Keith's Travels

Well, well. This looks to be my last night here in Copenhagen. It has been a good trip.

I have biked the streets of Copenhagen, walked the streets of Paris, Prague, Arhus, Madrid, Oslo, toured the scarred battlefields of Verdun, drank fine Champagne in Reims, drank beer cheaper than water in the Czech Republic (literally), I've played football professionally, I've knocked a French woman to the ground in Paris (her fault), I've visited the Royal Palaces of Denmark, France and Spain, I've stared at Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Picasso's Guernida, dozens of Monet's Impressionist paintings, saw the skeleton ring the bell at the astronomical clock in Prague, climbed the rocks of the Czech Republic, rode an overnight train, rode two overnight busses, two overnight ferries, I fell asleep to gunshots in my apartment one night, fell asleep to the train every other night, drove through Luxembourg, I've learned to cook a little, clean occasionally, saw a soccer game, visited countless museums, taken numerous walking tours, and done a little school work as well. All in all I made it to eight different countries. But I am ready to head back to my favorite one.

Thanks for reading...

Keith

Wow. Serious blog drought I've been going on here. I see it has been over a month, and my last entry was even relevant to my travels but just me ranting about the Bears. Despite having a month to soak in, it still hasn't seemed like the right move to me. Enough about the Bears however. Though, I did like what they did in the draft...

It is difficult to comprehend that the semester is almost gone. It has gone quickly for the most part. There have been times when it has absolutely flown by, especially when I've been traveling. It has been great to travel--I've seen things and place and taken in cultures that have been absolutely incredible. I am very grateful for being able to have this opportunity to travel like this, especially at my age. I know that many people are not nearly as privileged as I have been. As much as I have enjoyed these travels, I always am thrilled to get back in Copenhagen. I really have enjoyed this city.

Last Friday marked the first day of May, which is accompanied in Europe with the May Day celebration. Like every other celebration I've experienced here in Denmark--it was well beyond my understanding. The festivities took place all over the country (and continent, from what I gather) but the biggest gathering in Denmark was in a place called Faeldparken in Copenhagen.

Some of my Danish friends, Thomas and Signe (pronounced SEEN-a) invited me and an American friend, Jennings, to come celebrate with them. We set off on our bikes at about 1:30. It was a pretty short ride, but once we got about a kilometer from the park, there was bicycle traffic like I'd never seen. We eventually hall had to dismount and park our bikes, and walk the remaining distance.

The park was enormous, but it was overflowing with people. There were dozens of stages with accompanying video screens, loud speakers, and endless walls of polser (hot dog) stands and port-o-pottys. People laid down blankets everywhere and were sitting on them, it was so crowded, though, that it took us about twenty minutes to find a clearing large enough to lay our blanket down. It was a mosh-pit of picnic setups, an extravagant maze of blankets and people so large, that after using the bathroom, I got lost trying to find my way back to our camp. It was like a European country concert on steroids.

But there was no country music, rather, there were politicians giving speeches. Though you could hear their voices, they were largely unnoticed except for the occasional faint cheer. My Danish friends seemed completely disinterested in them, they both sat with their backs facing the nearest stage. Eventually, when daylight faded, we all got back on our bikes and rode back home.

These pictures, unfortunately, are not from May Day. These are rather from tonight, for I just got my camera back after sending it in to be repaired. These are some pictures I took when I went for a bike ride downtown tonight. To get a sense of how late the sun goes down, these pictures were all taken from around 9-9:30 p.m. Pretty incredible.

-Keith

This blog is usually dedicated to my travels abroad, but with the Bears making their biggest trade in decades, I will give my thoughts on the deal.

Since when did Bears GM Jerry Angelo start taking advice from Cubs GM Jim Hendry? I hate to be the obnoxious naysayer who immediately degrades a move by their favorite sports team, and usually I might just keep my mouth shut, but this time the stakes are so high I have to let my conscious speak.

