Smoke Inhalation

In my complexity of cancer course we are currently learning about various forms of chemotherapy. The text associated with the lectures was pretty intense in terms of level, and I really only gained generalities from it, such as chemotherapy sucks in terms of the toxicities. It sounded brutal, and this was a scientific article! It really makes me not want to have cancer. The other thing I picked up from the article was that radiation therapy can act as a carcinogen, which typically results in neoplasia 10 years down the line. If that is true for other carcinogens, and I end up with lung cancer 10 years from now, I know who to blame: FC Copenhagen and Broendby IF football fans.

This weekend my host family and one of their friends went to see the match between these two bitter, Copenhagen rivals. It was an entertaining game, which FC Copenhagen ended up winning 1-0, but the game itself wasn't the only excitement. The fans decided they would provide some "atmosphere" to the 24,000 person stadium, by lighting flares (some of which were thrown on the field) and smoke bombs, as well as by setting a chair on fire. Couple that with all the Danes that smoke while watching soccer, and I inhaled enough smoke to last me a life time. Nevertheless, it was a pretty good atmosphere for a soccer match. I've tried to capture it in my photos on webshots, but I've also added a new dimension. I recorded some video with my digital camera trying to capture the fans singing and cheering. Take a look and see what Danish soccer is really like (in terms of the fans, at least).

So when was the first time you had sex?

An interesting title for this post, right? You'll have to read through to see why I chose it. But first, just wanted to let you know that I've uploaded a handful of pictures of my room and my house/yard. It is really awesome. And the more I hear people complain about their commutes the happier I am with my location (there will be a post about this in the near future).

Part of the whole housing process with DIS involves writing a letter of introduction to your host family prior to your placement. In it, I talked about my interests and personality, etc, but also included my interest in soccer. Upon reading this, my family decided it would be a good idea (and it certainly was!) to treat me to the FC Copenhagen vs. Benefica Champions League Qualifying Match last night all as part of my introduction to Denmark. Unforutnately, Michael, my host dad, had to work and could not come, so it was Marc (my older host brother), myself, one of Michael's best friends, Bo, and one of Bo's friends, Carsten. We all met at a Thai restaurant for dinner prior to the match.

First off, this Thai restaurant was straight from a scene in one of the Rush Hour movies. The owner, a Dane, was walking around in his snazzy suit, and the whole place just smelled of dirty money. I was later informed by Marc that indeed, the owner had a past in Freetown on the island of Christiana, where a commune of people squat/live on government property, which is called a social experiment. In addition to that, it is also a place where the drugs flow freely, so there's not much doubt where the money for the restaurant comes from.

Beyond that, however, it was a great atmosphere, with a ton of FC Copenhagen fans enjoying the buffet prior to the match. Carsten talked to me awhile about how great soccer is and the atmosphere at the stadium, even though I attempted multiple times to explain to him how knowledgeable I am. Eventually, I just let him run with it, as I quickly learned Carsten likes to talk, and likes to extrapolate to say the least. His first point was how wonderful a club FC Copenhagen is, primarily in regards to their financial situation, as he claimed it was one of the 5 richest clubs in the world. I let him run with this point (even though it is incorrect -- they aren't even in the top 20). I also tried to explain how in the English Premier League, where some Americans have recently bought teams, some view the situation as a positive due to the American owners' ability to make money off of their teams by running a business. Somehow, however, Carsten didn't agree with this point, but I'm still not quite sure why.

Before coming over I read a book on Danish culture and etiquette, which went over some stereotypes of Danes that the book made sure to say were stereotypes. Nonetheless, I found it amusing to see that Carsten fit many of them, including the belief that the Danes are the best at what they do (see above), as well as being very open about sexual relations. Case in point, as we were eating, and totally unrelated to any other parts of any conversation that was taking place Carsten just flat out asks, "So how old were you when you first had sex?". Keep in mind he asks this to the entire table. I wasn't too horribly shocked, as I had read about this, but was definitely thinking it was an awkward situation. Bo responded first with his answer, then stated that he really didn't want to hear the answer from his best friend's son. I quickly was lost in conversation with Bo, while I think Carsten still asked Marc in Danish. The question was then dropped, and I luckily did not have to respond at all.

The game itself was fun. The atmosphere was great and the quality of soccer high. Unfortunately, and unluckily, FC Copenhagen lost 1-0, and was knocked out of the qualifying for the group stage of the Champions League. It was still a great time, and the fans, while loud, were never obnoxious, and cheered on their team even when defeat was assured.

