En amerikaner i København: March 2010

A song for you to listen to while you read, which you will understand soon:

Benny and Helle picked me up in the morning for a lovely day at Helsingør and Kronborg Castle (more famously known as Elsinore and Hamlet’s caslte). The weather was amazing – sunny and almost warm, at least compared to recent weather. We made it just in time for the English guided tour, which was fun and interesting. I learned that in the time of King Frederick II/medieval times, they shipped lemons for royal dinners, and one lemon would in today’s money cost about 5,000kr (which, in turn, is about $1000!). For one lemon! I’m so astonished by that fact that I think it might actually stay in my head. See, this is what happens – I don’t remember any of the important dates about history, but I do remember random facts like this. Or why people in Britain/British colonies drive on the left side of the road.

Showing us the secret staircase.

Largest ballroom - in Europe?

Legend says when Denmark is threatened, he will turn into flesh and blood and defend his kingdom.

Oh, hello, Sweden!

Thanks for a fun day!

We had lunch in a cute café, and then drove home again as it started to get windier and colder. Back in Copenhagen, it still looked deceptively warm, but the wind had started up again in full force, and just walking back to my room was rather chilly.

Cute Helsingør

March 15, which I want to say was exactly 5 months after my first MIKA concert, brought the wonderfulness that is MIKA to Copenhagen. Somehow or other, I discovered that Angela was a huge MIKA fan as well, and mentioned offhand that I’d seen an ad for him coming to Copenhagen. I figured I wouldn’t go again, because I’d already seen him, but then Angela really wanted to go, and the tickets weren’t too terrible a price, and it was such a good concert, that I thought – why not?

Now, the e-mail stated there was no cameras allowed, and I’d been to somewhere before that actually forbid you from entering if you have a camera, so being the good person that I am, I left my camera at home. And when we got there, absolutely everyone had cameras, except for the four of us (Angela, Claudia, Daria, and I).

I, of course, did not take this photo, but as MIKA is so colorful, and this section of the update would have had no photos otherwise, I thought it deserved a photo.

What was neat was to see that there were all ages and types at the concert. There were young, elementary age children, which I was kind of surprised at, but even more surprising were the older, 50 and 60 year olds. The best part were the multitude of men, and straight men (my favorite was the combination – a 50/60-year-old man who was dancing like crazy while his wife just kind of stood there). Thank you for Denmark understanding that a man can fully appreciate bouncy, happy music without being gay. Of course, I don’t have this problem, but personally, I think everyone should love MIKA :)

That’s because I just love him so much. He is an amazing performer, I love his songs, he’s hilarious, and he has awesome/amusing/fantastic fashion sense. I told the other girls that I really, really want to find out that he dresses like that (waistcoat with coattails and top hat) in real life. It would make my week. Basically, I just want to take him home with me so that he can hang out in my living room and dance and sing, and when I’m feeling sad, he can sing me “Love Today” and instantly cheer me up.

Tuesday I popped off again, this time to visit Lauren (and a few others) who was coming to London for three days. Why not?

My flight was delayed, and I was freaking out, because the original ticket said I would get in at 12:30, but we left closer to 12, and they said “this flight will take an hour and a half”. So I was trying to figure out how to tell people I was going to be late, and I was getting really antsy, when, finally, halfway through the flight, the pilot nicely reminded everyone that England is an hour behind. Oh, right.

The UK has basically as crazy security/customs as the U.S. Maybe worse, because being an American, I don’t get quite the craziness of U.S. customs as foreigners would. You have to fill out a little form that says where you’re staying, how long, etc. So she asks, “How long are you staying?” Well, it kind of says on your paper there…and of course, what’s the purpose of your visit? “Visiting friends.” “Are the friends you’re visiting American?” “Uh…yes?” And that matters why exactly? So tempted to say “Actually, they’re Iraqi and a part of the Al-Qaeda”. Of course I didn’t, because then you would probably not have heard from me again in a very, very long time.

The fact that everyone was speaking English and spoke English was very hard to comprehend. I kept doing double takes when I heard English.

At the hostel, I united with Sara, Meghan, Lauren, and the other Sarah, who I didn’t know was in London as well, so that was sweet! Once again, our room was on the top floor…

From the hostel, we headed to Tate Modern, crossing the Millenium Bridge, which, besides being a really cool bridge, is the bridge destroyed in the Half-Blood Prince movie. The clouds did make it look kind of like an impending end of the world/Death Eater attack.

Tate Modern has a lot of hype around it, but I’m not so much a modern art person. It wasn’t a bad museum, and there was a random Monet, which made me happy. There were some nice works, and I even found a Picasso that I liked. It was of a library – go figure.

