Getting to know Denmark

I'm two weeks in to life as an adoptive Dane (and already hopping my first weekend flight back to Paris). As I await boarding at my gate, I thought I'd take a moment to give a recap of what I've done and learned so far in Denmark.

In just two weeks, I've gotten

• my national id number and cards
• my residence permit card
• my national health insurance card
• my new apartment (move-in date: July 1)
• my bank account and debit card
• my bike, fully equipped with lights, locks, and basket
• and my new pole dance school

Clearly I'm not in France anymore. On one hand, a health insurance card in two weeks?? Try two years! That's what it took me and many of my foreigner friends back in France. On the other hand, getting the apartment in a mere two weeks was just short of miraculous. Even the steely resolve of someone who faced the Paris housing market is put to the test in Aarhus, where contacting over 80 landlords to visit 3 apartments was very much par for the course. To find that one cat-friendly home, I had to exit the city borders. I'll be calling Aarhus Nord my home soon enough.

My new home in Aarhus Nord starting July 1

I've also made a lot of half-baked observations of the Danes over the past couple of weeks:

• Don't let the fact that a breed of dog is named after them trick you into thinking these people are big animal-lovers. It is next to impossible to rent an apartment as an animal owner here.
• Generally, home renters have no rights here. Landlords demand anywhere from 5 to 9 months' rent to be paid upfront when signing a contract, and at least 3 of those months go straight down the drain here in the form of a security deposit that you'll never see again. All apartment maintenance also comes at the renter's expense. And requiring renters to move out two weeks prior to contract termination is also considered standard, giving the landlord time to plough through that security deposit which he or she has no intention of returning.
• The young people just seem to grow up much faster. In fact, part of the reason that I believe you don't see people up in arms over the total lack of home renter rights is that a lot of people buy homes here at a very young age. It seems that many Danes spend their 20s saving up, settling down, and even starting a family. I am astounded by how many young mothers I have seen biking their babies around the university campus.
• Speaking of campus, Aarhus University, despite its nondescript pale yellow brick architecture, is quite possibly the prettiest campus I have ever seen. With its verdant rolling hills, its lake, and its winding streets filled with bikes that snake through the grounds, I am continually amazed by how beautiful this place is. (Maybe I'll be less enthused come winter.)

Aarhus U campus: you had me as soon as I spotted your cat gutter spout

• If ever a country lived by the saying Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, it is the Danes. These people seem to enjoy arriving at work between 7 and 8am, some even earlier!, and then leaving between 2 and 4pm. And yes, if you add those hours up, it's not really so much time spent working. I'm not sure how they get anything done here, but I might be cracking their recipe for being the happiest nation on earth.
• Let's add to that Danish happiness recipe their clubs. The Danes all love leaving work early to spend time with their clubs before heading home. Be it jogging, horseback riding, biking, or some other activity (though it seems most of them are sports-related), every Dane has got a club, or so our university orientation leaders taught us. In fact, they stressed the social importance of these clubs so much that they made a surveymonkey online survey to assess your interests and help pair you with a club in case you cannot find your own.
• One stereotype is true: the Danes bike everywhere.
• Breaking another stereotype, the Danes are not all blond (though many are) and they are not so tall such that I feel like I'm walking through a forest when I enter the school cafeteria.
• The Danes are very polite. And I am having an infinitely easier time making friends here than in Paris. And that without even speaking the local language! The Danes are unusually good at English, probably the best in Europe outside of the UK/Ireland. And yet, many of them continue to apologize for their "inadequate English-language skills," which makes me think that they have not traveled much, or that humble-bragging is a national past time.
• Though they have a lot going for them in terms of height, hair and eye color, and general disposition, the Danes are miles behind the French in one domain: fashion. These people just do not seem to be terribly interested in dressing to impress. A woman in heels on her way to work or a day in the city? Not in this country.
• Not only is every day casual Friday, but they act like it too: it is very normal to address everyone by first name in this country.
• Totally random as it may be, licorice is just huge here. You have not explored the multitude of licorice-flavored possibilities until you walk through the candy aisle in a Danish supermarket.
• And finally, Denmark is the proud home of Legos, even boasting an airport in the middle of nowhere (where you can find me now), strategically located right near their theme park attraction: Legoland.

