Little Green River

I started awake in my bus seat, just in time to see a grave covered in rocks with a rune-enscribed headstone pass by on the side of the highway. Wait what?

I’m sleep-deprived as heck (and, as I would find out later, harboring some pretty nasty throat germs), yet dozing on the bus is out of the question. How can you close your eyes when you’re traveling through a brand new place? Blink, and you miss things.

We drive through miles and miles of pine stands–and pine falls. At first I was surprised: clear-cutting is allowed in Sweden? But then our tour leader informed us that a Category 1 hurricane hit this part of Sweden a few years ago and toppled millions of trees. The power was out for a week and a few tree farmers committed suicide. Even today they haven’t completely cleaned up the mess. In some places you see fields of young birch trees with one or two battered-looking pines towering over them. Other places, though, the ground is greenless and grey with dead branches and stumps.

We turn into the driveway and I can already tell that Bergdala is a beautiful place. The red wooden hostel is clean and charming, full of glassware from the hyttsill next door. We get some time to ourselves before dinner, so I wander around the grounds.

First stop? The hyttsill dumpster. No, really. If I learned anything from Evasion, it’s that dumpsters can hold some of the most surprising treasures. And while I wouldn’t exactly recommend diving into glassblowery refuse (broken dishes and glass dust are bad, kids), this dumpster failed to disappoint. I found a black-striped paperweight, imperfectly finished but otherwise fine. Free souvenir!

As a Minnesotan of Swedish extraction it was difficult for me to process the quirks of the Swedish society as such. Our tour leader mentioned the red barns and distinctive roof shapes that characterised the Swedish farms we passed. I would have never noticed those as a Swedish characteristics if she hadn’t pointed it out. That’s what a lot of Minnesota barns and rural homes look like, too!

The traditional Swedish food at the hyttsill was also a less-than-unique experience for me. Bread, flatbread, meat, herring, and no fruits or veggies except for lingonberry jam? Sounds like our usual holiday meals. No lutefisk, meatballs, or lefse? Pffft. Amateurs.

While on our study tour, we were told to think about the cultural similarities and differences between Swedes and Danes. Over the course of the tour, however, I really didn’t meet any Swedes other than our tour guides and speakers. My experience with meeting Danes in any social capacity was at this point pretty minimal, too. For me, then, the greatest difference between Sweden and Denmark (and Sweden and Minnesota) was the terrain itself.

Walking in the pine forest behind the hyttsill is like walking on a five-meter-thick pile of old mulch. Which, well, it is. The ground has a definite give to it, a damp crunch. On top of it is moss, some scrub grass in the open areas, and striking red and brown mushrooms. And the trees, of course. Every few meters, you see a huge, lichen-covered granite boulder emerge out of the land like it owns the place. Maybe it does.

Unlike flat, smooth, grass-covered Denmark, Swedish terrain is wilder, with bumps and curves like a bedspread with someone underneath the covers. It’s a land where you could really believe that Ymir‘s down there.

I sit at the hyttsill table with a emptied plate of ostkake or “Swedish cheesecake” (think bland diner scrambled eggs, only creamier and with lingonberries on top), sipping away the last dregs of the delicious apple “welcome beverage.” The old man up front is strumming his guitar and yabbering away in Swedish, far too quickly for our tour guide to translate. Earlier, a few of us, myself included, got to try blowing glass with variable success. The heat from the glassblowing fire makes the whole room warm and cozy. I’m talking with the other people at my table, all of whom I just met that day.

And so we attempt to sing Swedish drinking songs and laugh at the table over with their pile of emptied snaps glasses and maybe it’s the one shot of my own but I’m feeling warm and a little drowsy and far too pleased with the evening and with my brand new friends to go to bed. I’m not in Denmark anymore, but maybe this is what it means to feel hyggeligt?

The previous stop in Malmö was interesting, but brief. Our subsequent stops in Karlskrona and Kristianstad were a bit of a letdown. My memory of Sweden is of the roads to and from Bergdala, the mossy forests and ravaged patches where the giants sleep.

Tuesday, 8 AM:

My alarm goes off and by the view out my window it could be 2 AM or 5 AM. Feels like it, too. But no, it’s six and time to get my ass out of bed. I bundle up against the cold of the room, even though I know it’s going to be 21 degrees (70 degrees F) in a few hours and I’ll just have to haul my sweatshirt around.

It’s still dark an hour later, though at least then I have a couple of the first rosy fingers of dawn to keep me company as I stand out at the bus stop. By the time the sun finally rises, I’m on the train and on my way.

Just past the equinox, and this is what things look like? I’m so not looking forward to December. Then sunrise is at 9; sunset is at 4. While I’m at home I’ll never see the sun. But right now it’s sunny and gorgeous–and it’s been rainless for more than a week. I would never expect that late September would be t-shirt weather in *Minnesota*, let alone Denmark.

Wednesday, 8 AM:

Okay, now it’s pitch black dark and pouring rain. Lovely.

I’m wearing three layers and I’ve got gloves and an umbrella, but it’s still not enough to keep me from shivering. I always underestimate these things. I should’ve brought a scarf. I should’ve gone with the winter coat instead of a sweatshirt. I should own a decent hat.

It is at these times that I am so aware of how un-hyggeligt my bedroom is, from the barren walls to the pathetically weak (but environmentally-friendly!) lights to the bathroom floor that never dries. But I don’t feel financially capable of changing it, even via Ikea. What would I do with a standing lamp and rug and whatever else at the end of the semester, anyway? No way those’re fitting in my luggage.

