he wanted to see us get messed up. True to his word they tasted terrible. I likened the taste to that of drain-cleaner. We left late and the barman gave us some water for free for the trip home.

Number three happened the following day while I was walking up some steps at the train station with Alan and Drew. I tripped and nearly fell, but managed to regain my balance at the last minute. Of course Drew thought this was bloody hilarious, I was just glad that my three accidents were over. We sat down outside the train station and it immediately became apparent that we had sat in a 'dealing' area. Actually, it couldn't have been more obvious, a man sat down next to me and started rambling about how he had Valium to sell and did I need any? No I told him so he talked some more shit and finally left. It was getting close to the time when Alan, Lauren and Drew had to catch the train back to Copenhagen and I was going to meet the Polish girls and head to the airport. We said our farewells and split up.

The next post will be on Poland, in fact Poland will need more than one post...

MIA

I have been in Poland for the past week and a half, hence the absence of any recent updates. Do not fear however, I will make some new posts today and tomorrow.

Meat night

Last week I went horse-riding for one of my classes. That's right, h'm earning a degree by sitting on a horse for a few hours. Well it sure beats doing real work... The highlight was when my saddle came undone while my horse was galloping. I felt myself sliding off the horse and my foot was still stuck in the stirrup. Somehow I managed to stop the stubborn bastard and then I half fell off the side. Trust me to pick the one horse that had a loose saddle!

Tonight I'm heading out to meet up with Mathies, Jesper and Drew for a 'Meat night'. Mathies and Jesper are cooking a heap of meat and we're going to drink some beers as well of course. I will just paste the message he sent me on Facebook:

Are you ready for tomorrow night? Let me draw up the plan for you. We will meet/meat at my place in Valdemarsgade around 19.00 hours. All you need to bring is beer supplies for your own needs and wants, Jesper and I will take care of the rest. I would not recommend you guys to eat anything after lunch and if you want anything else than meat you should bring it yourself. Well, we will have some bread too, but not too much, it will spoil the taste of the meat. After a couple of hours of meat extravaganza, we will check each other out and if we're able to speak proper English, we should drink some more. Definitely. After about 20 beers each, we have to walk around 500 metres to get to the party we have been invited to.

See you tomorrow around 19.00. If you show up on beforehand, you WILL have the pleasant opportunity to see both Jesper and me drinking in the shower. Naked.

I expect a lot from you guys and especially Jesper, who is famous for cutting down wired lamps and filling his pockets with cutlery.

Mathies is a funny bastard, you can probably see this reflected in his message. I aim to show up after 19:00 to avoid the drinking naked in the shower part however. Should be a good night, although I'm not exactly sure who's party I'm attending, hopefully it's a Danish one. There is also a Hungarian and an Italian party on tonight. In addition to this I'm supposed to meet Karolina in the street (Jomfru), later on... The absolute worst part however, is that tomorrow is the final language bath for basic Danish! It lasts for six hours and starts at 10am... How I will pull up is anyone's guess!

Pictured below: A few slabs of Denmark's finest...

Yes, I am still alive

Part 2: The rest of it

Well the ferry didn't sink and we all survived the trip. Cruising up the river towards our port we went up on top deck to take some initial photos and gaze like a tourist.

We all thought that Denmark was cold but we were in for a shock. Sweden literally took our breath away it was that cold. The snow cover was quite thick on all the buildings and the ground.

In the left hand picture you can see myself and Drew with our sheriff badges, looking like twats really.

As we neared the mooring point we passed underneath the main bridge of Göteborg, it was 45 meters high yet our ferry only just fit underneath it! By this stage we were well and truly freezing so we went back downstairs in preparation for leaving the ferry.

I was expecting a passport check or even an ID check but it seems they will let anyone into Sweden. None of us were asked for any ID whatsoever (note to self- a drug racket importing to Sweden would be viable).

Because the ferry had been delayed it was getting dark and we still had to find the way to the hostel. We knew the bus number and had a map but it proved easier to just ask people the way.

We arrived at the hostel after asking for directions about five times. Fortunately there was someone at the front desk still and we picked up our key for the room. The hostel was quite far out of town but a bus ran into the city regularly.

It is my experience that people that stay in hostels are usually quite friendly but it seemed to be the opposite at this one. There was a lot of Russian men around and they seemed to stand outside and smoke endlessly. Whatever floats your boat I guess. In any case we were only here for two days and didn't expect to make best friends with anyone. We dumped all our packs in the room and then head into the city to see what was happening.

We decided to walk around and try out a few bars along the way. The first place we came to looked really dodgy from the outside, yet when you walked down into a cellar type room it became apparent that it was a classy place. They had a beer list with nearly 50 types of beer! I tried a Swedish beer and the others all tried different ones also.

We went to about three more bars after this until everyone except myself and Drew wanted to go and get some sleep in preparation for the following big day. The others headed back to the hostel while Drew and I went off in search of an Irish pub (being St. Patrick's day).

Well what do you know a few blocks up and we came across an Irish pub full of people and with loud music. They were doing ID checks and I thought no big deal at first, until the guy said you have to be 23 to enter. I tried my luck anyway and he must have liked me because he let me in (Drew is 23). They had Guinness on tap which isn't really my drink of choice but I tried it anyway because they looked like they knew how to pour a proper one (It was the best one I've had yet for the record).


We moved upstairs and bought another beer. There was some live music playing and the atmosphere was good so we stayed for quite awhile. When it got to around 4am or so we were both feeling drained because of the ferry trip and having to wake up at 5:30am in the morning, so we decided to head back to the hostel to sleep for a few hours.

I woke up six hours later feeling pretty exhausted yet excited about seeing Sweden. Everyone except Drew and myself had managed to get to the breakfast at 8am. We decided to grab something quick in town later on.

While we were waiting at the bus stop a man drove past in a jeep and wearing a beret, we named him 'Sergeant Major'. He looked like he meant business and could possibly have a stash of AK47 rifles in his car somewhere. I had the bright idea of singing the chorus from the Johnny Cash song 'Ring of fire', next time he drove past (his window was down). I am unsure if I have mentioned this previously but this particular song has become our households theme-song. Originally it was the British that introduced it at one of the parties but now we just randomly yell it out and most people know what were on about. Good way to liven up a party or just a trip on the bus.

But I digress. As the sergeant major approached us again I started to yell out 'Ring of fire'. He slowed right down which was awkward but I kept going and at the end I gave him a salute to finish it off. He must have thought I was insane! Thankfully the bus came before he came past again and I made my escape.

When we arrived in town we decided to just walk around everywhere and maybe hop on a ferry later to go up and down the river. The weather was beautiful. It was sunny and a blue sky, none of us had seen this for quite some time... It was still very cold of course and there was snow everywhere, but the sun more than made up for it.

Sweden reminded me of Denmark. It was damn cold but the women were beautiful. Everyone we spoke to also spoke English in varying degrees of fluency, also like Denmark. For lunch we tried a traditional Swedish meal called Koftbuller. Basically it is meatballs served with mashed potato and a type of jam on the side. It was really nice, probably the best meatballs I've ever had. The same place also had decent coffee, which was a relief. I am suffering from decent coffee withdrawal here.

We kept walking taking in the sights and found some weird statues and some nice old buildings. We found the oldest building in Göteborg, well apparently it was. Nowhere did it tell us how old it actually was though. Near this building was a homemade chocolate shop. Everything was made by just two people. Damn nice chocolate it was too...

The rest of the day was spent just taking in the sights, it would bore me (and you) to write about it so I will just put the photos up on the link on the left hand side of the page.

We headed back to the hostel later on and made it back with five minutes left of happy hour in the bar. We all bought two drinks each because after happy hour ended the prices were expensive again. We also decided to try the nights meal, some sort of broccoli and meat bake. It was also bloody good and filled us up nicely in preparation for another big night.

We went back into the city around 8pm. Alan spotted a frozen pond with a concrete statue in the middle and I decided to walk out into the middle of it to see if the ice would hold up. Alan joined me and we skated across the ice while everyone else was praying that it would break and send us into the freezing water. In the middle was a big log and I threw it in the direction of the others, unfortunately it fell short and sent freezing cold water into everyones faces. Good for a laugh.

Alan was in a generous mood and offered to shout Drew and I a shot of something in a posh looking bar. He soon regretted this when he paid the bill and it cost around $50AUD! Bloody ripoff. It was an in and out job and we were soon heading to another place. I can't recall the name of the next place we went to but it was very dark inside.

As we approached the bar a local man spotted Drew's football (soccer) shirt and the next thing you know he has taken his top off in the bar to show us all his tattoo's! Crazy bastard. I bought us beers and left Drew and Alan talking to the crazy man. About five minutes later they had managed to get away from him and joined us in the adjoining room. We were all talking when the same man came in and just stood at the head of the table. No one wanted to encourage him to start talking again so we just ignored him. It was a bit awkward moment, but eventually he walked away and we breathed a sigh of relief.

