Week 1 - Life smashing in Copenhagen

Monday 30 July - Sunday 5 August 

Hi all,

Alas, my scattergun has all but been switched off this last week as I've been putting photos into all my old posts, as well as settling into my lovely new apartment in Copenhagen. I'll try to be less of a shit bloke in the future with updates and such, but for now, I'll give you a nice long run-down of what I've been doing this week. 

Monday. 

So I woke up bright and early in Tallinn. Far too early. My flight didn't leave until 8:30, and I was up and about by 5:30. I was driven to the airport by a lovely older Estonian man who regaled me with tales of his days in Australia when he was young and in the navy. He wasn't sure where in Australia he had gone, but wherever it was, it certainly left a good impression. 

My first flight to Riga was uneventful, barring the baggage check in where I discovered that my bag has lost weight throughout Scandinavia, despite me not losing anything or being robbed (that I am aware of). 

My second flight, from Riga to Copenhagen however, was a bit more interesting. 

I was sat next to an older woman, let's call her Maud. Now, I don't know where she came from, but the fiery pits of Hell can't be too far off. First of all, before I even sat down, she thrust her camera at me and clearly gestured for me to take a photo of her, which I did. I then gave the camera back to Maud, who did not like her photo. She gave the camera back with the clear gesture, try again. Which I did. Again. And again. This went on for a while until I finally gave up and just sat down and tried to ignore her squawking and wild gesticulations. Apparent that she was no longer the model, Maud turned her lens onto me. Again, I tried to oblige and be polite, but after about 10 photos, it became all that I could do not to snatch the camera from her trigger happy hands and throw it out the emergency exit. 

Then the baby started crying. Right next to me. And that set the next baby off. Right behind me. And so on and so forth. So it was me stuck in a pressurised tube filled with a trigger happy hell-beast and screaming infants. Joy. 

But Maud, not content to be the lesser of irritants on the flight, decided to start up again. She was clearly on some kind of tirade which I eventually discerned was about coffee and her not being in first class. She wanted to know where first class was, and then got out of her seat next to me and went down to first class, and then was escorted back to economy by a flight attendant,  who she then clearly berated (presumably about coffee and/or first class seating) and then settled back into her seat in prole-division and proceeded to rant at me in whatever the native tongue of Hell is. 

The flight landed after a very long 2hrs. At which point, all of the bionic babies (I know they can't have been real, because real babies would have had to breathe at some point, which would have at least given me a second or two of respite from their racket) were simultaneously turned to sleep mode. 

With my ear drums relishing in the sounds of silence, and my legs pumping to get as far away from Maud as possible before she tried to take another photo of us together, it was time to grab my bags and get to my apartment. 

Speaking of my apartment, it's lovely. The little brochure provided by the university made it sound like a prison cell, which successfully lowered my expectations. My room is really big and faces on to the interior courtyard, which has lots of picnic tables, bbqs, playgrounds and a recreation centre. The kitchen is basic, but well supplied and there are two fridges. More importantly, there are two bathrooms, which is much more reasonable between 5 people than the 1 that I was told to expect. We also have balconies. 

Only one of my housemates was home, and I scared him half to death since he didn't know to expect me. But after that introduction, he was really nice and we went for a stroll through the city. 

The view from my apartment. 

Tuesday. 

So the apartment was still lovely at this stage, but slight problems became apparent. For starters, my room, while big, and airy and bright, also has a concerning lack of safe places for me to get dressed without flashing at least one set of neighbouring buildings. There is this strange oily, sticky residue that covers all flat services and is frustratingly resistant to scrubbing and the million flights of stairs to get to my floor (which is actually 4 floors up, but is called the 3rd floor) makes getting home with armfulls of groceries a full body workout. Despite these things though, the apartment is still very much in the clear. 

I initially planned to have a bit of a life-smashing day and get all my official stuff done as soon as I arrived, but it was such a beautiful day I decided that responsibility could wait and instead I went for a super long walk around my local area Nørrebro (called Nørrebronx by locals, apparently) and spent an embarrassing amount of time looking around in grocery shops. 

