marina.

When I was 8, I made a best friend. We were always together while in school, not because we didn't get along with anyone else, but because for us being together was enough. I never really liked being surrounded by many people. Marina had doll esque features, a round face and rosy cheeks framed by long and golden curls. She loved cats and collie dogs. One day in class during a math exam she cryed quietly. The tears simply ran down her face, and as I knew she wasn't the most brilliant student, actually, she was pretty average, I thought she was crying because she didn't know any of the answers. When the class was over, I went to her and asked what had happened. "I was thinking about my dog, the one who died".

Marina knew she was a princess. I wanted to be a princess too, but she told me I was a countess, although I didn't know what a countess was. "Not a princess, I suppose." She arrived every morning by carriage. "You know, when I enter school, they announce your highness, princess Marina". "How Come I never saw this?". She would then justify her imagination with conviction and made it sound the absolute truth. I was innocent and believed, and how I wanted to believe...

I haven't seen her in nearly 20 years. I never knew her surname. Does she still live there? Does she live at all? If she does, is her hair still long, golden and curly? Does she still believe and live in a fantasy world? We never even visited eachother's home during that time. Normal. I don't even think we lived nearby. A year later I changed to another school, it was the last time we saw eachother. Large city, children raised in locked apartments, and again, how normal. No letters, and no exchanged addresses anyway. We were kids. And Internet wasn't a common word in the beggining of 1991. Yes, I went to another school. I made a new best friend.

nothing much to say.

Landing in icy and grey Denmark after spending 27 days in the hot brazilian summer feels so weird... Not weird like watching clouds underneath you, forming an endless heaven field, or the little cars and trucks and the little roads and buildings and farm fields looking so peaceful and harmless, almost as if you could take them and grab them with your hands... as you do with a tiny daisy in the first real days of spring. It's so much harder to explain, there are really no exact words.

Do sheep ever get bored.

I love taking pictures of countryside elements.. sheeps, horses, landscapes, nature... It's always beautiful, no matter what season it is. It would definitely be my first choice of location to photograph someone. I love bucolic surroundings, but I doubt I'd always be happy in such quietness. It gets boring eventually. My dream would be a lovely house facing a forest, and five minutes by foot, a train, only 15 minutes away from the city. Who knows, someday.

danish summer, as expected

Anyone out there unhappy about sweating in cute summer dresses? I find it less worse than wetting my sunnies in the pouring rain. Ah, summer. That's why one should enjoy "awful" hot days to the fullest. Although so far it hasn't been that many days.... The irony is that I wait for them with such anticipation, counting the days from early november, idealizing the memory of past summer days, while trying to remember the feeling of liberty a pair of flip-flops gives. Why so much expectations, if I know, it won't be as expected? This year, however, I'll be redeemed. 9 days in september in Rome and four weeks in Brazil, in the hottest period of the year. I guess this kind of summer might taste sweeter.

I want summer - part 4

It snowed this tuesday! Ok, it wasn't that much and it melted quickly... but still... snow! I'm still wearing my winter coats and jackets. Two tights at once. Leather gloves early in the morning, and even in the afternoon if it's windy. The skin on my lips still cracks, lipbalms are very essential, indeed. I guess I'm just a silly foreigner. But I believe that only today I realized that spring is nothing but an undercovered winter. The days suddenly become longer, and one may hear that little bird from Hans Christian Andersen's The Top and Ball quite often, especially during sunny days. Yes, there are sunny days, luckily. But overall... it's still cold. Brrrrrr...

Photo: Marie Antoinette.

Clouds

-Look at the clouds. What colour are they?

-White? No... not white. Yellow. Blue... and grey. There are colours in the clouds.

-Now you understand.*

*From Girl with a Pearl Earring

I want summer - part 3

I've been away for the weekend and have just arrived home... Feeling tired. But before I forget, I'd just like to share that I had a lovely friday, lovely in a simple way, like I could have taken it for granted, if before closing my eyes and sleeping, I hadn't thought about the little happy things I had experienced that day. I visited a very old house with a peculiar scent of flowers, ate the most delicious piece of raspberry pie, and through a window train, very moist from the raindrops, I saw a pale pink house, lonely among several trees. It looked like a real size dollhouse. If I can ever find the way again, I'd take pictures of it. And it seems like the real spring is coming, little by little. Mostly I don't feel the need of wearing leather gloves and woolly scarves, which is always a good sign. Still dreaming of warmer days... Photos: Marie Antoinette, Picnic at Hanging Rock.

I want summer - part 2

Classic movie stars in white swimming suit with a blurry dreamy background. I love these early Marilyn Monroe photos by André de Dienes, she looks so lovely and natural as a typical pin-up girl. Unfortunately, I have no idea who photographed Grace Kelly. Now that winter - the sequel has started, I dream of warmer days even more. I heard that in Paris the temperature was 15 C the other day? 15 C... Wow. I mean... 15 C. I'm jealous. I wanna wear light coloured garments and bare my legs too.