Marc and I were unable to take the bus back home afterwards due to the throngs of people ahead of us leaving the stadium (about 39,500 people attended the game). Marc's dad, Michael, had just gotten off of work, though, so Marc arranged a pick-up for us at the American Embassy. While we were waiting outside the embassy a group of 3 to 4 Danes, probably in their 20's, walk by and also stop in front of the embassy by the street. The night watchman, a Danish security guard, came up to them and told them to move. They gave him some lip and didn't really respond (keep in mind that it is around 11:30 p.m.). All of a sudden, a black American appears out of nowhere and asks, with some disdain in his voice, if he can help them. They then get into a "discussion" about what constitutes private vs. public property. Then, a car pulls up and another two people who looked like Danes get out. Turns out that the secret service, who I guess is in charge with embassy security (which I did not know, I figure it was the Marines), does not appreciate loiters late at night. While this was happening Marc and I continued to walk and watch from afar. We ended up stopping on what was probably still "American" soil and continue to wait there. About 10 minutes later, while still waiting, the secret service agent appears and asks quite gruffly if he can help us. I told him that we were waiting to be picked up, all with the intentions of chatting the guy up until Michael arrived. Luckily, Michael pulled up about 20 seconds later so I didn't get a chance to ask the guy's life ambitions -- maybe next time.

The Biking Adventure (x2)

So today I thought I would be very Danish, and bike into DIS. I made sure I was thoroughly prepared with directions and the like, so as to make the trip as easy as possible. The other thing you need to understand is that the Danes love, love, their bikes. It makes sense as biking is the cheapest and fastest way to commute into Copenhagen. Anyways, I leave the house this morning and start on my way, feeling out how fast people go, and the little nuances of etiquette that I wasn't previously told. Then problems started to happen. First, in Denmark, the street signs aren't like they are in the states. They just use a small sign that is on the side of a building, which is absolutely fine, except when I'm zooming by on a bike, with other bikes completely surrounding me. Needless to say, I missed my turn. So I pulled over and stopped, and consulted my map, and didn't really gain any insight, because I wasn't really sure where I was. I just continued to go straight hoping that would lead me somewhere useful. I even stopped again, and looked at my map again, but still couldn't figure anything out. Right when I was getting fed up, and close to becoming late to my meeting, and planning on asking a random Dane, I saw a building I recognized. This gave me hope! And after two lucky turns I was at DIS.

After the day's events I was off to soccer practice. Since I biked in, I had to bike there; however, this was pretty straight-forward as I was following a DIS employee who also plays for the club. It was rather uneventful, minus the two bikes behind me with DIS students that crashed together when one didn't realize we were stopping.

It just happened that my host brother, Marc, also happened to be having soccer practice at relatively the same time as I did, so he hung around for a little bit, and we rode our bikes back to the house. He took the "shortcut", which I swear was anything but short. Irregardless, as we were heading back Marc found a group of his friends, and stopped to briefly talk to them, while he told me to go on ahead (straight-ahead). I did as I was told and continued down the street, which curved in a new direction. The only problem with this was that I was supposed to go "straight-ahead", which meant leaving the road, and going on a dirt path. This led to about 20 minutes of phone calls trying to figure out where each other was. I had managed to get myself very close to home, and could have made it back, but Marc insisted that I meet up with him. He didn't want to lose me, and I can't really blame him. So after all of this I won't be biking for a day at least (although that has more to do with receiving my books more than anything else).

The other interesting tidbit I heard on the ride home was Marc's views on immigrants. With my help every now and then with filling in words to actually understand what he was saying, he was expressing himself pretty well. His views are also very interesting, although not that shocking as I had read about the concept before in a book and Danish culture and etiquette. Pretty much he was arguing against the immigrants because of their lack of desire to integrate with the rest of the Danish population. Instead they live together, and do not work (living off of government benefits), and harass the Danes (as he told me multiple stories of having things thrown at him and being chased, from 12 year olds to 25 year olds. In reality his whole point was to warn me to avoid them if I'm ever alone after dark, but nonetheless, it was very interesting to hear his opinions. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the conversation was when he told me that one way the government is talking about dealing with this issue is to not allow immigrants to live together in communities, therefore almost forcing them to integrate, or so the thinking goes.

Now about the soccer itself, it went fine. I'm out of shape. Badly. And it was evident. I was one of the best DIS players for the first 30-45 minutes that we practiced, but after that my legs were gone, and I couldn't do anything. It was a lengthy practice, both in time on the field (2+ hours), and time in general (I left DIS around 4:40, and didn't get back to my house until 9:30+). Because of those two things, and the amount of effort it would take me to put into it, I'm totally undecided if I'll keep doing it or not. I think a large factor will be how much work I have to do for my classes, as that could limit my time. We'll see.