beef cheek and baguettes

So now we are in the land of the French (that would be France). Kent and I arrived in the dark last night and this morning I am blessed to be sitting in the Southern French Countryside, outside (OUTSIDE) where it feels about 12 degrees (not zero, or minus anything), drinking an espresso (George Clooney style) and basking in winter sunshine. I am rugged up to the nines and receiving lovely little face kisses from the amazing sun. Everyone is busy doing something except me. How FABULOUS!! Nathan has taken Nina to piano lessons, and doing supermarket shopping, Christel is at work, Kent and Gustav have gone down the lane ‘past the truck with the four dogs and then over there’ (should I want to join them) for a footy game (yeah, me and footy –hilarious).

mmm, hiiiii sunshine!

It is a holiday from holidays. About as indulgent as it gets. This morning I was woken up by a real live cockadoodle doo – delicious! Christel and Nath’s house is over 200 years old and just gorgeous. I’m talking whitewashed walls, creaky floorboards and about a gazillion exposed beams. I am in interior heaven. There is about 100 people living in this town, which makes a nice change from the hustle and bustle of the city.

This is Nina feeding the donkeys. I don't think I have ever seen a real live donkey before today. I felt a little bad because I didn't realise there was an electric fence, so I urged little donkeys to come forward and it may have received a little electric shock. We found a non-electric bit after that. And after we visited the donkeys, we walked down farm roads and picked wildflowers to make a fairy bouquet. Yep, that's how Enid Blyton my day was.

Last night was our first proper meal in a while – you don’t realise how much sandwiches are NOT a complete meal until somebody sits you down with soup, slow cooked vegetables and a slab of beef cheek. And veal. And bread. And wine. Trying to figure a way to sneak into the fridge at a later time and shovel some more in my mouth when noone’s looking. Now may be the optimum time.

Living room (one of) - complete with old piano and awesome house cat.

So this morning I lolled a bit, ate some toast with homemade jam (so very wonderful) and played exquisite corpses with Kent and Gustav – what a stressful game. The pressure of trying to be clever, creative and then draw well became too much for me. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, exquisite corpses is the game where you fold a sheet of paper into three, and each person draws their own head, body or set of legs, each getting more ridiculous than the last.

The back garden. (I KNOW!)

So the smell here is out of this world (well not really, because I am going to describe it, because I know you will all know the smell) – those of you who have enjoyed many winters at the Sorrento house (which is LOTS of you), just think the sunshiniest day there, when the fire is going and you are chopping wood outside, and, (I can’t believe I am being sentimental about this) it’s not too cold for a couple of flies to be buzzing around. BLISS! Ok they are not flies but a giant mega bug-fly which is actually a little bit scary. I think I’ll go inside now.

Country living. The best. Too easy to just stand around and breathe. Very good for the soul.

Kent being a Husband of Joy and taking my bag for me :)

In terms of our flight here. Well. We trained to Copenhagen airport (so easy) in the morning, and checked into Easyjet (less easy) – for an airline who claims to not issue boarding passes (to make it easier), it seemed very strange that rather than check in, we had to use a self serve machine FIRST, to ISSUE our boarding passes, which then had to print, and THEN we checked in. Oh my god.

Security was same same – Kent for whatever reason, seems to always get frisked, even when he doesn’t beep. They must take a liking to his physique. My bag got confiscated, quite mysteriously, and a “oh my god someone slipped some crack in their while I was standing in line” did momentarily flash before my eyes. A very peroxided, tanned security man, brought me my bag.

“This your bag” (Think slightly mocking sexy euro accent)

“Erm, yes.” (Think a bit retarded)

“Ok.” He starts to open it (I am clearly too retarded to do it myself)

He pulls out my half filled water bottle (Ok, so maybe I am retarded)

“Aaaw whoops, I forgot about that!”

He looks at me, and presents the bottle to me:

“We can throw this away for you, or you can drink it all right now” in a very challenging tone. I then did a western-Clint-Eastwood-Cowboy-Squint – I am pretty sure he wanted to test if it WAS crack, or meth, or bomb-making water, to see if I would crumble.

As it was not, I opted to drink it. I did not get super high or explode, so was deemed not so terrorist-y. I then freaked out:

“Oh no, I have a bag of dried apricots in there, do I have to eat all those too?!”

“You know what happens if you do that don’t you?”

“Erm…”

“You fart yourself away. Have a nice flight!”

Then we all funnelled into a mash of people to get onto the plane – no lines here sir. Every man for himself here – I lost Kent pretty early on, but forgave him when he saved me a seat. Probably the fartiest, foot odouriest flight I have ever been on, with some of the roughest air hostesses I have ever met. Essex chicks man. They scary.

“Awrigh, yeh wanneh put yeh coawt on yeh lap awrigh, wes got no rum anyweh else.”

