The Fondue Pot

Today, I spent my time in purely Swedish land. I was on the island of Djurgaarden and visited the Vasa Museum and Skansen, the first of which houses Sweden’s most famous war ship, the second of which is a huge open-air museum that claims to be “little Sweden”. It certainly does this. Today reminded that despite how small of a continent this is, cultures are vastly different. Shifting only about 5 degrees in latitude gives you new skin tone, new cuisine, entirely new climate and a language that is alien to the Danish I heard for the first two days. However, one thing that I’ve overlooked in this discussion is the unfathomable level of immigrant blood.

I’ve been to cities like London, New York and LA before: the cities where it’s clear that due to their locations on their continents as the first ports of entry, that people will immigrate there first. If it were me escaping persecution, destitution and altogether shoddy infrastructure, I would be afraid to venture too far in; best to settle in the first safe haven. However, in this discussion, I forgot to examine where I’ve been in the past week or so.

Copenhagen and Stockholm are both cities situated on archipelago structure with big bodies of waters seeping into smaller ones caressing the land. It’s just a little extra way down a rather broad strait made up the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Regardless of this relapse in geographical consciousness, I was astonished, not only now, but two years ago when I visited Germany, of how many immigrants were present. Scandinavia has always been portrayed to me as the whitest place on earth. Snow, blue eyes, blond hair, and the whitest people anywhere. Within 4 blocks from my Copenhagen hostel, there were 5 Indian restaurants and within 1 block of my Stockholm hostel, there are 2 kebab shops. Arguably, the best food I had in Copenhagen (and the best Samosa I’ve had) was fed to me by a kind Middle Eastern establishment. And, I’m getting dinner tonight from one of those kebab places.

Like I said before in this blog, European food and culture is nowhere near pure; the purest I found was probably at Skansen today, with all of the farm houses, native dress and home grown industry. Even then, though, there were definite Dutch, Danish and other proximal influences. Everything is effected by immigration; Europe is the regarded overall as toe-to-toe with the [majority] of North America for safety and economic opportunity. So why not have them? If we know that their food is more flavorful at times, the people are sometimes more attractive, why not allow them to assimilate? Why did the colonial powers only move to conquer and usurp, but then scorn actions when the conquered try to become part of that movement? It kinda baffles me. Modern Europe has it pretty together; I must say it’s incredibly weird to see an Indian speaking Hindi one sentence then Danish or Swedish the other. But it’s refreshing not uninviting; it shows that the people are trying. Because of this effort, I think it has become more harmonious.

That being said there are groups regarded with low esteem such as Roma, Eastern Europeans and Africans in general. This is something that every region of the world faces however. It is just up for the continent to give these people space to show their contributive ability, which it is swiftly doing.

Anyway, Stockholm’s pretty much done. My next post will bring to you the joys of the European train, as I will have a foray into the voyage cross-continent.

Till then!

Will You Be Profitable?

The city is kind of a far cry from the car-party suburbs of Sweden. It’s absolutely beautiful, that’s the same; there are so many islands and all of them are so small that it seems like there’s not even any water between them. However, knowing how pristine the water is, it’s extremely hard to notice. Regardless of this, I learned a very important lesson here; I’m taking a break from soccer, because unfortunately, Sweden did not qualify for the World Cup.

There was a painting the Moderna Museet (modern art museum) that was an image of a classroom full of children looking intently forward, with a slate next to it. On that slate, written in chalk, was (in Swedish), the phrase “will you be profitable, my children?” (I am paraphrasing because I unfortunately already forgot the exact words). This struck me though; the Sweden I had seen before today was one of total relaxation for ages 0-99. However, now, I realized life is a lot business.

Going to the old town on Gamla Stan island and loafing around on the royal palace grounds, I noticed something as I went inside the buildings and looked at all of the artifacts. Kids had to be prepared to mature at the drop of a hat. Gustav III, as a 5 year-old prince, was told not to cry unless he was truly sad and to behave like a mature adult. At 5 years old?! Really?! Yet, this trend continues throughout the history of the Swedish Royalty. Everything is so structured within that family and the grounds are so big; at infancy, I don’t know that I’d be able to help not making mistakes with so many rooms and places and people to remember. However, this is what much of Europe is about.

