Coping in Copenhagen

Why it Matters

I have to say, I have been a little less (okay a lot less) into politics since I moved to Denmark. For one thing, I live in Denmark, for another, living in Denmark has left me a little bit jaded about American politics. I mean, what can I say about the country I was born in that doesn’t even want me to have healthcare, help me pay for college (or even GO to college-Rick Santorum) or support my right to get married?

I found out about Barack Obama’s change of “Gay marriage” Heart last week the way all good people find things out-through facebook. There I sat, 11 pm at night, skimming through status updates, refreshing the New York Times page, trying to find a video of his interview (inevitable, after the advertisement, the screen would turn black and a “I’m sorry, this video is not currently available in your country” text would pop out.) After updating my own facebook status to something like “I’m IN LOVE WITH MY PRESIDENT!” I ran downstairs in my pajamas to break the news to my much less emotional danish family. 

“Obama likes gay people!” I told the sleeping Danish babies.

“Gay marriage in the states!” I told Ham as she hunched over her computer.

I rang Antelope: “OBAMA wants gays to get married!”

Whose response was: “Uhmmm, that’s great honey. I’m going to have to call you back.”

I did cartwheels in my danish attic bedroom and sent an email to my equally gay yet much less forgiving friend D which read: “WHO’S THE MAN? I knew he wouldn’t let us down.” I was gloating a bit, if it is possible to glean that from an email.

And I did all of this, all of these things, because to me, it matters. I rang my straight liberal cousin a few days after I heard the news.

“Can you believe it?” I said, “dude, gay marriage and my dream boy the barack obama.”

Her response was less then enthusiastic. “Uh-huh, it’s cool.”

“What? It’s basically amazing. I mean, I guess as a straight non-believer in marriage it doesn’t matter to you anyways.”

She laughed. “No, it’s cool, its just, its not going to make a difference.”

My gay friend D’s response to my email? “About time.”

And yes, it is about time. And yes, maybe it’s not going to make a difference today, or tomorrow, or even next year, but here is where I differ from them. I think it matters. I don’t care if Obama had to say he supports gay marriage because his vice-president said it first or because he needs the votes or the money from gay elite hollywood. The fact of the matter is, our president, my president, is standing up for me. 

I say I have become less political since moving to Denmark, and maybe this is true. But I have also become more aware. I am aware that the Danish girl I love and I cannot live together in America based on our relationship (and to this I say “thank god for Danish policies). And I am aware that what Barack Obama said brings us one step closer to changing that.

There are people who do the right thing because their hands are forced, or because the public tide turns against them. There are people who do the right thing, even if they do it a little late. We should always question, yes, but we should also acknowledge that it takes courage, no matter who you are (a politician, a college graduate, an aupair in Denmark) to do the right thing. 

It’s been ages

literally ages since my last post. Some days I am planning to write but then the twins are crawling on the furniture, eating plants, learning english and I don’t have time. Or I am drinking coffee, reading the New York Times online, laying out and tanning in the sun and I am pretending I don’t have time. 

Here is what has happened recently:

My sweet friend J popped over from the states for a visit. He is exceptionally well-rounded, saying things like “oh, I have just been taking the train around Europe working on my plays” or “While I am in Copenhagen should we perhaps see a theater performance?” Or, “Gosh, this vegetarian, vegan super healthy restaurant is so delicious.” He is that kind of boy. If I wasn’t a lesbian, he would definitely be a top three marriage prospect.

My fathers very smart and successful french friend and his much younger, also very accomplished girlfriend invited Antelope and I over for dinner to their beautiful, danish apartment where they spoke three language fluently and served us champagne, wine and an assortment of dishes like lamb in sauce, couscous and raw, smoked salmon with a hint of lime. I always feel a little out of my league but also like so grown up.

I quit my job. I have been debating for ages about this and finally decided that the right thing for me to do was to stop aupairing next year. It was a really tough decision, I love the twins obviously but it is time to move on with my life. Stay tuned for more Denmark news though-as I am applying to Danish graduate school and plan on moving back here after a little three month excursion to the states. Oh, so if anyone wants a job, let me know.

Two sides to everything

On Wednesday:

Rain Rain Go Away

It poured here today. Or as Ham likes to say “it’s pissing down outside.” In Florida, I always thought it was a bit miraculous when it rained. The sun went away for two minutes and you didn’t feel guilty sitting inside watching a movie on your couch because you were like, “this might not happen again for like 6 months.” But in Copenhagen, the rain is alot worse. We have to bike everywhere. I rarely remember to bring my rain jacket. (It never matches my outfit). Like last night for example, Antelope and I went swing dancing (more on this later) and then biked home in the pissing rain. It was nice for about 5-7 minutes but then my suede shoes got ruined and my skirt was tied up so high everyone could see my Hoo-Ha and I have a big concern about catching pneumonia. It rained this morning when I was up at 630 to start my day, rained when the twins and I walked ourselves to Kindergarden. It rained while I did laundry, made cookies, watered the indoor herb garden, rained when I picked the twins up from Kindergarden, rained through dinner and all through the night

Yesterday:

Dare I say it is summer?

