Copenhagen's mermaids

Den Lille Havfrue (The Little Mermaid) statue lives up to its name (little). I find the "other" Little Mermaid is more interesting.

Trying out Slide because I'm getting tired of Photoshow.

Camera update: I will bear with the camera until it's totally unserviceable. Other than the lack of video, I can usually get around the focusing problems by turning the camera on and off. Low light conditions will forever be a problem, but hey, it's a point-and-shoot.

Encore: Roskilde

Having a visitor makes you see things in a different light. After Indi spent two nights at Kristine's, it was my turn to play host to our Århus ka-chismisan on Whit Monday.

Is this the future of househelp recruitment?

laborfair calls itself a "househelp referral community". I can imagine this business concept sprouting wherever there is need for domestic labor and becoming a franchise. Any takers?

[via Springwise]

Hanging out

Met up with the Mariel, Kristine, Indi (Pinay Erasmus Mundus girls in Denmark) and some of their friends in København for the Karneval. We had coffee at the slightly uppity Huks Fluks at a lovely square near the Round Tower. In the evening, we caught Pirates of the Caribbean 3 at Fisketorvet, the mall one S-tog station away from central station. The tickets were expensive (95kr~P820) and we were on the second row. Interestingly, there was an intermission. No kidding.

Women in Art

Just wanted to share this. I have a soft spot for Ingres' 1853 portrait Princesse de Broglie (1:26) because I saw "her" at the Met and I was spellbound by...her dress. Ahahaha! It was more beautiful than a photograph

If it were 12 degrees outside and drizzling, would you wear this?

You gotta admire their spirit in this weather.

Yesterday was Pinse Karneval in Copenhagen. Instead of a pre-Lenten carnival, the samba schools did it in time for Pentecost/Whit Sunday. 2000 dancers and musicians paraded through the main shopping street up to the City Hall.

Maybe it's no match for our Sinulog and bonggacious festivals (I wouldn't know, actually), but it was still a lot of fun. I found myself bobbing up and down to the beat while taking photographs. Since I haven't had my camera repaired (and maybe never will because talking to the other Pinays made me dread the Philippine postal system), half of my photos came out blurred, but there were still some decent enough to upload.


Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

Movie bits

Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark is being made into an opera at the Royal Theater...for the 2010-2011 season. [via Variety]

Warner Brothers is up to something. Take a good look at this companion site and then this teaser website for The Dark Knight. No, it's not an error.

The website for the new Lindsay Lohan movie is a scary vlog. Now there are age restrictions on it, but when I saw it two days ago, there were none in place.

A new Macbeth movie set in London is showing this year. But I think seeing Roman Polanski's version is enough bloodshed for me.

A Japanese anime that looks like an R-rated Spirited Away. Paprika!

Korean popstar Rain (Bi) might appear in the Wachowski Brothers' Speed Racer film. As much as I think he's a great actor, what could the twins possibly make him do to prove that to Hollywood? Stephen Colbert will have a riot. [via IHT]

And if you haven't seen the trailer for the Stardust movie based on the Neil Gaiman novel yet, it's worth a look.

"No pity, please"

Try painting that with your foot.

That's exactly what Amado Dulnuan did. I remember interviewing him for a school project around ten years ago. My mom helped me find him through AMFPA, the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (AMFPA), which sends us greeting cards and calendars featuring works of artists without hands. Amado was born without arms but started painting with his foot at a young age, even taking up Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. For a married man with two daughters, his everyday life is surprisingly like a regular workday (except that he works from home and his artworks are seen by people all over the world).

AMFPA marks its 50th anniversary this year. What better way to celebrate it than with quality cards? Help support these talented artists. Check out the local sites for Denmark and the Philippines, as well as AMFPA scholar John Roland Feruelo's website.

Paintings by Amado Dulnuan

Beauty in breakdown

My camera works.

My camera doesn't work.

It works.

It doesn't work.

Works.

Doesn't.


Yes.

No.