Moreover, Alfred Nobel has left a shadow upon the children of the world to dream big things from their first days. His sheer genius and inventive spirit left a legacy in the Nobel Prizes that said “be profitable with yourself. Do something that’s right for the world because of your rich experience and mind and heart.” This, I think, is of great importance to me at my milestone period of college; halfway through undergrad, I’m beginning to wonder if I am profitable. And, it seems that the best way to be so is to give it all you got in anything you do. That’s my attitude for this trip and thus for life.

Man, Europe Knows how to Chill!

I met with the most beautiful bad luck today in Malmö. First off, in Copenhagen, I find that there is rail work that was decided three days ago in Stockholm (mind you, this is BEFORE I bought my ticket to that city). Next, after I have changed my ticket and decided to go to Malmö first, it seems that the station THERE has massive renovations underway on the track where I was supposed to transfer to Stockholm. So now, I am on the train from Malmo to a very small town called Höör, where I have to take a bus to Hässleholm. From Hässleholm is where I have a train to Stockholm. So, because of all this hassle, I figured I’d upgrade to first class, so as to work out the kinks in my neck and my soul. Yeah, I understand, I’m probably kind of a wuss, but at least I’m getting a serious workout and losing some weight with about 60 pounds on my back.

In any case, none of that describes how BEAUTIFUL Malmö is. Walking outside the central station to the bus station that closed at 12:30 pm (it was 4:00 pm) I saw a quiet town with nothing going on, but so much sun and cleanliness as the water reflected onto the glass that every building on the banks seemed to have. It gave me that peaceful easy feeling even with that humongous burden on my back.

On the way from Höör to Hässleholm, I experienced the utmost relaxation of Europe. On the way, I saw about 3 different old American muscle car parties, where people were just laid out on the grass grilling meats and showing off their cars. This stretched on across a good 10 kilometers, by the beach and just in the center of town. I’m thinking, what an amazing sense of balance. Here we have a European culture which (almost all of the time, at least) is entirely efficient with transportation and service, but the people know the best way to relax. I mean, they put internet on trains (exciting news, as this post will appear while I’m on it!) and are just, literally, as my parents would say, “lying all over the countryside”.

I guess what I’ve noticed today is that despite all of the travel trouble, which I’m sure is rare, I think I gained a greater perspective to love the free time of my life more: to dedicate myself to great work, and to love my free time.

I’m going to play around on the Internet and veg out on a transportation vehicle. Hence, my post ends here brief.

Hej daa!

We've Actually Come a Long way from the Iron Curtain

I can honestly say that yesterday had not even any hint of football around. But that was fine with me. I think yesterday was just a day to round up my compassion for those concepts that are different. The Copenhagen Zoo and the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Art) were both forays into tolerance.

The zoo was a magnificent facility, with a wide variety of creatures, from the seals jumping up and barking every second, to the monkeys toying with your playful side right next to an indoor environment set to a temperature, humidity and foliage of a rainforest. Elephants also abound here; they are by far the biggest attraction, with a massive dome under which they live and huge roving grounds considering their captivity. Apparently, I heard, the Carlsberg Beer brand has a huge theme on elephants; they seem to be abundant at the factory here in Copenhagen and feature on one of the logos. In any case, we see that a creature largely associated with Africa and Asia can have significance in, of all places, Northern Europe as well. Normally, the zoo going crowd is displayed as a mob of gawking tourists who carry the animals as amusement. I felt here though, with the well-kept environment, I could see them as my own kin. It’s almost like I’m reverting back to my role from the musical I was in this past semester; in my background story, my character loved to go to the zoo and hang out and relate with reptiles, and I pretty much feel the same about my zoo visit yesterday.

