berlin

i spent last weekend in berlin, where i met with jared - a good friend from my service in haifa. none of us had been there before, which had its challenges and blessings. it was a great experience, we walked everywhere and experienced a city many contrast. the new modern architecture around the center of town, stood in great contrast to the communist style architecture in other parts of town. my experience of germany is that it is very aware of its history, the jewish museum fx., which showed how the jews had been persecuted for many generations before the holocaust. this unselfconsciousness is something i find that admirable.


i enjoyed the street art which was all over the city, as well as i enjoyed the museums displaying classical and modern art. it was refreshing to go to museums and walk the streets, where i was able to experienced different styles of art.

i managed to take a few pictures (link) while i was there and i hope that they can convey part of my experience.

i will definitely be going to back to berlin, where i will go and re-experience the places i enjoyed. next up my bachelors project on the political discourse on hijabs in denmark. holla

is the blog still alive?

after a longer hiatus i am back. i'll give a short recap of my life for those who actually read this and havent talked to me for a while. as always in bullet form with some pictures.

i managed to get around this summer. i am pretty proud of my efforts. i am also happy for every one of you that i saw.

• first i hit up norway - saw the sunnivator and her amazing family. her family is really hospitable always worth a visit, sunniva is pretty nice too. i brought my brother (alx) a long, he is a norway lover - he is probably going to study there.
  

• second was some small country (which is the whipping boy of group f in euro quals.), liechtenstein. seeing as we (dad, alx and i) drove from denland to italy, we needed to stay somewhere on the way. bettina was nice enough to show the whole country. it is a pretty cool sight, definately worth a visit. bettinas family is pretty nice too.

• i would like to make this statement: i love italy. this is despite all the obvious faults the italians have - which actually is a part of the amazing charm of this country. my italian is horrible, i understand a few words and people understand a few of my words. saw some bahais, all were late - meaning i had to stand and look pretty lost in both siena and bologna. they have nice train stations. thanks.
  
• my family and friends of the family showed up from all over the western hemisphere to celebrate my parents collective 100th birthday for a week. which was awesome.

• lastly i managed to go home to greenland and see the mountains and enjoy the rain. when it doesnt rain nuuk is one of the most amazing cities and everything comes alive. people everywhere smiling and enjoying it. i also managed to become quite proficient at playing wii golf and tennis. might have to invest in one of those...
  

i would recommend that everyone who likes rap, to listen to kanye's new cd "graduation". good cd, still trying to find a favorite song on there and decipher the lyrics. but i like "good morning", "good life" "homecoming" and "the glory". i am not keen on the song with mos def "drunk & hot girls" and "stronger" lives on the strength of the sample from daft punk (everyone who has slept on daft punk's "discovery" should listen to that cd immidiately)


in other news i am still in århus studying political science. i have heard this will be a hard semester, we have 3 courses: 2 mandatory, policy analysis and public management. and i am taking a course about cost-benefit analysis as a scientific phenomenon (we will be reading a book called "global crisis, global solutions"). the last course will be interesting, the first course is ok too. public management is not that interesting. at least i will be able to prioritize between global issues when i am done with this semester.

thats all for now.

i did italy!

i did italy this weekend! it rocked. i am not going to bore you with the details, at the moment... instead i am going to put up two slideshows. italian impressions:

and the second part...

thats that...


link to picassa albums

italian impressions

italian impressions continued

everything texas and a few other things…

How do you describe a 2-week escape from school? Well, I would say pretty nice! I just went to the states, where I was in Texas, Tampa and Chicago. I managed to see more people than I imagined.

When I was 14-16 I lived with my aunt (Tia) Grace, my uncle Mark and my two cousins (Amanda and Curtis); while I was going to high school there. It was a learning experience and but I had way too much homework and too little spare time. The real reason that I decided I needed to go the states, was that I hadn’t seen my family for almost 3 years and I feared it would be even longer if I didn’t do something about it. SO, I went there. My cousins are awesome and they have grown into such cool kids. I wish that I could be there with them as they grow even more. My Danish cousin Natascha is staying with my American side for a year, it seems to be a great family tradition. Enough mindless writing about my family, here is a list of the best parts of my whole trip (in no specific order):

• Seeing the cousins and then making sure they wouldn’t miss me by teasing them as much as possible.
• Chaperoning Curtis’ class to the Texas capitol building (fun fact about the Texas capitol: it is larger than the national capitol and equipped with a goddess (not statue) of liberty – I guess everything is bigger in texas)
• Listening to “Screw You, We’re From Texas” by Ray Wylie Hubbard on the radio, on Texas Independence Day (march 2^nd) (Link to someone using the chorus in a clip)
  
• Spending time with Stefani in Florida and meeting her family and dog.
• Waiting for Jared who was two days delayed in coming to Texas – only to have him experience the worst weather Texas has experienced all year, when there had been 82 degrees the two days before he arrived. (Jared would probably say that Texas is the most self-loving state in the USA, based on the fact that the amount of Texan flags dwarfing the amount of American flags. Well screw you we’re from texas!)
• Seeing Chicago, a pretty nice town – I was in awe of the tall buildings (including the Sears Tower).
• Seeing my Uncle Mark with long hair… and spending quality time with him.
• Wearing shorts for almost a week straight and not freezing while doing so.
• Spending a day with Abuelita (my grandmother) in San Antonio.
• Calling Omeed on skype with Jared – even though he barely could hear us – it was exactly like old times. All we needed was to conference the White Man (Bendershot) and Sam in.
• Sleeping the day away to be able to have second dinner, since I skipped lunch because of the fast.
• Spending time in the airports of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Chicago, Tampa, Memphis, St. Louis, Atlanta and Austin… Especially Austin because of the loud country music.
• Eating: Brisket, Mexican food, a polish, fried chicken, Chicago style pizza, Chinese, sonics, shamrock shakes and all the other great American foods I managed to have while I was in the USA.
• Seeing Joey Lample and Jared’s sister Sabrina again and meeting some other Bahá'ís who I hope to see again.
• Driving in Texas and Florida – especially the wide Texan roads, everything is bigger and better in Texas.
• Seeing Tia, she is like a second mother to me. Enough said!

This is in no way a wholesome description of my trip, but it will have to suffice.