Longest word in Danish?

arbejdsløshedsforsikringslovgivningsudvalgsmedlemsskab

It's possible that this word isn't used in daily life because the length makes it impractical, but it does mean something: membership in the committee that makes the laws about unemployment insurance.

Flashback: Bornholm

Raymond has videos of Dueodde beach, Svaneke Brewery, Baltic Sea Glass, the røgeriet, the Rocking Stone and Li rolling down the mound outside the museum. But my favorite has to be the cave. (And not because I'm in it for a split-second and you can hear my voice--those take away points in my book.) You might wonder what all the exclamations were about. There's nothing like being there, I think.

Salsa evening

I had never gone to a real salsa event, so I jumped on the chance to see the Danish-Cuban Grupo Danson perform at Gimle. Before the band came on, we had a warm-up and a short dance class. Given the Danes's reputation for being reserved, it was nice to see them take to the floor. Then again, those who go to these are most likely prepared to dance. Too bad there were hardly any young people (average age: 45). Though the the music was very good, I didn't stay long--just avoiding the possibility of being stuck on the dancefloor with middle-aged men. Hee hee.

Killing with kindness

Cruel 2 B Kind is a great game! Here are some players in San Francisco on Current TV.

Killing with shorts

Time, that is. When YouTube is not enough.

blip.tv it's your show. Great for vloggers.

Break from the looks of it, this is where men go to watch girls. Plus other man stuff, of course, like United 300

MediaStorm well made documentaries

Revver another wannabe that promises big bucks

Rocketboom daily with Joanne

BBC film network watch quality shorts

Screensavers aren't eco-friendly. Let your computer hibernate instead of running full-power indefinitely. But I must say, flickrvision, which shows you newly posted Flickr photos, makes a nice screensaver. Diggexpose, on the other hand, combines Snap and Digg.

Then there's good old TV Links.

For your mp3 collection, part 6

Back in London, Elaine went ga-ga over Dan's stuffed toys, especially the monkeys.

The Ben Fowler Quintet: Modern Hymn-the gospel of chill

Club 8:"Whatever You Want"-your new driving song

Dinosaur Jr:We're Not Alone-and I believed you

Funky Nashville: My Corazon-until that day

Grand Archives: Sleepdriving-stay awake

Jape:"Floating" clap with me

Julie Doirin: "No More"-it's gotta stop

Lewis and Clarke:"Before It Breaks You"-walk away slowly

Lucky Soul: "The Great Unwanted"-trip-unhappy

Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl: "Lung Lady"-folk to sway to

Switchyard: "Virgins"-dive into the unknown

Listen to more at Daytrotter.com

More of Funky Nashville here.

lørdag, sondag, mandag

Collected unorganized thoughts:

Saturday
Second straight day of talking in Tagalog (with Kristine this time)
How she and Mariel spent døgnet: Helsingør and Frederiksborg
Possibility of staying overnight at her place in København for the weekend

Laura F.'s 23rd birthday party
Bruschetta, pasta, rice, salad, tiramisu, fruits chocolate fondue
Even at the end of the semester, you can still meet new people
A mother and her adult son can dance just as crazily as anyone else
What starts out as an Italian dinner party can end up being a French dance party

Sunday
Project work (plus distractions equals bad output)
Cleared sludge from the drain (ugh)

Monday
Claimed the camera (see post below)
More project work (fewer distractions still equals bad output)

International Cafe presents Italian night@Gimle
Bruschetta, pasta, tiramisu, rosé, lambrusco
Probably lost pounds dancing the night away
Singing Italian songs together after midnight
So sad that my camera can't take videos anymore
Congratulazioni to the Italianos for a super event!

I got my Steady* back

On a warm (time for t-shirts) Monday morning, I set out for Valby to pick up my damaged digital camera.

I arrived at the service center and rang the bell. Five minutes passed. I don't think anybody noticed that I was there. I rang it again. A man who looked like the owner of David's Salon (plump, middle-aged, moustached) came. I showed him the invoice. He asked if I was told that the camera was ready for pick-up and if I had informed them that I was claiming it. I said no and that I was not going to have it repaired. He came back with the camera.