Never have I seen an art gallery where juxtaposed on four floor-to-ceiling walls of, let’s say, 10 or 12 meter height, are hundreds of paintings from all different countries, encompassing the entire wall space. It was overwhelming the number of sceneries in one room; there are a few of these in the Statens Museum for Kunst, and arguably it would take a few hours to conquer each of these rooms in a much more vast museum. The Museum was a lesson in tolerance not only because of the variety of peoples represented in the collections (the biggest installation in the place is actually by an Argentinean), but also because of the variety of subjects that Danish painters took. It was interesting to see in the section about national identity in Denmark so many paintings of blacks and Arabs. I thought this was wonderful because it meant that the country, at least from an aesthetic point of view, was accepting these cultures as part of their development. There was one particular piece made of contrasting political viewpoints that I’d like to quote here:

“I often catch myself defending my own country. BUT DO I REALLY THINK IT’S THAT GOOD A PLACE? Or did I just grow up believing it is?”

“I often catch myself criticizing my own country. BUT DO I REALLY THINK IT’S THAT BAD A PLACE? Or am I just afraid of seeming nationalistic?”

In Europe, this dilemma seems to be quite common. But what really matters, in my opinion, is what scope of the people of the public use to weigh their opinions. To revisit football for just a second (contrary to the first sentence of this post), the majority of the French National Team is black though the population of the country is largely white. Does this mean that the team does not adequately represent the spirit of the people? Absolutely not. These are all French men who are playing for the same national pride as the citizens are supporting, regardless of their heritage. We could say the same about food; Nicolas, a roommate from Berlin, and me were talking about cuisine influences in Europe on walk. We came to the conclusion that the pure cuisine of each country may have some variety, but that these menus really owe it to immigrant influence for a large part of flavor. Copenhagen itself is a veritable melting pot, with many Asian, Middle Eastern, Indian and Africans living here; they all make an effort, though, and often succeed at speaking Danish and accommodating their culture with the functionality of the nation. This is the Europe of now, and I am happy to see that people are accepting that.

My trip pretty in this city pretty much ended with conversations across many countries about economy and food; the most exciting parts of the conversations were where something was found in common that we could all laugh and agree upon. It was Poland, Russia, America and Italy at one point trying to find similarities in cuisine. One thing I really love about Europe is though it has so many distinct nations and cultures, the continent is so small that influences are often across the board. People can maintain their cultural sovereignty but still empathize across borders. This, my friends, is tolerance.

An Old Hope In a New Age

Yesterday morning gave me the fullest view of Copenhagen that I would ever probably get to see within the span of an hour. Not only was I able to experience the architecture, but I was also learning about these buildings, and getting to see them from one of the city’s greatest resources: its canals. I had the privilege of understanding the scenario in Copenhagen and also, I feel, that of most European cities; a healthy dose of antiquity and modernity. On one hand there was the ornate, old buildings of Amalienborg (the royal castle), the old National Brewery (because water was so bad in the 17^th century, this institution rationed 10 liters of beer to each soldier per day) and the Stock Exchange, on the other was the Opera House (which is awesome because 5 of its stories are underwater), the National Theater and the Maersk headquarters (the windows reflect the color of the sky, and are thus nearly always blue). I got to just wander around the pedestrian sector near Nyhavn, the new port and see the shopping district, which is where I really got my first glimpse of a flood of red and white at the multitude of sports stores.

Football fever! It’s an illness I will never grow tired of. And neither will Europe; football, I feel, holds together the social framework of Europe’s nations. With a game so easy to understand, it unites the rich and the poor in a spirit of hope. I think the jerseys that stores were selling adequately show what soccer is to these people. In Copenhagen, alongside the current official jersey, a retro jersey from the ‘80s and ‘90s is displayed for the same price. Why? Wouldn’t you expect to be lower because it is obsolete? Absolutely not. The retro jerseys here reignite nostalgia of a Danish team to be feared and reckoned with; it reminds the people of a team led by Michael Laudrup, arguably the best Danish player and goalscorer of all time. Football is unfortunate, in a way, for smaller sporting nations, because this is not necessarily a sport where results can change with a fleeting glance. Whenever you ask people about the fate of their nation, they are pretty sure about it: there are usually never any “maybe” or “it’s kinda possible” responses. So, this being said, countries scrounge and scrape hope up from the times of triumph to give them the fervor to cheer for their country. What do you know, Denmark was victorious over Senegal in tonight’s friendly.

