Baby it's Cold Outside...
So it is now December, and officially Christmas time here in Kolding (Shout out to my family that used the times zones to their advantage to "pinch, punch, first day of the month, Sucka Fool" me).
When I left you yesterday, I was preparing for a SALE. After I left Fredrick (who will be henceforth be known as Freddy, as in Freddy Kruger, owing to his love of knives), I headed to the nearby bus stop. On the way, I settled in to tourist mode and took pictures of streets that locals consider boring.
Then came the calamity that is me with buses. All I had to do was get on the bus that Mathilde was already on and together we would travel to the mall. Despite being told I needed to get on Bus no.5, when Bus no.3 rocked up at the time I was told the bus I would ride would arrive, I hesitantly got on. The hassle didn't stop there. The bus card I was given (similar to a Go or Opal card) didn't work when I tapped on. The bus driver started speaking to me in hurried Danish, which left me quite frazzled. Half begging, I asked if he spoke English, and he replied with an impatient "of course". After a few more frenzied taps of the card he asked if I had any money on the card, I replayed an uncertain, "I think so?". I'm sure the poor man though I was a 'stupid foreigner', but he took pity and just ushered me on.
At which point I realised I was on the wrong bus, as Mathilde was clearly not on this one. When I referred back to the bus schedule that Mathilde had sent me, it said that I had to ride for 3 stops, however, after just one we were at the mall that I was sure I was supposed to be at. In a split second decision, I hopped off the bus. At this point I was torn, as I figured I should wait at the bus stop for Mathilde to arrive (If she would arrive, as I wasn't entirely sure I had gotten of at the right stop), however, I was completely unable to contact her via messenger without wifi as I don't have a data plan here yet. Making up my mind, I left the bus stop and headed for the mall in search of free wifi.
Once inside, I was victorious in my quest, and as I agreed to the vilkår og betingelser (terms and conditions, I believe), I frantically pulled up messenger. Deciding that time was of the essence, I opted to video call her, as I am about as fast at typing as your standard geriatric patient. When she answered, she frantically asked my location, as apparently she was hoping I would have been at the bus stop outside the mall and was moments from calling her mum. Once she figured out we were literally 100m apart, she quickly came to meet me inside.
That fiasco dealt with, we had a casual stroll through the mall, and at my request, we went to H&M, as I have heard of it before and wanted to check it out. Well. That was a brilliant surprise. At first Mathilde didn't get what was so amazing, but after I drew her attention to it she also found it quite amusing. For those of you that have not been blessed with the opportunity to visit one of these stores, I highly recommend you do. How to explain it? First impressions saw a bombardment of garments in the same splendiferous redish-orange colour (picture Garfield with sunstroke), all throughout the first few metres of the store. As we browsed, It was like I had stepped into an unholy fusion of Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus's wardrobes. Camouflage Jackets covered with monstrous amounts of flashy beaded dragonflies (which begs the question, do you want to be seen or not?), long jumpers that suddenly sprouted thick fur from the forearm down and peculiar sheer frilly layered skirts made of black polyester organza, like if Charlie from Hi-5 went through an emo phase (Picture for reference)
This shop was so fantastic and costume-like that I couldn't help but take pictures of the best items.
So after spending a depressingly short amount of time in the "clothes shop on LSD", we wandered the rest of the mall. Christmas cheer was in full swing and decorations littered the entire building.
We then left the centre in order to make it to the big sale in time. However, after a decent walk we arrived at the warehouse, only to find it deserted. After talking to a man who was working in the office there, Mathilde discovered that the location had been changed. The man, who turned out to be Mathilde's neighbour, agreed to drive us to the sale, as he was heading home anyway. Yet another shemozzle dealt with, we had finally arrived at the annual sale.
"The Sale" consisted of a large open building piled high with all sorts of clothing in massive baskets, with each wall lined with home furnishings and other miscellaneous items. We arrived early, but within moments a swarm of ravenous bargain hunters emerged from nowhere, with desperate jostling for the best items reminiscent of Aldi on Saturday mornings when the new catalogue is released. Wits had to be sharp, and elbows even sharper as every item was at bargain prices. The big bins of clothing served as archaeological digs for buried treasure, as people shoved hands to the bottom of the bins in the hopes of discovering new and exciting products. Nina had provided us with a short list of items she was hoping we could find, however anything that could be useful, (in this lifetime or the next), was hastily shoved into a black garbage bag. Having even managed to snag a few items for myself, Mathilde and I felt that was had gained all we could from our hurried shop. However, we were waiting on Nina to arrive on work to look over the chosen items and approve them. This proved an issue.
The building housing the sale was a large garage, with one wall entirely open. Not having anticipated prolonged exposure to the elements meant that both Mathilde and I were wearing insufficient clothing to withstand the below freezing temperatures.
With a decent wait until Nina arrived, we both stood shivering in the night air. My toes were numb and my finger, while in insulated gloves, were cold to the point of burning. Out of desperation, I ended up grabbing some of the remaining clothes from the baskets to create a blanket, leaving me looking truly
hobo-chic.