Lots of aggressive baggage compartment closing. And scary single mums with lots of hair extentions and bling. (Their babies had even more bling. And probably hair extentions.)

Then came a gulp of fresh airport air. Slightly less farty. A really farty day altogether really. And then 5 hours of Gatwick, or what I like to call (so witty really) Gatshit airport. Ergh. However what with all the going back through passport control, then through to baggage claim, then to north terminal to eat evil british airport food, then back to south terminal to attempt check in, then check in, then passport control, some more security (no frisking this time, though I did watch a very luscious European chick rip her jeans off when she was getting frisked as her studded underpants we alerting security) and then about 4 hours of teas, hot chocolates, coffees and a lot of cards. Kent and I have decided to have a continuous score card for the whole trip, starting from my birthday last Saturday. And then, God’s gift to Britain, Pret a Manger saved the day, with it’s luscious affordable sandwiches and snacks. Mmm bacony sandwiches. No Lucy! No more sandwiches for you! Aaaargh!

just had to put this in somewhere - we went to the lego shop in copenhagen. yep, that would be a self-serve wall of lego. like a candy store. AMAZING!!

Did I mention that there are views of the Pyrenees Mountains here? Cuz there are. They are snow-capped. Yep.

farewell denmark

tonight is our last night in copenhagen, so i'm going to take this opportunity to post the last few images and diarise the last few thoughts on our stay here.

i'll begin by declaring copenhagen to be one fine city.
on some general points - it's very clean, well ordered and neat.
it is beautiful and classical.
it is damned icy cold, but it is winter in scandanavia and we're both only barely acclimatised to the alternate seasonal rhythm up here in the northern hemisphere. and on that point, it is actually possible to get about town in pretty much the same getup you'd wear in a melbourne winter. i haven't needed thermals, although gloves would have been a sensible option. a beanie, a scarf and a good jacket will see you through temperatures on and just below freezing. every shop and cafe is super warm, so you only need to keep ducking inside to get the feeling back in your face and you're good for another 15 minutes or so.

what else...
oh, the people are amazingly friendly and happy.
prices are basically the same as in melbourne, maybe slightly higher for food in cafes, but only barely. nothing like what it used to be only a few years back. the cafe culture is not as entrenched, so there's less options than what we're used to, but that's totally fine.
and yeah, everyone is ridiculously gorgeous.
luckily i have a hot wife on my arm, so i skate on through ok.

this is the roof at the central station.
it's all wooden cross beams and looks like a giant cathedral. there's a lot of this stuff going around and it's spectacular. this building has to be about 200m long and about 30m high. that's a shitload of heavy old timber.
*'shitload', being the technical danish term for this amount of wood.

ok, denmark is the home of lego and there's a couple of shops dedicated to it. they have massive sculptures of lego, friezes, and an abundance of hollywood film tie-ins and other paraphernalia. i may have just picked myself up a boba fett lego key ring.
it's ace.

this is lucy being excited on her birthday. the sun was out and it makes a world of difference when it's -1. this was outside our apartment in frederiksburg, a suburb that's 15 mins walk from the centre of the old town and described by our host as 'an old lady area'. perfect! it's clean, quiet, old, and rather lovely.

for a culture famed for its design it's hardly surprising that they would have amazing shop signage and shop fittings. i couldn't help snap a few images of the signage coz it's fun and interesting. maybe, because there's less tacky advertising placards on the buildings, what with them being all like, from the 1700s and shit, they put a little bit of effort into their only little space of signage above their doors.
we've been building little ideas about what we might like to create if/when we open a store, and stuff like this is up the top of my list of wishes.

i think this was for a jewellery/art shop. pretty cool.
check out the teeny penis. aaah europeans.

haha... this one just made us think of biffy.

this was for a rather nice shop of home wares and clothes, oddly.

this place was shut.
which sucked.
coz clearly it has to be the best shop in the universe!!

this is just plain weird. northern europe seems to have some sort of bizarre fetish for injury fashion. there's way, way too many shops sporting all these injury recovery fashion items, even for little babies. what on earth are they doing to themselves all the time that they require such fashionable items of medical assistance? i dunno, maybe it's just the snow. maybe it's the cobblestone streets - lord knows i've stumbled about 600 times, barely maintaining balance, only relying on my superior antipodean athleticism to remain upright. whatever it is, it is mildly disturbing.

ooh - building paintings. there's a bit of this going around. it's almost uniformally terrible. i quite like this one, although i know lucy hates it. maybe, for me, i like it coz it's a girl riding on a bike, and frankly, there's more pretty women riding bikes than any well-intentioned man can handle in this town, but whatever. green power!

i never said i hated it. but it is pretty fucking ugly.

birthday lunch!
this is at atlas cafe - amazing food. there's a million sandwich and bagel cafes, all generally ok, or else there's posh restaurants. this is one of the few happy mediums in town and it treated us well... twice.

