The Danes have a sort of stewed fruit dish called rdgrd med flde. I haven’t eaten it yet (though it sounds yummy) but I’ve had to say the name of it several times now, as my pronounciation is apparently rather humorous. It’s one of those phrases that foreigners can never, ever learn to say properly. So just in case any of you ever travel to Denmark, I’m going to write out a pronounciation guide. Don’t tell anyone, or you’ll be that much less impressive when you get there.

“rdgrd” - the Danish R is to be produced with a bit of a rasp in the back of the throat, but not so much that you lose your precious phlegm. Purse your lips and grunt for the vowel, and then finish the syllable with a sort of numb-tongued bastard cross between a soft th, an l, and the noise a fish might make if it were surprised. You’ve just managed to say the word for “red”. The second syllable is the same, only with a G in front of it.

“med flde” - we do an exercise in Danish class where we cross out all the letters of a word that aren’t pronounced. This works best with something like “selvflgelig” which is pronounced about like “seFULly” but you can also do it with “med” - cross out the d, and if you’re really feeling adventurous you can probably get rid of most of the e as well. Flde works exactly like rdgrd, but the is a bit rounder, and you also give a passing nod to the e on the end. After you’ve bitten the end of your tongue trying to say the d, this is easy. And once you’ve done that, all you have to do is wait for the thunderous applause from your new, awe-struck Danish friends, and start hitting the busking circuits around Copenhagen.

Of course, I don’t mean to imply that Danish is all horrid grunts and syllabic carnage - they’ve got lots of pretty, flute-like vowels that I can’t pronounce either, and the ultimate effect isn’t nearly as funny as, say, the Swedish Chef, though there is an etymological relation. And despite my occasional frustration, I’m fairly proud of what I’ve managed to learn in just a week and a half. I can order a beer (lots of practice on that one) and if the waiter deviates from any of the scripts in my book, I can successfully communicate my utter confusion and ask that he speak slowly and/or in English, or French if the situation is really desperate. If that fails, we can have a nice conversation about what time it is, or how to count to a thousand. I’m practically fluent, I tell you.

When I’m walking around the touristy bits of Copenhagen, most people will take one look at me, say ‘Aha! An American!’ and start speaking English before I’ve even opened my mouth. Of course, no tourist in his/her right mind would be wandering around my neighborhood, so occasionally *real* tourists will stop and ask me directions to the airport. I’m almost flattered at the attention, and would be genuinely pleased if my super-Dane-o-matic camoflauge worked around Rdhuspladsen as well. Instead, I just admit that I’ve only been here a week myself and can barely find the grocery store, let alone a quick route to the resund bridge, and feel a bit silly.

An old man stopped me on the street on my way home yesterday, and said something in Danish. He was probably just asking why I didn’t have an umbrella (because, like, I’m from California, and, like, what’s this stuff coming out of the sky?) but he sounded amazingly like some crazy old pervert named Morris. I can’t decide if it’s the nature of the Danish language, or just my own paranoia.

Copenhagen’s great. The punctuation on the Danish keyboards has been displaced by the extra letters in their alphabet (, , ) and it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out where the @ was. Somehow, I’ve managed to live on a bare 15 minutes of email a day at this little student tourist information center… if you can call this living. Yeah.

Proper updates as soon as I find a reasonable computer lab that I don’t have to pay to use.

Hey! It’s punk rock haiku! Well, it’s not really haiku - this girl can’t count syllables to save her life, apparently - but it’s funny anyway.

I’m in the middle of an all-night packing extravaganza, and I’m at the point where I know I have plenty of room for all the things I want to have with me for the next four months. It makes me sad, in a way, like I’m missing some sort of fabulous toy or comfort object. And I think what I’m missing is my books, specifically the smooth cover of my Tao Te Ching, and the battered musty smell of the Hitchhiker’s Guide paperback, and just the sense that I have a shelf (or a box) densely packed with words that consistently amuse, provoke and astound me. Unfortunately, most of my books are in California, so it’s a bit too late to remedy that one. I’ll just have to find a nice used book store in Copenhagen instead.