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Christmas time at 'home' in country Australia



Well, one person missed it actually, so I am biting the bullet and starting up again.

It's been pretty close to a year since my last riveting post and quite a bit has happened. Not all interesting. Apart from managing to survive that dreadful year - still haven't forgiven global greedy financiers of all sorts and nationalities but particularly certain American ones - but not completely scarless. Lots of people I know lost their jobs, not just here in Denmark but all over. This year has proved slightly - so far - less dramatic.

I went back to the Antipodes for Christmas and a month's 'holiday'. A term as an expat I can now see why others use it loosely. There's no such thing as a holiday when you go back to where you came from. It was busier than work and, while great catching up with people, very, very frantic. Weird too. If you've never been an expat, I can tell you such a trip is a surprisingly strange experience. You're in the place you've known a gazillion years. You see the people you love, eat at your favourite restaurants, can pretty much find places while driving blindfolded, again in an odd way, you don't really feel like your belong - the other part of your life is thousands of kilometres away. It puts you in a challenging position. You like where you grew up but you also like where you live now.

The reaction probably depends much on where you go. I've known people who've been posted to places they hate (and not everyone likes Denmark btw either). When that's the case, the going home for Christmas is probably trying in another way, knowing you have to return to a place you're not mad about. But for someone like me, who pretty much needs Prozac to get me on the plane on holiday over day, I was surprised how good I felt walking through to no man's land at Melbourne Airport.

I read a book called - strangely enough - Almost French by Sarah Turnbull. She's an Australian who ends up marrying a Frenchman and they live in Paris. But in the story, she talks about a trip prior to that, to Greece. She meets a older Greek Australian who says that he is torn between two places. She doesn't understand what he means until she finds herself, eventually, established in Paris. And that painted a very clear picture to me.

Bornholm, bornholm, bornholm

Du, min dejlige ferieø... or something like that. That's the song they play on the ferry over to this rather special Danish island. I spent the last long weekend there. Unfortunately, because we're busy at work, I came back on Monday, while NQDII is staying for the week with Hamish.

Anyway, I digress. Everyone told me Bornholm was 'special', so I couldn't wait to see it, albeit briefly. And it really was. They weren't kidding - fantastic beaches, great food, super countryside and lots and lots to do - if you have the time, which I didn't.

Lots of artists live there so there are plenty of glass works, studios etc, not to mention some really fantastic food - from homemade chocolates, ice cream and smokehouses to some really, really good restaurants. This one for instance: Æblehaven It really was tremendous, probably the best food and wine I've had in DK so far.

The beaches, as you can see from the pictures, are fantastic.

We took the train to Sweden and then got the ferry across, both of which Hamish thoroughly enjoyed. But I flew home which cut the travel time door-to-door from 4 hours to 1.2 hours. If you come to Denmark in summer, it really is worth a visit and the air fair is dirt cheap.

I wonder what NQDII is doing now...

On the road again.

We’ve been travelling a lot these past months and rarely seem to be home. This weekend is no different.

NQD went to Berlin yesterday for work and is staying today as well.



I, on the other hand, had my own little adventure. I walked about 800m down the road to this place, to have my first experience (well, second if you include the consultation) with the Danish health care system for which some of my 50% tax pays to run. I was also about to become a movie star of sorts.

I wasn’t going to write about this but I figure its probably the sort of thing no one likes to discuss or do and really can’t compare to a weekend in a swish hotel in Berlin, drinking beer and eating delicious German stodge and strolling Unter den Linden. Only that it might save your life.

My mother died of bowel cancer at 61, which isn’t very old, as did a very dear friend and she was far too young, with a 12 year-old son. As my mother’s side of the family also has several cancer genes as family members, I thought it was probably time I should be checked-up.

There’s a system to this procedure. It involves drinking a litre of the most revolting drink you can imagine and spending most of the night on the toilet. Just when it’s over, at around six in the morning, you drink another litre and the fun begins again.

Still, at least now I now know how many tiles there are on the walls in our bathroom.

All that finally over, I marched off to Frederiksberg Hospital, feeling like I was washed out (I guess I was) and suffering jet lag from tiredness.

