Falling in love with København

You just made it so easy to do. What with the luscious smells of freshly-baked pastries and your exquisitely delectable pølser kiosks meeting at every street corner. With your smorgasbord of understated-chic fashions beckoning at each exclusively independent boutique. With your populace of the ever elusive Danes who are mysteriously quiet to begin with, but so so much fun once you dig deeper. With every exhilarating bike ride whether thru wind or rain and with your seemingly never-ending collection of quaint character cafes - København, you are something I just can't get enough of. =)

I don't know how or when it happened. I thought I was upset at you for not issuing me a visa and for making me bike through wind and storm on a regular basis. But I was wrong. I am not upset at all. Instead I am so very sad to leave a place that I accidentally fell head over heels in love with over the course of four months time.

The End of This Short-Lived Viking Life

Above are just some select moments in the past weeks that made me want to cry at the thought of leaving this place. And while I fell in love with the more material aspects to København long ago (ie. hot dogs, pastries and fashion), it truly is the people that make the place. Initially, I only hung out with the other international students and they have become like my København family. But I knew that they were leaving like me and so it wasn't until exam time when I got to know a group of real Danes, that I got a taste for what it would be like to actually BE here. All of that combined is what makes me really sad to leave now.

And oh the regrets!! I wish I had taken more time to learn Danish. I know that it isn't the most useful language but I feel like I would have gotten more out of the experience had I tried harder. (plus grocery shopping and normal everyday things would've been so much easier!) I wish I had stayed on the football team too. Not only would that have helped to prevent my current accumulation of chocolate danish pudge, I would've met more Danes and earlier too. Who cares if I was the only one who only spoke English?

I've learned something else too: Some Danes I've met continued to speak a lot of Danish in front of me even though they knew I was a foreigner. At first I thought it was because they were snobby and rude. But as things turn out, they are neither. While their english pronunciation sounds great to me and I always assume their english is at a very high level, this is not always the case. Even though they may sound good, their confidence in the language is low and thus causes the constant lapsing back to their mother tongue. 

I think most people are excited to have their exchange end and to return home to the place where they really belong. And don't get me wrong, I am definitely looking forward to returning to some important standstills in my life too like my bed, my pet rabbit, my music, and my friends and family. But I've always been one of those suckers that hate when the movie or tv series comes to an end and my beloved characters are no longer a part of my everyday life. Like when I finished reading the Harry Potter series and realized there would be no more. Or when Ugly Betty ended and all her problems got fixed. WHY!! I just got so sad I wanted to rewatch/read all the episodes/books again but realized that was a waste of time so didn't and then just ended up sitting there feeling sad. Which is exactly what I am doing right now. =(

Anyway, I should focus on the positive and that is that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in such an exchange. I can't wait to go home and tell all the students considering such an experience how great it was! Living in a place that is so different than home can be such an eye-opening and rewarding experience. I am grateful to all the people whose paths crossed mine to make my adventures so memorable!

I am thinking of joining the Danish Club when I return home. (that is, if they'll have me!) I just want to stay connected somehow to the culture that I was a part of for so brief a time - to make it seem real and not just a happy dream. And if for nothing else, a good monthly brunch, some æbleskiver, and to exercise the few Danish words I've learnt along the way: 'Tak!' and 'Hej Hej!'

But then again, who knows? If my friend Morten Østergaard, Danish Minister of Science, Innovation and Higher Education, takes my gløgg-inspired words to heart, perhaps visa processes can be streamlined thereby encouraging a better career and future in Denmark for quality international graduates such as myself. Here's counting on you Morty!! =P

It's that time of year again...

Peeps, it's not Christmas I'm talking about. Actually, it's that time of year where I sigh loudly every half hour, where I allow myself to continuously intake chocolate and I become incredibly bitchy to everyone around me...........It's study time.


And even in such a cool city like CPH, it really hasn't made the studying any better. I've taken to studying in the Royal Library (nicknamed the Black Diamond) which is an architectural gem. I was told that when the sun shines through its centre with the glass windows right at noontime, it sparkles like a diamond, hence its name. Even while studying in such a beautiful work of art I still feel like every moment is agonizingly painful. How did I survive this many years of it to begin with? And how did I think it would be a good idea to volunteer for more pain?

ANYWAY, today I had a study meeting in a really cool student housing called Tietgenkollegiat. Apparently it was the result of a local architecure design competition and it was yet another beautifully designed building. It is in the shape of a donut spanning roughly 7 floors with rooms protruding out the sides of the donut in an irregular succession which makes for quite the sight! I took some pictures of it on my phone but of course I forgot the adapter for my micro SD phone card back in Cowtown, so instead, here are some stolen off the web for your viewing pleasure. =)

Oh yes! I forgot to mention that the building overlooks a small canal and inside the donut hole portion is a park with trees, greenspace and benches. It's ingenious! And the inside was very new and clean as well. What a cool space!

In other news,  my time here is nearly up! It is sad but in relation to that, my visa approval FINALLY came in today and get this peeps, it came with a 5-page letter of instruction on how to obtain my danish visa card and then apply for a Copenhagen Residence Permit number, etc. And it was all IN DANISH. WHY. I applied for this visa with my Canadian passport and my last name is clearly Chinese. What makes you think I speak any Danish??

