Blog Archives 050717 to 050612

Old pointless chatter instead of new pointless chatter.

 

050717 København, Danmark
Er, I have now finished "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". A good read, as always. Made the weekend completely disappear. I won't say anything about the plot, though; wouldn't want to spoil anything for people who have not read it yet. I'll just say it was quite good. I was under the impression that this was the end of the series, but I have now been told that there is supposed to be a seventh novel planned and that is the end of the series, as had been intended from the start. Anyway, there is plenty of room in the world of Harry Potter for a dozen more novels. As much as I know I would enjoy reading yet more Harry Potter, there is a lot to be said for an author who knows when to stop. I have no doubt that J. K. Rowling will be under tremendous pressure to continue the series past number seven.

050716 København, Danmark
It seems that most of the time when I get around to updating something here, it is very late at night - midnight or later. Because of that, many entries are less than I had intended to write, because I am dang tired and want to go to bed. Anyway, when I talked about the Gammel Dansk Mjød (on 050709), I had also wanted to mention the other thing I bought at the Middelaldercentret - Skærsommernats Drøm (Midsummernight's Dream). This was a fruit wine reputed to be like some of the wines drunk by the vikings.

Picture a wine made up of whatever fruits and berries seem to be laying about (remembering that grapes don't grow around here). It seems that whatever berries and such were mashed up and allowed to partially ferment, creating a sweet, fruity, and kind of nasty brew with a lot of sediment. Ikk. I now understand why the vikings started sailing all the freaking way around Spain in order to do trade in the southern european wine countries.

Oh, in other news, I just picked up the British edition of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". I'll bet you did not know that the American editions of the Harry Potter books were slightly edited away from the original format. It seems that the publisher has had an editor at work "fixing" all the "overly English" bits - changing "rubbers" to "rain-boots", "prams" to "baby carriages", and altering the names of foods and such to more "American" things. I'd never have known, if it were not for a former coworker (British, of course) showing me two editions of the book and pointing this out. Anyway, I have the Half-Blood Prince waiting for me, so I'll stop writing and start reading now.

050714 København, Danmark
Just a quickie update. My friend Shula sent me an email after reading the mead story. She was amazed that she had never given me any of the mead she and Patric made while we were all in Utah together. Er, whoops! The moment Shula said that, I recalled standing in Patric's kitchen one summer evening, sipping a glass of their nice dry (rather than sweet) mead. It was good stuff. Dang. I should have remembered that. Oh, well. Still, I guess it makes for a better story with my memory lapse; the 15 year search culminating in "huh, tastes like cough syrup". Another benefit is that getting the story wrong inspired an email - always a nice thing.

This is also an example of the tricky nature of memory. Here's a quote from Kahlil Gibran (from his book "Sand and Foam"). It may be apropos to the topic of memory, or you might think it is a pseudo-intellectual bit of filigree, but either way, here it is.
Seven centuries ago seven white doves rose from a deep valley flying to the snow-white summit of the mountain. One of the seven men who watched the flight said, "I see a black spot on the wing of the seventh dove."
Today the people in that valley tell of seven black doves that flew to the summit of the snowy mountain.

050711 København, Danmark
I updated what had once been the Whisky page with reviews of Yellow Tail Shiraz, a description of Port wine styles and grades, and a review of Cockburn's Special Reserve Port (at the bottom of the page). Feel free to give it a read if you are interested. Honestly, I'm mostly posting the reviews so that I will remember what I liked and did not like, but who knows - you might be vaguely interested as well.

050709 København, Danmark
So, some background history on my interest in mead. I have been wondering what the heck it tastes like for a long time. I first ran across it at a Renaissance fair I attended during college, but this was before I was old enough to drink, so I didn't have a chance to try it then. I'd heard it described as "like wine, only made with honey", but that really doesn't tell you how it tastes. It's an old drink that has not been in vogue for a few centuries, so it is not exactly the sort of thing I have run across very often. A year or two after grad school (many years later), I was visiting with old friends in upstate New York and we decided to take a road trip out to the middle of nowhere (and there is plenty of nowhere in rolling rural upstate New York) to visit a winery that was reputed to make mead. This long-ass trip was for naught, since the winery was closed down (and had apparently been closed for a year or so) when we got there. Now, fast forward a good handfull of years more and I find myself, with my parents, visiting the Middelaldercentret ("Middle Ages Center", a permanent historical recreation of a craftsman villiage) in Nykøbing Falster, Danmark. There, in the gift shop, I spot not just mead, but two kinds; the cheaper "Thor's Hammer Mjød" and the quality brand "Gammel Dansk Mjød" (Old Danish Mead). I, of course, had to buy some. After waiting seventeen years to try the stuff, the only question was whether I get just the quality stuff or one of each. I picked up just the "Gammel Dansk Mjød" and dropped it in my bag.

