Paco´s Life: Madrid

Crazy September

September looks promising folks, it’s been already a long time since this month meant exams and more exams, actually, these last years it has been a great period. The last two ones it was the Oktoberfest at Munich, this one is gonna consist on a shitload of different plans. Starting with the most exotic one, the trip to Asia that I have been looking forward so much. I catch my Scandinavia Airlines flight to Singapore tonight, just 16 hours flying and I get there. After that… no clue. Actually that’s what I really fancy about this trip, going to a totally different place where I have no fucking clue about what I will be doing. I talked with Paul and it seems that it will be possible to plan trips to Kuala Lumpur (Malasya) and Bangkog (Thailand). Great… So I guess I will celebrate my 26^th birthday on 8^th September eating rice.

I will be back on 10^th September, looking forward to some rest since on 14^th 2 friends of mine from Madrid will pay me a visit. I guess these fellas will be intending to get the most of the Danish night… We are considering a trip to Olso, but this issue is still to be defined. If we don’t make the Moose is always there J

My friends will leave on 18^th and again some rest will be required since there is another plan for the weekend on the 22^nd. The first IT ICEX Meeting at Granada deserved a special effort. The figures are definitely shocking: 28 people will get together for a weekend in the nice southern-Spain city. We actually booked a whole building of flats in front of the Alhambra. Some guys were talking about buying shitloads of alcohol, the thing is promising. Getting there wont be easy though, from Copenhage I have to fly to Alicante where I will be picked up and driven to Granada. After the meeting the plans are not very clear yet but they can get very complicated, I will probably go to Madrid for a couple of days, then I have to show up in Cardiff, probably via London, after that back to Copenhage and finally I will move to Stockholm. So, in 10 days the combination could be something like: Copenhagen – Alicante – Granada – Madrid – London – Cardiff- Copenhagen- Stockholm. Big money, sometimes I get the feeling I am loosing my mind, I spent all my british savings and now I need the money advance from ICEX very badly.

Appart from that, some news here, the arrival of Alba, a catalan girl coming to Copenhagen for a Erasmus. She is staying in my place these days, in theory she will have my room while I am away in Singapore, this way I get some money back and she has a place to stay while she is looking for accommodation. But things are not so easy, my good friend Sara, who was not supposed to live in the flat apart from a couple of weekends, got ill and shown up yesterday. So far she does not look too pissed about finding a girl there although having guests was something her mother (the landlady) had forbidden. If she tells her the tension will be back. But it would be funny if she did it since she invited a lot of people while she was living here, she organized big parties, had guys staying in her room till very late and smoke a lot (another thing the mother forbid). I think she has much more to loose than I do. Anyway, lets see how this issue evolves, at least we have increased our social circle here with Alba, a very friendly girl which also will get us in touch with the Erasmus world.

For those of you interested in Danish life, the city is still a lot of fun, one day you have the Gay Pride, another day the city center is closed to traffic and full of street concerts, another day they organize a massive race in which almost everybody participates. They set some huge tents and barbacues. It is a real pity that the weather is no longer good but, anyway, who said dannish people were boring? I believe we have a lot to learn from them in Spain.

A few pictures of the gay thing…

Finally, I have to mention the presence of Mr Jose Luis – St Domingo, which was visiting Leo. Actually, with some many stuff going on there was not too much time to do things but I know the guy is having a lof of fun. See you at the Caribean crack!

Time to say goodbye fellas, I will be away for a few days, if I survive to the asian experience I promise pictures and comments.

Big Weekend

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So many things happened this weekend that I don’t think they are going to fit in a single post. Actually, the streak started last Wednesday, with the night out to the Sudenter I already talked about. But you know, once I get into going out the thing always gets wild. It’s been five days in a row going out a lot, yesterday was Monday and I finally had a rest, 14 hours sleeping got me new and strong enough to write again.