Like Hendry, taking the kid-in-the-candy-store mentality, Angelo caused major waves by giving up way too much to get an unproven but talented player who doesn't really fit the system or the locker room. This feels to me like when Hendry spent enormous amounts of money on players like Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome. Both made huge headlines, when the Cubs really needed was some speed and defensive players instead someone like Soriano who can hit the long ball but is a liability defensively. I have always liked Jerry Angelo, he always seemed to address the team's weaknesses head on, slowly building a solid team that got to the Super Bowl in 2006. The Chicago Bears, who pride themselves on their history of team-first, run the ball, tenacious defense, smashmouth football, have just given up the farm to get a loud mouth player in Jay Cutler who apparently cannot handle the pressures of being an NFL quarterback. At 17-20 a starter, why wouldn't the Broncos try to ship out the strong-armed quarterback when his stock is at its peak? And the Bears took the bait, giving up Kyle Orton, who's numbers were not as good as Cutler's, but then again he was throwing to Rashied David and Brandon Lloyd rather than Brandon Marshall and Eddie Royal, while not having an o-line anywhere near the caliber of the Broncos.

Secondly, was Lovie Smith even consulted about this trade? I find it hard to imagine that the conservative Smith would seek to get Cutler at such a high price--especially a coach who has preached the importance of defense and running the ball. This is the coach who doesn't tolerate selfishness, remember how quickly he ran Cedric Benson out of town? Well, now Lovie, you have a crybaby quarterback, and no draft picks to fill those porous holes in your defense. Everyone keeps defending Cutler by saying that he was 13-1 when his defense allowed 21 points or less, well guess what, that is not something the Bears defense is prepared to do week in and week out in 2009. Are we forgetting how the Vikings put up 40 points in '08? Brian Urlacher has apparently lost a step, as much as I love him. But I am more worried about the secondary. Who the hell is going to play safety? Craig Steltz and Danieal Manning? The defensive line has additional holes to fill, with rookie sensation Mark Anderson falling off the radar in the 2008 season.

Additionally, who knows how offensive coordinator Ron Turner and Cutler will gel, seeing that Cutler was furious after withdrew a scholarship offer to him the University of Illinois back when he was the head coach there. That seems like a much greater crime than anything Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels did to Cutler in Denver, (what exactly did he do that was so bad?).

One thing the Bears did do was get style points. Now Devin Hester will have a quarterback that even he cannot outrun. Yes, respect for Cutler's arm will make defenses back out of the box, which should help running back Matt Forte. But Cutler has a record for throwing a lot of interceptions, and this is something that our defense is not going to be able to absorb. As bad as a rap as Kyle Orton got at times, he didn't turn the ball over a whole lot.

Let me follow this rant by saying that I hope that I have to eat every word I just wrote. I hope my opinion is just that, an opinion of a retired bench warmer of a bottom dweller division III football team, who doesn't know squat about the NFL. And while I don't think it is going to be work out, I am willing to support the decision and back Cutler fully during this honeymoon. I will keep my mouth shut from now on until Cutler gets a chance to prove himself. But in the meantime, perhaps Angelo should be talking to Jim Hendry again: This time about getting Cubs pitcher (former Notre Dame star) Jeff Samardzija about returning to football and playing receiver for the Bears. That way Cutler would at least have someone legitimate to throw to.

I've never had a knack for sleeping while traveling. Not on cars, planes, trains, you name it. Don't get my wrong, I wish I had the gift. It would be great to be able to multitask and satisfy such diverse needs like covering long distances and catching up on some much needed Z's at the same time. But I've never gotten the hang of it--something about it feels unnatural. Trying to force sleep in such a foriegn environment makes me feel about as out of place as a guy wearing a shirt at a NASCAR event. This unnatural feeling of sleeping while traveling is only amplified when you happen to be crammed into an 8' x 8' room with five French people who either cannot or will not speak English, aboard a high speed train ripping through the French countryside at speeds over 100 mph. So you can imagine how well I slept last Thursday night.