"That's 375 kr plus taxes...468(~P3,910)."

Whoa.

I took out my wallet. "You should have told me about the charge," I said.

"It's there," he pointed to the invoice.

"No, I meant before I left it. I could have sent it to the Philippines. It's still under warranty."

He paused for a moment and disappeared for three minutes. When he came back, he said, "You can take. I talked to the technician and he said he told you[that you had to pay]. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt."

What a relief. And no, I didn't have to put on any drama (my acting is no good in real life). But I did get teary-eyed when I heard 468.

We talked some more about warranties and lenses. I thanked him and said sorry for my ignorance about procedure, but they really should tell their customers about these things. He said that they usually do, but sometimes they forget.

"You're not so ignorant about other things,"he said, smiling.

"I love photography," I said, not really getting what he meant.

"Keep taking pictures."

"I will, once I have a camera." Huhuhu.

Anyway, the lens retracts erratically, but I was still able to take these photos of Valby station with it. Click on them to see how blurry they are full size. They'd be even worse if I wasn't shooting in macro mode(!). The one at the top of the post look okay, though.

It could be worse. (My friends from college ought to know this line.)

*my Canon Ixus 65

Døgnet part 3: Odense

Jeg elsker Odense. (I love Odense.)

It was the last priority, but I had wanted to see Odense. Since we weren't as keen to compete with all the little kids for the rides at Legoland, we had time to take another hour on the train to Denmark's third largest city aka Hans Christian Andersen land.

I came prepared with the printout of a walking tour I found online, so it was a very good walk. The streets were nearly empty and it was a pleasant stroll. From Kongens Have, we passed by Odense Slot (That's a palace? we were thinking), we passed by Sankt Hans Kirke, going to tiny Hans Jensens Stræde (is everybody called Hans?) all the way to the Koncerthus, taking pictures outside Oluf Bagers Gård and the Radisson Hotel. Down Paaskestræde, we headed for Sankt Knuds Kirke and H.C. Andersens Have. Caught the magic hour at Rådhuspladsen, where the battery of Indi's camera finally ran out.

We ran into Jiri and his wife while following the route; they were taking the opposite direction with a guidebook. On the train back to Roskilde, I sat along the train aisle with Kristina and Malin, who braved Århus despite having arrived from London the night before. After six train rides, I called it a day.

Odense is probably the only place in Denmark that I don't mind visiting again (save for København). I found it really delightful. Between Lego and H.C. Andersen's stories, both of which I grew up with, I'm surprised that the latter cast a spell on me more than the other.

Many thanks again to big sis Indi for the camera! Lakwatsa tayo ulit, ha?

"a little singing, a little dancing, a lot of hummus"

Bobi pointed out West Bank Story to me. "I made a comedy musical about Israelis and Palestinians that takes place in between two falafel stands in the West Bank. And it's a movie about peace and about hope..." So goes Ari Sandel about his Oscar-winning short film. Wish I could see this! More clips here.

Døgnet part 2: Legoland

There are two big areas in Billund: one is the airport, the other is Legoland. Both are quite unusually situated in a municipality without train access and whose claim to fame is being the headquarters for the Lego group.

From Århus, it takes 46 minutes by train to Vejle, then another 41-minute train ride directly to Legoland. The entrance for adults is 229kr(~P1930). We met the Baltic students from RUC at the train station. They've got a great itinerary, I must say.





As you could imagine, tons of families with very young children were there. Denmark's drive to re-populate the country has been successful and that was enough proof. Indi and I just rode the Lego Top which has views of the whole park, and the cute dialogue-free 4D show.




The bus trip to and from Vejle is probably the most expensive bus ride I've had in Denmark (95kr return~P800). We took the 224, which passes by the airport, going there and on the way back, the 907X, which takes the scenic route through Randbøldal, which was lovely and makes up for the fare. I would have taken a video of it if I could. The ride really felt very English for us for some reason (common points of reference, I suppose). Is it the clouds? The fields? The rolling hills? The bus?

