kobenhavn.

hey team, well i have just arrived home after another one of my long weekend adventures, this time it was off to kobenhavn (aka. copenhagen, denmark) to do a bit of exploring and check out a new country, but the main reason i was going was to catch up with a super cool mate who i met at american summer camps last year. ohh yeah! it had been 14 months since our last meeting so i was mega excited. once again a booked my budget tickets for £30 return, but this meant an early flight. i drove up to a mates place in cambridge the night before and woke at 4am the next day in order to make my 4:38am train. arrived in malmo, sweden at about 10am, and caught the bus down to copenhagen, which took about an hour; and i think i might have gone over the longest bridge in the world, but i cant confirm that. my mate was in uni until 2pm, so i just cruised around for a few hours, rather aimlessly as i didnt have any clue where i was going, so i just cruised and took in the atmosphere. our meeting place was outside the front of city hall at 2:20pm; so i stood there and was scanning the crowd for my mate, when out of nowhere, he came hooning along on his bike, it was so cool seeing him again, i cant explain it. awesome. one of the many good things about denmark is they are really environmentally concious; and they offer free bikes for people in the city- you just put 20 kronor in the lock thing and it unlocks and you get your money back when you return it. so i grabbed one of those and we hooned round the city for about 4 hours, checking everything out-walking up towers, into churches, city hall, along the coastline, everything- was so cool, def the best way to get around the city. we went up this spirl tower thing, and there wasnt a designated lock place for me bike, so we tried to hide it- we kept an eye on it out of the windows when we were walking down the stairs, no worries, got to the last little window- still there- and we walked out the exit, literally 15 seconds later and the bike was gone (along with my 20 kronor) unlucky for me. fast theives in copenhagen. haha. we also checked out the statue of the little mermaid- the writer of the story and the disney movie is danish- so they made a statue for him for his good work. its just this small statue sitting on a rock in the harbour, not overly impressive, the the japanese tourists loved it-not surprisingly. at dusk we went back to old mates house in holte, about 20mins north on the train-met all his family who were really cool and nice-had the best food since ive been away from home, as it was the first home cooked food ive had since leaving aus. after dinner we went out to this little jazz club, the venue was tiny the music was ace, apparently the best musicians from denmark and sweden were there, sounded like it. ripper.

Saturday we went down to the harbour and checked out all the fishing boats that were coming in. we bought 3 fish for dinner, as we had been asked to cook up a storm, or at least try to. we bought 2 flat round fish and one longish one, it might have been a cod. then we went for a run in the forest it was cool as, they had a big storm over there and all these huge trees fell over, some fell over the others making a giant see-saws- had fun for hours just mucking around and being kids. we ran around for ages and up a few hills (the dont have mountains in denmark-its pretty flat) simple fun. got home and were told not to underestimate the time it took to prepare the fish- so we got stuck in- it took as about an hour to get the fish ready(takes a real fish person about a minute) as neither of us had done it before- there was a bit of trial and error involved but i reckon we did alright. we crumbed and fried the round fish, but the long one we did a bit of experimenting with jamie oliver as our inspiration, we made a little packet out of tin foil and put the fish inside, and stuffed it with onion, garlic, oregano, salt, wedges of lime- and the key ingredient- a diced apple off the tree in their backyard. ripper. wasnt sure how it would turn out but hoped for the best- was also made some baked potatos and beans with a pasta side dish- was a little sceptical how it would turn out and was feeling the pressure as both his parents are wicked cooks, but it turned out really well and everyone loved it...well so they said. played a game of matador (monopoly danish style) after dinner, but with revised rules such as; you dont need a set of property to build a house, so you can start building straight away, and if your car (marker) hits another player you have to give them $1000. the game went so fast and i got wiped out early on after landing on consecutive hotels and my 9th and 10th spins, yeah i think the game was a little too fast.