Danish Immigration, you never cease to amaze me.

Buut we won`t dwell on that. It`s been quite the battle getting into the study mode and in fact, I am actually supposed to be writing my take home final right this minute. But instead I am blogging. =)

I finally tried my favourite bakery, Lagkagehuset's signature dish, the layer cake. (this is actually what the name of the bakery means! 'Layer cake house') Funny story, I was told about this cake by a Danish classmate so I knew it existed. I went into the bakery and asked the girl for a piece of layer cake. She looked at me blankly and said "what?" I repeated myself and then she promptly told me, "sorry we don't have that. I've never heard of it in my life." So I was like really? I thought the name of your store is named after this cake? I suppose they don't get requests for 'layer cake' much because she understood me then and cut me a slice of a fantastic looking cake, complete with many layers. Check it out - it was much tastier in person!

Then, just a day after this tasty adventure, I attended Maureen's mini-birthday party where she baked for us! It was quite the trek to get there but definitely well worth the trip because we got homemade bolles (buns made from scratch!) and 2 different kinds of layer cakes to choose from! Of course I had both but I totally forgot to take pictures of the cake. omg and I just remembered we forgot to sing to her as well! Yikes what bad friends we are! I'm going to have to serenade her the next time I see her. Ha!

Maureen is half Danish, hence the patriotism

Alrighty, it's back to the books for me! (or perhaps to bed....)

My Milanese Mozzarella Stories

Ah Milano, I heart you! And I heart Italy!

One whirlwind weekend away with the best Italian tour guide ever and the best shopping buddy was just what Jen needed. I am now fully recharged and SO pumped about life and coffee and food and Christmas just around the corner!~

To be totally honest, I had no idea how this trip was going to go. My crazy (but awesome!) tour guide was basically some dude I met at a random bar in Stockholm just a few weekends ago. He seemed pretty normal and managed to convince me that I needed to visit Milan during my time here. I then convinced Lis to come with me and we even decided to stay at his place with him instead of booking a hostel like most other normal people would have done. Crazy right? We were slightly concerned that he might hostel our sorry behinds but decided to go with our gut feeling anyway. And voila! This made for the most awesome weekend yet! =P

Nico picked me up from the train station and it's like he knew me already because we went eating immediately after dropping off my luggage. We had something called a piadena which was a flatbread from the Bologne region of Italy. The bread was light and thin and could be filled with a variety of ingredients tailored to your liking. I chose the Pippo which was filled with rucola, stracchino cheese and proscuitto ham....YUMMERS. The cafe was really cute but the picture doesn't really capture it well. It just looks like someone's kitchen but take my word for it. It was cute!

Next up was my first macchiato shot! And I have to say here that Starbucks you are WRONG. All that coffee education you supposedly gave me as a barista-in-training got me laughed at in Italy. Macchiato does NOT mean you pour the espresso shot in the milk instead of the other way around. The correct form of a macchiato is just a shot of espresso with an equivalent amount of milk poured in after it. All coffees in Europe I've found to be of a significantly smaller portion than in North America. What's with all the venti sizing?? That's why people pee so much at home!

Anyway, this drink was delicious and it was my first time drinking a shot, erm sorry. That should be 'sipping' a shot of macchiato right up at the bar. It was actually quite nice. =) Also unlike what they told me at SBucks, an espresso shot does not expire or die within 10 seconds of it having been pulled from the machine unless you mix it with something else. Or maybe that's just the crappy machines SBucks has. At any rate, our espresso was enjoyed at an easygoing pace, first sipping the foam then the actual espresso with the small spoons they gave you. Mmm.

We left the cafe and headed on a short walking tour of central Milan before picking up Lis at the other airport. I saw some very pretty and some very interesting sights along the way. Not to mention the delicious double scoop of gelato! Omg I love Italy!!

No I didn't get to eat all of this - it was just window shopping!

The three rivers that are built for Milan make quite the pretty sight!

Old School washing stations

Maybe the best.....but then again....maybe not...hmmm

Inside of a non-top-ten church....still beautiful tho a bit fuzzy

Interesting ad campaign on the shopping streets consisting of people dressed as breasts and phalluses....

Apparently it was for a clothing company called Malibu?

Yes Yes and YES!!

One of the top-ten churches in Milan - San Lorenzo

Cool grafittied wall

What does this mean?? It's all over Europe!

After we picked up Lis we headed for a snack called an Apertivo - which was like a happy hour in most North American bars, except happier. You buy a drink, any drink, for something like 9 Euros and then you get the drink and an all you can eat buffet of small dishes like fries, pasta, polente, pizza pockets (yes - they are a real thing in Italy!! Not just a McCain creation!!), salad, olives, nachos, etc. It was great! The apertivo lasts from 1700 - 2100 hrs so we sat and loaded up on snacks until time was up. And then (you guessed it!) we headed for dinner!! =P

Nico had forewarned me to prepare myself for the best pizza I've ever had in my life. So I had pretty much been getting pumped since I got off my flight in the early afternoon. Dinner happened at 2300 and it was at a chain well-known for their Napoli cuisine (that's where pizza originated!) called FLB (Fratelli la Bufala). It pains me to say this, but the pizza did not really meet the expectations for the title of 'Best Pizza of Jen's Life.' (If you're reading this Nico I'm sorry!! I can't lie to my readership lols =) But I have to say it may have been my fault - I may have ordered the wrong thing. I literally just picked something off the menu because I wanted to eat it so bad. So after I had asked the waiter what a carciofocci was and he mumbled something incoherent 3 consecutive times after I 'what-ed' him, I gave up and said ok, just give me the pizza.

