200710

My friends in the neighborhood got pets. One friend got a dog and the other got 2 little animals, similar to hamster.
I got a plant for my birthday. And it's really cool one!


During the summer I broke my pinhole glasses. Actually, at the beginning I broke only one side which goes around the left ear. While in Denmark I demolished the frame of the glasses completely. What is left are only the each glass so I used some metal wire to connect them and a small knot to fix them around the head. Last week metal wire got broke which made me frustrated. It was one of those days with a lot of small iritating things. Now I improved it, making it much more resistant :)

So it's kind of a good thing that I destroyed them completely (altough I felt frustrated when it happened on film festival), now they are much more convient to carry and much more resistend. Yeah!

On few occasions I tested basic laughter yoga technique. It seems to work but no one wanted to join the club since people usually say they have enough of laughing. At least they laughed during the test which gives me motivation :)

[danskhed07] project ends

Our accommodation at the end of the project was in Christiania. City in a city. It's very interesting and beautiful place. It gives you a special sense of freedom in this world. Check out wikipedia for more details.

We were all together again. The whole team, north & south united, sleeping in one room:

I chose to sleep on the table. The floor wasn't so clean and I like to be different, as well. Some people were afraid for me not to fall down. I was wondering will they fall down out of their sleeping bags as well :)

We had to walk half an hour to the showers in the morning. And few minutes to the toilet...

When we arrived, lady who provided us with the accommodation gave us a brief introduction to this society. You're not supposed to run here since it's a signal that police has entered the area. Well, you an easily buy hashish/marijuana there and they are pretty famous for that. Any other drug is very unwelcome here! Also, when you start living here and get your place, you live there until you die (or do something extremely stupid). Then somebody from the long list of people who want to live there gets a chance to move in. You should start with the work here in the community to increase your chance of being picked up. And there are lots of jobs, like producing ecological food.
All the decision are being made in consensus by the whole community. Sometimes democratic voting is required.

In the evening we visited nice parties and met a lot of friendly people. There are few bars there and everybody is happy, dancing and welcoming you. Such a warm atmosphere. We mostly visited a bar where you can listen to rock, Bob Marley,... They are some afterparties as well, we visited one in the open. It is good to mention that Christiania is surrounded by the channels, so it's quite interesting to visit the beach as well and enjoy peace, alone or with your friends.

One evening we were invited for a dinner. Our hosts were living together in a collective, but not many houses, only one big house. Dinner was superb again. We had a nice fire there in the evening and chat. Hosts were actually our fans and they invited to so they can meet us. They followed our journey through media, mainly by newspapers "Politiken".

We returned to our place in Christiana. In the metro I made a short film:

MS organised trade fair festival while we were in Kobenhavn and we visited it:

There was some good music. And beer. And friends. And fun. And my friend from Kobenhavn who read about me in the news so she contacted me and we met :)

While walking around to the festival, to the bar-b-que, we sometimes see interesting stuff like:

The last one was in front of the stage on a concert somewhere in the city, near a channel.

Gay parade was this days:


During the day we walked around and explored. Like Botanical garden:


We had a farewell party. It was in a nice apartment. Music system had a protection. If you would put the music too loud for few seconds, it would shut down. You can see it on the video. "Can't touch this" was played 5 (or more) times, because it was always too loud.

We played some games, like a bottle game:


And again we had a dinner at an apartment with some "Servas" people who wanted to meet us.

The projected ended. Although I never actually felt it. And I was true. Even few days later we were again called to meet some media. I accept it if they provide us with lunch :)
People went home or to a hostel. Except for few of us. More about it in the next post...

Here are some pictures of this great team:

[danskhed07] finals

Our final destination was Kobenhavn and meeting point was "Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke" office. Among the other stuff, you'll see some interesting skeletons there:

Next day we had a presentation of our work at Christiansborg Palace (house of the Parliament).

Later Ramya&me had an interview and appeared on TV:
http://www.dr.dk/NETTV/Update/2007/08/24/204259.htm#
Just for the camera, we hitchhiked on the street. I managed to stop some lady on the bike so she gave a ride to Ramya :)

More on Denmark

I give you here some observations which I haven't mentioned before. It's my way of looking at it, yours could be different. And mine if I would spent more time there...

• snails
  Naked snails are very unpopular in Denmark. They eat a lot and Denmark is just full of them. Parliament discussed this topic once and they announced they every Dane should kill a naked snail, if he/she spots one. There was a discussion in the news what is the best way to do it. One politician suggested cutting it in half with scissors. So journalists came to him with "the tool" and the naked snail...he wasn't able to do it, of course :)
• politicians... have their phone numbers & e-mails made public. You can easily contact them
• taxes... very high, could be 40% - 50%.
  
• high standard...well, check out the taxes. At the moment, country is ruled by social-democrats. You get a lot of stuff for free. Some cool museums, highways aren't being payed, care of elderly people, kindergarten are cheep. High-technology is everywhere. Lots of cool patents around you. Middle-class earns a lot comparing to rest of the world.
  
• coins... some coins have a hole in the middle. Looking funny&cool
• electrical plug... there is a switch (above the plug) you need to turn on to get the electricity. It saves energy & it's practical as well
• helpful... on the street you easily approach to ask for some info or help. Everybody speaks English. But it's harder (requires more time and effort) to make friends with them, when they give you the info you asked, they usually like to run away
• open&homogeneous... Homosexual marriages exist for a "long time" in Denmark. They accept many things and are open. On the other hand, they like homogeneous society. On the street it's hard to tell middle-class from rich. When I was in school I asked do they have state competition in math. They said no, they don't want to have the best, they like everybody to good.
• private schools... many can afford it. Some parents send their children there because they want them to be in more Danish environment since percentage of immigrants in the public schools are increasing. But by sending them to private schools, some public schools become 100% immigrant. In private schools kids learn to live by themselves, far from parents, but need to obey certain rules (like dress-code)
• Raadhus (city-hall) @Aarhus... ground where it was build was once a cemetery
• driving without hands... while hitchhiking and getting a ride, we talked to people a lot. When drivers talked to us, they liked to use hands in communication so sometimes they didn't have hands on the wheels. But if you talk to them in the park, on the street...they don't use their body-language that much :) I suppose they get excited by driving the car
• saying 'yes'... in Danish: 'Ja'...some of them inhale air while saying it. At the beginning it was weird to see it. Usually when somebody inhales loudly like that it's because they are scared, but I got used to it
• religion...they don't go to church that much, but most of them are members of the church. You become a member when you turn 18. Every member pays 1% tax
• 13... it's something old and not common any more, but interesting. Some old Danes are afraid of number 13. If they get guests in their house and there are 13 of them, they put a doll and pretend it's a human just to have 14 people on the table, not 13 :)

The project is actually over. But I still get fun&experience... more about Kobenhavn in the next posts....