Fast forward to later that evening. The parents and I are back in København after having toured all over the place. We were just in time to get tickets to Havfruen (Mermaids), an avant garde acrobatic/dance/play performance in Swedish, with projected subtitles in Danish on either side of the stage. It was pretty late, we had been on the move all day, we had missed a meal or two, we had spent the last few Kroner we had between us on the tickets, the nearest bank was a *long* walk away, the performance was due to start in under 30 minutes, and we were hungry as all get-out. I suddenly remember what I have in my bag - a loaf of extra-hardy spelt bread and a big bottle of mead. Things rapidly became very pleasant. The three of us sat by the waterside, munching on hunks of spelt bread and swigging big gulps of mead. Mead is both sweet and very alcoholic, and the three of us killed half the bottle with our spelt bread. Dumping mead into nearly empty bellies resulted in a very rapid euphoric drunk. Fortunately, the mead-inebriation went away as fast as it came on. I could theorize it had something to do with the high sugar content resulting in more rapid metabolism, but that's just a hunch that I've not bothered thinking through. Anyway, our heads were clear again for seeing Havfruen. Mead and spelt bread made for a very pleasant end to our evening.

Having experience the mead that way was quite nice, but a proper review requires a glass or two drunk in tranquil surroundings, with proper attention to the drink. The remaining half-a-bottle was OK. Mead definitely tastes of both honey and alcohol, a flavor combination I have previously experienced in the form of medicinal honey-based cough syrup. Unfortunately for the mead, I just could not shake the honey cough-syrup association. If you have not had the medicinal honey-based cough syrup, then maybe you can form your own associations, but I ended up drinking the stuff and being reminded of desperate winos who would drink cough syrup. I mean, it was not bad or anything; it was just boozy and sweet and honey. If you are a honey fan, this is yet one more way in which to consume honey. If you are not a fan of sweet alcohols, then mead will probably not be your choice of drink. Still, I'm glad I could finally find out what mead tastes like.

Hmm. Next is locating and trying absinth... It is illegal in the US, because of the minor annoyance that it contains neurotoxins and can cause hallucinations, so I'll have to try it while I'm here.

050705 København, Danmark
I don't lack for things to talk about, but doing is far more interesting than typing descriptions of doing. This means that I'm left with random scraps and pieces of notes mentioning what I meant to have written up quite a while back. One such bit, which I will likely never bother to develop fully, was a note "waiters and black skirts". This was a reference to the observation that it has become very common, in the trendier or more expensive restauraunts in both the US and here, to see waitstaff wearing large (almost oversized) black aprons. The result is that both male and female staff appear to be wearing formal black skirts. When I wrote the note, I was intending to eventually muse on about black being an aggressive "power" color in psychological terms, the "formal wear" associations of black in western culture, the symbolic androgeny of the identical, gender-de-emphasizing uniforms for both male and female waitstaff, etc. I think it might have been interesting, although the meandering writings would likely have comitted the common social deconstruction of making much ado about nothing. As it is now, I let that idea scrap sit about too long and I am dismissing it.

Anyway, I have let time get away from me yet again and it is too late at night to go on and type up what I was going to write. Watch this space in the future for reviews of Cockburn's Special Reserve Port, Skærsommernats Drøm, and Gammel Dansk Mjød. Oh, to tide you over until I do get those reviews up, you can try memorizing some Japanese.

Oh, last thought before bed. København is definitely one of the nicest cities I have lived in so far. And that's saying something.

