The New Animal Collective

The title is a reference to a tidbit some of my good friends might know about me. That is, I feel nauseous if I listen to Animal Collective in the morning after a late night.

This morning I woke up and made myself the trifecta: eggs, bacon and chocolate pancakes (cereal too, but that's a given). And then I covered it with the sauce trifecta: ketchup, maple syrup and pommes frittes sauce. And I ate it and then wikipedia-ed "placenta." Apparently, this shows symptoms similar to the Animal Collective Effect, maybe even more exaggerated.

My ambitions for this Saturday:

• Take the bus down downtown
• Buy my first street hot dog
• Stay classy, San Diego
  

I'm curious, if I became that guy who repeatedly forced Anchorman quotes (and usually got them wrong) what would happen to all the relationships here I've worked so hard to keep up and add depth to?

I guess I'd find out who here is really a friend, wouldn't I?

Last night I went to Shabbat services with Joel, Joel's girlfriend Gil (very nonreligious, from Israel) and Lucy (not even a Jew, from San Fran). First mistake both Joel and I made was blowing our load on the appetizers. I'm going back in my head to try to remember if I used the phrase "blowing [my] load" in this blog yet and the freudian implications a potential reader might make.

Anti-climactic moment of the night: When I waited past the seven songs that were queued on the jukebox before my choice finally came up. Emily even waited up for me while everyone else was impatient. And then finally, the jukebox inaudibly dripped out the normally-bombastic-but-now-unenthusiastic first fifteen seconds of Bowie's "China Girl." I was so embarrassed for both myself and the jukebox I had to leave.

A Stilted, Pretending Day

You know if the title makes reference to The National, it couldn't have been a good day. Think about it. Try to find one lyric out of a song by The National that would make for an upbeat blog entry title. Impossible. I know because I just tried.

Up to this morning, I was feeling optimistic and ecstatic about a potential job this summer. Specifically being a baker in a pancake house in Holland. Specifically Amsterdam. Unfortunately, apparently one of their employees wants to move to the kitchen, and just like that, my hopes and dreams of having this opportunity were taken from me.

Nota Bene: If you have ANY summer opportunities or ideas, contact me. I have a resume, and maybe even a CV, if you play your cards right.

Also, my jar of honey fell from my shelf into my sink and shattered my second to last bowl. The third to last was shattered a week ago. I can't continue this habit because you can't eat cereal off of a plate. You can however eat cereal out of a glass. You can't however eat cereal out a glass AND maintain all of your dignity AND enjoy cereal in a free-flowing spoony kind of way, if you know what I mean.

Also, I forgot to bring my ipod and headphones to the laundromat cafe, where I am currently in. Yes, part cafe. The other part is for laundry.

Also, a crick, in my neck.

Well, this entry sufficed in showing how dour I feel. Usually I would have stuck another adjective in there after dour (such as "dour and gloomy" or "dour and down and out") but dour is too accurate. I'm looking at Tiffany right now, across the table, and thinking about how much she's going to appreciate this paragraph.

To make this entry less of a downer. I'm throwing in a sneak peak (the entirety) of my Letter From Abroad, which will (most likely) be in this week's Bi-Co. I think it's funny to read. Enjoy:

Hey Fool, It’s Not Copenhagen, Denmark.

It’s København, Danmark.

By Andrew Ian Lipstein

The first thing I learned about Denmark that I didn’t know: it’s Danmark, actually. Also, it’s København, and not Copenhagen. However, that is the only new thing I have learned since arriving. Everything else I knew or suspected would be true.

Upon arriving in København (pronounced Queue-Ben-How-N), I stepped off the plane and noticed the airport was in fact in an Ikea, which is unexpected because Ikea is Swedish. The airport was somewhere between the Countertop Department and Sinks & Faucets.

I was greeted by Rasmus, my assigned Dane. All travelers to Danmark have an assigned Dane who follows them on a Segway gargling incomprehensible Danish phrases and occasionally singing a prayer for either the queen or Hans Christian Andersen. This service is provided by the Danish government, which might help to explain their income tax, falling somewhere in between 103 and 107 percent. If you work for an hour and make 100 Danish Kroner (the exchange rate is usually around 1,000 American dollars to one crumpled up piece of Danish currency, but also depends on how sheepish you appear at the Currency Exchange), you must pay 103 to 107 Kroner back to the government. Just from an outsider’s perspective, it seems their system is quite broken. But hey, Universal Healthcare, right?