The next stop was a bar called 'The Flying Dingo'. Of course everyone wanted to go there because they assumed it was an Australian place. Everyone except for me. It was set partially underground and had pieces of Australian memorabilia everywhere. I was the only Australian in the place however and I'm pretty sure even the owner isn't Australian. As we got further in I heard singing and got a bad feeling about the place. I was right, it was Karaoke night and a man gave us pieces of paper to write out song choices down on.

I have a fear of public singing and didn't really feel like confronting that fear that night, or any other night. Drew and Christoph convinced me into singing Oasis- Wonderwall with them whilst Kathy and Alan chose to sing Scorpions- Winds of change. The look on the DJ's face while we were singing was one of utter pain. Kathy filmed us singing as well, that is one video I am not looking forward to seeing. I must say that overall it was pretty fun but not really my cup of tea.

Some Spanish girls came in and Drew was looking interested in them. Kathy told him that she would 'help' him out. The next thing we know and she has dragged two Spanish girls over from the dance floor to introduce to Drew. What followed next reminded me of some great scenes from the TV show The Office with Ricky Gervais. Kathy pointed at Drew and said, 'he's a bit shy, but he likes you'. I can still picture the cringe on Drew's face and I must have had a similar expression on my face too.

Let's just say it was not the best situation in the world to be in and I truly felt sorry for Drew. Hell, I even felt sorry for myself just being near the situation! The girls edges away and Drew and I glared at Kathy. The worst part is she didn't realise that she had done something wrong. I got some sympathy shots from the bar for Drew and we tried to forget what had just happened.

Christoph and his girlfriend decided they wanted to go home around 1am but the rest of us decided to stay on for awhile. A few hours later we were heading to another bar when Christoph came running up to us from out of nowhere. He told us that the next bus wasn't coming for another hour and we decided to just take a taxi back to the hostel. Splitting the bill six ways would make it worthwhile. We found a taxi and set off.

Halfway through the trip and I could hear sirens, at first I thought I was imagining things. It was only when the taxi driver pulled over and I could see the flashing lights of the police car behind us. They came up to the window and I started to sing 'Ring of fire' again. Then Drew joined in while the taxi driver was being breathalised. After the breatho we set off again, we all felt sorry for the taxi driver and gave him a tip when he dropped us off at the hostel. We all went to bed not looking forward to the 10am checkout the following morning.

We actually woke up for breakfast and it was very nice. They had a big selection of meats and cheeses that you could help yourself too. And of course coffee. We all had a haggard look about us, not surprising considering we had barely slept the past few days. After breakfast we checked out and headed back into the city centre.

We had the return ferry trip to catch at 2:30pm so there wasn't much time left. We decided to take it easy and hop on the local ferry that cruised up and down the river regularly. We got some good photos from the ferry, my personal favorite was one of a piece of graffiti that said: 'Kemal was gay'. I voiced my thoughts on this to the others. Why exactly did it say 'Kemal was gay?' Did he suddenly decide that he actually liked women all of a sudden? Or did he die of AIDS which would explain the 'was' in the sentence? High level conversation as you can see.

We hopped off at a nice looking stop to get some lunch. It was warm enough to sit outside, even though there was snow just nearby. The sun was out in all it's glory, again. For this we were bloody thankful. Drew actually fell asleep (see one of the photos), and of course we exploited this by taking all sorts of wrong photos.

Alan and I went up some stairs behind we were sitting to find a balcony type lookout just above everyone. We threw some snow down on Christoph and his girlfriend because they looked so peaceful and we wanted to ruin that. I accidentally threw some snow down on a small child who looked around startled. Luckily his mum didn't see what happened. Wrong place, wrong time kid.

After lunch we walked to the top of a nearby lookout in the park. On top the guys had another snowfight. We named it the axis versus allies snowfight as it was Britain and Australia versus Germany. As always we were making reference to the war, luckily Christoph has a good sense of humour. For the record, Germany lost.

The day was flying along now, we had walked all the way around town to come back nearby the ferry departure point. Drew, Kathy and Christine decided to go and wait there for 45 minutes or so whilst Christoph, Alan and I set off to find one of Christoph's geocache's. I haven't yet explained exactly what Geo-caching is so here goes. It has to be the most nerdy sport in the world. The aim of the game is to locate hidden caches all around the world using a GPS and coordinates downloaded off the Internet. There is thousands of participants around the world apparently and caches can be found all around the world, even in Iraq...

Christoph got excited when he saw there was a cache nearby so Alan and I decided to humour him and help him find it. It was at the top of another lookout point in the centre of town, we had to climb about 200 steps to get to the top!

It was deserted and Christoph told us that the cache should be within ten meters of where we were standing. He also told us that usually it's magnetic and on the underside of a bench or similar object. After walking around in vain and feeling like a fool one of us stumbled over a hole that was covered with grass. Jackpot.

Christoph was getting excited and he pulled out two bags from the cache. Alan said: 'I wonder what's in there,' to which I replied 'probably just a bag of shit.' At this point Christoph opened the bag and what do you know it was full of dog shit! The facial expression on Christoph's face was priceless. Alan had his camera out and he took a photo. And what a photo! We abandoned the bag of shit and set off for the ferry trip back home. Ever since that day we always tease Christoph about his geo-caching for bags of shit.

Photo descriptions- 1) On the ferry 2) Lookout point in Göteborg 3) Drew after a hard night 4) The storm we sailed into... 5) Church tower 6) Posh bar with massive beer list.

Goteborg, Sweden. The ferry trip.

Part 1: The ferry trip.

On Monday I woke up at 5:30am. This is the earliest I have woken up in the past 4 months! The reason being that myself and five friends were heading to Sweden and the train was leaving at 7:01am.

Christoph, his girlfriends Christine and I caught the 6:22am bus to the station where we met up with Katherina, Drew and Alan. We bought the tickets and for some stupid reason had to validate them in the machine ten times each! The Danish are so efficient in many ways yet they fail at the most simple things haha.

We managed to get on the right train to Frederikshavn (landing place for ferry) and Drew and I cracked open a celebratory beer. I hear you thinking, 'but it's only 7 O' clock in the morning!' Well I would advise you to save the shock for later because it will most likely get worse.

Upon arrival in Frederikshavn we made a bee line for the ferry office to pick up our tickets. Disaster number one struck. The express ferry that we were supposed to be taking was canceled because the sea was too rough. This meant that we had to wait until 2pm for the normal ferry to come. It also meant that we had five hours to kill...

I adopted a positive mentality. Shit happens and you make the most of it. After all we were on holiday and in good company. We set out for the centre of town to see what was happening.

Turns out not much was happening at all. Hardly surprising considering it was only 8:30am and being a Monday. We were starving so we went into the first place that looked decent. I ordered some Polser (sausages) with some frittes (chips), a nice healthy breakfast.

After eating ourselves stupid we set off up the main street. Dotted randomly up and down the streets were these weird pieces of playground equipment. I say playground equipment but really you wouldn't want your kids playing on these things. They looked like lawsuits waiting to happen, so of course we all had a go.


The first shop we found was called 'Tiger', it's like the Danish equivalent of an Australian two dollar shop except there is no way in hell anything will ever be two dollars. The first thing Alan did was go and set all the egg-timers in the shop to go off in five minutes. Alan is 28 for the record but a very funny guy (British).

Drew and I bought 'Sheriff' badges for the heck of it and then waited in suspense for the timers to go off. When it actually happened it was a bit of an anti-climax. They must have been for people with sensitive hearing or something, they were bloody quiet. I still pissed myself laughing however as I had mentally hyped it up that much.

Moving on from Tiger we found a seedy looking book/video shop and had a look in the rack out the front. The first VHS Drew pulled out happened to be a German S&M one with a pretty graphic cover. We spent the next five minutes laughing at all the vintage porno on display and then someone spotted a bar called Jerry's. By this time it was around 10:30am.

They sat us in the corner out of the way of the respectable people. We soon found out the reason for this, it smelt bad. After looking at the menu's for awhile Alan spotted something called 'the tower'. Take a guess at what it was, I'll give you a clue: It was in the beer section.

Well you guessed right. 'The tower' is four liters of beer in a massive bong like object with it's own beer tap down the bottom (picture on right). It is truly a feat of engineering. Only the guys felt like drinking at this early hour so we got four classes and got to it.

We all wanted photo's with the tower in all it's greatness and we made a note to come back to Jerry's on our return trip for another tower.

We managed to kill an hour or two in Jerry's and then head off to see what else the town had to offer. It was a sleepy kind of place and didn't look like it would have a great nightlife either.