We said goodbye to Sarah for the evening and headed to Abbey Road. That, I would say, is likely the most dangerous intersection in London. Really, they should reroute the road or something, because even in the middle of March there were a fair amount of tourists, including us, attempting to take photos, blocking traffic. There were some weird Americans…one guy completely dressed up in a suit and attempted to take his photo at least 10, probably 15 times, from all different angles. Then, I’m not sure if they were friends of his or just another crazy group, who were doing random stunts across Abbey Road, including doing the worm. We had four of us and, thus, had the best photo. Plus, we had a whole reasoning to our order (mostly designed by Lauren, our lovely Beatles expert) and the order turned out correct.

Lauren really happy to sign a message to Paul McCartney

Lauren led us to Paul McCartney’s house (though we had to ask about five or six people first how to get there – and, ironically, none of the English people even knew of the road, whereas the one who told us how to get there was an American; though, we do have a theory that there’s an unspoken English pact to not disclose the location of one of their own). There were no lights on, so no one was home.

However, Lauren, in her undying love, wanted to wait for just a bit in case he came home – apparently he’s very gracious to fans who happen to be by his house when he’s around. No one came, and we were about to leave, when two cars came around the corner. We may not have met Paul McCartney, but we met someone, and had a very suspicious encounter. Here is what happened:

We paused, waiting to see if the cars passed by. One slowed down right in front of the house before Paul McCartney’s, then, slowly inched up to us. It was a very, very nice convertible, and in it was the strangest looking man. He had on some weird sweater, he had kind of stringy longish hair, a sort of gangster hat on sideways, and there was something shiny about his teeth. It honestly didn’t look real. “Does Mick Jagger live here?” he asked.
“No…Paul McCartney…” we answered, a little suspicious of this freak.
“Who’s that?”
Meghan, who performed brilliantly in this conversation, stepped up to the plate. “Of the Beatles.”
“Who are they?”
…At this point, I was thinking, “Is this guy serious? He’s either a creep, or there’s something up.” We had some nervous laughter, not knowing what to say. Finally, he says, “I just came down from Neptune, so I don’t know who the Beatles are.”
… More nervous laughter. After a little bit, he continues, “I don’t know, they’re probably only the greatest band on Earth, right?”
Meghan answers, “Yeah, why else would people still be visiting his house 40 years after they broke up?”
Then the guy gets a little more serious. “Is he in?”
“No, unfortunately, it does not appear so.”
And here was the really suspicious part. He says, very pointedly, “That’s a shame. I’m sure he really would have loved to meet you guys.”
Meghan, now our official spokesperson, replies, “We would love to meet him, too.”
Then the man wishes us a good night and drives off. Weird things about this encounter: his whole look – cannot be serious, especially for someone driving such a nice car; the fact that he turned onto the street, something you probably wouldn’t do unless you were actually looking for the street, and then kept driving; the way he said “I’m sure he really would have loved to meet you guys”; basically everything about the encounter. Needless to say, for the rest of the night we were espousing various theories that got more and more ridiculous, including but not limited to, it being Harrison’s ghost who got lost on the way to heaven and ended up on Neptune and then came back down in disguise to visit his friend, and Paul McCartney wearing fake jowls in real life so that it is a disguise within a disguise, and thus when he’s actually in disguise no one can recognize him because they’re expecting un-hideable jowls.

We were near Baker Street at this point, so we decided to go see Sherlock Holmes’ house. However, neither Meghan nor I could remember which number he lived in, but both of us thought it was a much lower number than the museum, so we didn’t even walk by the museum. Turns out we were wrong and walked a long way on Baker Street for nothing, though the walk did involve a lot of amusing fake British accents on the part of Meghan and Lauren. It was late, our feet hurt, and we were starving, so we declared it a failure and headed to Piccadilly Square/Chinatown to search for a cheap restaurant Lauren had been to before.

We almost gave up on the cheap deal – a buffet for £4.95, when I happened to spot it. It was so good to finally get inside, sit, and have food. Mr. Wu, it was called, and it, too, provided entertainment for the night. One of the waiters (who said his name was Billy, but perhaps that was his anglicized version?) began talking to us – well, mostly Lauren – and then the owner of the restaurant, Mr. Cruise/Kruse/Kruze (who, might I add, was one pimp/circus owner/business guy/white guy in the midst of a bunch of Asians, and it honestly felt like either we’d gone back in time or we were sitting in a front for a drug running business) began talking to us as well, telling us that Billy had a crush on one of us, later revealed to be Lauren, and randomly talking about how he loved Americans and other odd topics.

On the way back to the hostel, Sara finally gave in to her Starbucks addiction and stopped at one of the millions in London (we have decided there are more Starbuckses and McDonalds in London than in any U.S. city, proportionally). Ergo, I had to get a Java Chip Frappuccino, but, unable to finish it, I introduced its amazingness to Meghan and Lauren who finished it off for me.

Wednesday morning we headed off to the British Museum. I finally saw the Rosetta Stone. Somehow I missed it last time, even though it’s right in the center. I’m thinking maybe there were so many people crowded around that I didn’t even look beyond them to see what they were looking at. Also saw the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles, some Mayan stuff, some Indian and Chinese things, and a third bog body. This should be renamed – the quest for the bog bodies.