I want summer

A few days ago, I dreamt it would be warm on march 1st, suddenly warm and leafy, just like in those classic cartoons with bears waking up from hibernation in the first spring day, and the snow melts, the sun shines, and there are birds and flowers.. and a voice says: "and so it's spring". The absurd things one dreams when one is terribly ill during winter time. Photos: My Summer of Love, Heavenly Creatures.

Yesterday

This thursday I watched an opera for the first time. My husband, John, is really passionate about operas, in a way it's like opera is for him what movies are for me. Once we watched a La Bohème version filmed by Zefirelli and he weeped in the very end. We went to see La Traviata, and we almost missed it because of some GPS system adversities, and the lack of parking spots. I left the car in an urge and hadn't noticed my gloves falling on the ground (over 3 hours later, they were there, beside the car, frozen and apparently one size smaller), I began to run thinking about Four Weddings and a Funeral's first scene, and why we are always so late in such occasions - this, luckily, wasn't a family celebration, far from it, no need to shake a sea of hands... We arrived in the exact starting time, not a second earlier, not a minute later, but the house was obviously crowded, from the balconies to those very expensive rows, those with nothing but the orchestra and the stage ahead. Before the show started, a lady entered to announce the singer who was supposed to play Violetta was sick, and so was her substitute, but they had found someone named Victoria Loukianetz and in the words of Franco Zefirelli - "I have had three genuine Traviata experiences: Callas, Stratas and this ..." I don't know how to judge opera singers, I found everyone was great, but John was only mesmerized by Victoria's performance ("Alfredo's dad wasn't so impressive" blah blah blah), I loved everything. Movies are wonderful, and can be as real as magical, nevertheless, the actors are there, nothing but celluloid dreams. In a real stage, it's another picture, it's so warm and alive. In a single word: beautiful. It made me think of Moulin Rouge. Perhaps was Baz Luhrmann inspired by one or two operas? It seems like someone is always meant to die in the end, usually a beautiful young woman who begins to cough in the first act. Then something will make the lovers apart ("I love him, but he must not know it") followed by "I'll love you forever" and bang, death and tears. John doesn't like Moulin Rouge, he finds the singing annoying. I love everything about it. And I loved La Traviata. Funny how an old man near us didn't stop snoring from the very beggining to the end.

End of Week

Like rests of cigarettes placed among cobblestones, the newest Woody Allen film's posters are everywhere here. If it wasn't for the fact I have to be away from the city this weekend, I'd sure be going to the movies. Sometimes I forget it's still november, and every day is slightly darker than the day before. I feel like the time is wrongly set on my mobile, and I might have gotten up way too early, as I walk towards the station. "It's just very cloudy, it might be the reason". Inside the train, a group of women talk and laugh loudly, whereas a grumpy looking old man raises one eyebrow now and them, secretly wishing they left the area. A mother and a little child walk to find a place to sit, I just stand and wait. At my first destination, we're always welcome with happy melodies coming from a violin, and nobody seems to care, although it's cheerful in a relievable waý. If it's early morning and the metro is delayed, heads form a pool of people. I could wait for the next, but what the hell, those inches left are just enough, and I exit at the next stop, where once again there's music, this time, The girl from Ipanema coming from a saxophone.

On my way back, I talk to an armenian young woman, who says she's going home, because it's way too cold. She says there are all four seasons in her country, a long and hot summer, and a lovely winter, snowy and sunny. "Denmark is just so boring. It's cold, dark, windy, it rarely snows. In Armenia, it's even colder in temperature terms, but the sun makes it up to you. And there are the mountains...". She says she doesn't miss her country, although she misses warm people. These kind of comments are really common coming from foreigners, I've heard it a million times, but it's always interesting to hear it again, in different ways. Complains about danish people's mood are the most common ones. I've heard it from south americans, asians, north americans, middle easterns, africans and even north europeans... However, I never got the "it's cold and I'll stay at home" thing, funny how people used to the cold weather (danes included) do it a lot. I can walk for hours outdoors, while shopping, for example. The most annoying thing is entering in a heated store wearing infinite layers of garments, but you have no other alternative. Hot and Cold, Cold and Hot, warm drinks, cold drinks... And then I got my first winter cold of 2008. It might be just allergy, too. Right now I have a sore throat and my nose is literally "crying". And then I have a birthday party to attend tomorrow, about 5 hours away from here (I calculate distance by time, not km). First winter cold, and also first winter "snow", as it quickly disappeared.