Christoph went off by himself for awhile and we plotted a way to play a practical joke on him. We decided on finding a piece of paper that looked similar to the ferry ticket and dropping it off the side of the walkway that leads to the ferry itself. Because it was so windy we knew that he would have to run a good hundred meters to catch it and that would prove immensely funny for the rest of us.

A few hours later and we put our plan into action. I started off by telling him I had a sore ankle because I had tripped over something, this would give me an excuse not to run when I dropped the ticket. Then Katherina suggest that we take a photo 'over by that exit'. We were all lined up and I said 'oh here's the ticket Christoph', and pretended to look in my pockets. Katherina then said 'smile everyone' and I threw the fake ticket over the side. It fell down around fifteen meters and everyone just yelled 'Christoph run you've got the longest legs.' It was comedic gold, but really one of those things you have to be part of to laugh at.

Christoph swore in German then ran down the stairs after the piece of paper. We were all pissing ourselves laughing and when he actually managed to catch the piece of paper and dropped down to his knees we laughed even harder. We then yelled out telling him to look at the piece of paper. The expression on his face when he realised he had been played was bloody funny. He took it well however and I'm sure we will be giving him shit about it for the next five months.

The ferry was massive, nearly 45 meters high. It was like a small city with slot machines, bars and a even a restaurant. We went straight to the top deck to take in the view, it was very windy. I was in the mood for a Titanic pose photo, but it was that windy that it was making it hard (see my attempt on the left).

I threw some snow from the top deck on the cars that were driving on board which I'm sure they appreciated. I was wearing the sheriff badge which gave me the authority however.

We all went back inside after the ferry had left Denmark and tried to find somewhere to sit. The only decent place left was conveniently placed near the bar/restaurant. There was even a dance floor.

About one hour into the trip and we realised why the express ferry had been canceled, because the sea was too rough for a smaller ship to journey through. People were been sick left right and centre and the waves were slapping on our viewing window which must have been at least 25-35 meters above the sea! Katherina and Alan were sleeping, Christoph was sitting with his girlfriend and Drew and I were walking the ship playing the slot machines.

I started to feel really sick so Drew and I went outside to brave the elements. It was insane. The wind was so strong we could barely walk and the waves were crashing near us and on us. We went right to the side guardrail to take it all in and it was very impressive. We managed to survive a few minutes outside before heading back in but it was worth it. Not only was I feeling better but I was actually hungry as well!

We went to the cafe area where everyone was looking very sorry for themselves which made me feel even better haha. We bought some sandwiches and took them back downstairs to see how the others were fairing. I sat down opposite Christine and started eating quite vigorously. This turned out to be a mistake, she started gagging and then had to run with Christoph to the toilet.

Drew, the barman and I thought it was pretty funny but I did feel a little bit bad. After eating we kept moving, this proved to be the best way to not be seasick. All in all it was an enjoyable trip even though I thought we were going to sink at one stage.

Basic Danish

Basic Danish is beginning to do my head in. But I've decided that rather than quit, like you might think I would, that I'm going to stick it out. I don't mind the actual classes although they seem to drag on forever, but there is one guy who always has to question every single little detail. In addition to this every time a question is asked he races to answer it in record time. By the time he is yelling out the answer I have managed to translate maybe half the sentence! The advantage of this is since he's always yelling out the answers it means less times that I have to answer the hard questions.

It's not just Danish I'm trying to learn here. I now know basic German, Italian and Spanish. I have also being trying hard to learn some simple Polish. Nothing says you like a girl more than trying to learn her native language...


My house mates put a sign on my door that says 'Sleeping Kangaroo'. In reference to the fact that I sleep the most, smartasses. In retaliation I put a sign on Davide's door that says 'Daville sleeping'. This is really an inside joke, our Danish teacher always calls him Daville because Danes pronounce 'd' as 'l'. In the bottom corner of the sign I wrote: 'Mr. Big rocks my jocks.' Yet another inside joke. Mr. big is Davide's hero, some famous guitar player whom none of us have ever heard of. Whenever I want to bag him out I just tell Davide that Mr. big can't even play the air guitar. Works every time.


I'm getting a lot of page views from all round the world. It surprises me. I would be interested in hearing feedback from anyone who reads this blog. Mainly why you do and what would you like to hear about? pissedpanda@gmail.com

The man himself

1. Our house mascot. Poster in the kitchen.















2. Get together.












3. Random shot.

Daville and the moto GP

Ever played twister on a bed? Do you even know what twister is? Click here if you really don't know what is, in which case I pity you. Last night I found myself in a situation which required me to play the game on bedsheets that had the same pattern as the sheet of plastic you usually play on. In this exciting post I will tell you about this experience and also what I did the previous night. I may also tell you what I got up to today. The past few sentences of this post is an example of bad writing and not that I proofread any of my posts or anything but right now I'm ashamed. But I digress. Let the magical stories begin.

Friday:
Davide and I caught the bus downtown where we met up with an Italian guy called Raffaele and some of his friends. We then had to wait around for about ten minutes for the bus to take us to the party. It was located way out in the east of Aalborg, the middle of bloody nowhere basically. I lost my ticket but I just picked up an old one and showed it to the driver, he didn't even look at the date.

This random guy aged about 40-45 got on the bus and sat opposite me. Shortly after he looked at me and said something in Danish. It was too fast for me so I just said 'sorry, no Danish'. He looked me and said: 'why not?' I figured he was joking as Danish people love to wind you up. So I said 'because I've only been here one month.' He must have decided that I was wise to his tricks so he introduced himself and I found out that he was an American who had lived here for a long time. The guy asked where we were going and being the suspicious person I am ,I told him to a friends house. If I had told him a party maybe he would have tried to get an invite haha.

We finally arrived at the party. They actually had a bar which was a first, it also meant we didn't have to lug a whole lot of beer all the way over town. There was about 120-150 people there already (11pm), and a decent sized dance floor as well. I spoke to at least ten different people up until around 1am when I met the Polish girl, Karolina, from the previous weeks party. I didn't make a post about it but I also met her earlier in the week at the student house. I was dancing with her for a while (that's right, dancing, albeit poorly). At around 3am we decided to walk downtown, possibly to the street.

I found Alberto with his calimocho (spelling?) but he was going to stay and try his luck with a Spanish girl. So Karolina and I set off, it was a decent walk of around 40 minutes as all the buses had stopped running. I was impressed that she didn't complain at all, but I later found out that in Poland she has to walk long distances all the time. The public transport must be worse than in Melbourne, if that is at all possible!

We ended up alongside the fjord, a large expanse of water that separates lower Aalborg from upper. It was bloody freezing but the view made up for it. While I was taking in the view some smart-ass decided to beep his horn causing me to nearly fall in the water haha. Lucky I didn't' because I would have taken the Polish girl in with me...

Saturday:
Later that day at around 9pm I headed downtown again, bracing myself against the blasting winds as I walked across the large main bridge. I made the mistake of opening a map I had in my pocket and of course it blew straight over the edge. Fuck you wind.

When I finally arrived at my destination Alberto and Davide were waiting for me and we made our way to the right apartment. An Italian girl named Eleanora and her housemates were hosting a dinner/party for about twelve people. We ate gnocchi, tortilla and some nice Spanish meats like chorizo and jamon serrano (smoked ham). There was a good mix of nationalities. Spanish, American, French, Italian, Dutch and of course Australian.

The inevitable suggestion to play a drinking game came. I cursed that person silently haha. This time we played a game called 'Kings'. Rules here. I won't go into details about what happened, but for a drinking game it was pretty fun.

We had been eating dinner in the largest room in the house, one of the Spanish girls rooms. Her bed happened to have the same coloured circles as in the game twister (as mentioned earlier). So we passed around a pack of cards. Whoever had a red card had to play, black meant you didn't and the ace was the person who told everyone where to put their hands and feet.

It was a single bed and got pretty crowded with four people clambering all over the place, trying not to fall to their doom. I played a few rounds then decided it was more fun to watch and take photos, so I kept a black card in my pocket. Yes I'm a cheat.

People started to drift off around 3am and I soon went home with Davide.

The cooking situation

Heres how the cooking worked for the first week:

Germany- sausages with pickles and tomato sauce.
Czechoslovakia- powdered soup that looked horrible.
Spain- tortilla or meatballs.
Italy- pasta with tomato sauce.
Australia- tortilla, Spanish chicken and warm chicken salad.

I don't like to brag, but the other guys can't cook so well. At least not yet. It's to be expected though, they all still live at home. Before I moved out I had difficulty cooking rice.

We are about a month in now and the guys are starting to find their cooking feet at last. We all cook separately but usually try each others meals. We are also planning on doing maybe one meal per week which we would all help make.

This is working alright, apart from the fact that I am used to cooking for everyone else so I end up with enough food from one meal to last me a few days. This is good in a way.