All Danish men are 6’5’’ (children are somewhere in between infant height and 6’5’’) and all Danish women are 6’2’’. Once, there was a Danish man who was 6’4’’ (or 6’6’’, I forget), but the government took him away for research. Every Dane is blonde and they all get a rosy glow when they smile or think about cold things.

In upholding tradition, all Danes wear wooden shoes. Combined with the cobblestone streets, the Danes are introduced to pain and broken phalanges at a very early age. I’ve caught many of them gawking at my Sketchers, wishing they could go a day without filling their clogs with pure Danish blood.

But while I have it easy walking, I have traveler’s stomach. This is when coddled and privileged Americans travel to less fortunate countries and experience a lesser quality of food. Danes are brought up to solely eat pastries and drink Carlsberg. They derive all nutrition from icing and carbonation; it’s how they are built. I am not quite used to this and I’m pretty sure I have scurvy and maybe dysentery. I’m seeing my free (!) doctor about this tomorrow. All I have to do is blow my “boo-boo” whistle. Then Rasmus Segways me to the nearest hospital (in Berlin). Sometimes I give Rasmus a slap on the back when he’s not going fast enough, but he understands. We have that sort of relationship. Actually right now he’s whipping me up some fresh pastries and Carlsberg. It hurts when I chew because all of the pastry sugar has caused my teeth to decay irreparably, but being abroad is about stepping out of your comfort level, right? Right? Mom, if you are reading this, please send toothpaste. And some sort of vegetable. Or anything green.

Before coming to København, the Study Abroad Office introduced something called The W-Theory to all students planning to study abroad. This empirically-backed and irrefutable theory states that when arriving, you will feel euphoria something similar to crack cocaine. Soon after going through customs, your mood will plummet into a feeling of loneliness and deep depression, similar to, well, I guess the after-effects of crack cocaine. But soon after, you will once again reach that high that you’d sell a sibling for. But, wait, it’s not over. You will become manically depressed, doing anything to feel love or at least some sort of human connection. And once you do, you will skyrocket up to a new feeling of adrenaline pumping through your veins, reminding you of that craving to feel what you felt when you arrived. And so on.

Well, let me tell you: it’s all true. I just got back from dinner with some friends and I am riding an incredible high of cultural integration. I’m just so afraid of what happens when I hit the wall again…

Anyway. København is breathtaking. Go abroad. Lose some teeth. Gain some scurvy. Meet your own Rasmus. After all, it’s about the experience, right?

The Good and the Bad

First, how fame does, and does not, change who we are:
2008
vs.
2005

I put the 2008 picture first because your supposed to intuit what they looked like three years prior. You would expect the moustached man, Franz Nicolay, to look a lot less original in the beginning picture. He blew his originality load way too early. Sorry Franz. Maybe that explains his dissatisfied look in the 2008 picture. Nope, wrong again. He has the same face in the first picture. And check out blondie, wearing a checkered red shirt in both pictures. Not only does he look disgusted by the mere fact he might be considered attractive, but the man obviously has doesn't-know-what-to-do-with-the-hands syndrome. And apparently its contagious.

The Good and The Bad of Saturday's Party at My Kollegium (and the Ugly of This Morning)
By Andrew Ian Lipstein; Translated By Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

The Good

1. The party was hosted by the Keops Party Planning Committee. This is a good for some reason. I guess because such an organization exists. I see them like the Dunder Mifflin Party Planning Committee, except with more molotov cocktails.
2. The party served 5 Kroner beers.
3. The party was 5 meters from my room.
4. The DJ's costume, which was unmistakably Dr. Gonzo from Fear and Loathing, and I've never even seen the movie.
5. The girl with the blue hair wig and an octopus strapped to her back.
6. The part of the party where the speakers failed and we were all brought down to the basement to take turns beating a hanging barrel full of candy. Only god knows how much I love communal team-building exercises about destruction. And candy. It's not only god who knows how much I love candy. Oh, no, it's not.
   