The Sound of Silence

It's been a week since my danish teacher decided to work on something to improve our vocabulary and get closer to the language: to read real newspaper articles or stories and to discuss them in class. So every day, one or two students chooses a story to share with the others. Until before yesterday, these 30 minutes of class had been a bore. People have only brought that typical suburbian crap you can easily find in different newspapers you can get for free every day in the train stations: "My son almost O.D.", "Paying taxes to watch TV", "Driving while talking on your mobile is dangerous"... So I decided to change it and chose a story that despite being a little old (it dates from august 2007), was quite interesting: the way 20 young foreigners from different countries who hadn't ever been in Denmark before would see the country after two weeks around it. The result was very homogeneous, as most of them concluded that the most remarkable about Denmark is how quiet it is.

And I couldn't agree more. Just look at those pictures up there, pictures I took in Odense last spring during Easter holidays. Downtown and uptown and no sign of people, despite the sunny day. It wasn't actually that sunny before, but as soon as the weather turned a little friendly, a few rabbits left their home to sit right in front of the City Hall (photo 8) although there were not that many. In Randers, where I lived during my first 11 months in Denmark, it's not very different. It's actually worse, because besides being quiet for the fact there's almost no one in the center at some point, there's not a lot to do. The few museums in the town can be visited in one single day, there's only one movie theater, and neither There Will be Blood nor Juno are out there yet (Thank God for CPH).

The only good thing about Randers was the fact it wasn't very far from Århus, the second biggest city in Denmark. Such an impressive number, right? Wrong. Århus can be as provincial as anywhere else outside Copenhagen. On sundays Århus downtown looks like a western film set. Of course you can find people inside cafes, restaurants and movie theaters, but if the weather is particularly bad that day, don't expect to meet that many danes. John and I once saw a film there in its opening weekend, a film which viewers were just him and I. If it's raining and winding, people would rather stay at home and watch TV for the afternoon/evening than doing the "sacrifice" of going out. The film in question was A Mighty Heart, by the way. Sometimes I wonder if the fact almost all films reviewed by danish newspapers get usually a positive grade has any association with the lack of people in the theaters, like if there was a sort of "collaboration" between cultural pages publishers and movie distributors. Ok, maybe the fact the ticket prices are outrageous manage to scare people anyway, but I don't think so. Booze and cigarettes are more expensive and people don't stop getting drunk or filling their lungs with evil smoke.

But coming back to that newspaper story, a 26-year old woman from England was surprised to observe how little people are out from their home's walls: "Here's very quiet. Sometimes there is no one in the streets and you think: where's everyone? When we tryed to get a ride (they travelled around DK by doing this), we wondered sometimes why there wasn't anyone driving." Well, unfortunately the majority of the 7 students in my class haven't ever been outside Copenhagen, and considering some of them have lived here for three years, I think that's quite a pity. It's impossible to develop a true opinion about a foreign country before visiting its different regions, which is not that hard to do here, considering Denmark's geography. Therefore, the discussion was quite poor, as almost everyone disagreed about those young foreigners' perceptions. As a matter of fact, most of them disagreed on most of my perceptions regarding this subject.

Me: All danish stores close very early, some even around 4:30pm. In Brazil malls close around 10pm, and certain stores, like supermarkets and drugstores are opened 24 hours sometimes...

Someone: But people just don't use to shop that late, it gets dark very early in the winter..

Me: What about summer, when it gets dark around 11pm..?

Someone: ... (No arguments here)

Me: What about weekends when there's no one downtown?

Someone: During weekends people like to be at home with their family.

Me: .... :-S

Someone: Oh, there's a weekend in the month people actually go out, because they just got their salaries.

Me: .... :-S

Someone: Oh, and it's cold too, people prefer to be at home.

Me: .... :-S

Well, I guess some discussions are just not worth it, not when people you discuss with are a bunch of narrow-minded europeans who behave like if they have lived in a small village during great part of their lives.

If you can understand danish, read the story here.

Just for the record: I have nothing against people who grew up in villages.

The Christmas Chronicles

I could make a huge list of impossible "gifts" I'd love to get for Christmas, although I'm pretty aware I won't get any of them, like an original 1920s flapper dress or in more contemporary terms, those ravishing Miu Miu pumps down there. Besides all these beautiful materialistic wishes in the form of garments and endless accessories, all I wish I was able to do by now is to get the first plane in direction to my hometown in Brazil. To spend Christmas with my family enjoying a delightful Christmas dinner, to walk up the next day with the sun glow calling me at my window, to spend the day at the pool drinking mango juice and at lunch time, to walk to the closest homemade food restaurant, wearing nothing but a cute summer dress and sandals. Food is a great part of each country's culture, and some people, even while staying away for a short period like a holiday, miss their home food somehow. In Brazil, people from where I come from already feel a deep change in weather and especially food terms just by going to the south region of the country, so what to say of the homesickness feeling when you're in Denmark or any other scandinavian country?

