Miscellaneous: July 2006 Archives

We got up early this morning. Kent went off to his lectures and I went for a final walk downtown, to different sections that I hadn’t made it too yet. Once I get a computer again that can process my images, I’ll post some. I store my images in Nikon RAW uncompressed format, so each image file is about 15 megabytes in total space. It takes special software to read them and to prepare them for web viewing.

We are probably going to walk over to “old town” this afternoon and see a different section of the city. It was a suggestion from the receptionist at our hotel. I told her that I loved her country and was reluctant to go back home because people are so free to express themselves here. She agreed, but said, “It’s all I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t feel right about putting others down for who they care for.” I told her, “Believe me, there are many people who have no qualms what so ever in doing that.” She said, “You should just stay here.” I told her, “It’s not that simple. I’m a United States citizen, so to live here would be difficult because I would have to become a citizen of Denmark.” She replied, “No. All you need is a job and a few papers filled out. As long as you have a job, you are set with Denmark. I happen to need someone right now. Want a job?” An interesting proposal. Of course, if I took her up on it, I would probably never be allowed into the United States again. I’ve heard that they are turning away people they know to be gay. Sadly, not really a surprise to me.

I am looking forward to getting home again to see Maxwell and Mimi. I miss them a great deal and by now, they have probably stopped wondering when I’m coming home. The thing that is really going to suck is that the day after we get home, Kent leaves for another conference. So basically, I will be home alone for a week. It’s really worse for him of course. He will have little time to even rest, and he’s gone again. And I probably have a ton of work waiting for me at my job.

But it was all worth it. I got to see some awesome things.

Been too busy touring to write lately, but did get this interesting comment on one of the entries.

Hello people. My name is Larisa I using internet and i think about dating with other person man from other country. I try find some dating site but i can't write letters to man because i don't have credit cart.... I post it mesage at this forum:

I WANT FIND MAN TO LONG TIME RELATIONSHIP AND MARRID.

I want tell some more information about me.
I am single GIRL. if you want start correspondent with me please write to my e-mail address:

______.______@gmail.com (email hidden for obvious reasons by me)

I will waiting you letter soon.
Larisa

Well Larisa, you will probably be waiting a long time for that response from this website, but it’s nice to see that you are doing your part to keep the sanctity of marriage alive and well.

For you, getting married to someone from another country of course means that you, as a heterosexual, can then gain citizenship to the United States, or any other country that will honor that. For gay couples, that’s not an option. Hell, in the United States, since we don’t have access to marriage, if you have a partner from another country, you will be split up. So, although you feel free to try to use my site to advertise yourself, I find it very insulting. And it goes without saying, that you won’t be posting your stuff to this site again.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll write when I can. I’m having a great time over here, but starting to look forward to returning to the United States - the “home of the ‘somewhat’ free” and the land of second class citizenships for gays. In my travels in Europe, I’ve come to realize just how much crap we have to deal with in the U.S. day after day after day. But, I’m here now, and having a great time, and I’m not going to let it get me down.

Cheers everyone!

In a nutshell, I loved Copenhagen. I loved this history (many of the buildings are over 200 years old). Indeed, Costanza, Mozart’s wife, lived in Copenhagen after Mozart’s death. I passed the building she lived in, which people still live in. It now has plumbing and electricity, of course, but for the most part, it’s still the building she lived in.

Another thing that I loved about Copenhagen was its compactness. We chose a hotel that is in the old part of the city – a place which is bustling with life and is most representative to the spirit of Copenhagen. We stayed at The Strand, a modern hotel on one of the canals, equipped with the Internet (for an extra charge). There was no air conditioning, but it didn’t matter. In Europe, most hotels do not have air conditioning - neither do the houses. It seems that Europe is much more conscious of conservation than we Americans are. And who can blame them. By our standards, a gallon of gasoline costs around $6.50 per gallon! So, in Copenhagen, a great many people just get around with bicycles. It makes total sense. The city itself is compact, and you can easily maneuver around the city with a bike. On our stay to Copenhagen, we only used a bus one time. The rest of the time, we walked.

The food was just as great as Copenhagen itself. I won’t say that the European’s eat more healthy than Americans do (they also have high-fat, salty foods), but they do tend to eat less than we do. There are fewer obese people in Copenhagen. The portions are smaller, and they love to eat such wonderfully healthy treats such as sausages! They are serious about cheese and sausages in Copenhagen. Oh... and BEER! They love their beer. I’m not really a beer drinker, but I found myself drinking ice cold beer quite often on a warm sunny afternoon.

One of the great highlights was eating at one of the great restaurants in Copenhagen, the Leonore Christine. Fodors said that it was the best in Nyhavn, the part of the city we were staying in.

And yesterday, are final meal was at an outside café call Restaurant Gammel Strand. And finally last night, we went down to the canal in Nyhavn to watch the sunset, and enjoyed a “soft ice”, which is their version of what we would call “soft serve” ice cream. Except theirs was lighter and much more smooth. It was put inside a waffle cone that they were making right their in the shop. It was fascinating to watch. It was a circular machine that had a series of little waffle irons that would rotate. The boy making the waffles would position the iron just under the vat that was filled with the waffle mix. He would turn the lever that would drop some batter onto the iron. He’d close the iron, and rotate the wheel, opening up the next iron in front of him, peeling off the waffle cone, shaping it into a cone, and placing it aside to cool. Fifteen minutes later, it would be filled with soft ice.

The Tivoli Gardens were also quite wonderful. It was very touristy – as amusement parks go, but as Jeff said in a comment, it was one of the inspirations that Walt Disney used in the creation of the Disney parks. I can certainly see that after visiting there.

The Copenhagen Botanical Gardens were also very impressive. Photos don’t really do it justice, but I did take a few that should give you an idea of the place.

And finally, yesterday, we visited the NY Carlsberg Gylptotek, a world class museum which featured everything from mummies, to paintings of Picasso, Degas, Monet, Manet, and others. I was very impressed with their entrance, which was really a huge green house, with fountains and beautiful flowering plants – truly a place of peace.

We had a great time in Copenhagen. And now as I type this, we are flying to Amsterdam. We will be staying at the NL Hotel, which is a new hotel catering to gay men. It should be interesting. They seem to be located very centrally and they have free wireless Internet!! I wanted to book us in “gay friendly” hotels, because that is what I have learned to do in the United States. But I’ve learned that over here, that is much less of a concern because the region in general is very open to other kinds of relationships. I didn’t realize it, but Denmark also allows gay couples to be married, which I guess explains why I saw so many gay couples being so open. Amsterdam also allows gay couples to be married, so I would expect the same attitudes. If anything, Amsterdam will be more gay-friendly than Copenhagen, if that’s possible.

We enjoyed our stay in Copenhagen immensely.

I’m taking some time off, away from the Internet and email. I should return in a couple of weeks.

How do I get through life?

Well, it’s quite simple. I look at how my cats view life.

Everything, their absolute existence, exists right now, and only now.

There are no past problems.

There is no discrimination.

They hold hatred or malice toward no soul.

They know of no one who hates them.

They fear nothing because they don’t let fear into their world.

My demons are monsters that gain their existence from my memories - my past, that manifest themselves in my dreams. The dream of a cat is the bird that got away. Then, it’s on to something else... always something else... not to dwell on the past.

I want to be a cat.