050702 København, Danmark
I saw Frederiksborg (a really beautiful castle in Hillrød) this past Thursday evening. In one of the big halls, the walls were lined with the official crests of Denmark, painted on shields. The actual crest was flanked by the name of the person it was issued to on the left and the date it was issued on the right. Occasionally, the crest would have a latin motto or phrase above it. Anyway, apparently the people being granted a crest are pretty much free to design the crest however they would like, within reasonable limits (no using the designs that are reserved for the royal family, etc.). Since crests have continued being issued to whomever the royal family wishes to honor, up into the modern age, you have some unusual crests. In addition to the more standard heraldic symbols, there are crests containing chrysanthemum or lotus, crests containing pictures of Krishna, crests containing chinese dragons, crests containing modern elements (like a pistol, telescope, or globe), and crests containing some sort of Thai script.

I was looking at these and wondering "Hmm... I wonder if I can convince the royals to grant me a crest?". Unless I become fantastically weathy in short order, however, I don't think I'll be granted an official Danish crest. It turns out that the only recent recipients are people who married into the royal family (and so of course their family has to be ennobled; it wouldn't do to marry a commoner) or industrial magnates who have made massive gifts to Denmark (ex. the guy who owns Mersk shipping, granted a crest after he built the new opera house for København, as a gift to the city). Well, it doesn't hurt to be optimistic, so I'm scanning the personals ads for the princess's names and I'm starting a penny jar to save up the money.

050629 København, Danmark
For today's ever exciting missive, I'm not sure what to touch upon. I could talk about cultural observations, like the decorated "drunk trucks" that mark high school graduation, the funky bicycle designs availible here, or simply the fact that the danes travel someplace warm for summer vacation (southern Spain, Greece, and Italy being popular choices) and yet they remain in Denmark for the winter.

I could also get political yet again, discussing the what the US has come to stand for with it's recent habit of conducting "renditions", that is, going to other nations, kidnapping foreign citizens and transporting them to yet another country where they have a "flexible" attitude to torture. Now, I don't know about you, but I really don't understand the mindset that justifies the multiple violations of international law involved in the kidnapping and transport across multiple national boundries, but then suddenly becomes modest about precisely where to do the internationally condemned torture... Oh, wait, I do understand. It is the "we have no morals, but don't want to annoy the voters in New Jersy by doing the torture there" mindset. Uh, weren't we supposed to at least try to be the good guys?
Nah. You all are probably more than a bit tired of the political commentary.

Anyway, rather than talk about any of that, I'm just going to say that I'm too darn tired for updates this week. I've been trying to be more dedicated about studying Danish at the same time that lab work has reached a bit of a long hours stage. The combination is kicking my butt.

050625 København, Danmark
Here is a quote taken from the last sentence of the first paragraph of chapter 1 (p9) of "Culture Shock! - Denmark" by Morten Strange
"But integrating deeper into society and establishing yourself with a network of local friends is a lot harder - people in Dinmark appear to already have all the friends they need, or so many foreigners comment."
This is a quote I have been guilty of referencing before in talking about attempting to socialize here. Asking people if they would like to do something social, the response is a vague look of surprise and the (politely phrased and with all the appropriat excuses) answer "no". This is why it does initially feel like the above is an accurate statement, but I don't really think the impression is correct.

The above impression seems to arise from a Danish tendency of social compartmentalization. Work stays in one compartment and is kept isolated from private life. This means that coworkers are not typically introduced to non-work friends and family or spouse/date is not brought to any work social occasions (Friday beers, Christmas party, etc). This compartmentalization extend to other social events. The volleyball team will do things together, but not bring in any "outsiders" to that activity either. Socialization is done within whatever subset of which you are part, but not across subsets. So, the badminton club may have most of the same members of the volleyball club, but if it is a "after badminton dinner", then the few volleyball players who are not badminton players will not be invited. It's not unfriendly; it is just social habit to keep the social groups clearly delineated. Asking random coworkers about going out for beers on Friday is one thing, but asking about doing something on the weekend (which *clearly* belongs to non-work and hence non-coworker time) is a no-no; that would mix the compartments. If you are an outsider, and don't think to join the many various clubs, or worse yet, wait for an invitation rather than asking to join, then you do not fit into any of the social compartments and are excluded by default.

As for me, I knew from day one that my time here was very limited and efforts would be needed to integrate rapidly. I joined the badminton group, despite never having played before, I signed up for some sort of bicycling to work drive before I even bought a bike (I finally got my bike and had it assembled just as the thing started), etc. By pure luck, this fits well with the Danish way of things; I became a member of several different social subsets and availible for socialization on a wider front thereby. So, I have found the Danes to be friendly and inviting, but I can clearly see how it could have been a very different experience.