But, as Jask the ripper said, let’s make parts of this. I will start with Thursday, the day I got beaten up. Yes folks, I had to come to the most peaceful country in the world to get into my first fight. The “how” and the “why” is not too clear yet. It was one of these nights supposed to be quiet until the moment Leo suggested a few glasses of Arehucas in his place. There we got excited talking about different stuff so we decided a visit to the Moose was mandatory. Moose always success and we had a funny time there, chatting with some Dannish girls, 2 or 3 times bigger than any of us but very friendly (I guess that’s the way it is..). So, we went to LA again and it happened to be that there was a bunch of guys there with another concept of fun. It seemed there was a look they did not like and pummm, before I could realize I had been hit. I believe they skipped the normal rough talking and pushing stage and jumped over me. This probably had something to do with my lack of reflects and more than probably with the bad luck I carry with me lately. This normally affects people around me, Elena-Atenas damaged her knee when trying to climb to a fence where I was, I accidentally broke Manuel-Paris’s face when playing basketball, Leo went to the ground the night I made him Flint… And, finally it was my turn. I guess it was unavoidable. The result in the picture..

Important comment here, Denmark is not a dangerous place! Not at all! Those guys were a bunch of palestinians probably pissed of because of something. Don’t think this kind of events is common here, actually is really unusual this happens. In fact, the guys left immediately as if everybody had started to look bad at them. And of course, we continued the night, such a minor incident can not stop a true party-man. We went back to the Moose where I still stayed till very late. And that’s the way the rough Thursday finished…

Next day there was a special plan: Sweden! We were visiting the famous Malmo festival, my eye was very purple and the hangover though, Leo could not make it even to take the train, he was feeling very sick and had to go back home. Anyway, there we went, Ivan and me, right after we got there we met an Italian friend of him. Such a small world, the guy was on his way to Stockholm and decided to stop in Malmo to see the festival till 11 when his train was leaving. But I guess he was not counting with finding a couple of Spanish guys armed with a bottle of rum. There is no better way to colonize a new country than some street drinking, using the table of a bar and, not happy with that, ask for a cowboy picture with the waitress…

Once the Italian left we got into the real thing. Kind of disappointing though, the festival mainly consisted on a bunch of streets full of places serving any kind of food: greek, Mexican, Arabian… People were too young for us and there was not much going on so we started to ask for the Malmo going out area. In the meantime, something really weird had happened, the rum in my bottle had dissapeard, I guess it had a whole cause Ivan was not drinking and the Italian guy only had a glass. I don’t know what happened…

Churros en Suecia???

As we were not really finding the right way we joined a very friendly Swedish guy who was hanging around with four girlfriends. It happened to be that the guy was part of the Swedish national swimming team, sure he was, 2 meters of muscles, all those girls were rotating around him. The funniest moment was when he mentioned he was only 19. Very friendly people but as soon as we could we got rid of them and continued the night at our own. We ended up in a nice irish place where two very weird guys were playing some music. Ivan talked to them and managed to get the address of the next cool place to visit. Jajajaja very funny place, typical gothic – weird place, people dressing very very rare, black make-up, girls hanging around wearing bras, a lot of leather and the most funny thing: there was a karaoke in the second floor!. I guess this can only happen in Sweden, to see a collection of sinister people holding a micro and singing very loudly every kind of weird songs is priceless!

So, we stayed there until very late and then looked for another place. Unfortunately admission was very expensive everywhere so we got into the train back to Copenhagen. In order to sleep? Nooooo, Copenhage has a very interesting night life even at 4. As soon as we got there we headed to the Moose which was, as usual, pretty crowded. If Thursday had been the fights day Friday was been the good vibrations one. I have to tell you again how friendly is these people, we were sit down, having a beer when we saw a girl with a tie passing. We asked her why she was wearing that and she immediately smiled and sit down with us. The boyfriend, or whatever he was, was standing in the bar happily, later on we also talked to him. Pure Moose spirit.

When we were leaving the Moose we found a group of Danish people and they immediately offered us to join them for going to another place, named Hong Kong, located in the most posh area here in Copenhagen and open till 11. So there we stayed with our new Danish friends and the girl with the tie who shown up after a while! At 8 we left, it was already dawn and time to finish a great night in which we partied in two different countries. Definitely one of the most complete ones so far.

Copenhagen Nightlife

Hi folks,
It’s been a few days I dont write here and not because nothing happened but because of oh! Surprise! I am working. Well, not too much anyway, don’t get scared, let’s say I am spending around 4 hours per day but that’s believe or not, a lot for me. Therefore, after such an effort, I get totally exhausted and unable to write here.

