London Live

En pige med store Hummel briller og en af forårets nye volume kjoler dasker oppe i baren, med sin oversized taske ved siden af en fyr med de samme briller, lækker lille vest og slips og havde han kondisko på med benvarmere? kan ikke huske du, but you get my drift.

Jeg vendte og drejede min hjerne for at regne ud hvad de var for nogen indtil det endelig gik op for mig, og jeg måtte simpelthen spørge dem: "undskyld, men går I i gymnasiet?" de tog det ikke let.

en time senere på en anden bar sms' er mine veninder hetisk, og en mand ved nabobordet spørger overlegent "hvilket gymnasie kommer I fra?"

Jeg elsker det københavnske natteliv.

Eller hader, as you please.

The way I see it, the problem in Denmark is mainly that Muslims are represented by two extremes, as recently exemplified in the debate about the Muhammad drawings:

The westernised Muslims are represented by the MP Nasser Khader, who has too many peronal career ambitions to trusted and who is westernised to such an extent that he can't represent or understand very religios Muslims.

The traditional Muslims are represented by the immam Ahmed Akarri, who was fired from his job as a teacher for physically assaulting a boy who teased a Muslim girl and as such has shown his inabiliy to adapt to Danish culture, and who's family is still living in Lebanon, thus he has too strong a connection to the Muslim world to be abe to understand and represent more moderate westernised Muslims.

Denmark lacks the broad medium group of Muslims, who are more religious than Khader and less extreme than Akkari. Who go by their daily business, build mosques, keep Ramadan and wear headscarves, get good jobs and have western friends. They exist in England, and many other countries.

Why the Muslim population in Denmark has become so polarised, I don't know. Do you?

In the supermarkets in Copenhagen, I forget that here you pay for plastic bags, you don't pick them up for free like you do in England. It's to protect the environment, and I wholly sympathise with the cause, but I keep forgetting, and stop the whole line by running back to grab a bag and pay for it after all my shopping has been checked out.

Then people roll their eyes, because how can I be that stupid, I'm Danish after all.

If you forget something in a supermarket in a foreign country and you ask for help in a foreign accent, everybody understands "she's a foreigner, what can you expect".

- Sorry, it's just cos I'm used to the bags being for free in England, I once stupidly excused myself. The rolling eyes and bemused expressions of "you think you're cool, don't you, having been abroad", made me realise that its better to simply accept being misunderstood, rather than force them to understand me.

Then there's the loss of unconditional attachment to Denmark. I sit at my brother-in-law's parents beautiful and cosy little house in a fishing village in Denmark, looking at the sea, the fireplace crackling. The walls are covered in old beautiful paintings and memorablia, every inch of the house testifies to the fact that this family has been living here for generations. The connection of their spirit to the stones on the beach and the wooden walls of the house shows in their calm movements and assured smiles.

Something open and squeezes inside of me.

I realise that I will never feel that unconditional connection to any place anymore. I have made another country my home as well, and for ever after no place will be my true and only home.

I feel the Danish future I used to carry with me, like a medallion close to my heart slipping away.

My bicycle drives to the beach through a pine forest, with my children on the back seat. My Christmas Eves starring at the lit candles, letting the carols wrap my restless mind in a warm and comforting blanket. Reading Halfdan's ABC to my kids. Getting married in a light green beech forest. Trampling through snow on a bike in the cold winter mornings.

I mourn the loss of my home, while I celebrate my freedom.

Everyone who’s dad loved The Beatles has grown up hating Yoko Ono, who reportedly split up the Fab Four. But whatever your preconceptions are, give her a chance, because her new album “Yes, I’m a witch”, where other musicians remix her old material, is just sooooooooooo cool.

Listen:

http://www.dr.dk/Musik/Rock/Anbefalinger/Anbefalet/2007/02/07161319.htm?wbc_purpose=updateh


O'OH, TREES ARE LAUGHING,O'OH, WINDOWS SMILING,O'OH, WATER SHINING,O'OH, PEOPLE ROLLING, O'OH, JULY 4TH IN NEW YORK CITY

Want to run away again. It's too easy here, life. Too familiar.

I must feel under pressure and challenged to feel my own identity.

Only when my life situation squeezes me on each side can I feel my own shape. Only when people around me provide a different coloured background can I see my own colour. Only when situations make me cry laugh and shout can I feel my own emotions. Only when every day challenges me can I feel that I achieve something. Only when I'm racing ahead do I feel that time is fulfilled. Only when my prejudices are challenged on a daily basis do I feel my mind develop.

My mother said to me "when everything is TOO exciting, you have no time to develop yourself".
Buddhist monks sit under a tree all day, developing their minds. How do they find wisdom enough in books and old men and their own minds? What kind of wisdom do they achieve?

I must be the epitome of western obsession with speed, of fear of emptiness; I cannot comprehend how the world you have inside yourself can be enough.

Perhaps the world you create with another person, in love, can be enough.

Give me some tranquilisers.

How can western people show muslims and the Islamic world that we are aware that
Wahhabism is responsible for terror and Muslim extremism?

I believe, that it is a big problem that muslims are treated as a group, and that the aggressive and restrictive Wahhibism which is the branch of Islam which spawned Osama Bin Laden, Abu Laban and Abu Hamza and their gangs, is not singled out, neither by the western world, nor by muslims themselves.

Muslims avoid blaming Wahhabism for terror and agression because they have to be faithful to the Umma, the worldwide brotherhood and solidarity of Islam.