We are always bagging out Christoph about eating sausages all the time because it is such a stereotype. In fact he doesn't eat them any more then I do. The same goes for Alberto and his tortilla, he has to have at least one per week or he gets cravings. I am also averaging one per week because it is so easy to make and tastes even better the day after cold.

Alberto is always calling his mum in Spain and asking her for more recipes. It's always funny to listen to the conversation because he gets so animated. Spanish is an interesting language, also with some nice swear words which of course I am learning. I am also learning how to swear in German and Italian and how to tell a girl she looks beautiful in Italian. The most important parts of the language basically.

Jaroslav seems to cook pretty basic stuff, I think he might be afraid of trying to make something a bit complicated and failing. All I can say is I'm glad I have experience cooking for myself because otherwise I'd be malnourished right now.

We had a tortilla competition the other night, and even Alberto (Spanish) agreed that mine was the best. Man I must sound like a prat talking like this but even James (boss in Australia) would have been proud of it I'm sure.

We are all hanging out for summer when we can hopefully get a BBQ and cook out the front, and of course drink some beers whilst doing so.

Some random pics

1. Ostre Alle hallway party.
















2. Dinner party at our joint.


















3. Rock Caffe 'en (metal bar).












4. Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll Party (bad photo).















5. Ostre Alle 91 in the basement, nearly got stuck in this fricken thing.

Wind turbine collapse

This happened recently due too strong winds in Denmark:

Ostre Alle 91

Last night we had some British mates over for drinks before heading to a party. We were all having a good time when this German girl that someone partially knows arrived. She was pretty hammered and quite possibly the most aggressive female I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. I'm not going to name names because the Internet has a habit of catching you up and biting you in the arse when you least expect it...

Everyone was just talking and having a laugh when I noticed out of the corner of my eye the German girl playing with a butter knife. She was randomly stabbing it into the table and beginning to scare me and the English guy she was sitting next too. Then someone brought up birth control in a funny way and the German girl took it literally and started having a go at everyone. Bit of a schizophrenic. At the time I was thinking we were going to have to get out some rope and tie her down till she calmed down but the German guy I live with yelled at her and she seemed to calm down a bit. Needless to say we were all glad when she left.

At 11:00pm we headed out to a 'Black and White' themed party at a Collegium called 'Ostre Alle 91'. We had seen some videos of the place on you tube (link HERE), apparently the building was in a bad way and really should have been condemned. The hosts had obviously decided to go with a black lighting theme as well, i.e. no lighting at all outside. Finally we found the right entrance and headed up two flights of stairs to the party. Well, it was different. Ostre Alle has no common or living room so the party was in a massive hallway. Playing of music was rare but there was at least 100 people so a pretty good attendance rate.

We found our niche in the hallway and set up camp with all the beers and coats that were soaked from the rain outside. I was just chilling, having a good time when I saw a Polish girl that I've seen around but hadn't talked to before. I was geared up to go and talk to her but she ended up coming to me. Her English was very good but she played it down, this is common for most of the internationals I've met. I talked to her for most of the party and got her number, we might meet in the street tonight if the wind drops below 250km/h!

She left at 3am to take her house mate home and after talking to some more people I found my original group singing the chorus from the song 'ring of fire' (Johnny Cash), and turning the lights on and off for the whole hallway. Not bad entertainment when you have 15 people in a circle singing the song and going mental.

At 3am we went and explored the basement. It was pretty bad considering people actually had to live there and use the facilities. I climbed into a locker and nearly got stuck, some good photos were taken and then we went home.

Right now it's 6:46pm Saturday and we're thinking about having a semi-quiet night. Possibly playing some pool.

P.S. Worth a look: Notorious B.I.G- Hitler remix

Tell me what you want me to write about

Your probably all getting sick of hearing about how much I can drink. Either that or it is scaring you. So I've decided that as well as those stories you can tell me what to write about. It's pretty simple. Just email me at pissedpanda@gmail.com or write in the comment box to the left of the page.

Maybe you want to hear about my house, a specific house mate, life in Denmark, the weather or anything else. Type and I shall answer.

Photo problems

I had to delete the photo slide show as it was not showing all the pictures for some unknown reason. Instead I have added a link to my photo page on the left hand side of the page. I still have to upload around 50 more photos so bear with me.

Bust out the crackpipe

Friday promised a Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll party. First my house mates and I had to make dinner for a household of Italian and Spanish girls that were coming over. Alberto was going with his tortilla, Davide pasta and I chose nachos and guacamole. We chose basic stuff so we didn't have to panic that nothing was going to be ready on time.

The food turned out pretty good and we were all getting on pretty well. Of course someone had to suggest a drinking game afterwards, it's never me because they are a bit pointless, but of course I'll play if everyone else does. The rules were simple, well simple enough to understand at the time, but I'll be damned if I'm going to explain them here. Drinking games here only stop when all the alcohol is gone, the Spanish girls were getting pretty drunk on Alberto's 'Calimocho' (not sure if that is spelt right?). Which is basically a combination of red wine and coca cola, apparently it's massive in Spain and I have no reason to doubt this because every party I've been to the Spanish people will be drinking it!

The girls were all dressed up for the sex, drugs and rock n' roll party I mentioned earlier, and they wanted us to dress up too. Amazingly they conned us into wearing some eye makeup, trying to get that rock star look haha. I saw the aftermath photos on Facebook this morning... My god what an embarrassment. I looked like a panda that is feeling very sorry for itself.

Eventually we made it to the party. There was about 90 or so people there and the room was quite small so it wasn't bad. The que for the toilet was terrible so I wandered up the dorm hallway and found an open room with about 10 people in it. I had to be quick so I introduced myself and talked to a nice Danish guy and girl for awhile. I then asked if I could use the toilet haha. It probably took the same amount of time as if I'd waited in the normal que but I met some more Danes which is always good.

I stayed at this party for a few hours then left with some other guys to go to Jomfru Ane Gade. To be honest I am nearly over this street. The music is mainstream bullshit at most of the places and the drinks are too bloody expensive. The smaller places (Bodega's) further out of the city are better in my opinion, partly because you are more likely to meet other Danes and also because the beer is cheaper.

It was a fairly typical night and I'm not sure what is on tonight yet (Saturday). So far there hasn't been a weekend where I haven't gone out somewhere. I might take it easy tonight and just play some poker with the house mates, we'll see what happens.

US Economy VS The Female G Spot

I was trying to do the seemingly endless amount of reading required for tomorrow's classes until I reached one piece which was an online news story. The story was on rising interest rate inflation in the US and the problems that their housing market is experiencing. I'm not quite sure how exactly this is related to the subject in any way but I will trust the Danes, at least for now.

Anyway, I was scanning the page doing my best to take all the excitement in, when halfway down the page there was a massive link to another news story titled - 'Female G spot can be detected'. Of course I had to click on it, who could resist such a temptation?

It was all very interesting but I fail to see the relevance between the two articles. I'm sure the US economy is very pleasurable for some but really the news site in question should consider separating these kinds of stories.

In other news, Alberto 'bought' (wink wink, nudge nudge), a bike. Someday in the near future I may inform him that it is in fact a girls bike. Being purple doesn't help either. On the other hand it could be funny to let him find this out for himself.

As for the 'G spot' article. Move along nothing to see here. It was shit.

Anti Flag- yes, sometimes the title is irrelevant to the content...

FRIDAY:
Last Friday my house mates and I found out that a traffic light party was going to be taking place that night. For those of you that don't know what this kind of party entails, allow me to elaborate. You wear green if your single and looking, orange if it's complicated and red if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend. It really is the stupidest way to theme a party, ever. The English bloke, Drew wanted me to go dressed up as an actual traffic light just to take the piss out of the whole thing. I was up for this but lacking in materials so I played it safe and found something green to pin on myself.

We went to Drew's house beforehand and of course got lost. We arrived at what we thought was his place and called him up to tell him to come outside. A few minutes go by and then we hear this yelling further up the street. The crazy bastard came out in bare feet! We were only out by a few hundred meters, no big deal.

There was already around six other people at his place, so we numbered about eleven people at that stage. Drew brought out a lethal looking game which gives you an electric shock if you are the last one to push a button. I hadn't even started drinking and I already lost three times, my reaction times must be shocking. Thank god the batteries started to go flat because my wrist was starting to cramp up like I was clutching a bloody electric fence. Then someone brought out a bottle of really good Estonian vodka and we played a basic drinking game. Bye bye vodka.

After a few hours we decided to head out to the traffic light party (god it even sounds lame). First we went to where we thought it was being held but inside everyone was sitting down, and their was kids running around. Didn't really look like the sleazy party we were looking for. Christoph called up his German friend and after talking about sausages for awhile he managed to get the proper address of the place. By this stage we were all freezing so most of us just decided to go back to our place. Jaroslav (Czech guy) decided to go and check out the party and let us know if it was any good.