Last time I promised to talk about Danish night life, something I am starting to discover. Let’s start with the reference place: The Moose. Why? Because it is the typical cheap place that I like very much for starting the night. Very very cheap, in the happy hour a pint of Tuborg beer costs 15 krones (2 euros) and not sophisticated at all. This place is always crowded and full of drunk Danish people, you always end up talking to one of them. The is a dark and painted room at the back of the place where you can enjoy the bat atmosphere and one of these “Trainspotting” toilets. They have one of these machines for selecting your own music. Of course they only have stuff like Guns and Roses, The Doors, Nirvana… This bar is not suitable for sophisticated persons who like expensive and stylish places, full of beautiful women. Of course there are also some nice women around but to the Moose you go for drinking

After the Moose the night usually becomes confusing and I normally let Giorgos or Leo be the guides so I end up in places whose names I don’t remember later. An exception is the LA, close by and, depending on the day, more or less crowed. Copenhagen, like England, allows you to go out every day as long as you show up in the proper place. Actually is much better to go out during the week rather than the weekends. As everywhere, open till late discos charge the entrance, in weekend you pay around 50 krones (7 euros) to get in, drink is not included. The environment is in general pretty nice, usual music, not very different from Spain in fact apart from the higher density of blonde girls…

A funny place you could go during last month was the “Love boat”, very similar to the mythic Newcastle’s “Princess Tuxedo”. It happens to be a disco made out of a boat in the middle of Copenhagen’s main channel. Essential for those who want to extend the night until the end. Here is where Danish get definitely wasted and is not rare to see them jumping naked to the channel afterwards (remember, this is Denmark, everything is normally cleaner). Anyway, the Love Boat is already gone and wont be available again until the next summer.

So mainly, this is the way you hang around here, apart from some special days like the last Saturday: difficult situation, few people, Giorgos is traveling in Norway and Leo in a barbecue. Ivan and me where deciding what to do when my dannish flatmate (the 24 years old, the teenager is gone, sorry fellas) tells me about an “illegal party”. An illegal party? What’s that? It happens to be, that there is a group of dannish organizing big partys in empty buildings, like okupas. You never know when the party will be until a couple of hours before it starts, when you get a sms with the place. It seems Anne knows about this stuff, great!, she tells us where the party is and there we go. Great thing dude! A huge empty warehouse absolutely crowed of dannish people. They have set up a massive stereo music system and people are hanging around in the semi-destroyed and dark rooms of the warehouse. Some guys climbing the roof immediately get my attention. Climbing roofs is something I always considered a good idea when I was drunk. It seems that I finally found something in common with these people! And I bet Ivan and me are the only Spanish around! So, the thing was looking really good but… after half an hour the music stops and… police shows up. Plenty of them. Everybody leaves the warehouse to the street but they stay there. One of the cops use a speaker to tell something to the crowd, the street traffic gets interrupted. People start to yellow at the police, some of them start to throw bottles. Ops, situation is fucked up, I am sure there will be violence here. Noooo… this is Denmark, here even police is friendly. They don’t react and the situation becomes surrealistic, people all over the street, drinking and shouting and cops in the middle of the mess, totally quiet, without pushing anyone, like apologysing for been disturbing there. It is like if they had politely asked people to leave but they don’t want them to rush but to take it easy. And the situation continues like this for a long time, actually it even seemed that people were going back to the warehouse to keep the party going. Police got back to their vehicles. But they didn’t leave, they stayed there, blocking the traffic but without disturbing the party guys. At this point we left so I don’t know how the thing ended up.

The other cool place to go is the Studenter, yesterday we went there for the first Wednesday international meeting. The new generation of Copenhagen Erasmus is about to come and there was already a few of them around. Well, actually a lot of them, the place was crowded. Typical Erasmus bar, it reminded me a lot to places like the Hancock in Newcastle or Cardiff’s Toad. You could feel the same kind of environment. Is funny to see situation from outside, all these groups of recently arrived people getting to know each other, “where are you from?”, “what do you study?” and these kind of starting questions. Lost guys hanging around without knowing anyone.. The ones not wasting the time and already trying to pool all the girls… Pure Erasmus in its launching stage, when you are still getting adapted to the new place. Fuck, what a memories, I am getting old. I think I will be a frequent here

Special plan for this weekend, the time is getting close… first experience in Sweden. We are going to Malmo festival, Malmo is a Swedish city in the border with Copenhagen, 20 min away by train. I am going to spend one year in that country so I guess I better take a look first. I will tell you about it in the next post.