the final day was abit of a chill out as we had quite a few late night and done heaps with our time, to we kinda just relaxed and in the afternoon we went horse riding in the forest, went down to some ladies farm and hired some horses for an hour, she assumed that because i was from australia i would be a 'bushman' and a really good rider. i am the opposite, it must have been a good 12 years since ive riden, and even then i wasnt any good...but my horse wasnt to keen on going fast, not very motivated, at one stage it stopped dead and wouldnt move, so i jumped off and picked up a giant stick in front of its nose, didnt give me any trouble after that. then i grabbed my bag and we headed into copenhagen for the last time, and just chilled and mucked around, went out for dinner and then- all to quickly- i was back on the bus to the airport. had such a great time in denmark, was super seeing my old mate again- quite possibly the best couple of days ive since being away- cant explain how much fun it was...anyways i have to run, off to germany in a month to catch up with another few mates from summer camp, cant wait. hope all is well where you are. check out some of the photos from sweden on my links (thanks cous) take it easy :) andyb

its getting cold.

well today is the first day that its really hit me how cold its actually going to get, the last few weeks ive noticed a change in the weather, you can really feel the cold coming in. not like in australia when a few random days in winter are a little colder than the other 365; you can actually feel it snap into the next season over here. ive been getting away with wearing long sleeve t-shirts and thongs everywhere outside so far, but i think today was my last day of that. rugging up from now on. and the worst thing is that its only half way through autumn, so it will be cold until halfway through spring next year or for about the next 6 months- now theres something to look forward to. haha.

i havnt done anything real exciting since i came home from sweden last month, but theres a few little things i might as well fill you in on, last weekend i went into london to catch up with my cousin, was cool just chilling there ('there'- being somewhere other than the hotel) one of his housemates is french so we met up with half the london french community on our night out, went for sushi in queens park then onto leicester square. a sophisticated night out. it was interesting eating out with 12 french, 1 italian, 1 spanish and 2 aussies (us) translation was needed from french into english on more than one occasion. they were all nice people and we had a good laugh. transfered my ipod photos onto cd at my cousins and also wiped off my 3728 songs in the process. unlucky. but i put all his ones on so no worries. someone told my itunes was difficult to use.

last tuesday i went to homebase (like bunnings) and was going to buy a plant(or shrub) to give my room a little more life and excitement, and i saw a bunch of bonsai trees in the corner, most of them looked pretty dodgey and half of them were either dead or on the way, and right in the middle of them were was this little fella who was alive and kicking, full green shiny leaves, and only cost £4.99. bargain. so i snapped him up, and now have a little bonsai, about the size of your hand, so its a real mini one, but its cool as. ill try and get a pic of it. im also going to try and bring it home, not sure how successful that will be, but ill give it a shot.

i dont think ive actually actually described what i do for a living over here, so ill give you a quick rundown. my offical title is 'leisure club assistant' which is a reasonably attractive name for, receptionist, cleaner, phone answerer, unqualified gym intructor, coffee barister(?), waiter, pool chemical technician and first aider, on any given day i can be doing any or all of that. but usually i will be just chilling in the reception area either: (1) chatting to customers (2) chatting to workmates (3) surfing the net or (4) doing extreme level 5 sudoko (like number crosswords, sort of, i dont know if its taken off in aus yet, but everyone over here loves it.)
so thats my job- its really easy, that staff are cool. i really dont get paid enough to work very hard, (thats what i think anyway), but i do enjoy talking to all the members, thats def the best part; and you can totally justify it by saying your building customer relations. so i have been quite lucky finding this job with a few days of arriving in the uk. it does get a bit boring every now and again, but i can make my working hours pretty flexible which means i can travel a bit- and that is my priority at the moment, so i cant complain.

speaking of traveling im off to copenhagen, denmark on friday to catch up with a mate from summer camp in america. cant't wait, im only going for 3 days, but even so it will be wicked to catch up and get a tour from a true local. november 18 im off to bremen in germany to catch up with another mate from camp, and im working overtime at the moment trying to get the weekend after off to go to paris with a few mates, so a hectic couple of weeks coming up. time is flying at the moment, im loving it, it seems like ive only just come home from sweden and im off again. woohoo. anyways thast what ive been up to for the last few weeks, got a few ripper ones coming up sp i can't wait. hope stuff is good where you are. keep smiling :) andyb