Sixty Hours

I'm back in the US, and man, is it weird. Reverse culture shock all over the place. It's not that it's been a problem readjusting to American culture, so much as it's been a problem readjusting to my mom's house. She cooks for me and buys me things, which is a change from the self-made lifestyle I had in Denmark. Plus, she lives in DC, and I was wandering around today only to be asked for money by three of the fine (poor/homeless) citizens of our nation's capital and offered cheap DVDs out of the back of a car trunk by three different people. I was only out for about 45 minutes. Welcome home, Eli. To the land of "Screw you, you probably deserve to be poor." I miss social welfare already.

So, we'll see what I end up doing with this blog. I may keep updating this winter, or I may just abandon it as a testament to my trip. It is called "2009 adventures" after all, and soon it won't be 2009 anymore. But, that remains to be seen. This may be the last post, or it may not be. It'll be left up to fate, and my personal whims. You, my six readers, will be left in such great suspense, I don't know how you'll possibly handle it. Sitting there, biting your nails, holding your breath, wondering if the blog will continue. This is, after all, a piece of work that will revolutionize the very concept of literature.

But what I really want to talk about is my last two-and-a-half days in Denmark.

-----

Friday morning, I woke up late and headed to our pre-show rehearsal for the DIS closing ceremony. I've been in a singing group with other American DIS students all semester, cleverly titled DISchord (yes, it was my idea, and no, nobody else thought it was as funny as I did, but they humored me). For the final show we would be singing "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. Because it's not a closing ceremony if it doesn't include the tackiest song ever written. Then again, maybe that's unfair; it certainly could have been worse.

So, the closing ceremony happened, we sang nicely. We were rewarded for our efforts with Christmasy tea light holders, which are a big deal in Denmark. As are candles in general. We heard a few student speakers who were pretty typical in their student speeches; "we'll all return home a newfound sense of self and trying to figure out what to do with our experiences but I'm sure we'll all be juuuuuuuuust fine, etc. etc." The president of DIS showed a slideshow of things relating to our stay, and Denmark in recent months. His one slide representing recent environmental stuff was of protesters getting arrested. He did it so that he could make a joke, but it kinda pissed me off. The reason why violent protesters are so detrimental is that the media, and subsequently the populace, latch on to these images of jerks getting arrested, so we never really learn about the cause. And he just reinforced that for the umpteenth time. But I had to let that slide to enjoy the rest of the show.


(A relatively tame example of what I'm talking about. The woman says flat-out that it was a peaceful protest with only a small pocket of violent people who were largely ignored by the rest of the protesters. And yet, a full minute of the 1:45 video is focused on them, and the title of the video implies that the whole protest went sour.)

After the ceremony, we were given free cookies. Standing around munching, I realized how few people I knew or cared about at DIS. My handful of friends left, and suddenly I had no reason to be there. I ended up chatting with a couple professors, which I always seem to find more exciting than the college kids. I'm weird like that. Besides, all the goodbyes were awkward, in part because we all knew we'd be around for another 2-3 days. We weren't really sure what to say to each other, I think.

So, I left that party and had the difficult (read: easy) choice to make between the DIS post-close party at some club downtown, and the final party for Klimaforum. The Klimaforum party included a couple guest speakers, then two different klezmer-rock bands (your guess is as good as mine). I danced a lot, and got hit on quite a bit more than I'm used to. I guess activist parties are the kind of parties where I'm considered good-looking/fashionable (beards are the new black). Or could have been my awesome dance moves. Regardless, it was a fun time.

Just as it was ending, I ran into a guy from DIS named Tim, who I only considered an acquaintance at the time, though I now consider him a friend. We had spoken a couple times about environmental stuff and living in Maryland, but we were really only at "Facebook friend" levels of knowing each other. However, after we left the party around 11:30, we started looking for a place to catch the end of the COP15 proceedings on TV, and chatted quite a bit on the way. It turns out that we have a hell of a lot in common, and the things we don't have in common are things that make us interested in hearing about each other. So, we pretty much didn't stop talking for the next three hours as we searched for a screening. We found one, but it was for journalists and NGO people only. So, we left, and just kept talking.