PD: as I lost my camera in one of those wild Madrid ICEX nights I can´t provide any graphical stuff. But hopefully I will get one in Singapore!

Copenhagen Life

People coming to this great city, you better pay attention (specially you Rafa). Here is the post about the life of a spanish exiled guy in this interesting place called København (Copenhagen for friends). No more funny stories about danish teenagers nor travel projects and let´s focus on giving my personal view about life here. I will start saying that, according to danish people, nothing beats summertime in Copenhagen. And, as far as I have seen, I definitely agree, maybe is because of the fact that, also according to them, we are having the best weather in the last years. There are cities in which having sun is not too important and other ones in which is essential. Copenhagen belongs to the second group, there are hundreds of parks spread all over the city, lakes in the center and the bay next to the city. All of them offer you a really simple plan to spend the afternoon. It basically consist on getting a good provision of Tuborg beer, wine or whatever is available, get together with some friends and spend the time laying on the grass only worrying about chatting. If you add complements such as those “portable one time use” Danish barbecues that I could not try so far but I saw everywhere then the picture becomes idealic. It is a real pleasure to get lost in any of the parks and see all those danish happily hanging arround, eating shitloads of saussages, playing rugby or just getting a sun-bath in bikini. Of course, with their byciles perfectly parked next to them. Nice isnt it? I dont know how long is this danish summer going to last, I am afraid that it will soon become just a nice memory so I better take advantage of it. It may sound unbelievable but I even had time to have a couple of baths in beaches which do not envy much to the ones we have in Spain, I am the kind of person who always find the water cold but the temperature here is perfect for me. Not to mention about that bath naked at 6 am in one of Copenhagen´s central channels, anyway that´s a really though history that I better dont explain too much… So, my conclussion is that Copenhagen is a perfect place to spend the time withouth doing anything too complicated. My Scandinavian guide says August is the time for festivals here, let´s see how they are…

About the locals, I can not say I am getting really involved with them, my friends circle is reduced to other foreign people, I will talk about them further, but the truth is that the impression I have about danish is really possitive so far. They are friendly and smiling, always willing to help you when you ask them for something. Concrete examples: I book my flight ticket to Singapore in a danish web so I get confirmation in that language, nobody speaks Danish in my work so I go to the office next door to ask a woman working there that I didnt know before. She takes the paper and fully translate it for me, it seems that I have to pick up the ticket in the airport and then, even though I did not ask for anything else, she takes the phone and call the Scandinavian airlines office at the airport to ask for the collection time table… Another example, it happens to be that I am very ankward and I forget the card which opens the garage where I leave my bicycle, I ask to someone who was arround and he says he can´t open the door either but he offers to drive me home. Not to mention about that woman who spent a lot of time explaining me how to deal with that public laundry I have to use due to my neibourghs courtesy. Always with a perfect English and a big smile. And nothing makes them more happy than listening how you say “thank you” in Danish (Tak!). Obviously what I still have to do is to become friend of a Danish guy on my age and start checking out how they live. I have got the feeling that they behave like Germans, they are not too friendly until they get drunk. Then they become all simpathy. The other day I was getting home at 3 am, I got into the backyard and there was a couple of my young neibourghs drinking like hell with their checks girlfriends. So I was locking the bicycle when I heard them shouting. Are they calling me? No way, it must be someone behind me… No! they are actually calling me, lets see what they want… and what they wanted was basically that I joined them and get drunk with them. So a few more beers before hiting the bed, is a pity that the checks girls got very drunk and they need to take them home. But I tell you, next time I meet them when they are sober I am sure there will be back in the cold version. For those of you interested in the danish teenagers hardcore stories, that night, at 4am, I found Sara and her friend inside Sara´s room with two guys.. I dont wanna know when the guys left…

So, not too much social life with Danish so far. Who am I hanging arround with then?. Well, so far it´s all about three great and very different between them characters. First, Leo, the ICEX guy here in Copenhagen, a friend of St Domingo(you better get ready for your visit Jose) my computer mate when the trainning in Madrid. Yes, true, this ICEX thing is like a big family, you end up having friends even in hell Big man this Leo guy, he is totally in love with the country, deperately looking for a way to stay here. He says I brought him bad luck just because I made him Flint and the guy does not remember anything about that night and woke up full of wounds. A witness recently told me the reason: he fell down from the bike, but the funny thing is that he was stopped at that moment, he just fell down like one of this slow motion movies. I knew bikes were not a good thing. Anyway, nice guy, I hope he wont be kicked out from the ICEX because of getting involved with my nights out in the middle of the week. Good luck with your job search man, I hope you can make it to stay here.