The night started off uneventful enough, for me sitting for about an hour or two at the Paris station waiting for my train to arrive. I was heading from Paris to a small town called Segovia, in Spain, to visit a friend from school. I spent most of this time waiting people watching-- I couldn't get over the French. Usually, when I have previous stereotypes of a certain people or culture, they are usually immediately proved wrong by my first few interactions with the particular people. Not so for the French, they not only reaffirmed by stereotypes of them--rude, stuck up, etc.-- they exceeded any expectations I had conjured up for them. No doubt, I had only met a few French people, and some of them seemed very pleasant, nonetheless, the majority of my interactions were far from pleasant. Our waiter on the first night was genuinely rude the entire night, the ticket man at the train station snapped at me for not knowing where my gate was, and the overweight lady behind the hotel counter--a perfectly nice, luxuorious hotel, I might add-- acted as if I had just shot her new born puppy every time I asked her for directions. I thoroughly enjoyed the rich history and cultural aspects of France, it was really a tremendous experience to see the battlefields of Verdun, the Champagne caves of Reims, and all that Paris has to offer. That being said, I was not sad to say goodbye to the people of France. When the train had finally arrived, I was apparently so eager to say farewell that I got on the wrong train car.

I got to my room--or hostel on wheels-- and was the first one there. I immediately made my bed and put on my headphones, hoping to avoid having to deal with any of my French roommates who would soon be trickling in. It was already 11:00 p.m., and I was pretty tired. But as soon as I had closed my eyes, I realized I should probably use the bathroom just so I don't wake any of my other roommates, which would be a disruption I imagined the French blowing vastly out of proportion.

So I made my way to the toilet and hurried back to my room. But, suddenly, a lady popped out of the room next to mine, and asked me a question in French. "Je ne pas parle Francais," I responded, and stepped around her as I continued on to my room. I had no idea what her question was but I was fairly confident I didn't have the answer to it."Espanol?" She called after me. "Italiano?' She asked again before I could respond. She must have been taking cues from my darker complexion and features. "Anglais," I replied.

She then told me in very broken English that she and her other roommates could not lift her bag onto the storage racks (which are above the three-high stacked bunk beds). An older man came out of the room (I wasn't sure if this was her husband or not) looking exasperated, I sensed that they had exhausted every other option. She wondered if I could give it a try. I poked my head into the room, and sized up this bag--knowing full well the excessive packing abilities of women-- before making any sort of a commitment. It was a big bag, no doubt, but it wasn't enormous. In my mind, I chalked their failure up to being French and thus inevitably wimpy, which was probably a bad way to think about it. I was fully confident that I could get that damn bag up onto the storage rack.

So I stepped inside and grabbed the bag by handles on either side, and pulled it up to my waist. I then lifted it to shoulder level, and stepped onto the lower two bunks so that I could reach the storage rack above me. Whoa. The weight of this bag was arresting--it wasn't just heavy, but very unbalanced. It was the kind of weight that made me remember, 'Yes I have dislocated my shoulder twice, maybe I shouldn't be lifting this huge French purse above my head." But I had already passed the point of no return. I gave it one final serious heave, and pushed the damn thing onto the rack. I jumped down triumphantly, a wave of patriotism sweeping over me, as the lady thanked me numerous times.

I returned to my room, got into bed, and rolled over and faced the wall. And while that brief bit of strenuous exercise didn't help me sleep any better that night, it wasn't a bad consolation prize to be waking up Friday morning in the country of Spain.

The first picture is from the battle of Verdun. This battle raged between the Germans and French, and later Americans, during 1916, the permanent scarring is still clearly visible today-- it looks like a never-ending field of green ski moguls-- the result of incessant artillery shelling.

The second image is from a Champagne 'Cave' in Reims. These bottles must sit for years horizontally as part of the process of making Champagne. They have miles and miles of tunnels like these that hold thousands of bottles of Champagne.

The third image is the of the Gardens at Versailles.

The fourth is a picture of Paris from our hotel room, near sunset. You can see the Eiffel off in the distance.

The fifth picture is a picture of the beautiful town of Segovia, Spain.

The last picture is an image of the Spanish Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain.

