Expect more activity here in the coming days (probably). Whatever I said before break about struggling with motivation is only a memory; I now simply have none. So when I'm late for class on the S-Toget, I'm like "I really want a 7-11 croissant before class." And when I'm typing here- it's only because I have two papers that were due Monday that I may or may not get to tonight. Ahhh yes.

Legoland either was gonna be terribly underwhelming or incredibly wonderful. Good that it turned out to be the latter-- here are some fancy pics:





Ok, one thing you should know about Copenhagen, no, just Denmark in general, is that the Danes here LOVE Hans Christian Andersen. And not just LOVE with capital letters- literally this guy is everywhere and I swear if I hear another speech about Denmark's greatest ambassador I'm gonna mermaid their ugly duckling. It was cute at first, then tiring after a while, and now he's more ubitquitous than Wal-Mart. Doesn't his face look crrreeeepy in lego?



Also, never trust a lego rabbit.





It's not all fun and games in Legoland, I tell you.



Haha, this was a ride where you could program exactly what you wanted a gigantic robotic arm to do. I was regretting programming my ride on level 4 out of 5, so my friends were like "go with this girl! She got 5!" So I was like "Hi, nice to meet you, where you're from?" as we're spun, flipped, corkscrewed, tossed, swung, and sommersaulted into whatever this girl wanted it to do. It was fun, though a little strange-- out of context that picture above could be sadistic and dubious at best.



Only a few more weeks out of this whole "study abroad" experience and of course it's mixed feelings at best. To be honest I can't wait for school to be over, I'm ready to move on, but how's it gonna be back in the stomping grounds with no one to relate with about these past five months? Or was it four?



I'll be a-posting more stuff soon-- I've got my Scotland pics which is want I really wanna share. Until then, it's time to divert my procrastination somewhere else!

It happens everytime, without fail, and now surprisingly in international territory: no matter what, the end of any academic term for me comes excruciatingly slow and painful in despair (or, well, as far as despair goes, Kierkegaard would say, my self is not in terms with itself). I get restless easy and I'm already ready to move on, even though Copenhagen's getting crazier and better. But it's old hat now. Isn't that terrible? I can't get my mind anywhere near to where my body's physically at. So, in that spirit, here's the summer:

*Basic Painting: Tu/Th 9:30-4:00
*Film/TV Genre: History of Punk: M/W 3:00-5:30
*Italian Rennasiance: M/W 6:30-9:00

And I just did it, reacquainted with Caesar again (for what seems like a long time) so it's definitely official: I'll be in Evanston at the very least from June 22nd-August 8th. I'm getting all antsy in my pantsy just thinking about Chicago and Evanston in the summer again. I hope plans didn't go all out of whack and there'll be plenty of friends around in the area, now I gotta find housing, though summer sublets aren't the most difficult things to find...

Legoland tomorrow, Scotland in three days, then school for a little less than a month, and hopefully another trip squeezed in. Not too shabby I guess. But I still miss Italy...

you're so vain



here's a (kinda) good picture of mah beard. I guess it was finally getting some color on my skin that made everybody go "whoah! hey you grew something there, bud!" though it was pretty much the same the same length and color before i left for the break. i can't believe some people actually thought i dyed my facial hair (it's the new fad, go tell everybody), but then i showed them my blonde spot and they all went "ooohhh."

and to keep in the spirit of things here and to alleviate my heavy post spring break blues, i'm going to SCOTLAND! i'll be visiting emily for a couple of days and then annie and i have some unfinished business to attend to (that'll turn out to be a lot easier to finish in sterling than some places). and i am quite proud of myself for getting such a good price for the trip in such short notice (i'm basically leaving in a week), kinda makes up for a summer stateside (hopefully along with another trip in may, possibly to madrid again!)...

which brings me to another important news bulletin! I'll most likely be taking summer classes in NU so that means
a) i'll be spending most of the summer in evanston (yay for friends)
b) it looks like i won't be having much time to travel here after classes (sucky)
c) no job at sound and sight! which means only thing to me: animation! no, seriously, i swear...

that's it for now. drank way too many beers yesterday for the biggest danish rivalry and grudge match of the year: FCK vs. Brondby! FCK pummeled them black and blue, and a good time was had by all. and it's getting warmer here everyday...