In my best (don’t get excited) Danish, I announced who I was and what I was there for – a colonoscopy – or ‘Koloskopi’ på dansk. A very sweet nurse told me I was expected, which was all well and good, except ‘to be expected’ wasn’t something I’ve covered in Danish, so I stood looking at her wondering what she’d just told me about myself.

Next I was whisked off, told to change into some very unfashionable hospital clothes and plonk myself down on my bed – which happened to be down the end of a hall, actually in the hall! I was too tired to care and the nurses were so lovely I couldn’t bring myself to question anything and I figured this was the simple part of a day of saying goodbye to my dignity! I couldn’t have been too concerned because I fell into a deep sleep, apparently snoring.

An hour or so later I was pushed on said bed up to the procedure room to be met by another nurse. She had a gravelly voice and joked and laughed away in Danish most of which I didn’t understand. Slightly sedated, before I knew it the doctor was in and with a rub and a push, a very long looking hose venture into a part of me I’d never seen before.

Certainly looking at the inside of your bowel on a TV screen isn’t quite as exciting as watching a foetus in an ultrasound but it did feel like that 70’s movie where they went inside that scientists body.

You can feel the camera work it’s way around, which feels weird but not painful and then it’s all over – in about ten minutes. Really, it’s that quick. I’d expected to be in there for hours.

And that was it – all over. So really, it’s so easy today to get checked, it well worth the effort and the sacrifice of a little dignity as others gaze up your nether region, because if you happen to become symptomatic from one of these cancers, you might have a bigger struggle ahead.

Yeah, okay, your dignity flies out the window for ten minutes!

Nu kommer Sverige

Town Hall - where the Nobel Banquet is held
This last weekend we went to Stockholm, although it’s taken me all week to write about it.

Unfortunately, I spent the first day recovering from an historic hangover. A workmate was finishing up on the Friday and as I was taking the Friday off, we went out Thursday night for goodbye drinks. In retrospect, I think she and I had it in our minds it was also the last time in our lives we’d ever see alcohol. It was such fun at the time but not so bright at 4.30am on the Friday morning when NQDII and I got up to catch our flight. I thought, once we were at the airport, a coffee may have helped. It didn’t. So then I thought perhaps a nice, fresh orange juice would cleanse my toxic body. I guess at least it had an effect because two minutes after I downed it, my stomach told me to find the bathroom quickly.

Anyway, I digress. You don’t want to hear about that, but suffice to say, my first day in Stockholm was a write-off.

By luck, we managed through logging on at the right time to Sterling to get 0.00DKK tickets and only paid for taxes. It looked like a super cheap holiday.

Not so.



While very beautiful, Stockholm must be one of the most expensive places on Earth – and we expats thought Denmark was bad…

Our first battle was accommodation. We quickly discovered that August is one of Stockholm’s most expensive months hotel-wise. Not only was everything booked, but it was hellishly expensive.

We ended up here at Hotel Stureplan.

I had many misgivings. I paid a fortune for something I’d never seen and the website didn’t offer that much about, so I expected to have paid what felt like a month’s salary for something very average. Luckily, I was proved wrong. It was a fantastic room done, appropriately enough, in Gustavian style with great attention to detail.

The room

Basin (and we had a huge shower!



View from bed
NQDII had trouble working out why they call Sweden, Sverige – or Sverge as he pronounced it but which is actually pronounced, in Swedish, ‘Sv-er-i-a’. So in our house, Sverge it has become. Much like Rockslide for Roskilde, Van-loser for Vanløse and Codge for Køge (Kooa).

Anyway, it will be a very quiet month here because we spent enough money to have had two weeks on a Greek Island.

Stockholm is in a beautiful natural setting. Rather like Sydney, except in Scandinavia. ☺ The buildings in the older part of the city that aren’t on Gamla Stan (which is really, really old) are very grand. Much grander than Copenhagen and it’s a pleasure just to walk around the streets. However, there is a really ugly, modern part of the city that does let it down. I was surprised there were not more interesting modern buildings like in Copenhagen. While I’m not a huge fan of modern structures – unless they’re extra special, Copenhagen has some really lovely modern buildings. Stockholm doesn’t.

The latest in tourist attire - Freezer Bag wet weather gear

That said, the lake and archipelago are magnificent. One day we went by boat out to Drottningholm, where the royal family lives. It was a fantastic trip and I can just imagine how much fun it would be to have the water around you in the height of summer. As it was, it was two days before the end of summer and the weather was a balmy 13C that day.