Hieroglyphics are just cool.

We walked through Covent Garden and went to Notting Hill. Nothing very exciting there, except a whole bunch of tourist shops outside the Tube stop and a bunch of Arabic places deeper in. Sarah got herself a newspaper in Arabic, and I pondered how after one year out of practice I can say nothing more than “Hello,” “thank you”, “United Nations”, “I am lonely”, and “he is a big officer in the army”, and “I don’t like New York on account of the overcrowding”. العربي الكتاب شكرا ، مها. شكرا (Thank you, Maha, thank you Arabic book) for leaving me with those lovely phrases. Although, I will say the last phrase is true, so I suppose if I ever met someone speaking Arabic who asked my opinion of New York, I could answer.

We had a very long lunch and great conversation at a little café in Notting Hill. Biggest topic of conversation was technology – how much its changed, where it’s headed, and “what the heck is chatroulette?”. Funnily enough, two days after I learned what it was (thanks, dear Sara, for having all this knowledge about the newest internet trends), I learned that back at home, the mailroom is partaking in chatroulette and meeting Norwegians. Huh.

Lauren, Sara, and I had a lovely, if rather freezing, walk around Hyde Park. There were flowers! Flowers! Spring is coooooooming!

We met Meghan at the Tube stop, though there were complications. Her line had broken and then it took forever to get there, and the rest of us were worried, because we had taken her phone so we had no way of contacting her. In the meantime, Sara got hungry, and so I made her get a pasty. Because pasties are awesome. Thankfully, things worked out, and Meghan did arrive…we then were supposed to meet with Emily, who’s studying in London and whose birthday it was that night. However, more phone problems, and we couldn’t get a hold of her. Once more cold, hungry, and rather tired from the first two, we waited around in the warm Burger King for any word from Emily, but we gave up after a while and went to the Italian restaurant across the street. In Paris I ate dinner at normal times…in London, I ate dinner like a Parisian.

Thursday, I had to say goodbye to Lauren and Meghan. :( March is the month of old friends, and what a good month that is!

Sara and I went to the area around Westminster Abbey, as I pretended to be really knowledgeable and tell her what everything was. I think she probably could have figured out for herself – Big Ben, Westminster Abbey…fairly self-explanatory. Though we did find Abe Lincoln, and maybe she wouldn’t have been able to figure that one out…being confused by him being an American and all…

I already have at least one photo like this, but it's obligatory. My favorite view of London.

From there we went to the Movieum/London Film Museum. A nice man sold us tickets. He’d been to Boston and liked it…and had godchildren in Connecticut, so he knew where Sara was from. Then, he told us he was going back to L.A. in the summer, because he’s an actor. He was already in one movie. We didn’t ask him which one. Maybe we should have, because maybe one day he’ll be really famous. Hopefully I’ll recognize him, so I can say “That man sold us tickets and showed us to the entrance of the London Film Museum”.

The museum was interesting enough. Fun geek-tastic props and costumes and things. And, of course, Daleks and the TARDIS. And Darth Vader. Can’t go wrong with Doctor Who and Star Wars.

Sara and I had fun posing for photos in front of this guy looking terrified and as if we were about to be eaten and all that good stuff. Then Sara wandered off to read something else, and I stayed to find out of this T-Rex was actually used in Night at the Museum. And as I was reading, suddenly it started moving. I seriously almost screamed. Kind of hilarious.

This is the funniest looking abominable snowman I've ever seen. And believe me, I've seen a few. I'm secretly an abominable snowman chaser. (However, if seeing one abominable snowman hundreds of times - i.e. at Disneyland - counts as seeing a few, then I'm not lying).

Sir Cadogan, from Harry Potter!

Sherlock Holmes paraphernalia.

True love

After a lunch which consisted of for me a pasty, for Sara a baked potato, and for both of us a Cadbury McFlurry, I had to say goodbye to Sara as well. Then, I was all alone again in big old London, and then in the horribly depressing London Stansted airport. It was basically one huge warehouse with dim lighting. I didn’t like it so much. Then, my flight got delayed an hour, so what did I do? Head to the bookstore. Not a good idea. They were having a “sale”, and I was looking for just one book. I found the book, but then what caught my eye? The Complete Sherlock Holmes, which was organized in the normal way, not the weird way the copy I’d borrowed from the library is organized in. So I had to get it, too. And then, since I already had two, and it was buy 4 for the price of 3, I figured “Might as well get another one, and then I get one free!” Yeah, told you it was a bad idea for me to go in a bookstore. I think I was just overwhelmed at the amount of books in English. When you go into bookstores all the time, you get a slight bit of immunity, or at least self-restraint from buying books or jumping at things that claim to be sales but aren’t…but when you have a break from English bookstores and then suddenly find yourself in one…all self-control is gone.

So now I’m pretty sure I’m set for reading material while I’m here.