We went to the zoo yesterday and I spent most of my time wishing I was wearing shorts. Fried Eggs picked a million yellow flowers to match his yellow pants. The twins tried ice cream for the first time from me and Ham’s Paradise waffle cones. They kept going “WOW” and “YUM” and ferociously signing “more” at us. We saw elephants “Ella!” and tigers “RAHH” and got to go in the petting zoo for goats. The twins had a hard time understanding the concept of petting and kept running after the goats and grabbing their tails and trying to climb on them. We had iced coffees in the sun, naps in strollers and all came home sticky faced and tired. Summer in the city is the best.

A day for reflecting

There is so much to love about Copenhagen. I have been feeling very reflective recently, thinking alot about where I came from, how I got to this place, and where I want to go from here. 

Now that it is Spring the sun is shining alot more (followed by rain storms that are nice because you know they are going to end) there are flowers everywhere and Fried Eggs has a new blue scooter. The twins cry when it is time to go inside and both of them have been eating alot of dirt, rocks and sand.

I am both very content and a little restless, if that makes sense. Some times I am all COME ON LIFE LETS GET MOVING! but then I remember that I am 24, responsible for no one but myself (and the occasional one or four year old). I have no bills to pay, no car or car insurance, no iphone, no unlimited text messaging plan. I mean, I don’t even own my own sheets. And the thing about this is that it is at once very liberating and a little frustrating. Sometimes I sit in my attic room thinking, “do I really like that painting with the silver frame that is hanging over my bed?” Because I did not choose it, but I do not think it is ugly.

There are days when I feel like a grown up and days when I realize that I have to grow up and both are a little bit scary. Because I love it here. I love my life here. I have started putting pomegranate seeds in my salads, going for long runs in my new sporty sports shoes, not minding the rain, making lemonade in the middle of the afternoon. I have started using danish words in my english sentences “that is super fit” I say, because fit means cool, and I have started messing up my english sentences “oh my god, I will totally learn you that new trick” because everyone around me speaks broken english.

And all of these things, all of these things together make me ever so grateful. I think moving here was one of the best decisions I ever made and now I am just not sure if that means I should stay, or that means I should go.

A girl can definitely dream

Copenhagen has turned out to be a gold mine for what I would consider one of my only obsessions: hunting for vintage baby clothes. Right, so I don’t have any kids. And obviously I am not planning on having any in the very near future seeing as how I am currently as close to unemployed as one can get living in someone else’s attic, but a girl can dream.

Anyways I have been collecting baby clothes for a few years (10) and have a small collection (boxes and boxes stored in places like, my grandmothers basement, my fathers abandoned second house, my sisters garage, my tiny childhood closet in my mothers house) going.

I now have a huge bag of the most beautiful European Danish baby clothes stuffed into my tiny aupair closet in my attic room. And this weekend, during a Saturday trip to the free store I managed to dig through old mens dirty underwear and come out with these amazing things.

So beautiful it almost doesn’t matter that I don’t have any kids to dress-they are good enough on their own.

xoxo

The rest of my life

The weather was a little cold this weekend (even though they promised like a million rays of sunshine) and for some reason I was up bright and early on saturday cycling around the freezing cold city. I bought an expensive coffee and sat by a window overlooking the street and made a list. I have decided it is really time to make some decisions.

I know I have alot to do. I have to tell my aupair family if I am staying here another year. I have to study for my danish test, buy tickets for crackers wedding, research graduate schools, look into moving to Australia, laundry. It’s just, all I can seem to do is go for long runs, dig around in the trash for beautiful old boxes to decorate my room with, lounge around on the couch, play with babies, watch movies and drink wine. Maybe that’s enough. 

Easter-påske

One week late but baby jesus doesn’t mind. There were no egg hunts in Denmark, no chocolate bunnies or baskets filled with plastic toys. There was no buying things. Easter isn’t a commercial holiday here. In fact, it is so uncommercial that every single shop in Denmark shuts down for almost 5 days and you can’t actually buy anything anywhere. (Well, almost anywhere I did catch a terrible cold over the bunny long weekend and had to make several trips to the 7-11 for cartons of Orange Juice). 

Besides laying around in bed drinking honey with slices of ginger, watching documentaries, reading, looking out the window, taking the baby bears for bicycle rides, I managed to sneak in a few moments of fun. Easter Saturday was just like Christmas and New Years day around here: lots and lots of danish food followed by rounds of snaps (those drinks that I first learned about when I got to Denmark and thought were some sort of amazing delicious specialty and just turned out to be like 60% alcohol shots taken in excess). So I drank some of those, helped rub garlic into two lamb legs, sliced about 100 onions, invited Antelope for dinner, drank wine and discussed language with Ham and Salami and Hams parents. I chased babies all over the house, tried Tartar THATS RAW BEEF. I ATE RAW BEEF. LIKE ALOT OF IT. Drank some more shots and laid out a bit in the sun.