I got about 400 pics out of this whole experience; obviously I'm not gonna put 'em all here-- a few more are on my Flickr pages, most I don't have the space to upload them, and a lot of good ones should be up once Annie puts 'em up! But without further ado, here's a small sampling of Italy:



One thing that made Capri so relaxing and amazing was that the people we hung out with turned out to be really chill and fun to hang around... I sometimes have the problem of being too absorbed in the socialness of things and thus feeling shortchanged of the whole "experience"... like I'm too worried about the bullshit of smalltalk and "being cool" with the kids (the way I see most kids studying abroad are) than actually looking outside and absorbing and experiencing the whole situation around you. I felt this way constantly in Russia, but in Italy, we just had fun with each other and around us-- good group.





And everything in Italy was green. GREEN. Amazingly green. Everything in Russia was dirty. Italy was green.



One of my favorite pics of Annie. Our ridge/church apartment is gonna rock righteously.







We had a livestock experience quota to meet each day. We only made it to three days, but we touched a sheep and befriended some goats!







Oh God. We were bums for most of the trip (sleeping on the beach, loitering as a lifestyle), but we fancied up in public toilets and made sure we ate right. Do you see that pizza? I could cry thinking about how good that pizza was. So good that with wine and hours to kill, by the end of that pizza, we were talking wistfully of long lost loves and future dreams. Yeah. That pizza was unbelievable.



As shocked as I was to find that Russians really do wear fuzzy hats and are mean, I couldn't believe that the Italians we met really did say "MAma MIa!" and talked loudly and passionately about everything. Weirdly, it made things more surreal than familiar.





We sat on a grassy knoll by this castle, where I read about MF Doom and Annie tried to get more sun. This was one of the few picturesque parts of Napoli... other than their pizza.



What we had to do to chill wine.



What we had to do after chilling the wine.







Someday, I have to come back to Sicily, rent a scooter vespa thing, and drive down all this sicilian countryside myself with a trusty comrade. One of the most beautiful and incredible places I've ever seen... needless to say, I've got the post spring break blues (but that might be exaggerating a bit, cause Copenhagen's never been better). Once I get space again on Flickr, I'll try to post the sketches I did during the trips (hooray for drawing on a regular basis again). I've got only a month and a half left of classes, but I really want to travel around some more... if only I can find some fellow backpackers and some $$$ of course-- we shall see...



"Ciao bello"

Spring Break!



So, like I said, I got my sister's digital camera and snapped up a wheeheezy of pics to share from all over the place. I'm exhausted but envigorated at the same time, a very alive kind of tired, and the only thing I really wanna do is go back to Italy and keep backpacking. I love Copenhagen and all, but I'm gonna need a day of adjustment, as you'll see...



But first, ROSSIA. (This is gonna be a pretty long post, if you wanna just go straight to the pictures' source in Flickr click here and here.)



Some observations about Moscow: everybody made such a big deal how completely different Russia is from everything else, totally alien, but I thought it was all bogus. Yes, I probably have never felt farther from home, and with the heavy and low grey skies I really felt like I was near the end of the world. But it seemed to me like every other sprawling industrial messy city, just a whole less inviting than say, Caracas or something. Every other billboard is the Marlboro Man (that's where he went), or either a Samsung ad. Slumlike apartment complexes stand dirty and unkept for everywhere, and its only in pockets do you see a true beauty... but it just made it seemed more random than awe-inspiring. Yes, the Kremlin was amazing, and the Red Square surreal, but doesn't St. Basil's Cathedral look like Disneyworld to you? We couldn't get over how plastic it looked, as if in a 1000 years, Cinderella's castle in Orlando will be dug up and be deemed one of the wonders of the world, with Mickey Mouse our most revered king or god...



