Equality

Have another letter in the newpaper today. You can read it in danish here.

Education

Got a letter in the newspaper a couple of days ago. Brilliant me notices this yesterday. ;) Here it is anyway.  

Changes

Denmark will soon have a new government lead by the social democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Allthough it's not my dream situation, I do look forward to being back in the opposition and watching how Thorning will master the balance between the half-way liberal Radikale Venstre and the left-wing Enhedslisten.
This should be fun, since the only thing the two parties above agree upon is changing the strict immigration laws. Unfortunately neither the social democrats nor their government partner SF have any intention of changing these. Instead they prefer to flood the country with money and subventions to fight the current crisis. Good luck with that!
However what shocks me the most is that Enhedslisten have gone up 300% and how have 12 seats in the parliament. Enhedslisten is basically a communist party with the ultimate goal of turning Denmark into a new version of the Sovjet Union. This is not made up og exaggerated, this is actually written in their party programme.
I fear though, that most people that voted for Enhedslisten were blinded by their leader, Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, who represented the party very well in the media by toning down the more controversial parts of their programme.
If people knew, that Enhedslisten wishes to nationalize all bigger private companies, including Maersk and Lego, and out of principle never votes for any budget cuts, regardless of the reason, I doubt they would have voted for Enhedslisten. Unfortunately people are on the take for a pretty smile and the promise of more money for the poor. Time will show if they can keep the support they've gained for the next election.

Best dressed?

Again it's the time for the lists of best dressed. This annoys me every year. It is always a challene to dress well, at least well enough for other people to notice. This challenge becomes significantly easier when you have enough money to byu whatever needed, and designers throw their robes at you for you to wear them on the red carpet.
Honestly I think it's much more impressive to dress well and interesting with a limited budget. In stead we are confronted with the idea that you have to own a 2000$ designer piece, to be fashionforward. This idea also comes from women's magazines, and quite frankly I'm rather tired of seeing clothes that I can not possibly afford on models, who's bodyshape I can never achieve.
So I have decided to boycot designers clothes (won't be that hard) and women's magazines (will be a lot harder) 

Blogger

It's now official. I'm one of the new bloggers on Damefrokosten. You can read my first post on the 22nd of August.

Shoppingfever

A couple of weeks ago I was on the fleamarket in the town center. Normally I don't buy anything there, not because I can't find anything, oh no, I could die happily amongst the old chairs, the art deco necklaces and the jugendstil silverware. The problem is that the traders know exactly what they've got and what they want for it. 

Unfortunately this last time I couldn't help it, the shoppingfever took over and I bought the things below. 

The first thing I bought were these wonderful egg cups from the 60s. I absolutely love them all though I never eat eggs. ;-)

Next I bought this little box for all my earrings. Probably not very old, but fulfils it's purpose perfectly among others safekeeping my new ivory earrings.

I was very happy to find these, I've been looking for earrings to match my ivory necklace for ages. Don't worry, they're antique, no elephants have been harmed, at least not this century. ;-)

This snakeleather handbag was definitely a find, I thought about it for a couple of hours and finally decided to buy it, and so far haven't regretted it. I especially love the lock.

I hope I can keep the money in my wallet next time I go to a fleamarket. Otherwise it's going to be a tough month. ;-)

Berlin

A couple of weekes ago I spent a weekend in Berlin visiting my friend Thomas and my friend Pia.

That weekend we ran into "Karneval der Kulturen" which is a knock-off of the Karneval along the Rhine. Not bad, people everywhere, blocked streets and people climbing traffic signals in order to see.  

In this shot you will also notice the special green little man in the traffic light. Very special for Berlin. :-)

Gas stations were no exception to the party.

My fellow chemist Pia and I in a quiet moment. 

Below Pia and Thomas.

Oh yeah, and they had Mohitos to go. Best invention ever. ;-)

Summer

 

Pictures from my biketrip with Allison. The picture above is the river Ahr. Significantly bigger than the Rhine, it's no less beautifull.

 

Me and Allison in front of my childhood street looking at the Rhine.

The Ahr again, can you see the bird in the background? Does someone know what kind of bird that is??