Manual scrapblog today, a real one tomorrow.

Døgnet part 1: Århus

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On May 18th, the whole of Denmark travelled by train. That's because DSB offered cheap tickets for 24 hours of unlimited travel. I bought the 99kr(~P835) ticket for Jylland, Fyn and Sjælland, which practically covers most of Denmark (except for Bornholm, Faroe Islands and Greenland, of course). Normally, going to Århus alone costs 291kr.

I took the train to Høje Taastrup at 5:46am, talking to Sarah who was working overnight on her project at Trekroner and was about to go home to France for a few days. From Høje Taastrup, I took the InterCity to Århus, Denmark's second largest city. I ran into Hao and Li Na on the train. They left for København at 4am, hoping to get seats, but the seats were all reserved and we spent nearly three hours sitting on the floor by the doors of the train. I expected that, so I just took out a book and read part of the way.

On the first stop on the Jylland peninsula, a man who alighted the train raised his arms and shouted triumphantly "Hej Jylland!"

Indi was waiting at Århus station when I arrived. It's been five months since we last saw each other, but since we always chat on messenger, there was no need to catch up. We took advantage of DSB's free breakfast: bread and butter with coffee or juice. Indi lent me her sturdy camera so I could snap away.

The sky was clear and it was pretty chilly out as we waited for ARoS (Århus Kunstmuseum) to open. We just passed through without seeing the exhibit, then walked through part of the botanical garden before heading to the university, where we had lunch (a choice of vegetarian tart, pizza or lasagna with as much salad as you can pile on your plate) for a reasonable 29kr.

Walking through the university, we quickly stepped into the cathedral then dashed through Strøget which was chock-full of shoppers), running whenever we can (I can hear Ate Indi's boots go stomp! stomp!) and made it to the station in 15 minutes.

I found out later that lots of the international students from RUC went to Århus. Cheap, you say? We'll go.

Notes on Århus:
-Ortigas has more skyscrapers than probably the whole of Denmark. The only tall structures here are smokestacks.
-This city feels like a city in the way Antipolo is a city--it's a big town.

More kwento tomorrow and on Monday!

Ex-crush Crusher

...had an ex-crush on Deanna Troi in real life. If ST:TNG doesn't sound familiar to you, this is the context: Roddenberry. No? Alright, alright: Picard. That should clear it up. The geek I knew as Wesley is on Flickr and has a blog, books and audiobooks.

Dare your senator/governor/mayor to do this

An idea for the newly elected: the Washington Post ran a story on the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge. Four U.S. lawmakers have pledged to live on $21 a week. Congressmen Tim Ryan and Jim McGovern blog about the experience.

Hayao Miyazaki twinbill

Saw these two animated features with a small group last Monday evening. Some common themes and devices, as you can see in the images.


Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds (Kaze no tani no Naushika), 1984
A peace-loving princess who respects the natural world saves human from the destruction they bring upon themselves. Interesting how the animation mixes different eras together through production design. Great theme music. Visionary for its time.


Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), 2001
This 2003 Oscar-winner for Best Animated Film is an amazing mix of hand-drawn art and CGI. Moving house, a girl and her parents chance upon an unusual place. Chihiro finds work at the bath house of the gods and goes on an unusual path to bring her parents back to the human world. The little girl in me loves this film.

No posts tomorrow because I'm leaving very early in the morning to take advantage of Døgnet to travel around Denmark. Will tell you how it goes.

Camera woes

I'm embarrassing myself by admitting that I cried yesterday when I got the invoice for the camera repair, but I'm doing it anyway.