It's not every day I feel that way, I could pretty much say I'm definitely adapted to all the extremely different things I've faced here, the "bad" things, I mean. Because from the good things, no adaptation is needed. But in order to not start sounding slightly ethnocentric, I should drop the bad part conversation, though it's so obvious and harmless. I guess this end of the year feeling always get me depressed no matter where I am, and considering where I am right now, it doesn't get any better. The picture collage above is a tiny example of all sort of food, from meals to desserts or even simple snacks and fruit I can't get here, and If I can, it's not really the same. I googled some of the images and many others I found on Flickr, but I don't remember from who, so If anyone out there took any of these pics, just leave the photo link here and I'll credit you. Click here to see the collage in a larger size.

The view from my window at 10am. If it wasn't so cold, I could easily picture some Little Children characters here.

Christmas time means pretty much gift exchanges, right? Wrong. Here in Denmark it also means booze time (is there a time where there's not a booze time here?) The picture was taken in a small grocery store located in Copenhagen downtown (nearby Tivoli and the City Hall), and that's just half of its drink section. Then I looked for my fav yoghurt and I couldn't find it. They only had two kind of yoghurts. Funny.

Enchanted opened yesterday and I'll probably see it today. If Amy Adams won't make me feel any better, no one else can. Now it's just four days left until all of this is gone. I'll go to Randers on monday and I'll be coming back on wednesday evening. I should be happy because I'll meet at least two of my friends, everyone else is abroad for their family or somewhere else in Denmark for other reasons. I am feeling so numb right now that I've even avoided cinema theaters for a while. You see the post below? It's been a week since I saw the last film in the list. And films are the ultimate escapism way for me, though not all of them serve for this purpose. A week. It's not really such a long time, is it? There are six films out there I'd like to see, but I couldn't so far. And then soon there will be so many others, counting with the opening dates on december 25th and the first january week. Wes Anderson, Woody Allen and Ben Affleck's debut as a director are just around the corner. And right now there's a special exhibition at the Lousiana Museum of Modern Art, about Richard Avedon's most remarkable works, I've already been there, but I'm willing to return for a second view. Is it just me, or is is there anyone out there that is not feeling so great right now..because of Christmas? Merry Christmas, anyway.

Update, December 23: Thank you everyone for the positive comments. I saw "Enchanted" last night and now I feel a lot better. To anyone out there who is feeling as blue as I was, go see this film! :-)

Tell me about drastic changes...

I arrived in Denmark in the middle of winter after leaving Natal, the once called sun city, in one of its hottest summer days. It was cold, but not as cold as it could get. A couple of weeks later it started getting colder and colder.. 5 C, 4 C, Zero and less. And soon there was snow. It was the first time I ever saw snow. I wasn't so excited towards it. Early in the morning the radio news said all schools in the area couldn't open that day. Buses couldn't work. Many people missed their jobs. When snow started melting, it didn't look as good as the photo above. Salt plus dirt plus water... Oh and those slippery sidewalks. In Copenhagen i remember seeing a guy falling to the ground. Nevertheless, the cold and the not practical side of snow didn't bother me as much as other winter facts. Like getting up at 8h30 am without any sign of sun light but darkness can be quite depressing. Coming back home at 3pm and one hour later - it's already sunset time! - doesn't help either. How i missed the noisy birds at 5am who used to annoy me every day of my life. How i missed making sure the persiannas in my bedroom covered every inch of my window properly, so the sunshine wouldn't bother me at 6am, because it was weekend, and i wanted to sleep until late. Short days can be really awkward if you've never experienced them before. Luckily it came spring. The leaves reappeared in the trees, the birds started singing and there were flowers, so many beautiful flowers. There were even some warm days and days weren't as short as before. Every rare warm day made me long for summer more and more. But summer was a disappointment, except for a couple of weeks. Ah, summer days are huge! The sun rises so early in the morning (sometimes before 5am) and it sets around 10pm, 11pm. Again, it's drastic, but yet so great. Especially if it's a beautiful sunny day. After a rainy and chilly summer, many trees had already started its "metamorphosis". All that green turned into golden, red, brown and orange coloured leaves. Soon there will be nothing but the tree trunks again. Although the weather and seasonal changes were one of the reasons that required adaptation, that's just one single small fact of so many other differences I've been experiencing here. Some could think I'm adapted at last - both superficially and deeply... But I think that's just the beggining for me, especially now, when soon there will be a new change - a good one - but not as easy, though. At least if life was as simple and predictable as season changes... Just kidding.

Photos: (1) Spring time, taken in the end of march, (2) Autumn leaves, taken a while ago, (3) Winter morning, taken last february - I've turned the photo into b&w, but honestly, it looked the same as the original except for the colour of a traffic sign. John took this last picture with the help of a wider lence. I took the others.