My room is the biggest so naturally we ended up sprawled in there drinking beers and chilling out. Someone had the bright idea of taking photos of everyone but we got some quality shots of everyone especially Alberto.


SATURDAY:
I woke up around 14:00 (2pm). I then tried to sleep some more but the house mates were being rowdy so I decided to bite the bullet and wake up (It's Tuesday now and I'm still waking up, story of my life). So I left the darkness and entered the harsh world of sunlight, if you can even call it sunlight in Denmark. The guys informed me of a birthday party that night at a Spanish girls house. While my brain registered this I went and took a shower.

I then looked in the fridge and shock horror I was out of beer. I went and picked up another case of the local beer- Tuborg. It is made by Carlsberg but it's like the cheaper version. A beer is a beer in any case.

Later that day at about 22:00 we headed out to the Spanish birthday party. I was a little unsure about this one as when the Spanish people are together they tend to talk in Spanish, which can be kind of awkward for me as you would expect. We were told the party was on the 'two and a half floor'. I was half expecting some sort of Harry Potter type place because the floor numbers did not make any sense. In any case we just listened for the loud music and it worked as usual. The apartment was jam packed with what looked to me like the whole Spanish and Italian community. Luckily for me I live with an Italian and a Spanish so I had translators for everyone. I roamed from room to room meeting new people and occasionally bumping into people I knew already. After awhile Davide (my Italian house mate) introduced me into an Italian girl, Eleanora. She was really nice and having traveled quite widely really easy to talk to which was good. I then bumped into the Austrian girl from the previous night and one of her flatmate's. We decided to ditch the party as it was starting to die down at this point and head to Jomfru Ane Gade. Somebody told me Alberto and Davide were already there but this turned out to be wrong. Never trust a drunk Spaniard haha.

We met Marie, Mathies and Jesper near the street and went to the metal bar- Rock Kaffen. It was packed, no room to move at all. The atmosphere is great at that place. I think I was feeling the lack of sleep from the previous night and all the previous weekends by this point and I went home pretty early with Christoph.

SUNDAY:
=Sleep, eat and more sleep.

My name is...

In the first Danish language class we had everything from reading the clock to singing nursery rhymes thrown at us. It went for six hours. On a Saturday. Needless to say enthusiasm levels were not too high. Anyway I made the mistake of tuning out for a brief moment... and then all of a sudden I felt all the eyes in the room on me and realise that the teacher was asking me something. So I made some noises that I presumed sounded like: 'Er sorry, but can you repeat that?'.

Heres what I heard: 'Blah blah blah'. I was still a little hungover from the previous night and incredibly tired so that is my justification. I thought she was asking me about what I studied at university, so I went to say 'Cultural studies'. Unfortunetely for me she was asking me my name, but she asked me to spell it as she obviously thought I had some weird name. Here I am spelling out cultural studies and everyone is pissing themselves laughing. Of course I thought it was bloody funny when I found out but it is frustrating not being able to learn a language more easily.

You will be pleased to know that since that class I am a bit more proficient, we are learning at quite a fast rate and I hope it is all sticking. I think it is a worthwhile thing to do whilst here, even if it is just for six months. Besides, if I knew of an exchange student that came to Australia and didn't make any effort to learn basic English I would think it a little rude.

Last weekend

I'm going to make Friday night short. I met Marie and we went to a Bodega (Sleazy bar). Now by my standards it wasn't really that sleazy but that is just what they call them here. We had a few drinks and then we met Marie's older brother and his crazy Chilean friend. They were both high as kite's. We went to another Bodega for some more drinks. The Chilean guy, Ernesto was a funny guy. He kept asking me about the topography of Australia and where I live. I didn't really know what he was asking but we somehow reached an agreement on whatever he was asking me, due to me saying 'ja ja' occasionally. It proved to me that you don't even need to know what someone is asking you if your a bit drunk, you can still have a perfectly logical conversation. At least logical to one person. I missed the last bus of course and had to walk home. I spied a bike that looked good on the way home but I lacked the motivation at the time to steal it.



On Saturday I had to go to the first class of my Danish language course. It lasted for six bloody hours! I was still tired from the going to bed the previous night at around 3am of course. The language bath (as they call it), ended at 16:00 (4pm). When I got back I checked my face book and found out I had to meet Mathies at 17:30 for a dinner party with his girlfriend and some other exchange students. So I tried to find (and failed) some respectable looking clothes and headed downtown to the centre of Aalborg.

Mathies was with a girl from Bulgaria, a girl from Hungary and a guy from Sheffield, England. It was good to see a Brit because I usually get on well with them. Besides this, they also love a drink or ten.

We walked for about 2km, the guy from Sheffield had brought twelve beers with him so I stopped off and bought some more for anyone who wanted one. It was around 6pm by this stage and we had a party to go to at 9pm, so I thought that the guy from Sheffield (Drew) was slightly optimistic with his twelve beers. We finally arrived at Mathies's girlfriends (Sarah) place. Sarah had a damn nice apartment, it was pretty small but nice and cosy. Marie also arrived soon after we did.

The food was good. Meatballs, some rye bread, a potato salad and a lot of alcohol. Mathies had a bottle of what I have being describing as Fisherman's. The Danes call it 'Fish-face'. It was a one litre bottle but we managed to down the whole thing plus quite a few beers before we left to go out.

On the way to 'Jomfru Ane Gade' I heard the taxi driver say something about a parachute being needed for his driving. At the time I thought this was pretty funny, so did Drew the English bloke.

We arrived at 'Rock Nielson' for the big party and started out with some tequila and beer. They serve the salt for the tequila shot in a shot glass here. Much better than the dodgy McDonald's looking packet they give you back in Australia. After awhile Mathies and Marie left and I caught up with Alberto and my other house mates. Then I saw an American girl I know, Allison and she tried to get me to dance but I wasn't up for it at the time. I found out that Drew had to get carried home already so I figured he had a good night lol.

Not too sure what I did for the next few hours but eventually I left with some people (one of my house mates included), and we headed home. On the way I saw the Bulgarian girl and I remember yelling out what I thought was English but it turns out it was something from the Danish language class I did earlier in day. So there you go folks. The best way to learn another language is listen to it for six hours then get very drunk and practice!

On the way I had the bright idea of taking the bike I saw on Friday night. I carried it for about 3 kilometers, nothing suss. The stupid thing is I didn't even need to carry it, it would have rolled just fine. We made it home at god knows what time and I fell asleep half on my bed, half on some clothes that were on the floor. I got a bit of a surprise when I woke up and my new bike was leaning on me at around 14:00 the next day! Don't worry parentals, it's ok to steal a bike here remember?

Today (Monday), I went and bought a lock so no bastard steals my bike (you can see what I'm doing here), some lights and a file. I'll leave it to your imagination as to what the file is for.

Wow!

Man I love this hand soap. Not only does it wash your hands it protects against drying with the godly power of glycerine!

Should have gone with Alberto

I figured out what chicken is in Danish, 'Kylling' or something similar. I was paranoid about buying it at first because it looked like Ox tongue, it is a weird cut thats for sure.

I am settling in to uni now, today was my last day for the week and I only had two classes on. The first one was 'Global power balance in flux', which was kind of boring and the guy spoke in monotone. Luckily the second class was a bit more exciting, 'Americanisation and anti- Americanism'. Both classes were small with only around twelve students which makes it easier to get to know people. So far I have found the Americans the easiest to talk to, most likely because English is their native language. I have no trouble understanding my house mates who are German, Spanish and Czechoslovakian however.

Next week is looking good. The Australian girl, Leana, that I met on the plane from Singapore to Copenhagen has told me that her and a girlfriend are going to travel somewhere random for a few days next week. We are deciding between Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Spain and a few others, quite a list. She has told me to bring anyone I like but I'm not sure whether I know anyone well enough to ask them away for a week yet, we'll see. I am looking forward to seeing another Australian again! I have not met any in Aalborg so far, I'm like a bloody exotic species here.

This weekend is also looking to be a another big one, there is a pub-crawl on tomorrow and then a massive party on Saturday night. I have to hand it to the Danes, they sure know how to party.

My internet got cut off, hence the absence of an update

Basically a previous tenant came and picked up his modem (we thought it was ours), the tv and some bikes. We were all pissed off for about 5 minutes but then Alberto went and picked up a new router courtesy of the International Accommodation Office. So crisis averted.

Today was the second day of uni and was pretty fucken uneventful, but still a long day (8am-6pm). The lecturer/teacher found out I was Australian and kept including me in everything he was saying. I would be sitting there and I'd hear something about Australia and he would be asking me a question. So I had to remain on the ball and not tune out at all lol.