Then we have another experienced night professional, one of the best I ever met, maybe only at the level of that legend called Lolo that I met in Newcastle. His name is Giorgos, greek and work mate. He has been in the city four years and perfectly knows all the places. Good guy for you girls, plenty of money, luxury car and apartment… And an unnatural skill to drink as much as we do but remain sober (or at least he looks like he is). Spectacular, he always has everything under control and is the person to ask next morning about what really happened the night before. One of my goals this summer is to get him drunk. Leo is a responsible guy, concerned about his very serious ICEX responsabilites and sometimes go home earlier but Giorgos never say no to the last drink and you can always count with him for any plan.

And finally (but not the last one), we have Anni, a finish girl who destroyed all my topics about that cold country. Very friendly and sociable girl but always teasing and teasing, whatever you say she has the funny answer, dont get into “verbal fights” with her because you will loose for sure! Definetely one of these persons you have fun with. Funny sentences, acid comments, jokes.. an essential company for these afternoons at the park I was mentioning before.

Appart from these people, I started to know some other promising people, Maria, Spanish, work mate of Leo, Morris, a chinesse guy who is known as a very effective womanizer (maybe because he is a great cook), Ioana, rumanian girl, work mate of Anni, and finally, today I will have a beer with my main blog reference before coming here: Ivan. But I promise I will manage to add some danish people to this collection before the end of the summer. So, you put all these things together, you shake it and you get the coktail of my life here. I am kind of pissed with all these trips cause in the end I wont have too much time to enjoy this but I guess you can not pretend to have everything…All right folks, thats enough for today, probably some of you already gave up reading. For the next chapter, when I will hopefullly have more info, I promise to talk about Copenhagen clubs. But that´s another history…

Danish Girls II

Buff I am sorry but I have to tell you about this. Maybe this is getting annoying but lets see if you think this is normal. I get home today, quiet, happy, relaxed, no noise, quite house, Bob Marly is not singing… Well, it seems that there isnt anyone at home. I head to the living room, quiet, happy, relaxed and…. I almost step on Sara… she is sleeping with her friend in a matrix they have put in the middle of the living room floor. They are very close and covered with a blanket, apparently they dont have too many clothes behind that. Sara´s head is inside a wastebasket, yes, I repeat she´s got the head inside a wastebasket. You will agree with me that this is kind of a shocking way to get home. And I promise I havent drunk anything today. So there they are, sleeping in the middle of the floor whilst there is a room with an emppty bed next to them, exactly where they have got now that I woke them up, carefully closing the door. I just describe what I see, you do the interpretations.. And Else said I could not put my compter in the living room cause it was shared and I had to respect the others. Apparently in the Danish living rooms people do more funny things.. Anyway, Very nice day so I go to the park to have a beer. (last minute update, Sara left the room, wearing just a towel of course, it seems this poor girl does not have any clothes…)

