Things I desperately miss...

Studying abroad can be really exhausting. Not in terms of heavy class load or long hours but in the way that you are constantly surviving outside your element. The simplest of tasks take a bunch of planning and researching on the internet, plus translating directions for everything I buy in the store. It can get really old. I don't get homesick here in the traditional sense, but I do miss certain things more than I thought I would. Most of these things are food (shocking) but some of them have to do with the whole "convenience" thing.

Norma's Bean Dip (and refried beans)

I miss refried beans in general, which are impossible to find here for some reason. I haven't tried looking in some of the specialty stores but I have tried to make them on my own, unsuccessfully. Anyway, I was looking at a picture on facebook the other day that had some of Norma's Bean Dip in the foreground and I had the biggest craving for it. That stuff is like crack. It's one of the first things I am going to make when I get back and not even for a party or anything. Just to fucking eat.

Taco Bell

Every other American fast food restaurant is represented here. There are a shit-ton of McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, even freaking Cold Stone. For some reason, there is not a single fucking Taco Bell in the entire country. Not even in Copenhagen. There's one in Iceland, for fuck's sake. There are certain things I get random intense cravings for, even when I'm at home. Taco Bell is one of them, and the other one is...

Sushi

I don't eat sushi that often. In fact, I usually only have it when I go out with my work friends, but it's one of those things that I get periodic cravings for. I know that there is at least one restaurant style sushi place downtown but no sushi tracks. The sushi tracks are better for me because they are cheaper and you can have a bunch of small portions of different things instead of paying out the ass to eat an entire log of one type. Plus it's fun to watch it go around.

Restaurant Fajitas

Getting back to the Mexican food, I really want a good plate of fajitas from a family style Mexican restaurant like Ixtapa or El Ranchito. I could easily try to make it myself, but it's just not the same. They even have the fajita seasoning packets in our grocery store. They have taco seasoning as well (but still no fucking baking soda).

Pizza Schmizza

There are plenty of pizza places here, don't get me wrong. But I would kill for a slice of pepperoni from Schmizza. The thin crust with the crumbly stuff on it, the crispy pepperoni... my mouth is watering.

Takeout Chinese food

General Tso's. 'Nuff said.

Burgerville

This one is also obvious to anyone from the Northwest. At least the seasonal stuff they have while I'm gone is the stuff I don't really like. Sorry pumpkin shakes, I prefer the seasonal blackberry ones, along with some Walla Walla onion rings.

Diet Coke (especially fountain Diet Coke)

I've already dedicated an entire blog post to the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Light (hint: one tastes like shit) so I wont get into it. But I guarantee that on my layover in the airport in DC on the way back home, I will hunt some down and chug it like water in the desert.

Living by myself

Clearly when I get back I will not be living alone, but before graduating, I had the apartment to myself. I loved it. I don't have to worry about making too much noise if I get up in the middle of the night, I could take a ridiculously long shower without feeling bad about taking the bathroom, and I could leave dishes laying around without being rude. My roommate is actually pretty good about roommate stuff. She always does her dishes and she doesn't bother me if my door is closed, but I still prefer living alone.

Having a car

This is a big one. I have never lived anywhere without having a car to use (except freshman year at USC but my roommate had one and we didn't have that many errands to run in South Central). Having a car makes my life so much easier and I never realized how much I rely on it, especially for things like grocery shopping. Here, I can only buy things I can carry home, and this is only getting more annoying as the weather gets worse. It is also nice to have a car when you are trying to find a place you've never been before. Instead, I have to plan a bunch of bus routes and hope to God the stop I get off at is close to where I need to be (since I am also without a cell phone that has Google Maps on it). I also just really like driving. I secretly enjoyed the drive between West Linn and Corvallis because it's nice to just be alone, play some music, and sort through the jumble of thoughts I don't have time to process on a normal day.

Matty (pets in general)

Even though all of my childhood pets are now dead, I figured I'd include them. It's nice to have a fluffy (referring to both fur and fat) cat that plops down next to you while you watch TV. I miss that.

Target

A cheap-ish place to buy everything I need, all in one trip would be amazing. I also just miss brands that I recognize, which is why I get excited when I see random American brands in the grocery store here. I bought Oreos the other day for this exact reason.

J Day!

The two largest brands of beer in Denmark are Carlsberg and Tuborg. Much like Budweiser and Coors, you will find these brands on tap at every single bar in the country. They are actually both owned by the Carlsberg Group after they acquired Tuborg in the 70s.

Tuborg has a couple of different versions of their beer: green, red, gold, Christmas, and Easter. In 1990, the company had the brilliant idea of turning the day they release the Christmas beer into Julebryg (Christmas brew) Day or J-day for short. They also have P-day for their Easter brew (Påskebrug), but I obviously wont be here to experience that.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson. Our apartment complex threw a J-day/late Halloween party which we started our night at. We didn't dress up since we were going downtown afterward and didn't want to look like idiots. Here's a picture of Nicole and Anna who were working behind the bar in their Halloween costumes.

They did a costume change later into the Tuborg J-day costumes since they were heading to a party to get paid to hand out free beer. Here they are with Kenny in his J-day outfit (complete with blinking hat).

It was also good to start here since they had the Christmas beers and were selling them for way cheaper than the real bars downtown. To be honest, the taste of the holiday beer is not that different from regular Tuborg, but any reason to throw a country-wide party is good enough for the Danes. Here are some more picture from the bar (I am really horrible at remembering to use my camera so most of the pictures are taken by Derv or Megan).

The guy on the right of the second picture is Derv's friend Craig who was visiting from Ireland. He had just spend almost 9 hours on trains that day since he was vacationing around Europe and stopped to see Derv and thought it was going to be a quiet night in. Unfortunately for him, his timing is horrible (or awesome).

We took the bus downtown and spent the rest of the night bar-hopping. The place was a mess. I would liken it to being in downtown Portland on New Years Eve but with even more alcohol. The first bar we went to was along the canal and happened to be the most expensive fucking bar in the city. That is a slight exaggeration but it still wasn't cheap. We decided not to spend a thousand dollars on shitty beer so we left and met up with Derv's German friend Ellen outside another bar closer to the cathedral square (packed with even more people).

One of the greatest things about Denmark is that they don't have any laws against drinking in public so if you buy a bottle of beer at one bar, you don't have to finish it before you head to the next. You just take it with you. This makes for a really fun downtown scene since there are always a bunch of people just hanging out on the pedestrian streets, drinking (and smoking since almost everyone here smokes). It's just really unique and fun, especially when everyone is in good spirits about the holiday. Here's a failed attempt at taking a picture of everyone near the canal.

After a couple more bars, we spent about 20 minutes trying to hail a cab since there were so many people downtown and not nearly enough cabs. We ended up just waiting for one to drop some people off at a really common area in town and then jumping in the back once they got out. It's expensive as fuck to take cabs on the weekend but if you split it between enough people, it's cheaper than the night buses and is way faster. Plus I'd rather be driven home in a Mercedes with leather seats and heat than sit on a freezing plastic bus seat that has to stop 20 times before I get home.

All in all, it was a really fun night. I was surprised at first by how many people actually participated in it since Danes usually keep to themselves. Most of the Danish students living in my complex rarely come to the bar on Thursdays so it is mostly exchange students, but most of the people downtown were Danish. I guess if you lure them out with promises of beer and skimpy blue holiday outfits, they can't say no.