I'll write more about this area in future posts, but Nørrebro is mostly an immigrant and student area, which works out really well for me. For starters, there is heaps of cheap take away places. Also, there are heaps of country-specific shops, like the Hungarian deli two doors down, the Polish convenience shop 4 doors down (which sells peirogis!), heaps of Asian supermarkets as well as at least 4 generic supermarkets all within a 5min walk. And compared to Norway, these shops are pretty exotic. Tacos, pizza sauces, pasta sauces, sushi mix (incidentally, sushi is mega expensive over here. Like $6 a roll. How nuts is that for a country that breathes sea food?), falafel mixs and more varieties if mayonnaise than I even knew existed. 

I'm tempted...

The Danish have a bit of a thing for bottled food. 

Honey with Walnuts... mmmmmmmmmm

Check it out - electronic price tags!

I've been trying to buy flour - but there are so many different types here, including a huge variety of what I think are bread mixes. I'm lost!

Check out the hotdog buns! Pre-hollowed out. Oooooh, fancy. 

I'm suitably intrigued

Croissants in a can!

Wednesday 

Attempt at life-smashing day #2. 

So I woke up, determined to get my responsibility on and take care of all the official things I needed to do. But then I took one look at the pile of documents and "assistance" brochures and got so thoroughly confused that I decided that help was indeed required. So I walked into the International Student Centre and stood in line for about half an hours to find out where to begin. Immigration office? Police station? Tax office? Citizens registry? They said that immigration services was my best bet, but to hurry, since they were only open 8:30-12. It was 11:30. 

So I ran/speed walked across the city to the immigration services and got there at 11:55, but no dice. The queue was out the door and down the street and the waiting time was about 3hrs, so I accepted defeat, came home and went for a long walk in search for the little mermaid, who eluded me ( although not taking a map was probably a fairly rookie error). But I did see the Copenhagen sand sculpture festival, which looked like a pretty excellent thing to do with my time later. 

The canal near my house

Yarn-bombing seems to be a big thing over here. Lots of trees are wrapped like this!

The musical. Tempting.

Thursday.

Life smashing attempt #3. 

So with the threat of incurring a fine for not registering in time hanging over my head, I awoke resolute to, come hell or high water, sort out my paperwork today. I arrived at the immigration services offices at 8:25, only to find out that people arrive stupidly early to take numbers and get into line before the office opens. So when the office officially opens for business, the queue was already over an hour long. So I waited my turn and had my biometric details taken and can expect my residents permit in the mail shortly. Ish. 

Then, it was off to the citizens registry, where after standing in the queue to get a number for an appointment , I got the number and was able to then stand in the correct queue for more time. But after all that queuing and confusion, I am now fully registered to be a burden on the Danish social welfare system. Woo!

In celebration, my housemates and I decided to go and check out Christiania, which is the Nimbin of Copenhagen, if Nimbin was located on some pretty sweet, central-city real estate. Again, I'll write more about this suburb later (my plan is to write a series of blog posts about each of the main suburbs of Copenhagen), but it was certainly an interesting place to go. On one hand, very bohemian and artsy, on the other quite tense, as selling marijuana is still illegal here so people are constantly on the look out for police. 

We also climbed the Church of Our Saviour - a baroque church with an external staircase which goes right to the top of the spire

It has nearly 50 bells and plays a different melody every hour. 

Looking straight down

The view from the top!

Looking straight up. 

I also managed to find La Glace which is a fancy and famous Copenhagen cake and ice cream shop!

A yummy cake!

Friday

With the sinking realisation that I had nowhere near enough clothes, the kitchen sink didn't have a plug, there wasn't a deck of cards or a note pad anywhere in the house and I still didn't have an umbrella it was time to me to bite the bullet and go shopping. Luckily, everything but the clothes were able to be obtained at a local Tiger store. Tiger is a bit like Crazy Clark's, only their stuff actually seems to be quite good quality whilst still being delightfully cheap. 

With the final two housemates arriving tonight, I also thought it would be nice to have a house dinner, so we made a big pot of spaghetti bolognese, the universal "welcome food" and went out to the biggish hill behind our house (which is actually the roof of the rec centre that they've covered with dirt and planted grass on) for ciders/beers. 

Today is Saturday here and it's 9:30 and  I've already been for a jog, which means that today may actually be my most productive day so far (I think I may actually be preparing to go into hibernation - I'm sleeping for at least 9hrs every night, despite it being so bright!). I still need to sort out a phone and sim, get a public transport ticket, a bike (so that I can not have to use the public transport ticket) and do washing before my life will well and truly be organised here, but it's a beautiful day and the sun is out, so life can wait until another day, right? 

Life vs this.
Life didn't really stand a chance.