It will cost me 1760kr(~P15,312) to have it repaired. For a point-and-shoot? No way. Worse, if I don't have it repaired, I have to pay 375kr(~P3,260) for having it checked. What on earth?!? Maybe I'm ignorant about procedure, but there was nothing said or written about this charge. Had I known about it, I wouldn't have left the camera with them. I'll simply send it back to the Philippines, where it is still under warranty and since I bought it from Canon directly, I know they'd do something about it. I could still do this, but if I can make a deal with the service center to leave the camera there in exchange for a certain amount, essentially selling it to them, I'd consider it.

Maybe 375kr is not a big deal to Danes, but that's two weeks' worth of food for me. I worked six weeks to buy that camera, and it served me well, taking over 6200 shots in 10 months. I had been carried it with me all the time even before I left for London. As a rule, I'm detached to my things, having my cellphones damaged, lost and stolen over the years. I was telling Jon that since I stopped wearing eyeglasses, there's really nothing I can't live without. (Then again, I need eyedrops. Maybe lotion, too.) I feel that I can always start over anytime. And I will.

I'm definitely buying a cheap new camera next month. As much as I love Canon, I'm also going to look at other brands that can deliver decent quality at a good price. Anything under 1000kr(~P8700) that you can recommend?

By the way, today is a holiday in Denmark: Himmelfartsdag. Sounds funny, but it's actually Ascension. The next holiday is Whit Monday, or the day after Pentecost, on the 28th. Weird that such an un-religious country marks it on the calendar. But any holiday is welcome, right? With 6 weeks of vacation a year and 37 hours of work every week, I envy the Danes.

Adding labels manually in HTML

For old school Bloggers only.

Still haven't switched to Blogger Layouts because I don't want to lose the changes I've made to Minima. For a long time, I've been looking up how to add categories/labels to the sidebar. At the same time, labeling the posts individually. Now I've found a very easy way. To copy the code, simply view the page source by right-clicking. If you want the categories to be in list form, enclose each category in list item tags. :)

Tintin on the big screen

No less than Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are directing two films out of a trilogy of photorealistic 3D Tintin movies. Woohoo!

[via Variety]

Tintin shop in London, November 2006

Too late!

The warning, I mean. Indi introduced me to it and I got buried in the Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comic archive. Somebody bring me back to work!

(Don't worry groupmates, the situation is now under control)

One for the boys

Or car lovers or sports fans or both.

Richard Hammond is back in top form. He competes with James May in this Top Gear segment on the Toyota Aygo. Footy + cars.

For the girls, Trinny and Susannah of "What Not to Wear" get interviewed by Jeremy Clarkson on the show. Am not even gonna comment on what Trinny is wearing. Cars or clothes?

An evening at the park

Tivoli photos, as promised. Photo credits in parentheses.

Top left: Do I look like I'm in Copenhagen? (Xiangnan)
Top right: The Star Flyer (me)
Bottom left: Mindaugas, Malin and Kristina on The Golden Tower (me)
Bottom right: With Hanna (Irene)

Footwear of the day: brown boots

Just noticed that there are far too many photos of myself on the blog the past couple of weeks. It's weird what not having your own camera can do. I'm no Cindy Sherman; I'll try to cut down on them, pramis.

"Save the world, one click at a time"

Clean water, education, food for a village, micro-financing. It only takes one click. Ripple makes saving the world seem so simple. (It isn't, but that's for another post.)

[via jun.anteola]

Say Chiz?

I am neither pro-Chiz nor anti-Chiz, but Francis Joseph "Chiz" Escudero has many fans and believers. His political career seems made. He is leading the latest counts from yesterday's senatorial elections, according to Inquirer.net's Eleksyon 2007 blog.

That said, I just wanted to share my dad's Chiz anecdote. They were both waiting at what used to be Monique Wilson's Paco home, where we were having rehearsals for a show. My dad asked him "Sinong hinihintay mo, anak mo?" (Who are you waiting for? Your kid?) Turns out he was waiting for his then-girlfriend now-wife Christine.