On an unrelated note, when I went to the Viking Boat Museaum in Roskilde (along with my parents, when they were visiting), we saw the boats, and a bit of mock axe fighting, and the non-boat exhibits of the museaum. In the museaum gift shop, they had two game sets, that have been found amidst the wreckage of viking boats. These games were called Nefatavl (aka "Viking Chess") and Mølle (aka "Mill" or "Morris"). The Mølle boards were often carves into the planks of the ship's flooring. Anyway, since I find new games interesting, I was going to write up Nefatavl for everyone, but someone else has put together a perfectly good site about it. See http://www.nefatavl.dk/english.html. After writing up Nefatavl, I was going to write up Mølle for everyone, but (again) someone else has put together a perfectly good site about it. See http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/vexhibit/board/rowgames/mill.html.

050623 København, Danmark
The other day, when I attempted to look up how to properly spell je ne sais quoi, I ran across a blog with a misspelling of the phrase very close to my initial spelling attempt. This blog page (http://bitchen.blogspot.com/) was no longer being updated, but one of the last few entries contained the following:
"The most true thing I've discovered is this: Interesting personal blogs only come from emotionally single people. Refute it if you can, but you won't convince me."
I thought this was somewhat interesting. It does speak to the observation that the only people who have time for this sort of constant typing are those who either have little else going on in their life or have carved the time out to do this sort of time-consuming exercise. Contentment is rarely interesting reading. Pain is the root of both tragedy and humor... Thinking on this, I find myself hoping for a very dull blog. Wish me luck with that.

050622 København, Danmark
Bicycling the 14-16 km home every day is a nice bit of exercise. The main down-side to it is that it takes 45-50 minutes and results in my not feeling like doing much other than sit on the couch for at least 20 minutes after the ride.

When I get home, I walk over the fridge and guzzle down a bottle of water. I keep a half-dozen small bottles of water in the fridge for just that purpose. They are reused plastic juice or soda bottles that I keep refilling with water from the tap before tucking them in the fridge over night. Yeah, I could just get a glass of water straight from the tap and do an equally good job of rehydrating after the bicycle ride, but for some reason doing that lacks the "ah, I'm consuming mass quantities" je ne sais quoi of going to the fridge, uncapping a bottle, and slamming it down. Even though I know intellectually that it is tap water, same as if I were getting a glass from the tap, it is somehow more satisfying this way. Another odd, self-fooling sort of thing is the fact that it is more fun to eat an apple that has been sliced into sixteenths, cored, and put on a plate. There is somehow something more satisfying or more civilized about narfing down a plate full of slices instead of just crunching your way through the apple directly. I know this is not true of just me; children like foods that have been carved or shaped and even adults find bread sliced diagonally (instead of perpendicularly) and vegetables sliced in special (aka inefficient) ways to be somehow more "gourmet". I wonder why this is.

Due to the overwhelming urge to sit on the couch for a few minutes upon arriving home, I found myself watching a lot of TV. It was seductive; I'd sit down and the TV would be right there, with the remote just to my left. The TV made it very easy to turn a 10 minute rest on the couch into 2 hours of supplication before the flickering god. Anyway, I went ahead and unplugged the TV last week. There really was not much on that was worth watching, so I have not yet plugged it in again. Still, the power of the TV was evident; I found myself drawn towards it pretty much whenever I didn't feel like doing what I was doing. If I had left it plugged in (and therefore that much easier to turn on), I'm not sure it would have stayed off for the last week. The TV came with the apartment. After having had the use of a TV these past three months, I think I'm going to leave it unplugged for the next three months. TV eats far more time than is justifiable if you are as susceptible to it's allure as I am.

050621 København, Danmark
Oddly enough, communicating at work has become both less and more frustrating as I work on my Danish. Why more? Well, I'm glad you asked that. More than once, I will ask a question in Danish and have to repeat myself several times before the other person will answer. Occasionally, I give up and repeat the question in English, after having repeated the question several times in Danish. The reason for this is not that I'm saying the Danish incorrectly; both grammar and pronunciation are fine (I have been assured), but the other person is expecting me to be speaking English. When they hear the words, they are all primed and ready for English, and they can not make sense of the words because they are busy trying to figure out what English words I'm saying. The most concise statement I have received, expressing this phenomenon, is "Sorry; you confused the Bable-fish.". Sigh. I find that when I speak Danish to someone who's back is turned, they understand me just fine and respond in Danish. It is only when they are looking at me, and therefore having the English translation filter interfere, that I have problems being understood. Knowing that this is unintentional doesn't make it much less frustrating. Anyway, this really makes using my Danish in the workplace difficult, because my using Danish hinders communication far more than it aids communication. Because of this, I have to admit, I have switched back to mostly speaking English, unless the other person has made the language-of-choice clear by speaking Danish to me.

