Total flaming chaos
Let’s see what I’ve been up to.
Besides the aforementioned infections. (The antibiotics are starting to work… I expect an “antibiotic high” tomorrow — you know, when you’ve been feeling horrible and tired for so long and suddenly you feel normal, but normal is so great that it’s like a rush.)
We were in Berlin — fun to see a new place and wonderful to be in a hotel instead of a hostel. But: really cold, grey, and stinky. They’ve got some issues with their sewage. Every time you walk past a grate or manhole in the street you get that nasty stinky-sweet whiff of unmentionable. Every time. Really, one of those things that you can appreciate about Copenhagen as soon as you’re not here. The stink factor is very small.
Also good to see my aunt and my uncle, whom we met in Berlin. It’s been 5 years since I last saw my aunt and 10 years since I last saw my uncle. I remembered my uncle rather unkindly, but since that makes me 19 last time I saw him it could just as easily be me who mellowed — a lot. Nineteen was not a good age for me. (Actually about 16-21 was a bad age for me.)
Since we came back I’ve been sick, but it seems like everyone else in Denmark is also sick.
I’ve been using tons of time trying to coordinate this apartment buying business. It’s insane how much time and energy you have to use… Talking to the bank. Talking to the seller. Talking to the property management company — your own. Talking to the property management company that manages the apartments you’re moving to. Talking to the apartment association’s board. Talking to the evaluation guy. Trying to find a buyer for your own apartment. And this is BEFORE you even overtake the apartment… Before you get the keys, rip out the kitchen, buy the new kitchen, put it in, paint, pack, move… I think if I’d known what was involved before I might have given up right away.
Not to mention that some aspects of it are just ridiculous. And made more ridiculous by not having a car. Like I went to IKEA with Cecilie to look at kitchens, since everyone I’ve talked to recommends IKEA kitchens as affordable and reasonable quality (+/- various aspects, such as countertops, water pipes under the sink and so on). As soon as we got in the door I could see that they had a weekly offer on exactly the night tables I’d looked at in the catalog and considered buying “at some point” once we’d moved in (and had room for such things). Instead of 450 per item it was 99. Or something like that. So of course the idea of saving 700 kroner meant that I HAD to buy them there on the spot because the offer was only for 1 week.
Side question: It’s great that IKEA packs all its furniture in such little packages, but why on Earth is it so heavy? Some of us have pneumonia! We had to take a taxi.
Other absurd things: trying to buy and transport moving boxes. These I got at Silvan, where they’ve also been on sale recently. But this involved tying them together with string and balancing them on the pedal of my bicycle while I walked it all the way home. Luckily I only had to do this once before Cecilie and Thomas rescued me and drove all the other boxes home to me in their car.
Now I’ve got a bunch of moving boxes taking up the middle of the living room floor.
The 5th semester is still uninspiring, but happily there isn’t that much left. I’m expecting to find out where I’ll be in my 6th semester praktik sometime in the next week or two… Very nervewracking. I am hoping SO MUCH that I’ll get placed at an AMA (acute receiving ward, like a medical emergency room), but I am really afraid that I’ll end up at a geriatric ward. Not because I hate old people, I actually don’t mind them, it’s just that I am not really interested in such long admissions. I want exciting! I want blood and guts!
And it’s Christmas soon. I’m sort of unprepared, although I have managed to send the Christmas presents to the US — although I forgot to take Nicolai’s pakkelege presents and a little handmade present for Julie out of the bag first. Oops. Mostly I’m just looking forward to the food, although that probably has to do with me not having been to any julefrokosts yet.
Anyway, my brain is swamped. That’s what’s going on.