Danish girls

I was saying the other day that there are many positive things to talk about concerning my first weeks in Copenhagen but then I got distracted by the landlady issue which happened to be quite funny Today I intend to explain why I love this city and how I am spending my time here. But before I can’t avoid telling you about the curious situation I just found when I got into the apartment. Lets put this into context, unfortunately my dear Else has left, of course I am feeling very sad about this, so now I just have to live a couple of weeks with her daughters before I can fortify myself in the apartment. They are 2, one is 24 (Anne), and the other one 15(Sara). The second is the one hanging around here more often. And I have got the feeling that is going to be the most interesting one too, Wednesday, 7pm, I get into the apartment and I found Sara with a friend in the same age, drinking a bottle of with Bob Marley sounding very loudly. This situation, which could be considered relatively normal, becomes funny when you add the fact that they are wearing just a bathrobe, very pretty both of them with the same model… Maybe is a Danish tradition to invite your best friend to have a shower and then, very clean and fresh drink wine. And they have been like this for a while, it does not look that they are in a hurry for getting dressed. Now I understand why Else did not want me to hang around without my shirt, logic, any neighbor having a look through the open door could get very surprised seeing a long hair guy hanging around half – naked with two 15 years old girls in bathrobe… I bet he would call the police… And a few minutes ago, Sara came to me asking if I mind if they smoke in the living room and if please can “forget” to tell the mother about it…jajajajaja. One of these days daddy Paco will get serious here! So I think I am going to have fun these days with my new au pair job. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you this, I bet some of you, dirty minds, will start to think bad about me, ummmm, actually the friend is quite pretty…nooooo, I am joking!!!

If you liked this little story of young and crazy Danish girls you are going to love this one. The next day to my arrival in the flat, my dear landlady had to tidy up my room which, before, belonged to Anne (the 24 one). So, after a while she comes to me to say that the room is ready for me to move my stuff. I get into the room and immediately something gets my attention, a box placed in the middle of the bed… What kind of box? Well, it was the box of a massive “double stimulation” vibrator, ummm, interesting welcome, fortunately is empty,What´s this? Any kind of message? Is this included in the room? Am I giving a wrong impression to this lady? Should I get my hair cut immediately? I take the box and bring it to Else, which does not seem to be very surprised about it. Is it possible that she could not realize that she was leaving that so visible in the middle of the bed? Then she happily tells me that the vibrator was one of the two Anne has, that it was a present for her when she became 15. Anne is present when this happens and she does not look embarrassed at all. I guess this is just a prove of the so well known Nordic sexual mentality. I guess these things do not happen in Spain. Coooool…

So, again, I got distracted from my initial topic and did not tell you about Copenhage but I thought the bathrobe issue was funny enough and that lead me to talk about the vibrator issue, so I just change the title of the post and I will talk about this great place and the great people I am getting to know in the next one.
And, with my friend Bob providing the music “no, no woman not cryyyyyyyy” daddy Stockholm says goodbye. Question: What’s the right time for a 15 years old girl for getting to the bed? I don’t think is necessary to explain about sex in this case…

Diplomatic Crisis

Hello fellas! This is Paco /Stockholm reporting again from the city of bikes. Many things to talk about in this post, most of them good but some others not so much.Let’s start with the second ones, we could say that the relations between the Spanish tenant and the Danish landlady suffered a serious crisis this week. Very complicated diplomatic conflict with almost ended up with me sleeping in Giorgos’s couch. I tell you, the apartment I got has a few not very nice weird things. The one I knew before I came was the attitude of the landlady concerning guests. She likes her apartment so much and she is so afraid it could get some damage that she does not want me to invite friends to sleep there, even if this would only be for a couple of nights. The funny thing is that this rule does not apply as long as the guest pays a fee of around 20 euros. It seems that this nice lady believes that paying guests do not break anything. Debatable at least….and she says she does not want to make profit out of this since I am paying the same rent she will be paying where she is going. If someone understand this please I would appreciate an explanation, from my point of view, and I am also a landlord, if I rent a room I have the right to invite whoever I want as long as the visit is limited to a few days and nothing gets broke. Or I may prohibit all kind of visits but in that case I don’t set a price like if my place was a hotel! Danish landlady 1 – Paco 0.

Anyway, this is something we had discussed by email before I came and I accepted. What really produced the crisis was all the stuff coming afterwards. To get here and find there was no shower was not exactly nice, I believe she should have told me about that but, anyway there is nothing she can do about that now. Danish landlady 2 – Paco 0. And now we get to the stuff which really got me pissed: the other way, when I was happily hanging around without my t-shirt in the apartment (Copenhagen is very hot now), she came to me and very seriously told me that I had to wear my t-shirt all the time in the apartment, specially when the door is open and neighbors can see inside. You may think Danish people is very conservative but the fact is that in the garden I have got next to the apartment entrance, these “shy” neighbors were sunbathing in bikini, yesterday there was even a woman doing top-less. It also happened that the other day when I got into the apartment, one of her daughters was hanging arround without her shirt, just with the bra. Of course I did not feel offended because of that… So… this issue started to make me feel rules were different for tenants but, since I am in a different country and trying to feel integrated, I just put my shirt on: Danish landlady 3 – paco 0. Next issue: after I few days here I was ready to comply with my housewife work and do my first Danish laundry. Did I already tell you that there is no shower in my apartment? The shower is with the washing machine in the basement. So I was about to use this washing machine when the landlady came to me and said nooooooo, we have discussed this between the neighbors and we decided tenants are not allowed to use the washing machine since we all paid for it and we are afraid someone can break it. You have to go to the public laundry at the end of the street… Oh! Nice detail from them, that’s what I call a warm welcome. This is when I started to get pissed… Danish landlady 4 – Paco 0