Drottningholm



You definitely feel the ‘Us vs Them’ in Stockholm as far as it and Copenhagen are concerned. Our guide around Drottningholm took great (tongue in check) pleasure in saying at one point to the group how the area (southern Sweden) used to be part of Denmark and if they hadn’t won that war, she would be Danish, ‘Which would have been terrible!’ We heard things like this a couple of times and it reminded me very much of the Sydney versus Melbourne game.




If you have a lot of money to spare, Stockholm is a must. It was interesting seeing the difference between Copenhagen and it’s rival for capital of Scandinavia. Stockholm is very..hmm. Posh? Yes, I guess posh. The people dress like the Sloane Rangers of London or the BCBG of Paris or the Preppies of NYC. You really notice it. They must spend a fortune on ‘the look’. Copenhagen, on the other hand, is more cool and hip. Stockholmers are very friendly but they have a more British-style reservedness. They’re very efficient but, I think I’d miss the kind of bamboozled, all-over-the-place kind of ‘organisation’ you get on the streets here of Copenhagen.



The Swedes are happy to talk about the success of historical Sweden, whereas here in Denmark, the usual tours include such gems as, ‘That’s the navy ship that accidentally torpedoed a famous Danish summerhouse. It was decommissioned – probably a good thing.’ ‘That’s Christiansborg Palace that burnt down and was rebuilt a gazillion times and the last time the royal family didn’t even bother moving back in.’ ‘This is the little mermaid. She’s been beheaded four times.’ ‘Nelson bombed Copenhagen to buggery and the navy never recovered.’ ‘And, King Christian’s daughter married the heir to the Russian throne but he and the Queen couldn’t afford to go to the wedding.’

- I fit in perfectly with those sorts of continual misfortunes.

Right hemisphere vs Left hemisphere

First, let me tell you a bit about me. I am, in my own way, organised. However, I am a typical right hemisphere thinker. I tend to ‘feel’ my way to a destination. I don’t like to be hemmed in too much and I love adventure. Not following exact itineraries makes me feel free.

NQDII, OTOH, is the opposite. One must always know exactly where they are going and getting lost is about the worst than can ever happen. The only way to enjoy something is to have it completely planned from whoa to go.

This picture below will give you an indication of what I’m up against. I could easily (and love) being an adventurer. He would hate it.

Tired of looking on rejseplanen (‘not always the most efficient route and doesn’t show an alternative should a train be late’) every morning to check the train timetables, he’s created his own train (and one bus, as he pointed out) schedule, showing, and I quote, ‘the most efficient way to get to and from work everyday’. Apparently it shows an example for any given hour of the day, with times of operation on the far right column should it not actually be applicable all day. The rows in bold show the most time efficient way to get to and from work. Highlighted in orange and trains and buses are ‘critical’ because if they are late, ‘one should immediately change routes’.

I had to scan it in and show the world. For a start, I could never be bothered doing it and secondly, I don’t understand how it works. Still, it works for him and is, as a scientist, I guess apt.

The Mother Country (Mother City?)

Yup. A Whirlpool at Windsor - courtesy of an Eastern European lady. I didn't realise Whirlpool still existed.



These memorial benches are a great idea







London. What can you say? It must be one of the world’s most remarkable cites. A literal melting pot of people from all over the world and, in warm weather, it felt like it. There are just SO many people it boggled my mind. I’d not been there for eight years and last time, I was there in winter which I suspect means fewer tourists. Not so this time. I felt like I was living in a sea of people every time I went outside.

I know the theoretical city area is quite small but Greater London is massive. As you fly in, it seems to go on forever, and coming from Copenhagen – with a grand population of some one million souls – the contrast is marked.

Luckily for us, our friends live in a swank part of town and we had the choice of four spare bedrooms spread over five storeys. Direct from Copenhagen where the average abode is relatively small, we felt like we were staying in Buckingham Palace. Even more startling was the house was no different from the hundreds that surrounded it and it made me think just how much building must have been going on around the turn of the 20th century. And, how ‘Great’ Britain must have been and the wealth it must have drawn in from its vast Empire.

