House Hunting

I'm house hunting in Vancouver right now. So far I've viewed 4 places, and 1 has been really nice. Predictably that one sold right away, so I'm left with the tacky shacks. But there still seems to be a pool out there, so I'm not losing hope. I'm looking at the area around Broadview and Commercial Drive. The area seems really nice, but unfortunately that makes it popular. I'm staying at a friend of Susan's in False Creek, so I'm not hemmorhaging money yet.

Dead Fish

I spent a couple of days in Norway Bay up on the Ottawa River. Unfortunately somebody dumped poison in the bay itself so the beaches were covered with dead fish, and that totally killed the holiday mood. The cottage is about a million percent better than its former shag carpet and 70s surplus store paint scheme days though, so the lack of swimming wasn't utterly disastrous.





My main annoyance these days is that everyone I know seems to be constantly sick. I find it so irritating when other people are sick because its so hard to know if they're screwing with you or if they actually are sick. And then even if they are sick, I find it hard to empathize because it always seems like a really lame problem that they shouldn't complain about. I know its pretty mean to say, because as soon as I feel sick I can totally empathize with everyone, and it stops everything in my life. But in between whiles it just seems like everyone else is a hypochondriac whinger.

Christiania

My uncle took me to visit his old haunts in Christiania. He hasn't lived there in 20 years, but he still knows a lot of the people in there. Christiania, which was established as a community 'seperate' from Denmark in the middle of Copenhagen has changed a fair bit in recent years. They used to sell hash openly in the market and the police didn't bother them, but now they come on a daily basis. The inhabitants have even posted a sign which says how many times the police have been there that day. The government is trying to 'normalize' the area, but there's obviously a lot of opposition, so things move slowly. No hash anymore though. Well, you can imagine that's not strictly true. Anyway, I saw his old house and some of the cool houses his friends have built. They're a lot nicer than when he was there apparently. Back then they stole their electricity which meant it was unreliable, and they didn't have any toilets. But he lived there for 10 years, so it can't have been too bad. It shows a bit though that he's moved out and lives in a posh apartment down the street!

We're back to beautiful Danish summer weather after a day of rain. I've been fairly successful in eating my favourite Danish foods, we had mediste pølse (sausages) yesterday and æbleskiver (apple pastries) for dessert.

Downtown

I was in town yesterday, and it was a beautiful sunny day, even though they said it would piss rain. It turns out that was moved to today. Anyway, its funny how you suddenly get to the touristy part of town, and everyone speaks another language, but if you stay away from there its just Danish. There were a million Americans down there, as charming as usual. I used to like Strøget, but it seems so crowded and lame now. There's just too many people, and all of the stores are either ludicrously expensive, or very ticky tacky tourist traps. I prefer going up to Østerbro or Nørrebro which are a lot nicer to look at, and less crowded. Yesterday there was a protest against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon at the American embassy, which of course makes a lot of sense. The transpo network was in a total uproar yesterday too because of a derailment or something. Now that's all the Danes can talk about, and there's talk of firing the minister of transport! It seems like they're getting to the end of their ropes for some reason, even though this was the second sunniest month in the entire history of Denmark. Today I'm going to try to find a fascist-stlye fitness hall I've been told about, and buy some replacement bowls for my dad.

Beaching it up

I've spent most of my time in Denmark on the beach so far. My uncle is on holidays so he's pretty happy to spend time down there, and my youngest cousine tags along too. There's a giant new beach that they've just opened near to my grandmother's house, with lots of cool diving and sunbathing features I've never seen before. I went out to Solrød yesterday, and everything is pretty much the same as ever. I also went to our old beach there, which was a lot less crowded, and just as nice. I miss having someone in Solrød to keep down the fort that I can visit from time to time.