7. Being responsible AND having a good time.
8. Sunday morning hazelnut chocolate pancakes.
   

The Bad

1. The DJ's decision to consistently end songs before they were over. This included a string of Hang Me Up To Dry by the Cold War Kids (ended abruptly) followed by Thriller by Michael Jackson (ended abruptly) followed by HANG ME UP TO DRY BY THE COLD WAR KIDS, AGAIN (I don't remember if it was ended abruptly, for the sake of the story, ENDED ABRUPTLY.)
   
2. The DJ's openly negative reaction when I requested to check out his music and then put on Material Girl, by Madonna. And yes, he ended it before its time.
   
3. The broken beer bottles outside of my room the following morning.
4. The creepy clowns who showed up at the end of the party. Roger says at one point he walked outside and they were all standing there, looking at each other, not speaking.

The Ugly

1. The unannounced one-day bus strike.

Changing of the Tides

This entry marks a change of structure of my blog. Instead of writing longish event-oriented entries, I hope to make them more informative and/or short and to the point. I've been here for more than a month, and no longer want to detail my happenings; this will hopefully spur a more creative outlet instead of a fact-based ball-and-chain. Something of a swan song of my former style:

Last night was a typical Copenhagen night. Bus, and bar, and bar, and nice to meet you oh where do you live oh really do you know my friend what's his name oh cool oh what's your program oh do you like it me neither, bar, bus, run home from Norrebro station. This routine should change.
Today, Roger and I went to a neighborhood called Osterbro (maps description: "This is where many families with children choose to move if they can afford the rent") and had a good walk around. I almost bought a 20 Kr. fake moustache for halloween. Halloween? Andrew, its not October! You fool! You silly fool! There are two halloweens in Denmark, jerk. You are the fool:

1) The American Halloween

2) The Original Danish Halloween. Also called Fastelavn. It started with traditions such as putting a cat in a barrel and then beating the barrel in order to see if the cat would die of a heart attack or not. If not, chase down the cat and kill it. I guess it wasn't curiosity that killed the cat.

We went to the Danish Design Museum's exhibition of motorcycles that broke out into an exhibition of chairs. Don't ask what this means, that's the best way I can describe it. All of a sudden, it stopped being about motorcycles and started to be about chairs.

At an amber jewelery store, Roger paid me 5 Kroner to ask the woman working there about the plot base of Jurassic Park in which they find jurassic-era mosquitos in amber and take their blood to make dinosaurs. She responded quickly enough that I suppose she had heard that question before. Apparently no. Not possible.

Tonight my Kollegium is holding a Fastelavn party. The sign says to bring a costume and go crazy. Also, that going crazy is optional but eating candy is mandatory. I'm curious as to the enforcement of this. I WAS going to go as moustached Andrew, but now I'll probably end up going as regular Andrew. It's nothing to be ashamed of, regular Andrew. I just wish, I don't know, I guess I'm fine.

Roger & Me

Yesterday was Epic.

Epic in a that day was epic sort of way; not in a slaying a few witches and one-eyed monsters to return home to beat the crap out of a beggar and go to bed my beautiful wife while enjoying an unlimited fountain of wine sort of epic. There is food, scandals, prizes; you must read.

First, class, gym. Easy.

Then the day should be broken down into three great things:

1) I get home, meet up with Roger, and we go shopping for our night to cook. We have established a program where two partners cook for 10-15 people, and then for the next two or three weeks, they may choose 3 days a week to eat someone else's meal. On Sunday we had delicious penne and salad, on tuesday we had delicious taco salad with fruit salad, on wednesday we had delicious chicken peanut satay and noodles. If me and rog were going to stand out, it wasn't by being delicious, it was creativity. Something new the people haven't seen before. Roger made bacon wrapped hot dogs and tater tots and I made regular pancakes and white chocolate strawberry panckaes, and a salad. I think it was delicious. I was overwhelmed by the pure joy of cooking for a group of people and literally couldn't shake that energy as I was trying to go to sleep at 2:30.

2) FCK (Football Club Kobenhavn) tied up Manchester City 2-2 in the 90th minute in UEFA Championship tourney.