And the final thing which provoked the crisis, I had spent a couple of days with my computer on the living room, where the Internet connection is. Since by that time I had still not developed much my social life, I spent most of the Sunday there. Something that my dear Else did not like too much, she came to me saying that her daughters were feeling very uncomfortable having someone using a computer in the living room, that they felt her house invaded and they felt like staying in the room. Of course it is, remember!, now there is a person sharing with you! The living room, for those of you who may feel like justifying her point, is pretty big, with the computer in a corner. So I say, ok, the computer will be in my room as long as you are around but when you leave on the 15^th the apartment is mine and I will put my stuff wherever I want. Nooo, it happens to be that one of her daughters is going to use the room a couple of weekends and, of course, the poor girl can not come there and find that terrible screen in the living room… So, the conclusion I got is that, even when alone in the place, I was renting a room and not the whole apartment. That would be ok in some other cases but the truth is that I am paying 4000 krons!! Danish landlady 5 and Paco is definitely totally pissed off. Negotiations start: 1 hour arguing (in a civilized way), she does not give up anything, no chance of agreement and I finally take an impulsive decision: I am leaving the place, from the next day I will start looking for another flat.Mistake Paco!! Think before you act! To find a place in Copenhagen for only 2 months in August is kind of impossible!! I spent two days searching the web, trying to translate Danish posts and calling to people who tell me “sorry but there are already 10 people waiting to view the flat I advertised yesterday”. So I get to the conclusion that I have to stay where I am, when the Danish landlady leaves in 2 weeks I will do whatever I want, I will put my computer where I want, invite people and let’s see if I decide to use the washing machine… Of course, I will not damage the place, she should not worry about the that.

Unfortunately this decision happens at the same time my social life here starts to expand, I spent 2 days without almost showing up in the apartment, beers in parks, Wednesday night going out till very late… By the time I finally managed to talk to her again it happened to be that she already found another person for the apartment!! And of course, since she is Danish is does not matter she agreed with the other person in the morning and I am telling her that I stay in the afternoon, she does not like the idea of telling the other person that she is not finally renting the apartment to her. The possibility of ending up sleeping in the street is now pretty close. And now is when the real cold war starts, I tell her to tell the other person that the flat is not available anymore, I kind of indicate her that is going to be hard to kick me out of the apartment. In conclusion, I start to get ready for fortifying myself there, I have got provisions: 4 big bags of pipas, a handful of chorizos and 19 bottles of rums are my allies… She spends a couple of days trying to get me another room. She does not make it… raising tension that I try to reduce with happy faces and smiles, I fixed a problem in her computer, I allow the daughter to use my bike… Monday is set as negotiation deadline, that means today and aleluya!! We get an agreement. I just got a text from my dear Else, they have decided (apparently she and her daughters) that I stay in the apartment. I knew that allowing the daughter to use the bike would give me the points I needed… Great, no need to go to war, peaceful solution, I am no longer afraid of 4 big Danish guys showing up in the apartment to kick me out.I guess that, as it happens in any conflict, both parts are somehow right. I should not have acted so impulsively saying that I was leaving just to change my mind later but I think she pissed me off quite a lot and she could have been more flexible. I don’t know what your opinion about all this mess is…

I was intending to tell you about the positive things that, believe me, there was also quite a few this week, but after this big bunch of stuff I just wrote I will leave it for another post. I will just say that I love Copenhagen (even with its Danish landladys)!!