Billund Airport, aka the Legoland airport, has a giant Lego store and a Lego play station.

So Denmark's not so bad, except for their chilly excuse for late spring. Still, I'm really missing Paris, and counting down the minutes 'till I'm back in a city whose language makes sense to me.

Oh, and one last thing. In Denmark, apparently it makes sense (to someone, at least) to erect a fountain of a peeing piglet right outside city hall. It seems I still have a lot to learn before I understand the Danes.

The Pig Fountain in Aarhus's City Hall Square

Ready for Denmark

Now the proud owner of this beauty!

Denmark, bring it. (But really, if "it" could mean summer weather, I'd be ever so grateful.)

La vie est belle... in Denmark?

While wandering around Aarhus this evening, at first I thought I was missing France so much that I was seeing things. Then I realized that the Danes, enthusiastic flag wavers that they are, have not restricted their fondness for flags to their own nation's colors. I am pretty sure that I spotted more French flags/French-flag-themed deco in one afternoon in Aarhus (Denmark) than I saw in the past six years in Paris (the capital of France). If only I understood their language enough to understand what the Danes are up to...

Bienvenue au Danemark!

Whatever this "Latiner Festival" was about, I can only assume it was some sort of celebration of the victorious homecoming of their recent steal from the French, yours truly.

Bonus shot: double rainbows in Aarhus on my first weekend in town

The big move

Heartbroken as I was to have to finally leave, I don't think this move could have been more perfect in all its unplanned, delayed, and imprecise style. Packing my apartment was a whirlwind in and of itself.

At last, my apartment was packed and (nearly) ready for the movers.

Over the past few weeks, I've had at least a half-dozen goodbye gatherings, including two for some other friends' departures which I high-jacked to say my own goodbyes, a few random one-on-one coffees/ drinks/ dinners with various friends, a party or two (including a last-hurrah pool party on my rooftop), and a picnic on the Seine.

Our last illicit rooftop pool party

We really got down to business yesterday: movers day. And at just the same moment when it seemed that the last of my happy moments in Paris had been boxed up and shipped off, that the last of my living ties to the city were being trimmed away, I found myself surrounded by unexpected kindness, support, joy, and even fun. When a near-disaster with my movers resulted in a call for back-up muscle-power, my last night in France morphed into a final evening enjoying the panoramic views from the off-limits parts of my rooftop and a celebratory five-course dinner in a fantastic restaurant, La Cantine du Troquet in the 14th.

Spending the evening with good friends really helped soften the blow of it being my last night in Paris.

Our fantastic impromptu five-course dinner at La Cantine du Troquet made memories with a much longer aftertaste than the food.

And today, my race through my last day in Paris required me to store a few suitcases in a friend's lab at the Institut Pasteur, which of course required me to do one last coffee with my Pasteur friends just before heading to the airport. Like a scene straight out of a movie, two of my best friends even waved me off as my Uber taxi drove me to my airport shuttle. I nearly cried. And then came the weirdest part:

When it was all finally done-- bags packed, apartment keys handed in, final letters in the French postal system, extra bags stocked in Nicolas's dad's spare Parisian apartment, group hugs hugged-- when I was sitting there in the Orly airport shuttle watching the ticker-tape count down the minutes until my many bags and I would arrive in the airport, I found myself overwhelmed by a strange sense of euphoria. Though there were many moments when I imagined it impossible, Paris really had become home over my nearly six years there. And now this much anticipated move was really happening. It was unscripted yet better than I'd have hoped for, and I felt so much love. Even strangers kept offering to help me with luggage. I don't know if it was the lack of sleep, or the fact that at this point I'd realized that I had forgotten to eat all day (and we were rapidly approaching 8pm), but I was suddenly on the brink of *happy* tears. And I've ridden the high until now-- though no longer on an empty stomach-- as I find myself starting to fight the heaviness of my eyelids from the comfy seat of my Aarhus-bound train.