Many, many torturous minutes later, Nina arrived, however, it seemed that she was unimpressed with our searching, finding the bag far too empty. Nina rapidly began her hunt for the best buys, claiming any item of relative quality her herself, much to the dismay of many other desperate shoppers. Finally, the bag was sufficiently filled and we managed to survive the long line to check out our items. I myself bought a scalf, a large fleece jacket and a nice flanny, all for 50 danish krone (or about $10.50 in AUD) which felt like a great shopping success. Our reward for surviving the frigid trip was the heater in the car and several warm blankets.
When we got home, we lay each item out on the floor of the living room to look at the spoils of our victory. We then finished decorating the house for Christmas, apart from the Christmas tree, as we are going to go pick one once Mathilde's older sister, Helene returns from her trip to, believe it or not, Australia. Later that evening, Mathilde and I played music together in her room, taking turns playing on the guitar and ukulele and singing together. Finally Mathilde brought out our shared instrument, the viola, and we took turns playing songs for each other, including Waltzing Matilda and the Australian national anthem (I may or may not have anticipated this event), until I completely crashed at 10 and went to bed.
I woke up at 5:15am yesterday (I just want to sleep the whole night through, I'm so close) and was greeted immediately with Christmas festivities, including the lit Christmas candle that counts down the days until Christmas.
When we arrived at school, the large Christmas trees in the cafeteria were all lit up and many students had on "elf hats" (apparently in Denmark, the Santa hats we have are actually worn by the elves.)
After a school assembly (which included a power point that hilariously dropped the f-bomb multiple times, and the singing of a traditional Danish Christmas carol). Freddy had to work on the major assignment that he gets a week off school to complete, and needed help working out what to test for the assignment. The basic premise for the assignment was extracting methane from polluted water to create energy, however, he needed to think of something else he could do to the water. I came up with the idea of testing for salts and minerals, as well as PH of the water to see if it could be used for watering crops once the methane was extracted. I can now confirm that Freddy's group is actually going with my idea, and I feel like I have contributed, albeit in a minor way.
Leaving to meet up with Mathilde at the bus stop at 11:30, I managed to not mess up and we grabbed the right bus into the main city of Kolding. Once there, we walked the streets, which I had previously seen with Freddy at night, but shone anew in the glories daylight. December 1 was a day of promise as the sky was clear for the first time since I have been in Europe. I discovered Kolding is known as "Slice Town" due to the massive quantity of Pizza shops, with several on every street.
We stopped for lunch, and had a strange meal from a kebab shop, that consisted of hot chips with salad, covered with pieces of meat like wood chips covering everything, all together inside a cardboard bucket. I payed 39 krone for the meal (about $8.20), however, the size of the meal was so immense, that as I ate, all I could imagine was sprouting hairs from my chest by eating such a man-sized portion, but my hatred of wasting food meant I ate every last heart disease-inducing bite.
We needed to top up the bus card I was using, so we ended up walking to the train station and then to the fitness centre were Mathilde works out a couple times a week. In the process, I saw much of the beautiful city, which pictures really don't do justice. Due to my immense hatred of physical activity that isn't swimming or netball, I read while Mathilde worked out which actually felt like a great arrangement (I made the mistake of complaining that I was going to put on weight from all the great food, and now Freddy wants me to come work out with him at the gym that the school provides. Fun.) We finally took a bus home, which helpfully stops just across the road from the house.
That evening, Mathilde had a school party and Freddy was at work until ten, so I helped Nina prepare for Saturday's Scout Christmas mini-market by boiling some sausages. Let me tell you about these sausages. They are large, looking exactly like somebody pulled out their large intestine and packaged them up. This is possibly due to the fact that they are made in the traditional fashion using real pig intestines as the casing.
They are really long, about half a metre each. Uve also bought 17 kilograms of them. The process took a rather long time, but they would be cooked again the next day on a pan above a wood fire to crisp up the outside.
Later Nina and Uve invited me to join in one of the Christmas traditions of watching the Christmas comedy programs on TV and making paper ornaments for the tree. While I am quite handy at origami, I was pretty dodgy at the intricate technique and have to bow to master Nina, who made the difficult task look effortless.
The television show was really interesting, with an amazing musical comedy trio that switched continually between Danish and English, doing impressions of the Danish Queen and mocking Ballerinas. We drank the daily tea and I got to open the first day on the advent calendar they got for me. Nina and Uve went to bed shortly after Freddy arrived back from work, but we stayed up until one, comparing our musical tastes and favourite comedians, only to discover we are incredibly similar in both respects, even watching the same you-tubers. At one, Freddy drove us to go pick up Mathilde from her school party, which apparently was a good one as she got in the car smeared in glow in the dark paint with her voice almost gone from singing along to the loud music. As we arrived back at the house nearing 1:30, I placed my hopes once again in managing to sleep the whole night through, as we didn't have to get up until 8 the next morning.
And that's where I leave you, stay tuned for the second half.