A great place to get rich, have kids and die.

The Danish coast

The semester is coming to a close and I am desperately dredging motivation from deep within my black soul to finish strong.  After sipping on a Vitamin Well (sweden's answer to vitamin water), listening to a few songs from crime in stereo -off the good album- and watching the creepy girl at the library across from me pretend not to stare, I've decided it has been a pretty good semester.  I've made some good friends, learned a few words in a new language, and did my best to avoid responsibility at all costs.  Now I'm psyching myself for a long fucking winter.  In the words of this Iraqi dude in my course "You fucking American, what were you thinking coming to this fucking country in the winter?  You came for this shit (as he points at the snow on the ground)?"  To which I responded, "Yeah, why not?"

  

I was on a mountain

The city is quiet when it snows.

I've been listening to HWM's Caution for a week straight.  I bought that album my freshman year of college (with Tom if I remember correctly).  I forgot how much I like it.  I think my parents even have a copy of it floating around their house so I can listen to it when I come home for visits.  I don't see them nearly enough.

I still eat ham sandwiches for lunch

Sweden is an expensive country.  Especially when you buy quality clothing.  But it is the little things in life that make you happy. Yesterday I bought a pair of wool long johns so my junk will no longer freeze to my saddle on those long and cold rides home.  So far it has been one of the best purchases since the How Water Music album mentioned above.

I'm doing my best not to turn this into a conceded "bike blog".

Yesterday I rode to the Kallbadhus (cold bath house).  Despite my preconceived notions, it is not where gay men find dates.  At least not on a Thursday morning.  I was the youngest person there by 25 years at least.  Yes, I sat in a sauna that was 85ºC.  Yes I jumped - naked- in the mercilessly cold sea.  Yes, I will go again next week.  Very European. 

 
    

Anarchy in the UK

Getting psyched for the UK.

Britain better prepare itself.  Less than one month and I am coming to terrorize the (mean) streets of London and (polite) street of Leicester before settling down for a nice, relaxing christmas in a Welsh cottage.


Poppadoms and Vindaloo or get the fuck out!

I'm back FROM the future

A constant running joke for about a month has been the theme of time traveling.  It has been used in many contexts - but 2 main ones keep reoccurring. 1.)  getting blacked out drunk and waking up in "the future" with no recollection of previous events.  As in "holy shit, it is Wednesday morning?  What happened last week?  Where am I, how did I get here?  Why is my underwear on backwards?"  And so on...
2.) wasting your life on meaningless and trivial tasks only to find yourself significantly older and lamenting the disappearance of your lost youth.  Ex. - "holy shit, I'm 38!  How did that happen?"

The dark and sloppy weather has contributed to several recorded cases of mild schizophrenia.  I'm not sure how contagious it is but I am keeping my cool and have been washing my hands several times a day in hopes of not catching it this winter.  I hate being sick/fucking crazy.  

After having experienced the first "snow" of the season, I am not necessarily dreading the winter.  It was just cold enough to freeze the rain and sting you eyes when riding through it.  Although I am thinking about making the trek to see the northern lights, in which case I might need to consider investing in a clothes that prevents me from dying of exposure.

Helsingborg bikes.  Apparently. 

Spin me into the future Windmill!

Driven by a cheap travel ticket and boredom of Malmö, a few of us did the Öresund Runt.  Basically you get 2 days to travel the Öresund. We did it in one. 

Attempting to get people to travel together is always a bad idea, but amazingly enough everything went smoothly considering it required motivating several hungover students (especially Bree) to get out of bed before 10am on a Saturday.  

Helsingborg is a nice town.  It was sunny.  Although the Colombian guided beach walk was marred by relentless Scandinavian wind, the sea is nice. I assume that it is much more interesting in warm weather.  We did see a pretty crucial dude kayaking.  He didn't make it very far.

Sometimes I wish this lazy planet would hurry up and shift it's axis.  Its like the sun is slowing dying and you are forced to watch it wane into nothing. I'm willing to risk a retina burn rather than wear sunglasses.     

Drawn like moths to the flame, the North Americans just couldn't say no to a castle. Originally built to protect against the Danish, the castle now serves as a viewpoint to observe boats used to ferry cheap Danish beer across to Swedish shores.  A very symbiotic relationship.

 

After a short discussion and the realization that indecision would cause us to miss the Louisiana Modern Art Museum, Ondrej and I deserted everyone and sprinted to the ferry.  I thought we cut it close, but apparently the girls delayed their ferry by holding the doors open.  Hilarious.  It was a short ride and a nice break.  We were sent a postcard from heaven as we sailed to Denmark. 

  Louisiana, one of the few art galleries I've been to that allows photography, was in a really strange place.  I don't even remember the name of the Danish town where it is located.  It just seems like some bedroom neighborhood of Copenhagen that happens to have a world class art gallery.  The place was right on the sound, which made for a nice stroll around the sculpture gallery.  Apparently the wind doesn't blow in Denmark.  

We eventually met up with the girls in Copenhagen, where some other friends were already spending the weekend.  

After a long day of travel, several falafels and a session of heavy drinking with a group of Lithuanians, Ondrej had enough.  Despite his Czech upbringing, I have yet to see him give in to the urges of the socks/sandals combination.  

The calming collective

I ride by this damn tree at least twice a day.  For about a week I've told myself I would take a picture of it because it is one of the few things that  has color in this gray city.  Today I took a picture of all the leaves on the ground.

I booked my tickets to the UK for christmas.  It will be nice to be there again, if only for a week.  I've missed being called a yank.  I will be spending the holiday with Tom and his family.  I've known Tom for 8 (!) years now. I will be friends with Tom my whole life, despite only seeing him occasionally.  He speaks the queens English.

The ride is getting character.  By "character" I mean "rusted and thrashed".  Even the u-lock is showing its age.  We'll see how the slicks handle the ice.

Some jerk stole the lights off my bike while I had coffee with Kathi.  She lives in the hood apparently.  Also, she thinks it is funny when I refer to distances in "blocks".  She thinks it sounds very ebonic.   Luckily the Malmö police were too busy looking for the serial immigrant-assisian (google it) to give me a ticket for riding around without proper safety precautions.

Calm

I'll show ye....

So I have come to find out that the majority of people lurking this blog is not the intended audience.  Not that I'm upset, but I am surprised that the people who give a shit about this thing is my new found friends.  With that in mind, I wanted to provide an introduction to my native habitat.

Colorado is located in the central west.  A little over 1/3 of the state is flat and, from all accounts, uninhabitable.  The rest of the state is beautiful due to the mountainous terrain, copious amounts of sunshine and legalized medicinal marijuana.  It is also where residents from California and Texas move when they retire. Fuckers.  I grew up near the 4 corners (in the southwest) and subsequently moved to Fort Collins in the northern front range.  Both are nice places.
Places to avoid:
Indian reservations
San Luis Valley
Anything east of I-25

No this picture is not photoshopped.  Almost a double rainbow. Whoa.

Colorado has nice mix of fundamental religious kooks (colorado springs), hippies (boulder) and good-ole-boys (virtually any small ranching community).  Denver, the capital is pretty large and home to a dog food manufacturing plant.  I think around 2 or 3 million people live in the metro area.









South Park does exist, although it is only the name of a county (similar to Skåne) with no actual town named after it.  I've met several people that claim the show is modeled after their town, but I never believe them.  Honestly I would never claim that I grew up in the town that inspired South Park.  Your home town would seem pretty fucked up.

Mountains close to my parents house