3) At 10:30, rog and me went to the Copenhagen Casino, which happened to be holding the European Poker Tour (EPT), brought to you by PokerStars. We walked in to the casino, not before rog continued his streak of refusing to pay for coat check and hiding his jacket in bushes. We walked around, saw the sights. A lot of incredibly wealthy people. Bought some chips. We popped on upstairs to the lounge for EPT players, a room where there was no way we were allowed to be there. A lot of comfortable chairs, some Wii, some Xbox 360, PS3, free sandwhiches, carlsbergs, mixed drinks, coffee, et cetera. We walk around some more and came back and noticed that behind a big sign depicted famous poster stars, are Ogio duffels, which both myself and rog could really use for our study tours and spring breaks. We pick one up and put it on a table. It's got something in it. Inside of the duffel bags are PokerStars shirts, polos, sweatshirts, two hats, and one or two little gadgets. Badabing. An EPT official sits down threateningly right next to us. We go downstairs to the casino. All of the games are too complicated and their complexity is magnified by the fact people speak Danish. We can only play roulette. I place a chip down on a number and after a few seconds the roller asks who put it there. I said I had and he smirks at me as if he caught me doing something. He said, "and how did you do that?" I show him the other matching chips in my pocket and then it takes 5 minutes to get the situation sorted out. Apparently you are definitely not allowed to buy chips at a table and then leave without cashing out. After I go in with 150 Kr. and stop playing after I'm down to 60 (which will come in handy quite well later on), Roger wins on a Roulette split (betting a chip on two numbers), and comes out with 340 Kr. The night is old, we are tired. We head up to the EPT room, notice the bag we were looking at is still out. Good sign. We take one each and slowly walk out of the room. The music in the background made me feel like there were 2 billion kroner in the bag. It felt like Oceans 11, or 13. Not 12. After riding on the 81N bus back home for 20 minutes, we realized we were riding the 81N bus in the direction that would take us the farthest from home. Got out, bus system is done-zies. We have to take a taxi from a Pakistani man who hypotheses almost all gypsies are Indian. I have that 60 Kr. left so we take the taxi 120 Kr. worth closer to our final destination and then walk back to our beautiful home, bispebjerg (bis-peh-bee-eh) station.

Dry Weekend, Part III

The Fourth, the Final, Leg:
Yesterday I woke up, got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and drank a cup. Anyway.

Went to the Copenhagen botanical gardens. It's counterintuitive, to have a botanical gardens in such an unapologetically Scandinavian climate, especially in mid-February. But I'm abroad to have my mind blown and sure enough everything was dead and it was the opposite of breathtaking. It gave me breath.

Found my coat, and grabbed my hat. Made the bus in seconds flat. Went to the Valentine's Day tea at the Kollegium, a lot of homemade pastries. Went out to dinner for Valentine's Day (with seven girls (hate bitches, love mine)), then went to the Absolut IceBar. No, this wasn't just some ordinary bar with a naming scheme somewhere right in the middle of the modernist and post-modernist movements, it was a bar made of ice. Everything. On the way in we spoke to some native Danes who at first said they weren't at the IceBar for the novelty of it and then admitted they didn't know what the word novelty meant and then admitted they were there for the novelty of it. It cost 150 kr. which is expensive, and it comes with a very large fur-lined coat you wear over your coat when you are in there, gloves, and one free drink out of their list of about 20 or so. The drinks looked delicious, made with juices I've only dreamt about, but at the bottom right in the corner was the only non-alcoholic offering: "Juices." I asked the bartender for a Lychee juice and he did some in-your-face bar trick by flipping the glass cup and missing it, but sort of saving it so the ice glass only chipped and did not shatter. And then actually serving it to me. That ol' trick.

I'm glad I did the IceBar thing, although I was let down, because the experience was one I'd like to have. I was let down because it was smaller than I thought, it was less of a bar than a brief hangout spot. You don't want to be there for too long, because it's cold. It's cold to the point that you would want to leave after a short period of time. We stayed about 45 minutes.

Walked around downtown, shot the shit, Somebody spoke and I went into a dream. Went back to the Kollegium where we played some cards and shot some more shit (a lot of shit shooting this night), and then a bunch of people dressed in fashionably raw clothes entered the room with some music and booze and said they were having a party but that we should continue to stay. They looked hip, and foreign. Turns out they were from assorted countries in Africa (Egypt, Somalia, et cetera, those types of countries), and ready to have a mind-numbing party time. Cut to an hour later. Jay-Z is still playing, but they are huddled around the table where Euchre is being played. I'm talking to a Somalian man who is dressed like he is about to host TRL on MTV Somalia, and then he turns to me and says, "Have you seen the Dude Where's My Car?" "The Dude Where's My Car, of course I've seen the Dude Where's My Car!" And then he tried to talk to me about Seann William Scott, but his excitement rendered him incomprehensible. Apparently he used the Wikipedia to look up all of the Seann William Scott moves he could and watched them all, including the American Pie ("all of them," although I don't know if that includes Band Camp, the Naked Mile, and Beta House), and the Mr. Woodcock.

