Northern European Experience #28397493021084

More Danes just turned up on my doorstep. Am I eternally doomed to be followed around the world by Scandinavians? Well… Not DOOMED per se. That’s a tad harsh. Perhaps ‘granted’ is more apt.

Mette and her boyfriend Andreas rang my intercom at 7am two mornings ago, telling me that they were outside with their bags. Now, if you remember, Mette was one third of the Danes that I met in Scotland, and hung out with in Edinburgh playing cards. Then when I returned to Denmark (again), Nicolas and I with Lottie in tow went out drinking Tuborg with them again.

And now, they are nomads on my couch; with me – the ‘oh-shitty-tour-guide-because-I work too much-one’ – dragging my arse out of the warmth of my bed while it’s still dark, and returning droopy eyed from Wall Street when it’s dark again. That said, it gets dark here at about 4.30pm nowadays, so that’s no feat!

But the most interesting situation happened on Tuesday night. On Tuesdays, I get up at 7, walk to work at 8, get there at 9, work til 6, walk to school, and start class at 7, and finish class at 10. So I’m pretty buggered! I’ve made buddies with two fellow gingers from class, Therese and Carrie, and we decided to go out to one of my favourite little Aussie pads for a beer (Ruby’s on Mulberry for those NYCers). Aside from the fact that they were playing Computer Camp Love by Datarock, which is a schoolies nostalgia trip, they didn’t ID despite the fact that the girl that was waiting that night KNEW I was underage (I had breakfast here before my tattoo on my 19th and we chatted for an hour). So it made a good night.

I had given the Danes my keys because I knew that they would be in-and-out during the day. I told them to be home by 10.30 so that I wouldn’t be locked out. Come 10.45, they still weren’t there. So I called up Therese, and joined them for a late night gyro. Well, they ate meat shaved from a stick, I just drank green tea. I hoped that when I returned a half hour later, they would be there.

Wrong.

So I sat on my stoop until just before midnight, when they tripped up my 5 flights of stairs, their slowed-vinyl accents trembling up the stair shaft.

They’re lucky that I’m not so New-Yorker that I can still keep my relative cool and just shrug it off. But I’m not giving my keys away again!

They left this morning though, so I have the place to myself again! The up about having people pop in to stay all the time is that it forces me to clean the place. Because despite being a neat freak, I sicken myself with how messy I let the place get every now and then… Mostly tea bags and already read magazines and tear outs and such… And four billion scarves. Scarf sellers are more common than pretzels sellers here, and it’s freezing (34 degrees in the morning. I’ve gotten used to talking in Fahrenheit now, so I can’t convert that! About 2 degrees?) And so if you forget a much needed scarf when you run out the door, you just buy a $5 one! I have amassed quite a rainbow by now.

I’m enjoying the cold though. It’s different to what we’re used to in Melbourne. This one chills you to the bone. It’s off still, and you can feel the marrow within you freezing and cracking when you try to nimble yourself. And you know what my circulation is like – I’m liking purple at the moment; so much so that I like to colour coordinate my skin to it.

Apparently it’s 35 Celsius back home. I can’t wait. Only a month now! But now is not the time for nostalgia. Now is the time for living.