I have already had one class cancellation and we really only have 8 weeks of classes here. It's completely different to Australia. I have around 6 subjects and there is one class for each one per week. One of them is basic Danish which I am a little doubtful of, being generally shit at languages and all. We have to do one major project that is around 20 pages, one take home assignment and other minor pieces of assessment. We also have to do an oral exam called an oral defense which sounds intimidating but is supposedly easy as fuck.

Right now my house mates and I are just sinking a few beers and talking shit. All good. They will NEVER be as good as my house mates in Australia though. Your reading this, maybe, so feel special.


Ah this menial shit is not worthy, I will post up when I have some decent material. Nothing will top the salami fridge though.

Alcoholic much? + Don't worry olds the first step is admitting you have a problem

Last night my housemates and I caught the bus into town to the 'Studenterhusert' (student house). It's like a bar/cafe run by the students of the university. We were going for 'International night', basically a pub crawl in the same street I was in the previous night, Jomfru Ane Gade.

There was probably around 70-100 odd people that turned up for the party. First we went to Rock Nielson (probably spelt wrong) which was playing some pretty mainstream music. The Spanish dude met some other spanish people and as they were all talking Spanish it kinda made it hard, so me and the German dude, Christoph, got some beers and stood around talking.

Then this other German guy came and they were both talking in German so I got bored very quickly and scanned the room for some Americans I had met at the ICS orientation night. Couldnt see them so I've now labeled them as no fun people, they were probably studying even though the semester hasn't started yet lol. Well maybe this is a bit harsh but who cares.

Marie and Mathiese turned up, the legendary Danes that I have mentioned before. Marie had a good friend of hers with her, a nurse, she was a fucken crack up (very funny). The thing I love about Denmark is noone holds back, I mean the girls will say whatever they want, even if it is very very dirty lol. Not only that but there sense of humour is great. At one stage I went to the toilet and I was just standing there doing what you do when I realised there was this girl in the men's toilets just looking at me lol, it was kind of random but I proceeded like nothing was out of the ordinary. I mean who cares? Aside from her obviously.

After awhile we went to another place for dancing, but I really was not in the mood to embarrass the fuck out of myself at the time, and besides I wasn't drunk enough. The crowd of internationals sure had dwindled down by now, there was like 20 or so left. Damn pussies. Marie told me that some of the Americans had never had a beer, or any alcohol in there lives. Now I was surprised at this, so I can imagine how weird that must be for the Danes to learn of it, as drinking is a big part of their culture. It seemed stupid that they would choose Denmark for exchange, unless they were never planning to go out, hell I don't even know if the places here have anything non-alcoholic (exaggeration). But I guess seeing as the legal age to drink in the USA is 21 it is a little bit understandable, either way I'd like to get them on the shots and see what happens lol.

I can't remember what time we called it a night but it was late. Again, Mathiese offered to let me stay at his apartment even though he was going to his girlfriends. Very generous people I tell you. So I was trying to open the door and the lights went out, it was a four story place and I didn't' want to fall down the stairs lol. I realised after awhile that I was at the wrong door and did a runner up to the right place before I got yelled at by some Danish person.

Good times.

The German guys comment on our house 'Classic'

'I just arrived today and live in a private house at hirsevej. And I have to say that I am a little embarassed by now. There are cables running through the house because some fuse boxes don't seem to work properly, like both in my room. After replacing the cupboard I found a third one which works. We have two toilets of which one is really creepy and of the other one the seat is broken. The entrace is completely dark because there are no light bulbs in the lamp.There is also mould in the bathroom and it's not the kind of nice small mould in corners). I can't open the blinds becaue one string has been torn appart.
I'm sorry but I have to pay a very high rent here and therefore I think this place is not adequate. Why are the broken things not fixed?'

Hahahahahhaha. Well he does sum it up well. My room is ok though, but I must admit some of the others are a bit dodgy, they obviously don't inspect the house's very well here. I'm yet to meet the German guy, he must be sleeping as I think he arrived today. Don't know if I've mentioned this but there is a Czechoslovakian guy living here who always seems to be going out, even though he's only been here a few days lol.

UPDATE: Met the other housemates, they are all cool. Theres the German dude and a Spanish guy, they both speak good english.

I am not looking forward to drinking tonight! lol.

Jomfru Ane Gade

Hmm... Where to start the story on the previous nights events? Well, the beginning is always good I suppose.

After attending a brief orientation at the university, I caught the bus into town at around 9pm. I was heading for Mathies's house to drink some beers as a warm up for Saturday (tonight). I managed to find his apartment ok and after awhile Marie arrived and then later Mathies's housemate Carl came home too.

So Mathies brings out this massive bong looking thing and I'm thinking that's cool but I'll pass (i'm anti drugs people). But I needn't have worried. Turns out the pipe is some middle eastern thing and you dont use it to smoke pot, you heat up these little coals that are flavored with different fruits (still has tobacco), and then place them on this little grate thing. Apparently it tastes really nice and I was tempted to try it but decided to give it a miss for the moment.

At around 1:30am they decided that I needed to go to a sleazy bar and have some traditional shots. Now I can hold my alcohol to an extent, but definitely not as well as the Danes. I kid you not they start drinking as early as 12-14, not just a few beers but getting full on hammered. So I was a litle bit worried as I'd already had X amount of beers and was pretty on my way already. But I went with it and in the tradition of the Danes we all had another beer on the way to the sleazy bar, even though it was like a 50 metre walk lol.

Two other girls joined us at this bar (Can't remember the name), and someone brought over some minty smelling shots. Apparently they are like 37% in alcohol content, so pretty strong, and when you shot it it's like a big gust of wind going in your mouth and down your lungs. Strong shit. But it makes your breath smell great, and that's probably what the Danes use it for - A breath freshener (exaggerating here). They all made me read out some Danish shit for their entertainment, but I didn't do to bad, right now I'm seriously considering taking the Danish language course.

One of the girls had been to Australia and she was talking about the best thing about Australia and Denmark is that our sense of humour is very similar. I.e. A lot of sarcasm and very dry humour. The Danes do take it a bit further than us Australians though, but overall they all have very good senses of humour. This is lucky because I think I'd go crazy if noone understood my sarcastic jokes (which often aren't funny at all, except to me :p).

After shotting some more of the freshener they decided it was time to go to 'Jomfru Ane Gade'. It's basically this street that is packed with bars, clubs and a lot of drunk people. First we went to a metal club (can't remember the name) that is appropriately nicknamed 'the sauna'. Why it has that nickname is because it is fucking packed out, upstairs, small and very bloody hot. They only play heavy metal music and there were a lot more guys than girls in the place, but it was still good fun. There was a small area were some guys/girls were just going mental to the music, banging their heads and a bit of air guitar too. It was cool because you could tell they really loved the music and were just going with it. Mathiese said we should go back without jackets one day and go mental as well. There is no where to leave your jackets in most of the places, and when your drinking you would probably forget it if you took it off anyway.

We then went to a club that was playing music I'm not really a fan of, like house music. Within two minutes of arrival there was this guy in my face and as I was pretty drunk, I didn't know what the fuck he wanted lol. Anyway, turns out he wanted to fight me for some unknown reason. It was pretty random but apparently there are a lot of guys like that in Jomfru. Mathiese just told me to avoid eye contact with the guys after that. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but it would have been different if he'd smashed me in the face lol. If it happens again I will just say I don't speak Danish and that will probably put them off.

We left that place (thankfully) and went to this other club type place that was playing Danish and English songs, a bit of everything. Well I had to dance and those of you that have seen me dance are probably cringing right now lol. To be honest it was fun, but I really think I would have looked a bit weird with my dance skills. Mathiese and Marie didn't seem to care so I guess I can only improve. We stayed at this place for quite awhile just drinking and dancing, I was pretty much at my alcohol tolerance limit I think. I.e. Much more and I might have chucked, don't know really. Then we decided to leave, it must have been around 4am, maybe later I don't know. The buses weren't running so Mathiese said I could crash at his joint which was a relief as I couldn't of been fucked walking all the way home.

All in all it was good fun, and tonight it looks like I'm doing it all over again, depending on how many people turn up for the first official student party. i swear to god I'm going to be a full blown alcoholic when I get back to Australia lol (Lyn, Phil, if your reading this er... I'm joking *cough*).

The washing machine

I want to snap it's fucken neck! Goddamn front loading piece of shit.
I hope it burns in washing machine hell!

/endrant

Dice game

By 6pm today I was still the only one in the house and I had already sorted out all my shit. I was starting to bore myself when luckily my phone rang. It was this random guy I had met earlier, he wanted to know if I was up for some beers in a small tavern. Hell yes I was.