Denmark, I have arrived.

Land of the vikings, prepare yourself: Emilienne is here.

Paris-Aarhus, trip 1 of 3

I pause from my typing to crane my neck around my neighbors and peer out my plane window over the French landscape, trying not to think too hard about a firey end as the turbulence vibrates through my feet and we continue our descent. No matter how many flights I take, it seems I'm always convinced that each one will be my last. France is now literally underfoot-- if with more of a separation between land and foot than to my liking-- and so I can now successfully check off trip 1 of 3 on my list off Paris-Aarhus journeys over the next month. I'm moving there next week, but the awkward timing of a departmental retreat resulted in an extra round trip just a week prior, and awkward timing on the French side of things will bring me back a mere two weeks later to attend my doctoral graduation ceremony.

Sandbjerg Manor, home of the DANDRITE Retreat 2015

Well, for lack of time to continue documenting my excessively international lifestyle, suffice it to say that the kids are my new school were nice to me, but that I'm still scared.

The founding members of the fledgling Yonehara team at the DANDRITE Retreat

I've never moved to a country whose language I didn't speak at all. Yes, the Danes speak fantastic English, but no matter how American I can try to make myself appear, that won't stop them from still predominantly speaking in my presence in a language which is really (vocab: really=rigtig in Danish!) an unknown to me. While I'm loving the ipad language learning apps, they can only go so far compared to semesters or years of language studies. This new chapter is definitely going to come with unique challenges. So it's about time to tape down those last few boxes chez moi and take a deep breath.

In and around Aarhus, soon to be my new home base

Here goes nothing.

Porto, with a side of Lisbon

My friend Samuel was in the midst of his own grand tour, of the European rather than the Southeast Asian, continent for the past month or so. We coordinated so that I could catch him in Paris just after my own return and offer him, his friend Reid, and his brother Mitchell a place to stay. In return, he'd take me and Nicolas along with them on the next leg of their journey: Coimbra, Portugal, just in time for their annual festival, the Queima das Fitas. Much to our surprise, after months of planning, Samuel's Portuguese friend reneged on the offer, and the house we'd planned to crash slipped through our fingers just a few days before our departure. We found ourselves in an awkward situation.

Making the most of the situation, Nicolas and I reserved an inexpensive room by the beach via Airbnb. Making the most of the situation was a theme that would sandwich this journey, but we'll return to that at the end. For now, the city of Porto was spread before us, and we were thrilled to climb its hills, enjoy its riverside views, and sample its rich selection of port wine. And as luck would have it, I've just this week met a new colleague in Denmark who hails from Porto and is himself a collector of port wine. Sounds like I've got a new friend. :) [NB: I'm cheating a little: I'm writing this post about a week and a half after the time stamp.]

Bem-vindo ao Porto : Welcome to Porto

Sé do Porto : the Porto Cathedral, whose origins can be traced back to the 12th century, though it has since undergone many renovations and alterations in architectural style. Site of the baptism of Prince Henry the Navigator and the marriage of King John I to Princess Phillipa of Lancaster, England. (Have no idea who these people are, but apparently they were notable historic figures who have passed through these walls.

But back on topic, Porto, it turns out, is a charming city. Though travel sites seem to consistently rave about Lisbon and give this more northern Portuguese city little afterthought, we were surprisingly impressed. We found bountiful, delicious, and inexpensive food almost everywhere we went. We had afternoon snacks at the Armazém do Caffè, twice. We discovered a trendy counter culture, complete with people abandoning the euro in favor of using their own local currency (though this is far from the norm). It turns out that they too make delicious (most vegetarian) food. And even these blasé Parisians were impressed by our desserts along the riverfront at Taberninha do Manel, where we celebrated Samuel's (and Nicolas's belated) birthday(s).