I’ve been to London quite a lot but I’ve never ventured into the East End. This time our hosts took us to an area called Brick Lane. Here, you could really feel the melange of different races and cultures all boiling away together. It was fascinating, as were the choices of foods from the street stalls and the cross section of people. It’s definitely worth a visit.

At the other extreme, one day we went to Windsor Castle. None of us had been there before but each of us was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place and the grandeur of the state apartments. Seriously, I’ve seen no other palace – even Versailles – that you could compare it too. No amount of explanation would describe the enormity and detail of these rooms. You really have to see it. We all agreed it’s a place you could really go back to and look at just one or two rooms at a time. I couldn’t help but think it must have been fun for the four royal children growing up there. Hide and seek would be exciting, if a futile holiday game.

But, it was refreshing to get back to Copenhagen. Sure, it’s small but it’s so easy to navigate and taking the metro from the airport was effortless (although NQDII and I had one of our notorious airport altercations so we came home on separate metros!)

And here I am almost halfway through my two weeks of mandatory, yet unpaid sommerferie. I made a spur of the moment and perhaps imprudent decision last night (given the state of my bank account) and booked a few days away in Brussels from Sunday. I hadn’t planned to do anything but suddenly thought the week would go and I’d have done nothing, especially since NQDII will be back at work.

Brussels was the cheapest flight I could find. Considering it was voted Europe’s most boring city there might be good reason for this but as yet another Belgian government recently resigned, I am interested in taking a look at this Flemish-Walloon situation myself. It seems odd that such a tiny country has trouble holding itself together. Who knows? With my vast experience in smoothing relations, I might be able to fix the whole thing for them ☺

Airport funnies

I’m one of those odd types who loves airports. I make an adventure out of everything that happens, except narky Australian customs who can be very rude. I find airports the most fascinating places to watch people as they constantly bring out the very best and very worst.

This is now a couple of weeks old but when I think of it, I still get the giggles.

I was perched on one of those high stool and table set-ups at Schoenefeld airport, happily drinking German beers and scoffing down a baguette.

In walked a pimply, very young looking American kid of about 18 (I suspect) and a middle-aged woman, very well dressed with a ‘sort of’ Indian look and accent to her but not completely.

I have no idea what their relationship was, it was very hard to work out.

They sat at the table behind me and I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. Something came up about smoking. I missed the next bit but then heard the American kid say:

“You know, like Sesame Street.”

No comment from the woman.

“Do you know Sesame Street? (In slow, baffled disbelief)

“No,” she said, adding, “Is it like Sex and the City?”

Long pause by American kid.

“Sort of. But, like, for three year olds.”

“Oh…” Said the woman. I guess trying to get an image of Sesame Street (as such!) in her head.

Ich bin ein Berliner

Aren’t clichés great? You see this one everywhere in Berlin, where I spent last weekend.



What an impressive city. I fell in love with the magnificent parks and tree-lined streets, which somehow I obviously didn’t pay much attention to when I was there at the age of 18. Mind you, it was in winter then and still divided into East and West, so firstly, the trees had no leaves and secondly, my mind was more intrigued by those evil communists who had their trigger-happy fingers hovering permanently over the launch button. Looking back, that’s how I spent most of my teenage years: worrying about nuclear war.





This time for me it was a very poignant trip. Maybe it’s because almost the last bit of youth in me is shrivelling up, but I actually spent much of the weekend in reflective thought about the world and Germany and the war/s.



For anyone who’s not been to Berlin, let me tell you it’s a vast city, at least compared to Copenhagen. When you fly in, you pass over lush green countryside and as you come into land you can actually see how treed the streets are. On the ground, they’re even more impressive: flowering horse chestnuts, lindens, planes and oaks planted out along long boulevards and even the side streets. Quite idyllic and made even more pleasant by Berliners who were very friendly everywhere I went, even if they were a tad perplexed at my insistence in speaking Danish quite frequently. (Obviously, I will never make one of those sophisticated internationals who can switch from one language to another instantaneously.)






Of course, there isn’t a great many magnificent old buildings as most of those were bombed to buggery in WWII. Never the less, there is still considerable architectural interest and Berlin’s history is nothing if not interesting. It was that, that put me in a pensive mood.