One such example of people’s certainty about their teams was displayed to me last evening. I met a girl from Mexico City who was studying in Florence and on a vacation in Copenhagen. She was going to go to South Africa for the end of the World Cup; you could imagine my intense jealousy at her glorious situation. When I, however, asked her if she was expecting Mexico to get so far, she responded with a puzzled, blank stare. After a few seconds, she firmly responded “no, not Mexico, USA”. I was taken aback by this confidence in our soccer team. Usually, the feelings about Mexico are heated against the USA, especially amongst Mexicans. But, if anything was learned by this conversation, it was that no matter how much national pride a person has in football, they are always honest with their judgment of a team’s true skill. This girl was no different; she was proud of the Mexican team’s position, but aware of their lack of skill compared to the US squad.

It’s really wonderful being in an environment where all one has to do to learn about something in Europe is look, ask and listen. Three simple tasks with clear spots in the brain laid for them are all it take. Now that two days have hit this nail firmly into my head, it is clear that this will be my process in this excursion.

Cheers for now, mates.

Feels like a week, but it has been a day

In my wanderings since entry last, I have seen more hope for my project; a 2 sides advertisement board devoted to selling TVs for the World Cup, and a small street court in the middle of the City Hall square. I also forced a child on a bicycle to bump into me, which resulted in an innocent smile from him and his father, which made me feel much better about an otherwise awkward pedestrian face-off.

The period since my last post has been like a good week worth of stories. I showed up at my room in the hostel, and though there were remnants of people, no one was there; bags were lying underneath beds, but they were uninhabited. Now, I am not a “jump to make conversation” kind of person, but as soon as someone walked into the door of my room with its five beds, I wanted to talk. I figured that would be the only way I could really get anywhere with this city; despite its multitude of sights, it seems I would have been at a great loss without this conversation.

In walks Joe, a man originally from Wisconsin, but someone who has lived around Europe for over two decades. We talked about the economy back home, the politics in Europe, and the pace of life and food in this continent. It was a great insight at this, the gateway of my trip, of what to expect. One of the quotes I will keep from this entire experience came from him, stemming from a discussion of my laziness to cook back in Dallas: “You have all the time in the world, but no time to waste. Just do it”. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was one of those all encompassing life philosophies that I’d have to adopt in Europe. All the planning of my trip was complete; it was all about going with the continent’s flow from now on. On a more specific note, he told me to avoid the area around the most visited tourist site, the Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen; apparently it’s in Shanghai for the World Expo. In any case, that gives me time to just walk into a beautiful accident of an experience. So, I’ll take it.

All you have to do in Europe, no matter who the person, is ask and/or respond. I was just sitting in the hostel lobby, eating a sandwich and heard these American accents (more than faintly, mind you, because I had been disappointing in my ability to identify the languages people spoke until then). So, I decided to be the most out of character for what I had learned about strangers, and walk up and invade their table. I had walked into more of a mélange than I thought; a Canadian, an American and an Australian. My fellow countryperson was working as a graphic designer in the city, and the two others were well-traveled backpackers. I had merely mentioned that this was my first day in Copenhagen and they were all raring to take me out. It was the best first night I could’ve asked for.

We spent about 4 hours discussing differences between America and Australia, comparing them to Europe and just shooting the breeze in general. Being the devoted surveyor that I am, I planted a few questions and comments about my quest for the essence of football here. I heard a story from the Australian, Andrew, about some Germans in Dresden plotting with all seriousness and great fervor to murder the man who injured Michael Ballack, Germany’s captain (even though the guilty party was a German himself, NOTHING excuses taking out the driving force of a powerhouse national team). Furthermore, I got to talk about cricket seriously for the first time since I was at home with my dad, which got me more excited than anything could at that moment.

My motto or adage from this post, I guess, is to not be afraid to wander towards the familiar in this continent. In some cases, their experience or lack thereof can tell you more about Europe than your journeys or the citizens of the countries. All you have to do is talk.