Still, learning Danish is certainly not a wasted skill. Most departmental meetings and emails (for my department, at least) are in Danish. Typically the scientific presentations are presented in Danish, although text on the slides is typically in English (which is a nice cheat sheet for me). Since the day to day trivia (what meetings have been rescheduled, housekeeping issues, what reagents we have or have run out of, etc.) is both in Danish and absolutely necessary to know, I really am benefiting from putting in the effort. For speaking practice, there is the classes and the random assortment of people I interact with in daily life (fellow passengers on the train, shopkeepers, etc.). They can't tell I'm not Danish by looking at me and so I can speak Danish to them without translation-from-English attempts interfering with communication.

050620 København, Danmark
Well, today I have good news and bad news. First the good news. I bicycle from work to home. Normally, I'm running late in the mornings and have to catch the train to work, but I can bring my bike on the train and cycle for the return commute. Following the route I normally take, along main streets in the most direct path, it is 14.3 km and 50 minutes. However, I have tried an alternate route or two lately. Following the bicycle path that parallels the highway, it is 16.1 km and 45 min. So, the highway route is about 2 km longer but is still 5 min faster. Since it has fewer stoplights, is more smooth (the main road route goes straight over the hills the highway route goes around), and is more protected from the wind, it feels much faster than only 5 min faster. I'll be taking the highway route from now on. Yea!

The bad news is that I seem to be alergic to Danish spring time. Unless it is raining, I have occasional sneezing bouts and my eyes are itchy... Very itchy. It is a combination of will power and the knowledge that bloody holes do not work will for vision that has left my eye sockets safe from being constantly rubbed. Ugh. Looks like I will have to hunt for an anti-allergy medication that does not leave me dopey all the time. Previous to coming here, I have tried the occasional medication that a friend has recommended as a non-dopey anti-allergy medication, but every one has left me zombified to a greater or lesser degree. Ah, well. There's always will power and waiting for the body to start ignoring the constant stimulus.

050619 København, Danmark
I have had a variety of responses to this blog. Two of the more common responses are interesting because they are sort of in opposition to each other. Comment A is as follows: "I can tell you are not married. Only someone who has nothing going on in their life has that sort of time to waste." On the other hand, I also see comment B: "Hey, you haven't updated the blog in over a week... What's wrong?"

I know more than a few people who have started a blog and then let it wither away after only a few entries. Let's face it; reporting on life in general is often not worth it. Even if you decide to go ahead and report short mundane things, just to keep up the entries, well, it takes a bit of effort. Just to type "I ate a salad today." involves booting the computer, logging in, typing the text, and making sure the updated file posts correctly. If you're doing it all by hand (like I am), rather than using a blogging service, then you have the additional step of adding formatting elements and making sure you have not broken any code. It is just not worth it unless you have something slightly more interesting to report than the daily grind. So, comment A, while vaguely insulting, is also sort of correct. A blog requires time that could be used for other things. Still, I started this blog to serve as a contact point for friends, and the fact that I receive comment B more often than comment A is a bit if a justification to continue.

Now on to the random thought that was actually inspiring today's post. København's water is chock full of minerals. I think it may be mostly calcium. Anyway, there is so much in the water that rather a lot of white material drops out of solution every time the water is heated. The shower head in my apartment has rubber nozzles. Every so often, it is necessary to pick at the little rubber nozzles to remove the white deposits that block them other wise. I have an imersion heater hot pot, which I use to make tea or instant coffee. Every three pots or so, there is so much precipitate deposited on the inside of the thing that the last cup of hot water receives two tablespoons worth of white sludge. This is my signal to scrub the pot out again. Sometimes I look at the sludge dropping out of my water and I wonder why I have not heard of the Danes all getting kidney stones. Huh. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to cause any negative effects. Just one of the little oddities of life here.

Page Last Modified: 2006 04 21, 08:28:56

 

 

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