I honestly didn't really think about who I'd vote if I was in the Philippines. (Just repeating my comments on other people's blogs here.) I'm not an Overseas Absentee Voter (OAV), so I'm really just a spectator of the carnival, where the issues are only sideshows--Bakhtin would be impressed. (Or horrified.) Not that I don't care. But the distance makes me feel...distant from it all. Maybe other Filipinos abroad feel the same way, hence the low turnout of OAVs. It could be something else. They could have become jaded, disillusioned, fed up, indifferent. I hope I will not feel that way about my homeland. Sadly, it's all too easy for that to happen.

An eventful Friday

Putting up this post before it rots on the Blogger dashboard. More photos to follow.(Have to get the ones I took with Xiangnan's camera. Such a parasite. Tsk, tsk!)

A startling revelation marked the project group meeting at Cafe Retro in Copenhagen. A bit shaken, but stirred to action, the three of us girls met the other IC members at 7pm for the trip to Tivoli, the world-famous amusement park built in 1843.

We were able to get discounted entrance(40kr~P343 instead of 60kr~P514), but still had to pay 200kr~P1713 for unlimited rides or a maximum of 60kr for a single ride. I intended to ride only the Star Flyer (the world's tallest carousel) at sunset, but I miraculously ended up with a multi-ride pass (thanks, Hanna!) and rode the Star Flyer again late at night (windy,brrr!) and a cutesy summary of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales in The Flying Trunk.

Later on, we watched Hush perform mainly country-ish songs. Great performance with a several guest musicians (and encores!). The title track of their album"A Lifetime" made me feel so sad.

Though I wasn't feeling quite well (partly because of the Chicken Korma I ate, partly because of the Star Flyer), I still managed to go dancing at LA Bar, but we left earlier than the other girls with us. Indi pointed out Xander Mellish's terrific stories about Denmark. In hindsight, it does make a lot of sense in terms of the dynamics in the bar. Ahahaha!

Walking down Strøget at midnight makes you feel underdressed. Actually overdressed in the sense that we were in boots and jeans while the Danish girls were in tiny skirts and strappy heels. How do they do it in this weather? (Back to single digit temps, I'm afraid.)

On the train going back to Trekroner, Xiangnan was talking to a bunch of girls. He introduced me as his sister as I passed on the way out.
"Where are you from?" asked one of the girls.
"Philippines,"I said.
"Poor," she said.
"Yes," I replied. I was taken aback because it was not a response I expected, but I think I prefer hearing that truth than something like "where's that?"

Photo of Hush at Tivoli by m-alo.

Simple food

I had been taking these over the past weeks.

I cook simply, prepare quickly and eat decently, with a steady supply of fruit to make up for the lack of vegetables (which I usually buy frozen because they will spoil if I buy kilos of them). I'm still a walking culinary disaster, but I'm think getting somewhere.

Happy Mothers' Day!

1192 and counting

Go2Web20.net has all the Web 2.0 goodness in one directory.

May I borrow your camera?

With Steady (my digicam-I christened him just last week, a tribute to the Steadybear prod people) safely in the hands of the service center, I have nothing to shoot photos with. But I've got the shots I took with Raymond's camera last Saturday, so I'm incorporating them with my other pictures and video clips and voila! The Bornholm video.

Music: Beautiful Thing by Popium



Now this is me in aspiring photographer mode. I look pro with Alex's DSLR. Stole these from Raymond's Flickr photos.

Show me your studio

thinkspace gallery presents Smitten, new works and installations by Audrey Kawasaki, Stella Im Hultberg, Amy Sol, KuKula, and Brandi Milne. Go behind the scenes here.

I am pleased to inform you...

...that you can now receive my blog posts via email (thank you, FeedBurner!). Just click on the link on the sidebar. But then I post so often, why would you want to clog your inbox with that? Here's an alternative: scroll down and look for that orange button on the sidebar and subscribe to the feed.

Still too complicated for you? If you find yourself checking different blogs and websites all the time for updates, you can save lots of time with a reader. (I use Google Reader.) I promise you'll never miss a single post ever again.

Party like it's 1991!