This is the kind of weather that makes you want to curl up into a little ball and die. Or become an existential philosopher. Pass the tea.

OMG I AM NEVER SPENDING MONEY AGAIN

Okay, so that’s a lie. But still. Today was the first time I spent more than $100 in one afternoon. Not counting textbooks. Or plane tickets.

Money is a strange thing. Sometimes (ie when I buy spaghetti for around $1/kilo, or go to Sweden and take advantage of their non-insane exchange rate) I feel like the Grand Duchess of Having Money. Other times (ie today) I feel like I ought to be sleeping in a cardboard box.

I decided to go to the mall today to get a few things that I needed. Also so that I’d get out of the house on such a gorgeous, cloudless day. First I had an adventure where I got off the wrong stop, discovered a walking street I’d never seen before, acquired some clementines for cheap, and found a plaza with an AMAZING view of Frederiksborg Castle across the lake (and a statue of some fat dude, apparently THE Frederik). I wish I hadn’t left my camera at home.

Eventually I made it to the mall. I hadn’t gotten to really adventure around the place much my last time visiting, so I took my time. I walked by this videogame store with a huge World of Warcraft poster in Danish in the window–and did a double-take:

“I’m nerdy in the extreme
And whiter than sour cream
I was in AV Club and Glee Club and even the Chess Team
Only question I
Ever thought was hard
Was do I like Kirk
Or do I like Picard…”

Yes. Two days before AOL was supposed to debut the music video (cancelled after the video got leaked to Teh Interwebs a week early), four days before the video’s supposed to enter friggin’ *VH1* circulation, Weird Al’s brand new, completely amazing hit (seriously, if you haven’t seen the video yet, *do it*) “White and Nerdy” was playing over the loudspeakers in a Hillerød mall.

Globalization is AMAZING.

From there I meandered into a shoe store. You see, I am the most organized packer on Earth. After learning that we would need a nice outfit for holiday dinners and the like, I got this kickass outfit involving a red poncho and black skirt from a thrift store. I brought the outfit, I brought several pairs of pantyhose, I even remembered to pack this pair of dark red earrings that matched well. The only thing I forgot: Formal shoes.

So I was staring at the pairs upon pairs of black leather women’s heels on the wall. A few brands had sizes in both the European and American scales, but most were just European. Some didn’t have sizes marked at all (so far as I could tell, anyway). I tried one shoe, a nice closed-toe with a less-than-ridiculous heel, the largest of its model. Still too small. And when I looked on the back, I discovered that these things were 700 DKK (around $140). And I’m pretty sure that’s among the lowest prices they had.

I fled out of that place and into a kitchen store. While I searched for something recognizable as a can opener, a familiar inane “Boing boing. Woop! Uh-huh” rang out. Yup. It was “Boing” by Nik og Jay, everyone’s favorite Danish wigga rappers. I’d heard of the track before after the (not-Danish) blog roundup Boing Boing wrote about it, amused by the (unintentional) inclusion of their name in the song. Funny coincidence.

I then went shopping for pants that don’t feel like they’re continuously falling off at H&M. Yeah, I cheated and went to the place with American sizes. And is also reliably not-insanely-priced. Found a pair of corduroy-ish pants for about $40–kinda pricey if I were shopping back in the states, but probably the best I’ll be able to do here. I saw a zip-up sweatshirt with ridiculous cuffs on the clearance rack, so I got that too.

I think the pants are vaguely brown and the sweatshirt is vaguely black, but they seem to change color all the time depending on what other colors are nearby. Apparently dull, indistinct browns are in this season. I apologize about the MySpace-iness of the pictures; I don’t have anything in my room of a proper height to rest the camera on.

My final stop was to Qvickly. I’d never been inside before, but I’d heard it described as a grocery store with lots of other stuff. Well, technically yes…

Qvickly is like the Danish version of Wal-Mart. It’s disorientatingly huge and organized in a confusing way, ensuring that you go buy as many potential impulse purchases as possible before you get to what you want (note the *two* separate liquor aisles). There’s groceries, to be sure, but not as many as the grocery store down the street from the højskole. (Extensive organic selection, though.) But all the other random crap you might want–soap, clothing, electronics, bicycles, tea candles, camping gear, and LOTS of candy–it’s all there. And unlike Wal-Mart, where everything’s disgustingly cheap, it’s all *overpriced*!

Something about Qvickly just terrifies me. I staggered out with AAA batteries, organic orange juice (they didn’t *have* the non-organic kind!), rolls, and a bar of chocolate, the one impulse item I wasn’t able to resist. They had tupperware, one of the items I was looking for. But it wasn’t the kind I was visualizing getting, it was expensive, and by that point the store had just worn me out. I got a Danish ice from a vendor to cheer myself up, then left for the bus stop.

All in all, my purchases came to 510.25 DKK, or approx. $102. That’s my budget for an entire *week’s* worth of food/expenses. And while all the stuff I got was more or less justifiable… Oi vey. Hopefully the clementines will last a while…

The accordion man was in the Norreport stairwell again. I like the sound of an accordion as much as the next person. But, so far as I’ve listened, he doesn’t play anything recognizable as a song or a melody. Just putters around the keys in front of the rush of morning commuters with that crazy grin on his face. I wonder if he might be drunk?

Crossing Norregade I was nearly run down by several well-dressed blonde women on bicycles. It was partially my fault–I should’ve been paying more attention. But really, what can one say about a city where the bicyclists are more aggressive than the cars or buses?

There is a pile of severed mannequin arms in the square. The front door at DIS smells like piss. Oh, Copenhagen. How I’ve missed you during my convalescence.