Last but not least, me on the way back from the open air bath with Sune. It turns out I can go swimming only 1 km from my appartment. Simply great. 

Can't wait till the weather gets better again.

Singing in the Rain

This Sunday I spent in the city center with some friends and my boyfriend and the weather was humid but still pretty good. Untill the sky darkened, the clouds opened and let out what seemed like half a river upon us.

The waiters had a fun time dancing between the puddles and the parasols. 

 

Later the sun appeared but it still rained. 

 

I love summer rain. :-)

Kekulé the second

 

Even Auguste Kekulé knows that summer has finally arrived. ;-)

Fleamarket

Flea market season has started and here are the first finds from Linz this weekend.

The tins are from the 60's and go well with the rest of my pastel coloured kitchen. I could imagine them with rice or pasta, and the smallest one would be great for spices. 

The table is foldable, and I was lacking a coffetable. Unfortunately, I'm also lacking space, so this was the best solution. My entire home is basically foldable. ;-)

When in Rome

Corner House

 

Dog meets art

Parliament

Cool Bike

The Art Museum Maxxi

Cafe in Trastevere

The Vatican

Transformation

This used to be a dresser in a hideous fake wood colour. By using my new favourite material, self-adhesive wall-paper I've made this little wonder. :-)

Doves

 

 This is in Wuppertal, looking down from Cafe Ekstrablatt. To the right a dove, to the left at plastic crow made to scare the dove away. We can see how well that's working.

Bottled

That's just plain funny. ;-)

Kohltour

Yesterday, my colleagues and I went for the annual "Kohltour".  As the name implies cabbage plays a significant role in this event, which was however dominated by an entirely different activity; "das Boßeln".
So we packed a cart with beer, schnapps and music and went on our way to the woods...by bus, not escaping the looks of other passengers.
At the terminal stop of the bus we got off and started our way which consisted of throwing a wooden ball as far as possible down the road, and praying to god that it didn't hit the waterfilled ditch.

The loosers of course had to drink a schnapps, but very often the winners showed their sympathy by joining in. ;-)

Later that day we went to a guesthouse to eat green cabbage with sausage, smoked pork chops and bacon. The evening was ended with a game of ninepins, a game I have never seen or played before.
The balls don't have any holes for the fingers and the lane is very narrow at the start.

However the most difficult task turned out to be knocking over only one pin.

All in all a great day learning a couple new traditions.

Chocolates

I was in Riga two weeks ago and when in Riga the chocolates from Emihls Gustavs home made chocolates. They are iresistable, which my boyfriend so beautifully demonstrates on the picture below. ;-)

Women

One of my favorite blogs to follow is the feminist blog Damefrokosten. I have been so lucky to particitpate as a guest blogger an from today my contribution can be found on the home page.
It's in danish, so if you don't understand it...well, that just sucks. ;-)

Water

The water has been rising for a while, and the result is shown here:

Femininity

I once commented on a blog about feminine and masculine behaviour and the differences (or lack thereof) between the sexes. My message was, that there is more to femininity than most people (mainly men) think. I'm a chemist and a black belt in jiu-jitsu, but I'm still a woman, no doubt.

However another (male) participant in the disussion felt the need to comment: "You are way to masculine for me, I couldn't be in a relationship with you."
I was very tempted to answer: "Luckaly, I don't date wimps." 

Nevertheless this guy totally missed my point! I'm no more or less a woman because I'm a chemist. The same goes for police officers, construction workers or politicians. Even if you have a job typical for men, that doesn't make you a man.
Sounds pretty logical, but isn't for most.

The same logic actually applies if it's the other way around. A male nurse is no less a man than a male truck driver.
In the perfect world people would be able to look past first impressions and accept that the world is multifaceted and so are the people in it. That's what makes it fun.

Picture from http://www.cardboiled.com

Spring

It sounds a bit early but 14 degress celsius have convinced me otherwise. The sun is shining and it smells like spring. So I decided to go for at walk in spite of my oversized right cheek. ;-)
In the city you could find two kind of people. For one the people who didn't get the message and were stille wearing their wintercoats. The other extreme were people that went overboard and were wearing shorts and t-shirt.
Spring in January.