Exactly a month ago, I posted Alanis' version of My Humps. But that didn't prepare me for this:



[via Herohill]

In total fairness, this version redeems her a bit:

There's somebody out there...

...who wants to hug, talk, or write to you. Ryan's there for you on the phone and on messenger. Rick will write you snail mail.

[via Brains on Fire]

And then there's proof that Juan Mann can make a difference (sorry, trying to be witty). Free Hugs! We could all use some.

Notice something? Why are they all guys? Maybe girls don't have to be public about the way they support the friends? Just my theory. :)

Bornholm Day 3

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If my back is turned to the camera, it's from Alex. If I'm facing front, it's from Xiangnan. :)
===============================================

I was walking into the cemetery of Øster Lars, wallowing teary-eyed on how incomplete I was without my digicam. (Ugh, drama.) Accepted Raymond's offer to borrow his camera and began to grin from ear to ear. Photo op at the rapeseed field (see yesterday's post). Some guy from a tourist bus said we had disturbed the mating frogs at the beach the day before. Eh?

A stop at Snogebæk, a touristy little town. Took a peek at one of the formations at one of the rock formations of Hellingdomsklipperne, then took a boat ride along the coast, where Bornholm folk imagined all sorts of animals that looked like the rocks. Speaking of rocks, our van hit a big rock, so we stayed a while at Hammershus. It was nice walking around the ruins of on top of the hill overlooking the sea. My camera miraculously cooperated for a few minutes, focusing only with zoom and macro enabled, then died again. With some van-pushing, we got to Døndalen to see the cascade. (I woldn't call it a waterfall.)

Had a huge Quadro Stagioni pizza for dinner at Sam's in Rønne before going to the harbor to board the ferry back to Køge. There were more people on the ferry, but I still occupied three seats with the sleeping bag spread across them. Slept three and a half hours because I woke up at quarter past one and was awake for two hours. Arrived in Trekroner at 7am. First thing I did? Looked at my photos and checked email. Ah, digital life.

Gusto mo bang mainis?

YM from Marcelle: Just so you know what you're missing out on.


What the F.A.C.C.? With the Philippine half-term elections less than a week away, these anti-opposition Friends Against Crime and Corruption (show yourselves!) had the guts to air this. Ugh.

[lincaotun via Misteryosa]

Sacred spaces and unholy hipsters: The keffiyah as counterpublic artifact

That's the title of my short essay for a class, inspired by Indi's post. (Here are some keffiyah photos.) When I first noticed people wearing keffiyahs, I thought, "Why do the Danes like wearing washcloths around their necks? It isn't even nice." Pardon my ignorance. I know better now.

I approached the keffiyah using du Gay et al's circuit of culture. It wouldn't make sense to post the paper here, but if makes for great conversation. And if you're a real cultural studies person, this should be interesting to you: mediums through which meaning is lost

Bornholm Day 2

Don't we look like mushrooms?
Happy, happy people!

I hear there are thousands of Bornholm photos from the other IC people on Facebook... Mange tak to Eleonora for the two above. These are actually from Day 3, but I guess it doesn't really matter.

=================================================

After stuffing myself with breakfast, I walked with my roommates Audrey and Anna to the beach just off the hostel. Ny Lars round church. Delicious lunch at Svaneke Brewery. Dueodde beach (too cold for swimming), where my camera got damaged though it was in its case.

The lens wouldn't retract or come out fully. I was thinking, argh, I signed up for the "24 hours of Flickr" group and I won't be able to post anything!

Walked into the woods of Paradise Hills to see the Rocking Stone. I was praying on the walk back. There ought to be a saint for cameras. (Just found out that St. Veronica is the patron for photographers.)

Was in the cooking team. Helped prepared chili con vegetables for dinner. Were early at Palæ, the bar in Rønne. We were the party, dancing to the band The Slammers, which, despite their name, turned out better than we expected.

BiD Challenge Philippines

Entreps, you've got until May 31st to submit your development-oriented (is there such a term?) business plan. P2.5M at stake at BiD Challenge Philippines.