Yeah, so that's pretty much how you would picture Russia would be, and that's pretty much what you get. I couldn't get over the fact that Russians actually DO wear big fuzzy fur hats! All the time! And, also, Russians ARE rude and the most uninviting people I have ever met... I never saw a Russian smile or tell a joke.







The water is so bad there, they actually do recommend you to brush your teeth in vodka. This was also around the time where I slipped on the ice (my FIRST time this winter I promise!) and gashed my right pinky. It bled like crazy, and I kept cutting my hands so I left Russia with bandanged fingers. Still looks kinda nasty...





We got SO lost in here, all of us seperated into tinier and tinier groups. We literally could not for the life of us figure out our way to our entrance, and it took 45 minutes to get to the bus! Like most everything in Russia, everything seemed to be a hassle to do...



We stayed in HOTEL ROSSIA which is the biggest hotel I have ever seen, housing a supposed 5000 guests at any given time. It literally took 20 minutes from the nearest entrance to the door of my room, and it reminded me of a bad Hunter s. Thompson/ Terry Gilliam mindtrip, passing by small bars and smoking areas of huge cigar chewing businessmen, old russian hookers, small mousey bartenders, garish and loud colors, and terrible russian pop songs. Just to get to my room. There were also statues of pirates near the west gate.





Also, I wasn't expecting the whole trip to be as touristy as it was, but it wasn't exactly like I was feeling frisky and wanting to go off the beaten path. Each day was swamped in tourist traps, which got tiring and annoying after a while, with bus tours and droning guides, but it was ok. I have never felt more paranoid and unsafe, with all the stories they tell (like, stories that happened last week), with the police being the most corrupt of them ALL. Yep, that was Moscow in a sketch...

St. Petersburg

Speaking of sketches, ran out of batteries in my camera eventually and kept forgetting to recharge. So, thankfully, there were many architecture friends that had to sketch all the time anyway, making me feel less dumb and show-offy carrying a sketchbook around. I'll upload these sometime later, they're a lot, but this is getting long enough...







St. Petersburg was a lot prettier and nicer than Moscow, it being a more European city and resembling Venice bizarrely at times. Good times.





But it got annoying after about the 18756th russian palace we would see, seeming to say once again that, boy, Russian royalty sure had a lotta money. Gold plated EVERYTHING, while thousands of their countrymen died from starvation... there's only so much palaces you can see without thinking about these things, you know?







Ah, the Crimson Coach. Remember middle school fieldtrips, shuffling in and out of the bus, and all that business? That pretty much was our trip, with bus culture and everything. Russia was an amazing place to go to, really a once in a lifetime experience, and I'm 100% glad I went, but I'm also pretty glad in knowing that I probably will never be there again. The kids were cool, most of them I didn't know previously, some sights were insane, but it feels like the whole world is just... stuck there, the only thing bringing it all together is an incredible history. Otherwise, it's just a sad outpost of life of depressed people and fried food, absorbing all the worst aspects of globalization and none of its better ones (the 2nd largest mcdonalds in the world!! in the heart of moscow! definitive proof that Russia lost the Cold War). After being lost in St. Petersburg scary slums, a friend and I basically praying for our lives in a van from the early 80's in the middle of nowhere, I was ready to leave, and needed a definite change. Thus...



ITALY! Spring Break pt. 2 coming soon, maybe tomorrow...

P.S. Oh! And I almost completely forgot: not all Russians were awful, as this photograph attests, being one of my favorite pictures of all time. His name was Valentin and had been doing photography for 30 years... we talked about how he set his basement darkroom and his family and his craft, he was so cool. So cool he let me take a picture of him dancing in front of his stand. Valentin is badass.