Desserts along the riverfront at Taberninha do Manel

While I am confident that this city boasts a rich history which is totally worth exploring (to which Samuel and friends can attest), Nicolas and I did little more than wander and relax, enjoying our mini vacation before our impending separation once I am off in Denmark and he is stuck behind wrapping up the school year with classrooms of kids who are thoroughly done learning. 

Nicolas and me during our little pod ride over the city with Samuel, Reid, and Mitchell

Although we'd gone separate ways, Nicolas and I managed to cross paths with Samuel, Mitchell, and Reid on a couple of occasions. On one such occasion, we tested out the little glass pods that took us up over the city to a fantastic viewing point.

We made it to the top! Reid, Nicolas, me, Mitchell, and Samuel at the end of our pod ride up over the city.

And we of course couldn't do Porto without some proper port wine tasting. We were caught off guard when offered white and rose port wines-- who knew they came in variants other than red? And even red isn't so simple: We learned that a "ruby" port is a red only stored in metal barrels whereas a "tawny" is a red ages in wooden casks, producing what I personally find to be the best results after about ten years of aging. We had quite the educational little session on our last evening at a little place called The Wine Box.

When in Porto, port wine's the way to go. And after this weekend, I'll take a 10-year tawny reserve any day.

Our final day had been allotted for beach time, but that all soon changed. During our port wine tasting the night prior, Nicolas had received a funny little alert from Google calendars informing us of our flight cancelation, even though we'd already done our online check-in. Without any email notification from the airline, we figured we'd let the notification slide until the following morning. It was then that we understood that we were at the end of a massive ten-day airline strike. After hours of dropped phone calls, we grabbed a quick lunch and made our way to the airport to see what could be done. The answer, it seemed, was fairly little. There was no making it to Paris that night.

The time it took to take this shot was about all that we managed to spend at the beach, even though it was just around the corner from our Airbnb home for the weekend.

Creative thinkers that we are, we refused to accept that the best possible route home was a flight the following day from Porto to Madrid, a three-hour layover (just enough time to not be able to get out and see the city), and then a 6pm arrival in Paris. And arguing got us somewhere: we were placed on a late evening flight to Lisbon to bring us back to Paris via direct flight the following day, shaving three hours off the return time. Not much, but something, right? And suddenly our trip to Portugal had become a multi-city adventure! Now that's what I call making the most of an unfortunate situation.

We found ourselves the cutest, highly-rated, affordable bed and breakfast for a comfy night's stay, complete with complimentary slippers, bathrobes, tea, and a warm reception even at 11pm. It's called the Typical Lisbon Guest House, and I feel very lucky to have had the chance to stay here!

The Typical Lisbon Guest House, a high point in our re-routing fiasco on the way home from Porto

And we braved a 6am alarm clock in order to do a mini power-tour of downtown before breakfast time. Nicolas, loaded down with his schoolwork, was a real trooper throughout the situation.

As much of Lisbon as can be squeezed into an hour, more or less.

I think Portugal may be worth a return trip, just maybe next time on an airline other than TAP. ;)

Beaune, take six

I have a confession to make: Paris isn't the only place for me in France. In fact, there is another town with which I've been in love for the past 4+ years: Beaune. Nestled in the heart of the Burgundy wine country, this picturesque medieval town is the perfect weekend escape from Paris, and the epitome of a travel show special on touring the French countryside. You have your Saturday morning farmer's market, your cobblestone streets, the centuries-old architecture, and of course, the bike paths through the vineyards connecting village to village in the neighboring countryside. The only thing more you need is an eccentric wine expert who knows you by name and will gladly teach you all about this year's produce (tasting included) while intermittently insulting you and your false immpressions that your home country may also produce "drinkable" wine. Oh, right, Beaune has that, too.

This time, I sold Nicolas, my MIT-Paris friend Samuel, his brother Mitchell, and his friend Reid on the town. Not that it was a hard sell.

My sixth visit to Beaune since 2011

This place, short of a trip back to Thailand, may just be my ticket to heaven on earth. Even with the overcast weather and the downpour that hit in the final fifteen minutes before our wine tasting began, it was still glorious. How could it be otherwise?

♥