So I caught the first bus I saw and amazingly it ended up near where I was supposed to be. And it was snowing (still is as I write this). There was like 4 other guys there as well as myself and the guy I knew. They were playing some game with dice and they tried to teach me how to play it as well, so after about half an hour I finally grasped the concept of the game. I'm not going to explain it in detail but basically if you lose a certain amount of times in a row you have to drink the drink that is in the middle of the table. The drink put in the middle is usually a pretty horrible one such as gin orjagermeister, and the amount you have to shot is like double a normal shot.

I was lucky the whole night and luckily only had to shot one which was gin (tasted fucken terrible lol). The guys were pretty cool and I can see myself doing that maybe once a week for some entertainment.

After this I got a call from Marie, the girl from the university who has been like a saint to me these past few days. She had found me some sheets and a pillow and offered to drive me home too. Anyway, I showed her my place and we both agreed that whoever had just moved out (previous international students) were fucken slack as the place was hardly clean. There is still food and shit lying around, but luckily the rooms seem clean.

Marie gave me some movies to keep me occupied for the night (it's like 11pm right now, so about 9am for you Australian's). I have to attend some orientation tommorow, but after that I'm going out on the piss up street (Jomfru Ane Gade) for a big night.

If you don't hear from me for a few days it's because I'm in recovery. :p

The new house... And last night

I reckon they gave me the best room as a kind of 'sorry for thinking your a girl'.

So I'm in the new accommodation, and it's pretty sweet. My room is at least double the size of my room back in Australia, and all the bills are included in the amount that I prepaid before I left! I'm not kidding, internet, electricity, power etc. All are included in the initial payment, this is kind of huge as those of you in Australia know, as usually once you add all that other shit in you are pretty much broke each month.

All I need to worry about is food and living expenses I guess, so that is a weight off my shoulders.

You may have read that the buddy organisor from the university offered to help find me a bike (a proper one), anyway she calls me last night and offers to take me around to some diffferent places to see if anything is good (and cheap).

I was expecting someone who was like 35 and not that friendly, but I keep forgetting that Denmark is the friendliest place in the world (that I've been to). Her name was Marie and she was around my age. Damn cool person too, she drives this pickup truck type thing which impressed me straight away. Reason? Because it was the first pickup I'd seen.

She first showed me these massive shopping centres (massive for Denmark) which didn't really seem to fit into the surroundings properly, like it was too Americanised. Anway, we didn't find any cheap bikes so we went to this cafe called: 'cafe rene cairo'. It really reminded me of where I work back in Australia, it had a great atmosphere (The Danes call it hygge).

After awhile one of Marie's friends arrived who also goes to the university, he was a cool guy and shouted me a beer. A little while after that Marie's brother drove past, also in a pickup truck (I sense an obsession with pickup trucks here :p), and he stopped by for awhile and also bought me a beer. I have to say that the Danes sure know how to make you feel welcome.

Marie and her friend introduced me to the concept of bike theft (properly). Now at first I thought they were joking but it turns out if a bike is not locked up in Denmark you can usually take it. Obviously if it looks really new or its outside a shop you wouldnt but apparently this happens all the time in Denmark (bike theft that is) and its not really frowned upon.

Finally a country that understands me! lol. So I can steal a bike and not get in shit, that is classic. So ever since then i've been on the lookout for something good.

reminded of home

I saw something that reminded me of home today. Do you know what it was? YOu don't because your stupid so i'll tell you. It was a crazy looking man yelling out random things and walking down the middle of the road. Now this may be commonplace in australia, but in Denmark you never see shit like this unless your in Jomfru ane Gade (piss up street). All the Danes near me looked horrified and here I was just smiling to myself.

Even though I had decided to do absolutely nothing today I decided to go to the 'Montvask', which means laundromat. All the instructions were in Danish so I watched this guy who happened to be in the building, to see what he did. I'm pretty sure I creeped him out good. I was peering over his shoulder quite closely, he started to look a bit jumpy. Meh (expression of not caring for the olds that might be reading). After sitting there for awhile, this lady started asking me for help in Danish, I didn't know what the fuck she was saying, but I assumed she needed help, so I got hers working too.

Imagine that, me the stupid Australian helping out a local with the washing machine! Kinda Ironic.

40 minutes later and it was done, I couldn't be bothered with the dryer so I headed back to the hostel. FOr anyone interested it cost me 32DKK which is about eight Australian dollars, so expensive as usual for Denmark. I hope the place i'm moving into has a damn washing machine.

I'm pretty excited by tommorow as I finally get to move into a house/apartment/basement (hopefully). I'm a little bit worried about where I might be living because, as you may have read in previous posts, the office over here stuffed up and thought I was a girl so they placed me in all girl accommodation. When they found out I was a guy, they said they had somewhere else lined up but no doubt it is like the last preference sort of place.

Those crazy Danes.

'Sir'... 'Sir'...

Tommorow is recovery day I have decided. I walked to the university today and it was around 12km one way! While I was there I met with a coordinator to decide on my subjects. The campus itself is pretty massive, far bigger than any university back in Australia (that I know of).

While I was there I was telling the guy where I was going to be staying and he was telling me what a great location it was, and did I want him to ring up and check to see if I could move in early? Yes of course I said. So he rings up the office and asks me again what the address is, already I'm sensing problems. He hangs up the phone and proceeds to tell me that they thought Jesse was a girls name and I would not be able to stay there!

Fuck, just my luck I think to myself. He then goes on to tell me that I will be living somewhere else, god knows where but it is definetely not in the centre. Aalborg university, I ticked 'Male' in the little box on the piece of paper I sent to you, what is wrong with you? lol.

I'm over it now but am half expecting to be staying in some shithole that was like the last preference for everyone. And I'm guessing it's now an all male household which is definetely not as good as all female :p

Moving on. A girl from the university who is on the Aalborg university 'facebook' group has offered to help find me a cheapish bike. I'm going to try and sort that out tommorow. Also, my allocated buddy, Peter, sent me an email saying 'do you want to go out around midnight this week to drink and look at some women?' And then he wants to show me the clubs. Bring it on I say, so long as I don't have to dance (doesn't apply if i'm drunk).

One more thing, I saw the Romanian guy again today and he keeps calling me sir. Call me Jesse I tell him. 'Ok sir' he says. Ah Romanian what will I do with you?

Do you speak Romanian?

Finally there was someone else at breakfast this morning:

ME: Hi
GUY: I'm from Romania, no english.
ME: *sigh* (Didn't really sigh).

The guy was in Denmark for work and I figured it was a lost cause trying to communicate with him anymore (harsh but true). It definetely wasn't going to be a sunny day like yesterday (must have got lucky), but I decided to walk to the viking burial grounds (Lindholm Hoje in Danish). The rough guide to Denmark (my bible) said it was within walking distance, and it was, if you count walking distance as 8 kilometres. And that was only one way. My legs were still killing from the previous days walk trying to find the bloody university, but I soldiered on figuring that if I turned back it would be a waste of a trip.

Finally, I made it. And let me tell you, i'm not usually one for taking in the scenery, but these graves were fucking cool. They were located on top of a massive hill that tried to kill me while I was walking up it. It nearly succeeded let me tell you... Anyway, from a distance they just looked like a big pile of rocks, but up close you see differently. The graves up the top of the hill were the oldest, and as you moved further down the hill they were newer. They dated back to viking days, around the Iron age, so they are bloody old - thousands of years old in fact.

The place was deserted so after taking some serious photos I balanced the camera on some rocks and did some stupid timer shots. Nothing like a bit of grave desecration to make me happy! For those of you that are cringing right now just relax ok, they may be old but there were no signs telling me to not lie on the grass and go nuts. Feel better? You don't? Go lie down and have some water. Ok, I'm getting sidetracked now, back to the grave desecration.

I was having fun, and then I saw the sheep. They looked friendly enough... But they aren't fucking friendly sheep ok! Let me elaborate. I took a photo, one of the sheep looked up, no big deal. Then I picked some grass and tried to hand feed one of them. What does the bastard do? He charges me! lol. As you can see from the photos, here I am innocently holding out some grass and he is running for me. Now the second after I took that photo I realised what was happening and jumped out of the way and ran like ten metres away. I turned back and the sheep is glaring at me with his beady eyes, I glared back for a bit then realised that being the intelligent one I should just leave them be. I wonder if my travel insurance covers me getting gored by a sheep?

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, went and did some more shopping and by the time I got back to the hostel I was limping like some leper with a bung hip-replacement. I took out my map and worked out that I had walked some 16-20km throughout the day. I feel sorry for myself as I have to go to the university tommorow to meet with someone who is going to help me sort out subjects.

My feet fucking hate me lol.

The improvised fridge!

What do you do when you don't have a fridge in your room and you need to store some salami in a cold place overnight? You hang it out your window on a belt right? WRONG! I woke up this morning with this screeching noise in my ear so I looked out the window and saw about ten birds fighting it out for the salami. The people in the room next door to me must have thought I was feeding the birds at 6:30am. 'Stupid Australian'.

