cloudy with a chance of perpetuity

With 251 dreary days per year, Copenhagen is Europe's rainiest city. It receives 1603 hours of sunlight per year, which comes to a shade above 4 per day. Sadly, even that rather dismal statistic is skewed since the vast majority of those hours occur over the 4.5 temperate months of summer, which appear to be coming to an abrubt end. Even London, where the skies are the only thing darker than the teeth, dishes out just 226 days of dampness annually. But Copenhagen doesn't crack the top 10 for annual rainfall total. So here's winter in a nutshell: it never pours, but it's always cloudy and just misting enough to make you wonder if it's worth getting out of bed.

All of these depressing numbers have got me asking some basic questions. Why the hell did I come here? And what do danes do for the vast majority of the year, when blustery, moist, dark, frigid weather confines them to life indoors? It's worth speculating.

As to why I came? Good question. Maybe I like feeling as though I'm being waterboarded every time I look at the sky. Maybe I'm a masochist who derives some subconscious glee from my gloomy surroundings. Maybe I didn't think this whole "living in Denmark" thing through enough before I left.

As to what the danes do? It, most likely. At least that's my educated guess based on "effectual observations." Seemingly every woman age 29-35 in this city is pushing around a pram come summertime. And there's a perfectly logical equation for this phenomenon: disgusting weather + nothing open on Sundays + cable tv packages limited to 13 low-budget channels = it.

So how am I going to handle the upcoming 8 months of winter? Unclear. But here, the future is a lot like the weather: The cloudiness leaves hope that tomorrow will be better.

The Anatomics and Economics of Drinking

I awoke in my bed Friday morning at 7:15 am and noticed a few things. The room was moving, I had to go to the bathroom and, for lack of a more sensical metaphor, my elbow hurt so bad I thought my arm had been amputated. Piecing together my previous evening at Nexus, it became clear that all these symptoms shared a root cause: I had overdone it a bit, as they say.

The second worst decision I made that night was to drink and drive (my bike, that is) home. Alcohol is a powerful balance inhibitor, and I had eaten it epically in what I'm sure was a comedic display of flailing limbs and alcohol-induced futility. But the worst decision, by far, was spending all 200 kroners I had in my wallet on 10 beverages over the course of 5 hours. The more I thought about it, the more troubled I became.

Those 200 kroners could have purchased not one, but two american-sized plates of mexican food at Taco Shop, complete with drink. Or, even sadder, a sweet new pair of Bjorn Borgs. Instead, I chose to disperse that unit of purchasing power on a bundle of goods that yielded dehydration, impaired judgment, and my right elbow the appearance of raw meat. For shame, Ben Jones, for shame.

I'm sure college professors frown on all of their students' weekend binge drinking tendencies, but at least my economics professor can rest easy knowing that I learned an important lesson about consumer preferences. I'm never drinking again. Well, at least until tonight anyways.

danish dribbles

I'm learning Danish. Well, that's a bit generous...I'm trying to learn Danish. The government actually offers free language classes for registered foreigners, and thus Ben Jones finds himself in Mette Hess's Module 2-3 Intermediate 1 class meeting Monday nights from 5:10 to 7:45. I learned during class introductions that people have different motivations for joining. For each and every girl, it's because they just moved to the country to be with their Danish (insert boyfriend/fiancee/husband). As for the gentlemen, it has to be masochism...this language is painful.

Grammatically, Danish is quite simple. There are no verb conjugations, no definite/indefinite articles, no declensions except for simple agreement in gender (of which there are 2) and the past tense and passive voice are all incredibly intuitive constructions. But may God have mercy on any foreigner trying to pronounce these words. I herniated a disk and nearly vomited just trying to pronounce "the brothers," which is spelled brødrene but pronounced more like...well, a choking special needs child. I've done my best to replicate the proper phonetic construction in this picture.

There are 6 modules (levels) of teaching. Pass level 6 and you're certified to register in Danish college classes. Being in the module 2-3 class, I would expect to at least be understood. However, at present, I'm understood only as a source of amusement for my Danish friends. Typical social exchanges go like this:

"Oh! Oh! Try to say 'rød grød med fløde'...no just try it, I won't laugh I swear. HAHA Oh my God that was SO bad...Hey, hey Klaus, come watch Ben try to say 'rød grød med fløde'..."

Hvad helvede, dude.

denmark- thursday night live

My school has a bar in it. Yep. I know. My thoughts exactly. Thursday nights it actually becomes a club, complete with security, the finest in techno music and more immaculate-looking Europeans than I'm comfortable with. It's called Nexus, aptly named for both the networking connections made between budding alcoholics of the business world and the literal connections that undoubtedly take place after a long night on the dance floor.

Perhaps the only thing more amazing to me than its existance is its extreme popularity. This picture was taken around 7:30, 3 full hours before the DJ was scheduled. People forewent dinner (I can't say I blame them, given how expensive food is) to arrive at 5 and avoid the hour line most people faced at the door. Here's the thing though, people consider Nexus pregaming because it only stays open until 2. Going clubbing until 6 am has to make that 8 o'clock Econometrics class a sordid, drunken affair.

Music: Enur- Calabria 2007

denmark- mass transit? no mas.

After a lot of packing and a 15 minute, $37 cab ride, I arrived at my new apartment. Aside from basic furniture, it contained pretty much nothing (not even an internet connection, which won't be available until Tuesday). Luckily, Denmark offers a solution at prices Cambodia would struggle to replicate.

Founded in 1943 by Sweden's Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA is the world's largest privately-owned company. It offers stylish yet affordable assemble-it-yourself home furnishings and a luxurious shopping experience including childcare and a cafeteria (which happens to serve a mean meatball platter). Their business model is predicated on establishing big-box style stores in suburban areas accessible primarily by car. There's only one problem: I know not one person in Denmark with a car.

So my roommate and I set out for Ikea. It's actually right off of the same road we live on, just 10 miles or so outside the city. And Copenhagen has an internationally reknown mass transit system, so how hard could it be to get there? Really effing hard.

On the way:
6A bus 3 stops and switch to
123 bus, 18 stops and (after a 30 minute wait) switch to
126 bus, 10 stops
Total transit time: 2 hours, 5 minutes

The way back, toting at least 100 pounds of merchandise:
119 bus (the 126 had stopped running) 8 stops and switch to
Suburban train, 9 stops and switch to
6A bus 12 stops
Total Transit time: 2 hours 10 minutes

Fun fact: the average male walks 3.5 miles per hour. If we had walked the 10 miles, it would have taken us 2 hours 51 minutes.

Note my roommate's exasperated look. We have to go back to Ikea tomorrow, but I'm taking a car if it costs me my firstborn child. Mass transit gave me a massive headache.

Music: Arcade Fire- Keep the Car Running