Copenhagen

Now is when I think this blog starts to make sense. From now on I will stop talking just about parties and I will start trying to provide some interesting or useful information about the places I am going to be. I believe this is the main utility of a blog, at least for me, it was very useful to read about Ivan (specially those posts named “Denmark, the great unknown”) and Leo experiences to get an idea about what I was going to find here. So I will try to give my personal view about this place for anyone who may be interested.

Let´s start then, I will try to make a summary of this first viking week. First impressions: driving from the ferry which brought me from Germany to Copenhagen. Danish people drive very carefully, they always respect the speed limit and, suprisingly, you must have your car lights on even during the day. So they are quite similar to british people in this. I arrived to the city and very quickly found my apartment thanks to a map I got from the first hotel I saw. Some of you already know this, my accommodation in Copenhage is going to be kind of peculiar. First 2 weeks I will be living with a Denmark woman and her daughters (one is 24 and the other 15), them the mother leaves and I live with the 24 years daugther for another 2 weeks. After that I will be alone in the apartment. The place is OK, 2 big rooms and a wide living room - kitchen, Internet connection, TV in my room, a very comfortable garden for doing barbecues and driking rum with the light of the candles but… there is no shower! Right folks, it is amazing that in this supposedly civilized country you find this. The shower is down in the basement, in a room with the washing machine and it is shared by all the people in the building, like a cheap youth hostel. Anyway, it will only be 2 months and a half and since the apartment is cute and well located I decided to accept the situation. You may be wondering how much this cost, well the figure is 4000 danish krons (arround 540 euros). I have been asking arround and is not too exagerated. The truth is that I did not want to complicate myself too much when I did the searching, I had heard Copenhagen was a very difficult place for finding accommodation and my dates were not too easy so I took it. I dont complain too much…

About the city, I like it very much, plently of parks where danish men and women are laying on the ground taking the sun, areas where you can even have a bath in the river… I even hanged arround in the alternative neibourghood: Christiana, kind of getho withouth law where people live independently, it is allowed to deal with soft drugas and the environment is quite peculiar. What suprised me about the place is that, althought there was many strange people arround, you dont have the feeling of been unsafe, is more like a hippie good vibrations place partially contaminated by the tourists. It is worthy to come over and have a look but you should not expect anything extraordinary. Anyway, I just arrived, there is still plenty too see..

I already got myself a bike which makes me feel a little bit danish. It is amazing how this city is prepared for this, most of the streets have bike lines, cyclists have the priority over cars (I almost killed a couple of them) and everywhere you can find places to park the bike. Whoever knows me a little knows that I am not exactly the best friend of the bike but wherever you go do what you see, so here I am, going everywhere with my bike. It was funny how I got it, it is said that there are 3 bikes per person in Copenhagen, I dont really know if this is 100% true. What happens then with the extra ones? Well, it seems that someone is in charge of controlling wheter a bike has been for a long time parked in the same place withouth anyone paying attention to it. When there are a few bikes in this situation they are grouped together and a piece of plastic is put in their wheels . That means that any non lucky guy like me lacking a bike can have a look to see if there is still something useful in the heap. Usually if people left them is cause they no longer work but oh suprise! yesterday I found a heap of these bycicles in my street and one of them was not locked and it worked. So I took it… However, later on in the afternoon, I found a better one in another heap. Unfortunately this one was locked.. no problem! I just took it home and spent 30 mins breaking the lock with a pliers. Conclussion: a greak bike in perfect condition for free

About the work, so far it looks very good. It seems that finally I will have something to do, in contrary to what happened in Cardiff, here I have a proper project well defined and plenty of people from who I can learn stuff. I still dont see how I can help them but it is sure that I will get a lot of material for that thesis I will write someday out of this. There is a very friendly greek guy in the department who also plays basketball. He is been living here for 4 years and the truth is that he does not look very happy. According to him, there is no way to deal with the danish guys and is even worse with women… Anyway, Iet’s wait to see how it goes, maybe I am more lucky.

Not much else happened this week appart from yesterday, when I met the current ICEX IT guy in Copenhage, a very friendly guy called Leo who took me for dinner to the cementery. Quiet plan for the night, we watched a movie in the place of an also very friendly finish girl who prepared delicious cocktails. Lot of good talking till late 3 and then I went home using my great new bike. Relax fellas, big parties coming soon…