Copenhagen: this is really overwhelming.

First off, the airport is a city. Actually, scratch that. It seems ALL airports are this way here. Amsterdam's Schiphol is about the same way; I may have speed walked about a mile before I got to where I needed to be. This is good; I may not be able to play soccer this summer that much, but the walking will more than make up for this. As I got off the train to begin a several block jaunt to my hostel, the architecture change between North America and Europe was pretty much immediate; I could probably be correct in assuming that the average age of buildings here is about 150 to 200 years. It's as close to a time machine as I could get, in my opinion; never has the transformation been that immediate. It's beautiful, sunny, and a perfect 64 degrees Fahrenheit, a joy for a Danish summer. It'll be great to work off the allergies I definitely did not earn happily on the 8 hour sleepless plane ride to Amsterdam.

However, contrary to my hypothesis, the football atmosphere isn't as crazy as I thought it would be. This is a wonderful opportunity; I am now in a country that has not been to the World Cup in 8 years but is finally back. It's a little dissapointing that I haven't seen any ads hinting towards triumph in South Africa yet...however as I just typed this, I saw a great publicity ad on Denmark's VH1 channel that did the trick-- Kaka (Brazil), Messi (Argentina) and Drogba (Ivory Coast) all running around amongst South African children in a savannah wearing Nelson Mandela-esque shirts. My hopes have risen!

In any case, I am typing against the clock--20 minutes of internet! Aah! As great as the culture here is, I'm going to have to get used to the economic changes here. It makes sense though; the scares with Greece and Portugal are making every EU country scrape for money, everywhere possible. So, I type with empathetic swiftness. It's okay, because I have a wonderful, breathtaking view of the Copenhagen harbor from my hostel room. Bliss, surely.

Within a day, I will have a more constructive post!

Ciao!

The First Question: Why?

So, it's important to say that I delayed my trip to Europe by 9 days. Initially, I was moving out of my apartment in Richardson on Thursday and in Geneva by the approaching Monday. For what I was planning, that was too little time. I needed to ground myself; I probably wouldn't have got the beginning of my trip that I wanted had I left so early.

It begins with a simple gathering of some friends on a thoroughly scalding weekend in Austin. At high noon, a few of us went to play some soccer at Zilker Park, where festivals such as ACL are held. There were several groups already well into intense matches between foldable goals. So we joined; and we were obliterated by the heat but still ran to gather the rolling ball. Finally, when the big group left to go watch the Champions League final (which unfortunately, my team, Bayern Munich, lost), it was just me and one other friend.

We opted to shed our high tech cleats and socks to reveal outrageous tan lines. But, right at that moment, 6 other friends showed up. Not wanting to upset the vibe, we got up and kicked around the ball, barefoot. We stood in a circle and juggled the soccer ball in the air as we discussed who would progress in this year's World Cup.

This experience -- being amongst friends, the chatting, the barefoot play -- made me think of the true point of this sport. We were all there to socialize with the bare minimum of resources: our feet and one ball. How could something so simple captivate almost the entire planet? This past weekend, I think I regained an outlook for my trip this summer. Yes, I am going to be interning in Geneva, but at the same time, the World Cup will always be a constant theme playing in the forefront of my mind, and the mind of my 'countrymen' for 2 months.

So, my task for myself is to examine how soccer is shaping the culture of those not rich enough to score the choice seats in the stadiums of Johannesburg and Cape Town, but to see the fervor with which fans at home take this sport. It is war on peaceful ground, this game; I urge anyone who thinks otherwise to watch the new Nike Football advertisement. Brilliantly done, with some cinematic exaggerations (Wayne Rooney alone clearly can't ruin Britain's economy), it illustrates what soccer means for Europe. Though this is true year round, I thought, what better time to examine it than now.

A link to the "Write the Future" Ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE

Now that I have had all my bags packed for a week and my affairs in Switzerland are in order, I am awaiting the arrival of Tuesday, when I leave for Copenhagen, in the heart of one this year's World Cup contenders, Denmark.