We don’t currently have internet at the apartment I’m staying in. So I’ll just be writing this, and then posting it next time I have a chance. There’s internet at the office, but our computers are only arriving next week, and we’ve been too busy with a two-day model casting at work to have time for anything else.
So after 8 hours in a plane, a 3-hour layover in Dubai, another 7 hours in a plane, a 3-hour bus ride, a 1-hour ferry ride, followed by another bus ride, we arrived in Aarhus, Denmark a few evenings ago. We went straight to the office we’ll be working at for the next three months, where we waited to get taken to the places we’d be staying at for the rest of the summer.
We haven’t met the owner of the place where we’re staying, but I can tell by her apartment that she’s some sort of Super-Mom! All of her kids’ artwork-only-a-mother-could-love is framed and put up all over the walls, her cupboards are really well organized, the plants are all beautiful, and the living spaces reflect true Ikea-style Scandinavian fashion! I’m living with two other girls from the company: a French Canadian and a girl from South Africa. Neither of which are from the group of colleagues I’ve been living with over the past four months in the company’s house in Cape Town. Here in Aarhus, we’re staying in an apartment that belongs to a family that is spending the summer at their holiday home. That being said, we each have our own room. One girl is in the master room that has the sound system that we haven’t tried yet (don’t worry, I will). The other girl is in the little girl’s room, full of unicorns and stuffed animals and toys, and a little tea-party corner. I’m in the little boy’s room, with a bunk bed to myself (my suitcase gets its very own bed!). It’s the smallest room, but I don’t mind actually. It suits me. There’s a great painting hanging on the wall, about 9 different cacti in pots all over the room, two taxidermied hawks above the wardrobe, fishing rods, a tackle box, a Barcelona soccer scarf hanging on the top part of the bunk bed, and a skinned fox hanging right next to that. It’s fluffy. Oh, and there’s also a lava lamp and a GIANT Buddha-board (I have a small one at home—you paint on it with water that then evaporates)! So I feel strangely at home in this little boy’s room.
(Images clockwise from top left: the view from my bedroom, some of the cacti in my room, the view from our living room, the Aarhus harbour)
Considering that every single other one of the other interns is sharing a room, we really lucked out. There are three other places that people are staying in, and all of them have to share rooms. We have the furthest walk to the office compared to the others (25 minutes), but I wouldn’t trade it! Besides, I sit in 45 minutes of traffic on the way to work in Cape Town, so a 25-minute walk feels like a bonus! We’re going to look into getting a hold of the city bikes tomorrow, which will shorten the time in half, I’m sure! The city bikes are the ones that you find at little stations all over the city, and when you put a coin into them, they unlock, and when you park it at any other station, it gives your coin back! It’s a 20 krone coin we have to use which is about 30 rand, or 4 dollars.
The first day at the office was tiring, but that may just be the 27 hours of travel hitting me from the day before. We spent the day rearranging the office and turning it into extended studio space for the casting that will be happening Friday and Saturday. Yuri’s expecting about 1000 people: kids, babies, families, teens, adults, seniors, etc. He said a lot of crazy people will show up, and a lot of beautiful people that you wonder where they’ve been hiding! We’ll be working 9-9 on those days: shooting, answering questions, directing people, helping with paperwork, etc. After the set-up today, we all sat downstairs and Yuri joined us in a welcome-beer from the beer-fridge that he keeps stocked and we’re allowed to have on Fridays.
*Warning: photo-nerdiness ahead* The company just got two new cameras: the Nikon D800E and the Cannon 5D Mark III. I’m a little excited to try both of those because one of those will probably be my next camera when I buy one for myself. I love my D90, but it just doesn’t feel the same now when I look at the full resolution on the computer screen compared to the images from the cameras I’ve been using lately at work. I can actually see the difference in quality! *End photo-nerd commentary*
Everything here is bloody expensive. Bloody friggin’ expensive. Mince (ground beef) is almost twice the South African price, and eggs are about triple! Fruit is definitely not as cheap as it is in SA. And all things yummy are also fairly pricey. A 2L of coke was 30 krone—that’s about 50 rand, or 7 dollars! Don’t even think about eating out, or buying McDonalds, or buying something from a corner store if you’re on a tight budget. Any kind of service is triple the price. Hooray for cheap labour in South Africa! If you want to serve yourself (aka: shop at a grocery store), then the prices are more reasonable, but still not by any means “cheap”. My experience in the grocery store was… slow. It took me a while for sure, trying to decipher words and find out what exactly I was buying. I actually managed to do a fairly good job, and I took an educated guess at some words that were later confirmed by Danes passing by. Skinke = ham. Kylling = chicken. Ost = cheese. I’d say I had about a 95% success rate, (because really, it’s nearly impossible to mess up “pasta”) but that missing 5% can be attributed to my mistake of buying buttermilk instead of normal milk. I am SO happy I smelled it before I put it into my coffee! The box said some Danish word and then “mælk” and it had the number 1,5%. I thought I was safe! Well… now I’ll just have to bake something!
The city is quite charming. The streets are insanely bike-friendly. Bicycle lanes in every road, and people—young and old, fit and not-so-fit—get around by riding bikes! There’s really nice architecture too, and some of the old cobblestone streets remain.
Anyway, it’s late and I’ve been writing for a while. It’s probably still light outside—thank goodness for those blackout curtains! G'Night!