The humor in the situation is that of two paths:
1) Foreigners who take themselves seriously being enthralled with the silliest caveat of American pop-culture.
2) Foreigners who take themselves seriously misusing the definite article.

After the party party we went up to Travis' room and shot more shit, which was hilarious.

So it was a good night, definitely better than my Dry Rust Experience, because the people I was with weren't nearly as drunk.

I feel good about My Dry Weekend, the things I learned and the things I didn't. And now I know how many holes it takes to fill Albert Hall. I'd love to turn you on.

Dry Weekend, Part II

The Third Leg:

Yesterday Joel and myself met up, got some grubberino (Danish, for food. Really? No, not really. Food in Danish is Fjolgskold. Really? No, of course not), and then worked out, with what would be unanimously recalled as a great workout. Thanks Joel. It was great until Joel told the people at the front desk that the music was too slow and "made him want to nap," at which point they burned us a playlist of workoutable music, after two songs of which me and Joel left (because we were done toning, not because of the music.) What a prick. (<3).

Got back, made myself a stuffed bell pepper, stuffed with frikadeller (a danish meatball with more unkosher ingredients than your tiny head could even BEGIN to comprehend) and egg, and topped with waffle fries and cheese. After roasting all of it in the oven, I salted the fucker and ate it, with some bread and pesto olive oil.

Nota Bene: I don't want to turn my blog into one of those things that I try to be entertaining by using cuss words and being foul, but I think the phrase "I salted the fucker and ate it," to be exceedingly amusing. Exceeding of what? Unclear. Maybe minimum standards for humor? I don't know.

Everyone (and by everyone, I mean about 20 people) met up to go Rust, which I knew would be a not-unhoppable-but-still-formidable-road-block in my Dry Weekend plan. Rust? What's Rust? Really? You don't know what Rust is? You're kidding right? You're not? Oh, wow. I'm sorry, it's just that, no, no, it's cool, it's just that, okay, okay. Yeah, okay, we'll meet up later. Yeah, give me a call.

Okay, so Rust is Norrebro's (my neighborhood) hottest nightclub. So hot, there was a shooting a couple of weeks back. But seriously, the best place to go nearby apparently. So while everyone was pregaming and asking me why I wasn't and I was telling them I was having a Dry Weekend and then them giving me their regards I sort of felt like the kid who "sprained" his ankle in 5th grade and got tons of sympathy even though it didn't hurt at all. So we went, and including coat check, it was 70 Kr. (about $12).

Highlights of my Dry Rust Experience:

• Being a sober participant and observer of dancing. If you ever watched two animals court each other and thought it was nothing but instinctual, go to Rust. Actually, go anywhere where people are dancing and trying to get laid.
• The bartender I ordered from. For such a dancy bar, the bartender was just a genuinely nice guy. When I asked for some sort of energy concoction he tried his hardest to find something, and was very regretful when he couldn't. Then later in the night he sarcastically told me to not act so drunk but non-sarcastically to keep a good look on my friends.
• Making a 7-11 run with Tiffany as she bought a hot dog of sorts and I bought a banana. Nothing to see here, it was just a pleasurable banana at 2 in the morning.
• The delicious Schweppes Lemon I ordered at the bar, and although it was 20 kr., that's about what I would have paid if I got one at a 7-11.
• Waking up near noon after going to sleep at 4, and not feeling terrible.
  

Lowlights of my DRE:

• Paying to dance. No man, or human (but especially no man) should ever pay to dance. The right to party and dance is alienable, but may be fought for (that was a reference to a reference.)
• Rust was less than awe-inspiring, especially for a Friday night at the end of the school breaks when the club was supposed to be bumping.
  

So the Third Leg of my Dry Weekend was not a breeze, but it was a worthwhile experience. About to go to the botanical gardens and if everything goes according to plan, the Valentine's Day Party, and then out to a local sit-down dinner, and then Kobenhavn's Absolut Ice Bar.