Saturday was spent uneventfully cleaning my room. We can just skip that part, I think. Although I do have some photos.


(Before and after cleaning my room. Cleaning even helps with hue correction!)


(Just before leaving the room for the last time)

Sunday morning I put the finishing touches on my room, kissed my key goodbye, and headed to DIS to handle some final business. I dropped off some books, recycled a huge pile of paper, and got ready to meet up with Tim. DIS housing ended on the 20th, but I was staying until the 21st, and I had a few ideas for how I was going to deal with that. However, Tim offered his air mattress, and I gladly took him up on the offer. We had a late lunch with a third friend at Riz Raz, a place downtown with an awesome vegetarian buffet. They specialize in Mediterranean food, so I had a ridiculous amount of chickpeas (in their original form, as well as in the form of hummus and falafel). I was careful about not eating out all semester so that I didn't waste money, and as a result I didn't feel too bad about having a $14 meal, especially given that it was my last lunch in Copenhagen. Good place to do it, too.


(Riz Raz, with buffet pictured on the left. It's a hell of a lot of food, and reminded me that being a vegan wouldn't really be that hard; I'd just need to learn a couple more recipes.)

We went back to his place where he immediately fell asleep. I wrote that last blog post over the next few hours while he napped. I didn't realize quite how long it was until I finished. About 2000 words, it turns out. Hope you guys enjoy my writing.

That evening, we went to Christiania to check out the last night of their Julemarked (Christmas market), but arrived to find that it was being taken down. For no logical reason, we decided to wander around the warehouse which was full of people carrying things and power tools. Not the smartest or safest move, but we ended up running into three guys in the corner playing hackeysack, which was the best thing that could have possibly happened. I hadn't played since high school except maybe once or twice, and we hacked for a good hour. Everyone was better than me by enough for me to be impressed, but they didn't have the high school "look what I can do" attitude that makes the game annoying. They didn't hog the bag, and they joked and spoke in English for our benefit. I can't think of a better way to have spent my last night in Copenhagen. We also went to one of Christiania's eateries just before it closed for the night and got some good food. It was a great time.


(What the Julemarked would have looked like, if I'd been there)

Upon returning to Tim's place, I had to blow up the air mattress manually, which was the perfect thing for making sure I passed out as soon as I was done. The thing took 20 minutes to inflate, and I've never been good at even blowing up balloons. It was satisfying, though. There's something very self-made and independent about knowing that I blew it up myself. Or maybe there's some kind of metaphor in there, with me literally sleeping on my own breath. Don't know what that means, but it at least sounds philosophical.

The next morning, Tim headed to the airport before me; there was a four-hour gap between our flights, and I didn't want to sit around for that long. So, I went to DIS and sat around there. At least I had internet. I also got my last slice of Istanbul Pizza, the local college eatery in DIS's part of town. It's that area's Antonio's, basically. Though not quite as delicious. But what is, really?

The flight was uneventful, except for running into a couple other DIS kids. I saw a few movies, listened to music, and slept. As one does on nine-hour flights. Coming back to the US, I could tell things were different right away. First of all, in Copenhagen airport and around town, there were all sorts of climate-awareness billboards and advertisements. Nothing of the sort in Chicago O'Haire or Dulles. However, two funny things did happen in Chicago worth sharing:

1) We had a 25-minute taxi from where we landed to the gate. The main theory going around was that only certain runways were cleared off after the recent snowstorm, and they were all the ones farthest away. As a result, we actually taxied across a highway. Apparently there's a highway cutting across the airport, and we literally took a plane over it (well, over a bridge over it). It was something I'd never seen before, and it cracked me up.

2) Since I've been gone, I apparently came into the possession of a chain of Chicago dessert shops. Who knew? Alas, my name did not earn me free cake, but they didn't refuse when I asked to take a picture of their stall. And I think that picture is a fitting end to my Copenhagen adventure. Partly because it has nothing to do with Copenhagen. Welcome home, me.