I don’t have much trouble reconciling the Great War. For me it boils down to the Kaiser who was a despot with a huge chip on his shoulders. He hated his British mother and English relatives and kept the former under – more-or-less – house arrest, fearing she was some sort of spy. He had a huge chip on his shoulders about the might of the British Empire and wanted the same for Germany, devoting his whole life to trying to achieve it. I think what sums him up can be found in one of the letters he wrote to his grandmother, Queen Victoria, when he became sovereign. He began the letter with, ‘Dear Colleague’. What a nong. Anyway, he did such a good job on furthering Germany’s stance in the world he lost the throne and made the Hohenzollerns the laughing stock of the world at the price of millions of lives.

But what occupied my thoughts this time was Nazism. I was thinking of it as the plane landed which, rather bizarrely, saw us all packed into two busses waiting on the runway. It probably wouldn’t have affected me so much were I not the last on the bus, squashed against the door facing outwards, which given my thoughts at the time, and being in Berlin, immediately made me think of something else.

It went on from there and culminated in a trip to the Jewish Museum.
The museum itself is extremely interesting and insightful as it takes you through Jewish history since biblical times. It’s an impressive, unusual modern building that meanders over a few stories. The Holocaust doesn’t overwhelm the place but two parts of the building affected me deeply. The first was called the Holocaust Tower.

You walk into a concrete room with a heavy door closing behind you. Immediately you feel sort of imprisoned. You can hear the world going on outside but the effect is one of detachment. It’s only a small, oddly shaped room but stretches up three floors. At the top, there is a slit in the concrete that lets in a small amount of light. I guess (I can’t say for sure because the iPod I was using kept skipping) it represents Jews stuck in the camps, knowing some kind of ‘life’ was going on outside while they were imprisoned in one of the most awful to imagine kinds of hell.

What was even more sobering was another void called The Void of Falling Leaves. This is one you actually hear before you see. As I got nearer, I could hear this very grating chinking of metal. It was very disconcerting and irritating.

You enter a huge space covered on the floor with hundreds of circular shapes of thick metal, each with eyes and a mouth bored into them. The noise comes from people walking over them and the sound is utterly awful and jarring. It made me think of stomping over the wounded, sad souls. In fact, I couldn’t walk over the exhibition. I just stood their listening to the noise, feeling sadder by the minute. At the same time, I found it interesting that architecture could have this effect on me.



After that, I wandered down the streets and found the remnants of that other dark piece of history, the Berlin Wall. The last time I’d been in Berlin the wall had been complete and in full working order, but this time I felt a bit disoriented. The city had become one again and I found it hard working out which way was east and which way was west. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

As I continued my very long walk (I still have the blisters to prove it) I found it hard to reconcile that such a lovely city, full of what I found to be friendly and helpful people, had not that long ago been the seat of such evil. Almost incomprehensible evil.

I’ve never spoken to any Germans about that part of their history. It’s not something I guess I’d want to bring up but I wonder how they cope, knowing they have such an ugly history. Certainly it not the Germans of today’s responsibility or fault but it can’t be very nice, looking back at your own country’s past and being met by a black wall. To their immense credit, in Berlin at least, that history is not hidden. There are reminders everywhere and that, in itself, must be hard to face and see as you go about living your life.

Not long ago, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, made a trip to Israel and a speech at the Knesset, about Germany’s past. It must have been a terribly difficult thing to do – to know you must do it, but probably don’t want to be the one to do so.

A number of Israeli politicians boycotted listening to the speech saying they couldn’t bear to hear the German language in their House. Part of me understood that but another part of me thought it was a shame. I doubt Ms Merkel wanted them to forget – or even forgive Germany for what happened but I guess she just wanted a chance to speak for her country, today, about it. The boycott also made me feel sorry for all the German Jews who still live in the country and are no doubt understandably proud of their land as it is now.

She said: "The Holocaust fills us with shame. I bow my head before the survivors and I bow my head before you in tribute to the fact that you were able to survive."

They were words of the deepest solemnity and I’m sure she meant them. It must have been overwhelming for her, however much she may have wanted to do it, knowing who you were addressing and just why.

Personally, I wish I’d had longer in Berlin because there is just so much to see and do. Next time I’m going to tackle the Cold War. I missed out on the DDR Museum due to time but want to find out more about life in East Berlin back then. And the third time I go back I’m just going to relax and enjoy the fun Berlin is known for today!