On Airports

In honor of my forthcoming flight back to the homeland, I'd like to share some musings I had in Gatwick airport while struggling to stay awake long enough to catch my egregiously early flight back to Copenhagen.

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Douglas Adams told us years ago that "it's no coincidence that no culture has coined the phrase 'pretty as an airport'". I'm not sure I agree. For one thing, architecturally speaking, many airports these days are making great strides. They all have their individual atmospheres. The Copenhagen airport is clean-cut, simple, elegant and not entirely unfriendly, much like the people of the city. The airport in Vilnius is clearly the product of a small and somewhat old fashioned culture.
But whatever your personal feelings on the physical attractiveness of airports is, there is no denying that they're interesting places. Airports hold a wide variety of human emotions: excitement, trepidation, sadness, irritation, boredom, happiness, panic. The range is as wide as the human capacity to feel. It's always interesting to be a player in this scaled down rendition of the human drama.
I usually find my feelings when in airports to be firmly on the positive end of the spectrum. Unless there are slow walkers in front of me; then I seethe. But it's invigorating to know you're about to step into a tube and be fired off to a place completely different from where you began, in culture, geography, and history. It's like a drive-thru banking delivery syste, but for people. And on the other end of your journey there could be almost anything waiting for you: family, old friends, people you've never met who are about to become your best friends, if only for the night, ridiculous adventures or uneventful excursions. The best part is the uncertainty inherent in traveling. Airports hold the promise of new experiences, and for that reason, I think they're quite beautiful indeed. For once, as far as I'm concerned, Douglas Adams was wrong.

8 Things No One Tells You About Winter Biking in København

When you move to København, you're generally pretty aware of the strong biking culture the city has. And if not you pick up on it quickly, when you realize not having a bike is almost as much of a disability as not having one of your feet. And biking is awesome- it's by far the easiest and most convenient way to get most places. But when the snow starts falling, the whole game changes.

For starters, you get the unmitigated joy of digging your bike out, both of snow, and hundreds of other bikes.

1. Bike lanes don't get plowed, and even if they do, it's poorly done, and you lose about half a meter from the width of the lane. This allows you to get stuck behind slow people. Bike traffic jams are the best.
2. If you think people in New Jersey turn into terrible drivers when it snows, don't even attempt to bike in København in the snow. People instantly go into weeble mode. (A reference that maybe three people reading this will get. Basically they go into super-slow, super-cautious mode.)
3. Snow and bike tires do not go together. Zero traction.
4. Bike baskets are very useful and wonderful things, but a heavily laden one in snowy conditions can dangerously unbalance your bike. Skid city.
5. Unless you like arriving places with with mascara smeared all over your face, looking like you just went through the worst break up of all times and are seconds away from shovling down a pint and a half of Ben & Jerry's, eye makeup should be avoided.
6. It's cold; much colder than skiing, because ski pants would be darkly frowned upon by the fashion-concisous Danes.
7. Long coats are vital. Not only do they look good, but they insulate your legs.
8. Bike locks freeze. Be prepared to give them mouth-to-mouth. In the street. People will find this strange. Deal with it.

The majestic beast, just returned from a harrowing expedition to the grocery store.

 

Lübeck

Last Saturday I was fortunate enough to get to go on one final trip of the semester; a day trip to the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) in Lübeck, northern Germany. Things I love about living in Copenhagen include the fact that cool places like Germany and Sweden are but a casual drive away. It was really nice to be back in a country where I could communicate with the locals. It's impressive how fast a language comes back to you when you're surrounded by it, and I really enjoyed spreching ein bißchen Deutsch.

Look at all those happy Germans with their wursts and glühwein.

A giant spinning candle thingy. I know there must be a proper name for it, but I don't know what it is.

 

The famous gate of Lübeck. And Lukas' back.

Lübeck is another old Hanseatic state, so it's got a lot in common with many of the eastern European cities, especially Tallinn and Riga. The gates are some of the biggest giveaways of this.

The gates once again. Majestic.

The thing I love about Germany, other than the food, the beer and pretty much everything, is how surprised and happy Germans are when they find out you speak their language. And you really benefit from this. Thanks to a delightful gentleman named Klaus that we ran into in a bar, we ended up eating at the oldest restaurant in Lübeck: Schiffergesselschaft. And mother of pearl was it delicious. There's just something wonderful about eating slabs of pork in a 500 year old beer hall.

Brit Break: London

It's been a while, but I've finally gotten around to writing about my quick trip to London. First of all, apologies for the lame and unvaried pictures. I'm a big gavone and forgot to charge my camera, so everything I saw after Big Ben went woefully undocumented. My bad.

We're just going to start this right off with the necessary touristy picture of an Underground sign. Iøm a big fan of the Underground signage, particularly on a stylistic level.

Behold, The Gherkin. I know this building has gotten mixed reviews, but from a purely structural standpoint, it's pretty amazing.

The Tower of London. Not as impressive as I expected.

I have to say, London is not my favorite place that I've been. Even after having been raised on Britcoms and assorted English movies, it was surprisingly hard to understand people. And apparently I was difficult to understand as well. Though it probably didn't help much that I had lost my voice a bit after the festivities of the Czech Trek... But anyway, communicating was surprisingly hard at times.

Tower Bridge.

And a skyline. Complete with a funky new building going up.

Bacon Street, a.k.a. the street I should live on.

The illustrious Liz Levenson, casually photobombing a shot of a picturesque London street.

For some reason I didn't believe that all the buses in London would be red doubledeckers. They are.

Big Ben, 3 minutes before my camera died.

In conclusion, two days was not nearly long enough to spend in London. It's a dauntingly large city, and I feel like I barely got to see anything. However, I did get off the beaten, touristy path a bit, which was nice. My hostel in the East End was right next door to the West Ham stadium, and on top of a delightful pub, which was featured in the movie Green Street Hooligans. So you know it was good.
Things I can reccommend highly include meat pies, Brick Lane, Picadilly Circus, booking a flight that doesn't leave at 8:00am, and not eating the fast food that's all over Barking Road. As good and as cheap as the shawarma there was, by the time I got home I couldn't even look at another chip without feeling a bit queasy.