All in all, it was a great 10 day trip. I'm looking forward to the Czech Republic next week.

Keith

A couple weekends ago there was a Danish holiday called Fastelavn, which is a halloween of sorts for the Danes. Just about every kollegium (or dorm) throws a party for this holiday, and Keops Kollegium (where I live) was no different. Although I am far from understanding the logic behind the celebration or the deep roots the holiday holds in Danish culture, I can tell you how we celebrated. For the most part, it was pretty similar to any other party I have attended, with the main exceptions being that everyone dressed up in costumes and the night was interrupted about an hour into the celebration, as the Danes led everyone down to the basement of our Kollegium. Downstairs, we each got the chance to help beat the hell out of a small barrel with a wooden bat, until the barrel finally gave way and large amounts of candy seeped out onto the floor. The barrel had a picture of a cat on it; apparently, the Danes used to put a cat in the barrel in order to dispatch bad spirits, but this pastime has become less violent over the centuries and now a picture of a cat is symbolically used instead.

All of this is besides the point, us Americans were thrilled to finally get the chance to meet and hang out with some Danes who live in our kollegium, for the Danes are a pretty solitary people. To see them around is rare, for them to acknowledge you or anyone else is even more so, and for them to talk to you is a downright small miracle. At least this is the case in my kollegium, where there is not a great gathering place and all of the hallways are open-air.

At the party, there was some segregation among nationalities, but not as much as I expected. There is a large contingent of Australians and New Zealanders in my kollegium, and I have noticed that they have an uncanny ability to break the ice in these types of situations. Come to think of it, I don't believe I have ever felt awkward around any Aussie or Kiwi, even if we have just met. I guess it must be that it is hard to take them too seriously when they have that funny accent.

I got to talking with one Dane, named Simon, at the party. I don't know many Danes in my kollegium, but I had seen Simon around a couple times and he had always been nice enough. I kept asking him about where some good live music was in Copenhagen, and eventually he offered a solution, "Well, why don't you just come out with me one night and we'll find some good music?" I gladly accepted, but I doubted the idea would ever matriculate.

You learn quickly that as little as most Danes talk, when they do say something, they mean it. The following Friday, Simon came and knocked on my door, making good on his offer. We found a good venue and heard a solid band play--oddly enough, they sung in English and spoke in Danish in between songs.

This past Monday, Simon invited me to watch a big soccer match between hated rivals FC Kobenhavn (Copenhagen) and Brondby IF, with him and some of his Danish friends. I did, and quickly realized that this was the first time I had been isolated with only Danes during my entire time here so far in Denmark. At the start of the match, the Danes were nice enough to occasionally talk in English so I could understand, explaining why this was such a big game and with what team their own personal loyalties lay. Brondby IF is a team from a Western suburb of Copenhagen, and apparently these two clubs have no love lost between each other. A few minutes into the game, Simon informed me sternly, looking me right in the eye, "You are rooting for Brondby."

As the game went on, the Danes talked less and less in English and seemed to have all but forgotten that I didn't speak Danish. I got pretty immersed in the game, myself, with no understandable conversation to distract me from the action. As the game progressed, Brondby appeared to be the clear underdog. FC Kobenhavn always appeared to have possession and they had numerous shots on goal. Brondby, though, had a mesmerizing way of bending but not breaking on defense, time after time getting themselves out of trouble, with the goalkeeper stopping shots on goal and headers coming from seemingly impossible angles. Finally, in about the 75th minute, the Brondby defense finally broke, as a FC Kobenhavn player got a cross behind the goalie and easily put the ball in net. The Danes rooting for FC Kobenhavn erupted, and Brondby never could recover and get an equalizer. I found myself somewhat disappointed after the game, feeling somewhat of an allegiance to the Brondby team.

The next morning in class, three students strolled in with fresh FC Kobenhavn blue and white scarves wrapped around their necks, talking about last nights game, having apparently jumped in to ride shotgun on the bandwagon. As I watched them, I couldn't help but feel my allegiances as a Brondby fan had been even further cemented.