London, Paris

More Marquette Madness... James, my co-RA from McCormick took my double dog dare bet and is flying to Copenhagen on March 11-16. We are spending two days in each of Copenhagen, London, and Paris... which means we don't have much time to sleep! In true Allen adventure style, nothing is out of bounds, and if something isn't too much out of the way (or even if it is), you can bet your bippy we're going to swing by and see everything! Intended itinerary to follow...

Iraq soldiers coming home

The prime minister put forth a withdrawal plan today that will bring Danish troops home from Iraq

All Danish soldiers in Iraq will be home in August, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced at a press meeting today.

At a press conference this afternoon, Rasmussen said the Danish withdrawal was co-ordinated to co-incide with a British drawdown announced earlier today. The Danish battalion in Basra in southern Iraq falls under British command.

In addition, no new rotations of troops will me made, as the last unit was just recently deployed.

-CPHPOST.DK

Ask The Readers: What does the sun look like?

So here we are in another week of darkness, and I would like to ask you the readers: What does the sun look like? Post descriptions (full of imagery) in the comments.

Laundry Season: that time of the month

It comes around every month or so, and boy do we hate it... laundry season. That one time a month where your day is consumed with moving loads from one machine to the next, taking out some things as not to shrink them, hang some things to air dry... the list goes on and on. When I showed up to the laundry machine in our building to feed the beast that is the washing machine... well lets just say Denmark is way ahead in the field of washing machine technology. First of all, never worry again about planning your day around doing laundry at 2:00AM on a Friday like in the crowded dorm laundry rooms back in the US. Here in HK, a few days before that time of the month comes, just go to the machine you want reserve, insert your ID card, and a touchscreen guided system shows you the times available to reserve your machines. It is so simple, yet revolutionary. Secondly, the machine dispenses its own detergent, fabric softener, and bounce sheets... automatically, right into the machine, in just the right amount for your selected load. No more lugging that 38 gallon value sized detergent bottle up and down the hall! But the burning question here is does all this sweet technology make doing laundry any less terrible? My answer: absolutely not... To those of you that leave this task up to a loved one, show them you care by buying them a car or something... god knows they deserve it.

A word about volume...

If I'm allowed to stereotype (and this is my blog, so I can), I would have to say that of all the exchange and regular students here, Spaniards are by far the loudest people in the world. Fernando (my neighbor), is having some friends over for the week, and when you get five or six of them in a room together... it is crazy. By contrast, I have never seen a Swede, Dane, or Norwegian student with their doors open screaming at each other. For example, my Danish neighbor prefers to use the kitchen when nobody else is in there, whereas the Spaniards and Frenchmen all flock to the kitchen at the same time to cook and what seems like fight with each other. It truly is a sight to be seen/heard when they all get in the kitchen together and have all 12 burners going and pasta everywhere. Whilst I do enjoy the comedic scene, I really can identify with my Scandinavian brethren when it comes to this style of social situations. It isn't that we are cold people, we just keep to ourselves more than Spaniards stumbling into your room 3:00AM with a "new" soccer cheer (sorry guys, I've heard that one from you a million times).

Voy a ir a Madrid!

It's official... March 2 at 20:55 I depart for Madrid, Spain for a weekend with Madrileños Molly and Mallory. I will be staying at backpacker stop Cat's Hostel, and visiting all of Madrid's finest. Do they really piss in the streets and take naps every afternoon? We'll see...

Weekend Update...

Internet usage be damned, I'm back! Each week we are alloted 8GB of traffic on the internet, and apparently I went over that allowance shortly after my previous post. Streaming all those recorded Daily Shows and Colbert Reports back from the states must chew up a bunch of bandwidth... I'll be sure to be a little more conservative in that respect.

This weekend we stuck around town, and headed over to UK (the other dorm on campus). There certainly are more Danes and Swedes over in those parts, as here at HK, we consist of almost entirely international students. This weekend also marked the Chinese New Year, and Chinatown HK had enough sake and moon cakes to go around! The year of the pig promises to be a good one, I have been assured by Hai Chuan Li, AKA Joe (funny thing about Chinese people... they love to have English names to be called by, and Joe is no exception)

Well... school starts tomorrow 8:00, you know what that means! Until next time...

Calling all sheep...

Kulning: "Kulning is an archaic style of singing/cattle call, traditionally employed outdoors in the grazing pastures of Scandinavia from the Middle Ages to this day. It consists of shepherdess's tunes, calls and tones of enticement, mainly used to keep contact with, and to call the cattle, but also to communicate with other people over long distances". Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Setteling in...