So I made a mental note to never do that again and tried to get back to sleep. But my body clock is a little bit fucked, I can't seem to sleep past 7-8am now, whereas I used to sleep in till like 1pm+.

Two hours later I woke up and went and did the daily breakfast, I was hoping there would be someone else in there today... No joy. The sun was out, a rare sight for Denmark so I decided to go for a big walk. It was about two kilometres to the outskirts of Aalborg from the hostel where I was staying. I decided to give the bus a miss, it is a fucking rip-off anyway. Once your in the outskirts you can literally walk from one side of the city to the other in like twenty minutes, maybe less. Of course the university is about 4-5km out of the city itself, but still within walking/riding distance.

Some of the streets were already familiar to me, but being a Sunday all the shops were closed (except for some cafes/supermarkets). I chose a street at random and walked down it, I figured it would be hard to get lost. I was right. However, it is hard to find specific places on the map, especially since the whole thing is in Danish. 'Skole' I knew as school and 'Universitet' as university. However for some stupid reason, the Danes decided to mix up the two, hence skole can also mean university which kind of screwed me up a bit.

About one hour later after walking up this massive hill and not expecting much, I saw a sign that said 'Aalborg universitet'. I was happy for about ten seconds until I realised that it was the wrong campus. All of a sudden it clicked, on the universities website they show the university as one campus in one area, but in reality the campus is split up into about five different locations! Whoever decided to do it like that is a wanker. I was at the wrong campus of course (couldn't give me a break could you you Danish motherfuckers lol).

The reason I had made the trip was because a guy from the university said we need to meet up to discuss my subjects (probably bad news), on monday/tuesday. I figured that as I had a general idea of where all the campus's were located that it would be safe to head back to the centre of Aalborg.

I decided to go and check out my apartment (moving in on the 31st January). It is right in the centre of the city, next to the bus-terminal and the train station. If it were in Melbourne, Australia it would be on Flinders street. Fortunetely Prinsengade (street name) does not look like the shithole that Flinders street is.

After all the walking I was pretty screwed and I decided to head into the first bar that looked decent. I found one called 'cafe ministeriet' that looked damn warm and full of people. I ordered what I was told was a local beer from a microbrewery, it was bloody good. In Denmark for only four days and already it made Australia look like a piece of shit in the beer department.

So I was sitting there trying to look not worried that I was completely by myself, which is kind of hard to do, when this random guy about my age asks me where I'm from. He was a local and after a few beers I mentioned that I needed a bike and he told me that he knew where one was that he was sure wasn't owned by anyone. The guy didn't look dodgy so we went a few streets away and true to his word there was a bike lying on the side of the road half hidden by some bushes. Surprisingly everything worked, I got the guys mobile number and then headed back to the hostel.

It was a good day. Found the university, drank some beer and made a friend.

P.S This would have been up earlier but the hostel people locked up the computer room, this shops shut on sunday bullshit is going to piss me off I can tell you now.

Settling in

I decided yesterday to go and pay the extra 50 DKK ($12.50AUD) per day for the breakfast that the hostel offered. I was reluctant to foot out any more cash than I needed to at this stage but after seeing the prices of food up the street I quickly changed my mind. So I woke up this morning at about 8am, as breakfast is served between 7:30-9:30am.

The Danes like to lay out things for breakfast, there is basically a big table with food on it and another table for drinks. I made the mistake of pouring a huge glass of what I thought was apple juice, only to find out that I was drinking beer. My senses obviously arent one hundred percent right now, I guess I'm still jetlagged.

Back to the breakfast. There was food I recognized, but more that I didn't, I took a risk and chose things that looked unfamiliar to me. There were a lot of meats on offer, I discovered chicken, beef, and what I think was chicken liver (nearly threw up on that one). There were also quite a few different types of cheese and lots of different kinds of bread. The bread was damn fresh, like it had just been baked. I'm assuming this is the case as I read that there are more bakeries in Denmark than in many other places around the world.

After breakfast I decided to head in to Aalborg central for the first time. It was a bit nerve-racking catching the bus (trying to find the right one) and then trying to tell the driver what ticket I needed. I decided to use the only Danish I had learned so far: 'Nul billet tak'. Nul stands for one, billet (pronounced as bill-led) stands for ticket and tak (pronounced tagg) means thank-you. Actually I tell a lie, I have memorised some other basic Danish: Herrer (Gentleman), Damer (Ladies), Monsdag (monday), tirsdag (tuesday), ornsdag (wednesday, torsdag (thursday, fredag (friday), lordag (saturday) and sondag (sunday). I have also learned that 'high' is hello, 'ja' is yes, 'nye' is no and a few other basic phrases. I'm actually surprised that I have even learned these in only 2 days of being in the country, usually I find languages hard to learn.

I found out that there is only one zone in Aalborg which will make it easy, unless you go to the airport apparently. It cost me 16DKK ($4AUD) for a ticket that let me travel only once anywhere in Aalborg that the bus was going. To me this seems really crap. Basically It means I have to pay 4AUD everytime I want to go on the bus! What a jibb. There must be a cheaper option, especially since i'm a student and i will ask the university when I meet with them next week.

I had asked the hostel manager to draw on my map of Aalborg where abouts the cheapest supermarkets were located, he said that Aldi (which we have in Australia) would be the cheapest and was on my bus route too. The bus drove past the supermarket I was after but I decided to stay on it and go to the centre of Aalborg just to check it out. As soon as I got off the bus it was pissing down with rain, and it was so fucken windy! I was pretty much drenched from the waist down in under a minute, I have no idea if this is common weather for Denmark but I'm guessing so as it is winter.

I kept moving not really giving a fuck about the rain/wind anymore, I was looking for a mobile phone shop to buy a new sim card. I finally found one and the guy inside spoke broken english helped me set up a new sim card in my old phone. It cost 100DKK ($25AUD) plus another 100DKK for some extra credit as I knew I would need it. The biggest problem I can foresee me having is that the instructions are all in Danish and to recharge the phone you need to be able to speak Danish also... Basically I'm screwed lol. When I run out of credit I will go back to the same shop and get the guy to help me again I think, unless I meet a Dane in the meantime.

So I had a phone which made me feel a lot better, I tested it out and messaged my best mate back in Australia, he replied and I was relieved, it was good knowing I could talk with friends and family back home if I had too.

I then decided to walk to Aldi (the supermarket) and was soon thinking that instead of using the bus I should try and find a cheap bike to ride around. It seemed to me that all the young people and some older ones were all using pushbikes even though it was freezing and after thinking about it it made sense. The maximum distance I would ever have to ride would be about 4km to university, as I am going to be living in the centre of Aalborg I would guess that I would only have to ride about 1-2km to do shopping and go out etc. I made a mental note to check out a bike shop preferably second hand.

Aldi was small. Very small. I recognized the fruit but not much else. The rest of the items were in Danish so I half guessed as to what I was buying. As tommorow is Sunday and all the shops were closed I bought some salami, a loaf of bread, three apples, two bottles of water and a four pack of rice. All up it cost me 38DKK ($10AUD approx). For Denmark this was cheap and I'm guessing this is where I will be shopping from now on lol. Oh I also bought what looked like a jar of jam, although it could have been marmalade. I asked the girl if it was jam and she wasn't sure so I will have to let you know on that one.

Walking up a street I saw one of the hotdog stands that Denmark is famous for. But, remembering my dire financial state I walked past the stand, found a bus stop and went back to the hostel.

The plane trip: From Australia - Denmark

AUSTRALIA - SINGAPORE - COPENHAGEN - AALBORG

My first flight was from Melbourne to Singapore, it left at 5pm and was a seven hour trip so not too bad, actually this flight was boring as so I'm not even going to write about it.

So I arrived at Singapore at their time of 9:30pm, the first thing I see is guys with guns strutting around so I double checked my bags for drugs and went and hid in the cafeteria. My next flight did not leave until 1am singaporean time. The time dragged on and on until finally i could board my flight.

Luckily for me I was sitting next to Leana, an awesome girl from Australia, and also heading to Denmark on exchange. The hours passed a lot quicker thanks to her and I couldn't have asked for a better person to have sat next to me! Unfortunetely she is based is Copenhagen but hopefully I can fly there (it's only half an hour) and catch up with her.

My accommodation in Denmark

Found out today I'm sharing a four bedroom apartment. Myself and three girls.

It's right in the centre of Aalborg, which is the fourth largest city in Denmark. With a population of only 5.2 million Denmark is pretty small. Suits me.

Anyway, I have to pay four grand up front for the six months rent which isnt as bad as I expected.

I might set up a travel blog, but then again I might not. I'm slack. BUT I DID SET ONE UP, LOOK MA!