I am happy to report that I am feeling much better and we had our first rainstorm in forever today. Thunder and lightning. I picked the twins up from daycare and arrived home super wet.

Tartar burger with onions, capers, grated radish and topped with a raw egg yolk. I felt like I was on Top Chef season 30.

Another beginning (August)

I have posted writings I have found from back in the beginning before and I stumbled across this piece while cleaning out some old and newly acquired papers. I think it was written my first week in Copenhagen-during a solo outing to the canals.

I feel at once lost and found. Both infinitely alone and part of a much larger whole. To contemplate a year overwhelms me because I can both imagine and not imagine 6 months from now, having a coffee at a cafe with my new friends, a love affair, pedaling fast and not having to look at a map in order to know where I am going. There are times when I can imagine this and times when I cannot and in these moments I feel very lost and small and alone. 

For the moment, I am just a visitor but we all must learn to adapt and I am so young. I must think what I will do and learn and how I will do it and learn it. Down by the water, close to the canal, over the bridge where the boats move slowly and everyone speaks danish and I, not a word. But there must be a moment when we learn how. I never thought I would be here and now how quickly, how swiftly, I am. My life, my whole, never ending life will be made up of both things I see and cannot see. Down by the water. The murkiest of waters. I am as blonde as all the girls here and I miss my sister terribly. Maybe all August’s are like this. More beautiful then we can imagine. A little sad too.

An American Aupair Abroad

As promised an except from my latest journalistic endeavour:

An American Aupair Abroad

I do not immediately stand out (perhaps even to myself?) and I see this as something of a mixed blessing. With my blonde hair and blue (ish) eyes, tall, skinny frame (I phoned a friend after a week of living here and jokingly lamented that I had “somehow managed to move to the only place on earth were people were both taller and skinnier than me) I look just like any other Scandinavian person. In fact, the few men and women who do happen to figure out that I am not in fact a Dane immediately ask if I am Swedish. 

            My first few weeks, pushing the twins around in their stroller, riding my bike, I avoided conversation as much as possible. Sure, I had lived for a few years in Honduras, where my fair skin and blonde hair could not have screamed outsider any louder, but here, in Denmark, I felt I had somehow already tricked people. “I am one of you,” I seemed to be saying, before I even opened my mouth.

            Once I started speaking, I knew, the illusion would be broken. And I was anxious from the moment I arrived to prove that I wasn’t just a tourist. I avoided buying coffee at the coffee shops. At home, I would spend hours reading to the twins in English, pointing things out, but the moment we set foot around the Danes I resorted to sounds and pointing. I was counting on the fact that sounds are the same in all languages to not give me away. It turns out I was mostly wrong about that too……..

TO BE CONTINUED

My blog hiatus but I have some good film and movie recommendations to make up for it.

I have taken a bit of a internet hiatus while I try to figure out my future. For those of you who are dying to know how many books the twins ripped last week and how much it rained and snowed, I am truly sorry.

I have been taking some much needed time (It’s called Holiday here in Denmark and it happens alot. You should try it) to think about what I want for my life, myself, my relationship, my future, etc. 

When I say “taking some much needed time” I mean I have been wrestling small children on the floor, reading two great new books*, not studying for my upcoming danish test but instead pretending that I speak perfect danish when out drunk with friends, watching excellent documentaries*, researching schools since my liberal arts degree from my hippie school in the mountains is most likely not going to land me a job, baking cakes, pretending that I am going to be a danish soccer star, and spending some time with my Antelope.

I have also been devising a plan to become either an epic novelist or a journalist and have been working on a new series “American Aupair abroad,” of which I will post an excerpt from tomorrow.

I should be back in full swing by Tuesday (Monday is still technically easter in this scandinavian part of the world). I hope you all have had a wonderful week. xoxoxo

*About those two books I read and those two movies I saw:

 

(My copy didn’t look like this, but that’s because my local library had to order it all the way from paris). A super interesting book about an American journalist raising her kids in France). Sort of like me if I was a journalist, lived in France, and had children.

AND

(My copy, also procured from the danish library DID LOOK LIKE THIS, and I decided to read it after watching Game Change, the HBO movie) It’s good and fat like 600 pages so you have to be somewhat interested in your President and your could have been President and the crazy lady from Alaska to read the whole thing.

I never cry at movies (I didn’t even cry at Stepmom and I was like 12 when I saw that movie and my parents were newly divorced) but I did for this one. Such a good film about a little Chimp and his role in science. It’s a documentary, I think I am trying to cultivate my new journalistic side because the next film is too.

I found this because I have been sick for the past few days and I have been laying in bed furiously researching “top documentaries of all times.” This movie popped up on like three different internet lists which gives it a little bit of credibility. It turned out to be incredibly insightful and very well done.