So you have probably noticed that things have slowed down a bit... this is by no means an indicator of the level of fun/learning going on, just a little laziness on my part.
I just spoke to my adviser back at Marquette and have found out that I don't have to take two of the courses listed on my schedule, so I'm pretty excited about that. The course on Law has been very interesting, because a)I've never had a Law course before and b)it is interesting to learn about law outside of the sue-happy-states-of-america. The professor often makes little jokes about American law, and we're the only two that laugh. I also had to settle a class wide debate on the meaning of the word "indications," which I'm sure won't be the last time this happens. On the social front, we attended a high school party last night at "What about Bob's," and I'd say the future of Denmark is in good hands. I was wondering why every time I walked past the building labeled "gymnasium," there were bells ringing and beautiful girls everywhere with backpacks, but I learned that "gymnasium" means High School in Danish. Another Danish word I have learned is "Moin", which is in fact not Danish at all, but German. Since we are so close to the German border, people say "moin" when they meet, and "moin moin" when they part. These two words, plus "Skoal" and "Tak" will be a good base for my Danish language course which starts in a few weeks!

Sports Excitement

So you have the SuperBowl... big deal, we have the Bunny Jumping Danish Championship! See the attached video to settle once and for all if Sir Wiggles McFurry can comeback again!

Århus

What better to do for a weekend than go on a college road trip (dare I say EuroTrip). We all packed into Fabian's Peugot and hit the road for Århus. The pictures look terrible, as I was taking in all the beauty instead of the camera, but the drive was truly amazing. Going 200km/h on a misty day through the Danish countryside is something that can't be described. Beautiful is a start... The city contains 300,000 Danes, making it the second most populous city after Copenhagen. If I haven't said it enough times, Danes are a beautiful people! There is a direct correlation with the distance north you are from Sonderborg (i), and the attractiveness of the women, from i+sweden, where i=incredibly beautiful. (see.. I am paying attention in school!) We did the usual sightseeing in the city, and ate Kebab before the sun went down. From there, we went to a local pub to watch the Real Madrid match. It just so happens that the pub we were in was owned by Danish National Football star Stig Tofting. He was a really cool guy, and we had a round on the house when we said we were big fans of the Danish National Team (which in theory we are). No road trip would be complete with a visit to the local Discotek to soak up the atmosphere among other things. We concluded the evening sleeping in the car, as should with any road trip.

We're on a beer run...

What do you do when the taxes on alcohol make buying it prohibitive... drive to Germany of course! Sonderborg is 15 minutes away from the German border, so a road trip to the border is a common occurrence for Danes. So common as a matter of fact, that there are stores run by Danes in Germany for just this purpose. Kinda like sex shops and fireworks at the Illinois border... and Danish residents get a discount by showing their residence permit. All prices are listed in Danish kroner and you pay with Danish kroner. Each person in the car can import 50 liters of beer, so we all piled in Fabians Peugeot and went to Flensborg, Germany.

Does anyone know CPR?

No not that kind of CPR, det attesteres hermed, er titdelt folgende personnummer i det centrale personregister:

All citizens in Denmark are registered in the National Civil Register and have a CPR number (civil registry number)

When you register at the national registration office, you get a 10 digit CPR number. The first 6 digits are your date of birth (day, month, year) and the last 4 are the numbers that uniquely identify all people living in Denmark. The last digit identifies your gender – women have an even number, men an uneven.

I also chose my doctor at the time I applied for my civil registry number. My doctor while living here in the nationalized health care nation of Denmark is Johana Linsen. All doctor visits, surgeries, and perscriptions are covered by the government. Dental work is not, and is very expensive.

I'd tell you my CPR number, but then I'd have to kill you...

I'm from Holland. Isn't that vierd?

Today was the first Tuesday of classes, with a four hour block of Danish Law in the afternoon. The Prof is a Danish lawyer with a specialty in foreign corporate disputes, which are very interesting considering many countries in the EU have very different policies regarding trademarks and such. The professor singled me out a few times as the only native English speaker to help describe law terms in a better way, which was kinda vierd. Speaking of vierd, I met a chap from Holland while playing pool this afternoon, and boy did Mike Meyers nail the stereotype in "Austin Powers: Goldmember." Not only did he say "vierd," but he laughed and acted exactly like in the movie. It'll be nice to ask him questions about Amsterdam before I go for a weekend excursion to the land of Windmills.

International Everything

The good news is that 8:00 classes don't exist in Denmark. The bad news is that they have 8:15 classes. I start every week with Monday, 8:15 International Finance. The professor spent the first 30 minutes of class explaining why he uses an American text book and how he prefers the American style of writing textbooks. "American texts are much less booooring" (insert thick Danish.) I finish Mondays with a course entitled "Economics of International Integration," which is basically an European Union History/Law course. This course is going to be awesome, because in the US, we are taught absoutly nothing about the EU, so I am looking forward to learning more about trade and policy in this huge organization. Today's Lesson:

Year	History of European Union membership	No.
1957	Belgium France West Germany Italy Luxembourg Netherlands	6
1973	Denmark Ireland United Kingdom	9
1981	Greece	10
1986	Portugal Spain	12
1995	Austria Finland Sweden	15
2004	Cyprus Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Malta Poland Slovakia Slovenia	25
2007	Bulgaria Romania	27