As things turn out, carciofocci is artichoke and while I love artichokes, it was a bit watery and made the centre of my pizza soggy. This was my fault. I totally should have been smarter and ordered something super classic like a margherita. Sigh, I guess you're right Nico. This DOES mean I have to come back!

Apparently the people that worked at FLB thought Nico & Marcino were gay and Lis and I were lesbian. Wow. I wonder what tipped them off?

We finished off the meal with my second shot of macchiato that day and Nico and Marcino had Jagermeister in champagne glasses as their apres supper 'digestif' drink. (who does that?? Ah yes Italians do!) And thus began one of the most ridiculous nights of my life. I had been told that Italians party like no one else but really, I could not have prepared for such a night of 'balls-to-the-walls' crazy happy madness. We met up with some of Nico and Marcino's friends at a bar and stood outside chatting for awhile. I was wondering when we would be able to go inside because Milan was COLD that weekend. But no, we didn't go inside that bar at all. Nor any other bar for the next 3 hours. The people of Milan like to party OUTdoors. No matter the weather. So we bought beer and stood outside drinking it and freezing our tails off.

"Give me a wuu!!" WUU!!

But it was still so fun! Nico was giving us a crash course in Italian while we were giving him the same in mandarin. Every half hour we would count to ten in Italian while Nico would count to five. Since he could only make it to five we coined the phrase 'Give me a wuu!' (five in mandarin is 'wuu'), we'd slap each other a high-five and everyone would hoot 'Wuuu!' In between all the counting that was going on, I was so hyper from the super-strong Italian espresso that I sang Daft Punk - One More Time the entire night while dancing to it on the streets. I made Lis dance to it also. Good times!!

Finally we made it to a club and danced to some electronica music for an hour or so before they closed and we piled back onto the streets. Those party animals Nico and Marcino didn't want the night to end there so they invited a bunch of (almost) randoms over to Marcino's place to continue the party. This is where some very festive hat-wearing and balloon-volleying happened. All the while, Lis' brother was worried these random Italian dudes his sister was staying with might be crazy. After we emailed him a few photos of the dorky-fun-ness as per below, I think he stopped worrying. =)

At the club celebrating my piece of junk bag!

This was the most hilarious hat I've ever seen someone pay money for
-The hands wave to you when you pull the strings down!

Sombrero!

"One more time, we're gonna celebrate...celebrate and dance so free...."

The macchiato started to wear off and so we headed to bed soon after the above photo was taken. But what an unforgettable night of pure good fun!

The next day was sight-seeing and shopping in the centre of Milan. I kick-started the day off with a smoked swordfish crostoni and a delicious Italian-style hot chocolate. O.M.G. Words cannot begin to describe the levels of deliciousness that my tastebuds were reaching. Basically, I drank a white-milk chocolate bar with a spoon. And Lis' had meringue in it!! Ohhhhhh. I am reliving it right now and drooling a little.

Yes there was bread under there!

The cool-looking cafe with our hot chocolates

Apparently it was tough for Nico to take this photo for us since he is lactose-intolerant but still drooling...

Next up was some Duomo and La Scala opera house action and some shopping along the infamous streets of The Golden Triangle. This is where we bought our boots!! woot woot!!

Duomo - Biggest gothic cathedral in Europe
It was absolutely breathtaking from the inside but no photos were allowed!

The galleria next door

A lucky bull where you had to spin around 3x on your heel

Leo Da Vinci Statue across from La Scala

Ricotta cheese and rucola ravioli - HEAVEN on earth. SO YUM.

Typical Milanese cuisine of fried veal rib with brie, artichokes and roasted walnuts - DELISH

The most expensive tiramisu and cappucini in Milano - This cost 22 Euros!

The hunt for the tiramisu was long - we walked probably close to 5km looking for this cake!

Monday morning we got up early in the hopes of seeing Leo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper except it was closed. Oops. =( So instead, we went shopping really hard to find a replacement for my piece of junk bag and then had lunch with Nico to say good bye and thank him for being so very awesome. Take a look at lunch! (This is turning into a food blog....)

Bruschetta

I...

ADORE...

PASTA.

You rock Nico! Keep being crazy!

And of course, I bid farewell to a trusted friend - the piece of junk bag. It had its humble origins on the streets of Mong Kok in Hong Kong as a 15 dollar Canadian faux leather bag and I took it with me around the world. From Calgary to Miami to Seoul to New Delhi to Copenhagen to Moscow and finally its resting place in Milano. Farewell friend! Thanks for everything!