I believe it is important that the west begin to distinguish between Sunni and Shia muslims, and other types of moderate muslims, and the fundamentalist Wahhabists. If the west does not do this, moderate muslims feel attacked by criticism which is not directed at them and become hostile to the west.

Naturally, it would be preferable if Muslims themselves would speak up, but moderate muslims living in the west are struggling themselves to keep their identity as westerns and muslims together, and are very unwilling to speak up, out of fear of being attacked from both sides.

Guess what kind of part time job I've got? In a financial news agency! I got the job purely based on my previuos media job - all the other people who work there study finance or business or law, and say things like "put the equity numbers next to the BNP before tax income rent shares accumulation" and I just make an approving sound and pretend I understand. All the summaries and share info we write goes out to loads of important places, but luckily it gets edited first, so things like when I confuse billions with millions will be picked up. I would love for the Dansh stock market to crash because I chopped off five digits of a share value though. However, I'm not going to get that much influence.

It could also be that I got the job to even out the gender balance in the office, which now is ....15 men and 3 women. The other two are the secretaries.

I had my first lecture at uni today, with this very sweet American hippie lecturer who does a class on racism and literature. He's white, and everyone in the class is white. Everyone in Denmark is basically white. He was telling us about Harlem, as if none of us had ever met a black person before.

Otherwise Copenhagen is cool, I'm spending loads of time with my friends who all live in these trendy flats and study useless things. Apart form my flatmate. She has a dog and studies law. No, seriously, they're all great. It IS really cool here, guess I just sometimes get surprised by the fact I dont always feel completely Danish anymore.

Hello, Denmark, I say, standing on my tiny balcony; the air is fresh and moist with that unique Scandinavian freshness to it. The building complex's yard is empty. There is a sandbox, wet from the rain. I know precisely what that kind of wet sand feels like against the skin. The cold air creep trough my grandma-knitted red blanket. Most the things in my new room are old. For the last five years I have only had new things. Things I bought myself, or things people who passed briefly through my life had gave me. I shiver and suddenly it is completely quiet and still inside me. Some birds are singing and the sun seeps softly through grey clouds. I feel at home.

In that moment I don't miss him as much.

Kaffe to go - it says in a cafe I pass on my bike. I'm now riding my bike in Copenhagen, and am currently debating whether I should ignore the geeky image of bicycle helmets, or take it serious and risk my skull.

When you're older than 17 it can't possibly be embaressing to wear a helmet right? Wrong, in Copenhagen, it really carries a stigma. Maybe our former Prime minister Poul Nyrup is all to blame for that, as he was photographed in 92 with a ridicolously small helmet on.

Back to Kaffe to go - the mix of English and Danish really bugs my linguistic sense. It makes the language imprecise. I'm all for using foreign words if they ADD something to the language, and if they're used correctly.

Now, English words are used in Danish just to convey a sense of coolness or because people are too lazy to think of imaginative Danish translations.


Other Englsih words used frequently in Danish: Wellness (what the hell is that?) event, fuck (we do actualty have tons of Danish swear words) please, respite, take away, cool, nice, sweet, brain storm, In Real Life...........could go on for ever.

I'm currenly trying to introduce gå-kaffe (go-coffe) instead of Kaffe to go. Anyone want to join me?

Life is so unpredictable.

Last week, I was living with my boyfriend in London and working full time. He had a great job, and we were going to Paris next month to visit my friend.

4 days later, my boyfriend has lost his job, my friend had been dumped by the boyfriend we were going to visit in Paris, and I have moved to Copenhagen and am supposed to study full time.

Oh, and by the way, my little sister just told me she's pregnant.

I'm in such a good mood. I love change and challenge more than anything. When everything is up in the air, and you're twirling aroud as you're falling towars the ground,trying to land on your feet. It's like I get wings in those situations, whereas I get heavy and slow like a slug when nothing happens.

Sometimes I even suspect myself of throwing everything up in the air just to feel that I'm alive.

But at least you can't blame me for my boyfriend loosing his job or my siter getting pregnant.

She and her husband will be lovely and devoted parents, who will dote on their kids and feed them raw vegetables and classical music.

My boyfriend will find a new job - hopefully a better one, and maybe even one in Copenhagen! I don't even dare to fantasise about that though, having just settled for being apart for a while. Maybe he lost his job for a reason, and will soon come riding on a white plane to Copenhagen to save me from hugging pets and friends too closely, pretending a pillow is him when I'm asleep and spending all my money on telephone calls.

And my friend who got dumped? Well, the guy was a posh, confused traditional catholic, so maybe its better for her, considering they didn't even agree on using protection. Yes, some catholics are actually against that in real life.

By the way, my sister isn't catholic, just very romantic and ready for a child. At 23. She acts like she's 30 sometimes, and I genuinly belives that a husband, a good job and some lovely kids will make her happy. I don't think that's wanting simple things in life, because marriage and kids are both incredibly complex and demanding, so I'm impressed and very happy for her.

I'm actually surprised that I'm not the tiniest bit jealous of her, jut happy for her. I guesss it's because I'm so happy in the knowledge that I want to wait for a while until I settle down.

I have actuallty grown out of sister-rivalry, how great. I can now go to sleep as a much more self-assured person.

And with feeling a bit sick, after having eaten a ton of licorice. My new flatmates dad works for Haribo. I told you I had missed licorice.