Bornholm Day 1

What, no slideshow? Photos available only for a very limited time here in my Bornholm set. Click on the "Detail" near my profile pic to see the shots in full.

I wanted to make a video, so I thought of learning Avid Free DV, but editing's taking way too long. Reverted to Windows Movie Maker, but it kept on hanging. So let's go manual.

Now on to the travelogue.

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Quite a full day. Four vans, 31 people in all. There was the predominantly Italian van, the Spanish van, Barrett's van and ours, which was completely international-9 people from 9 countries: Canada, Denmark by way of Pakistan, Spain, Germany, France, China, Latvia, Egypt and Philippines.

Taking the overnight ferry in Køge, we arrived at Rønne at 6am. Watching the sunrise from the water was lovely. We first visited Nyker round church, the smallest of the round churches. Next, we passed by Hasle Røgeriet, where herring is smoked. Probably pretty much like tinapang bangus, though I didn't try it.

We then drove to the seaside town of Allinge for breakfast, happy that the bakery had coffee because it was chilly though sunny. Afterwards, we visited another seaside town, Gudhjem. I went up four girls from the van up to the church. With Anna and Audrey, I quickly walked further up to the windmill.

We passed by Baltic Sea Glass to watch the glassblowing(pricey but beautiful stuff), then descended on Svaneke where we had beer tasting (four kinds of their own brews), followed by lunch at buffet lunch at Pakhuset. Grabbed a small bag of candy at the sweet shop, where they were making candy.

Walked through Bornholm Museum, then had a little hike to Echo Valley. Checked into Danhostel and waited for the cooking team to serve couscous and vegetables for dinner.

On blog break!

Will bask on the beach off the Baltic Sea for a bit. Will be back in the blogosphere on Monday the 7th.


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For those in Manila, Numbalikdiwa is showing at Robinsons Galleria Indie Sine until the 8th. Go catch it while you can!

Today's weather according to Yahoo!:
Sunny
Temp 17°
Sunrise 5:28 am
Sunset 8:51 pm

Volunteering on labor day

Seized the opportunity to be a bartender at the labor day event at Roskilde Folkeparken through the International Club and Gimle. I'm not sure if the trade unions were making pro- or anti-immigrant statements, but my guess is more of the latter.

The job was simple: we only offered beer, three kinds of soda, water, cigarettes and sandwiches. I manned the second booth with Nikoletta from Hungary. Though I didn't say much Danish other than "hej", "værsgo", "selv tak" and the cost in kroner, it was a good learning experience. There were times when the Danes just walked away when we couldn't understand them, but a couple of guys were nice enough to buy us drinks. In the Philippines, 15kr(~P130) for a glass of øl (beer) sounds like a lot, but only one person complained about the price. It's Carlsberg after all.

I had one less day to write my paper, but I think the experience was worth it. I'd be happy to do it again.

Dispersed

Since I couldn't come to Bianca's despedida last Thursday(and I don't have Photoshop), here's a Dreidels diptych.

I wouldn't be surprised if one day soon, I'll be here in Europe, Jamie in Japan, Anne in Australia and Bianca in the US. See you all in Africa in 2010! Hahaha!

Blockbusters-to-be building buzz

An early teaser for The Golden Compass, in theaters in December. Great cast. Familiar theme. But wait, souls are embodied through animals called daemons?!?


Mentioned Atonement in a previous post. Great cast. Interesting theme. Opening as early as September 2007 in the UK and as late as January 2008 in Denmark, with a limited December release in the US. Pride & Prejudice's Joe Wright at the helm. Need I say more?


Also opening late this year, The Golden Age starring Cate Blanchett (as her usual queenly self) and Clive Owen. Great cast. Familiar theme. Oh dear, do I have anything left to say?


Forget the big studios. Once won the Audience Award for World Cinema-Dramatic at Sundance and I've read nothing but superlatives for this modern-day musical. If you've got a lightning-fast connection, watch this music video instead.

Happy Labor Day!