ye olde back streets. bicycles.
quintessential.
check out the timber and plaster-over-brick. it's like toorak village, only actually authentic and minus the gross wank factor.

nice cozy little apartment room. we've been super lucky so far - or should i say lucy has done amazingly well at picking the apartments. this room is great, the host is lovely and we couldn't have asked for better really. pillows ... though... are like hankies in our experience so far. we're using red couch cushions here, to compensate for the total lack of head support with the hankies.

this is a portrait of me, by lucy.
i like it a lot.
even though i look a little wonky.
but sometimes i am a little wonky.

the sun shines on birthdays!

ok, I'm not gonna lie. the majority of our trip has been traipsing from cafe to cafe, in search of the perfect soy latte, the perfect cookie and the perfect nook to sit and play cards for a couple of hours. so far, the success rate has been high. mmm cookies.

i think i speak for both of us when i say cafe retro is our favourite - nookiest couches and chocolateiest cookiest cookies. (to give you an idea, they don't really break in half, but bend like toffee. i would very much like one now.)




anyway, why should my birthday be any different, if but for MORE cafes, cookies and lazy good times? unfortunately there was less shopping satisfaction than planned, but was made up for with smashing sunshine (freezing temperature of course - see above for Kent breaking ice in the gutter. In fact, the last two days, we have been jumping on anything frozen and then giggling like schoolgirls. We have also been throwing pinches [there are pinches -no more, no less] of snow at each other and squealing "SNOW FIGHT!") and a clear blue sky.



and yes, that would be a frozen canal. it is more frozen than it appears.

creepy man statue covered in babies. and a sphinx. of course.


my birthday dinner - good old fashioned vegie pasta, accompanied by some very nasty but very french wine (so it was ok that it was nasty of course). we seem to have fallen into a habit of eating mostly yellow food here: bread, cheese, butter, eggs, bananas, honey, pasta, onions. kent plans on moving into a blue phase on the next leg of the trip, though i am pretty sure that has more to do with having a good excuse to eat blue cheese than anything else.

yes - blue cheese is indeed on the cards. i was thinking more like blue as the opposite complimentary colour of yellow. blueberries.... um..... blue M&ms.... um.... ok that's all i can think of !!

indoor weather outdoor weather

it's super cold here in viking land. the canal is almost frozen solid.
you know, that was a bit of a surprise. there's canals almost everywhere.
i always associated them with venice. and amsterdam.
but they keep cropping up in other cities.
kinda like trams. i was somehow led to believe melbourne was one of the only cities with trams.
wrong.
trams are all over the shop too.
although ... not in copenhagen. so really, that point is a little moot here.
moving along ...

At this point I don't really feel like contributing. It is Sunday, and I am feeling that I should do as the Danes do on a Sunday: Nothing. I am currently reclining in what seems to be the warmest pile of clean laundry known to man, feeling cat-like. The only reason for me to get up would be to get a hot chocolate. And even then, I would probably just ask Kent. After all, I did just re-heat last night's dinner - what a wife. Aaaaah - Sundays. The clothes dryers here are sooooo good ... these clothes are sooooo warm. mmmm. and by warm i mean very hot - to take them out of the dryer you need to pull your sleeves over your hands so as not to burn yourself on the clothes. toastie goodtimes.

i thought i'd add this pic in to emphasise how hot the clothes dryers are here. i know i'm harping on about, but LOOK AT THE SIZE OF MY SOCK. it was most definitely not that small to begin with. my feet are regular sized, as are my socks. or, as kent put it "oh wow, now they'd fit sarah! bahaha!" sorry sar.

i'm loving these bronze sculptures around town. again, as mentioned before, there's something unusual about the colour of them. i keep wanting to figure it out.
as a sculptor there's always a thought in the back of my mind to try out 'ye olde' styles of the craft, such as bronze. one of my favourite artists, guiseppe penone, reckons bronze is not dissimilar to plant material. although mineral, it patinates (goes green) into a plant-like appearance. it's an interesting theory. i should look into this colour variation some more.

ok, this is a view from the top of an old churchy thing - the round house, or 'ruundhus' or some such scandinavian equivalent. you get a 360 view of the city and it's pretty amazing.
but the inside is even more awesome...

there's no stairs - only many, many swirling upward circles towards the top. all these tiny little long bricks, all lined up perfectly. the sound echoes and reverberates all the way up and down, so if there's a troupe of school kids running down from the top, screaming like little banshees, then it's REALLY ANNOYINGLY LOUD!

See that little nook up there - with a bit of light? Kent tripped and fell into one. It was very hilarious. It was even more hilarious watching him try to save himself and fall in some more.

for a little adventure we caught a train about 20kms south to a massive art gallery called Arken.
it was a pretty intriguing building, with some pretty damn good art.

this is some shots taken inside a work by olafur eliasson.
he's some sort of phenomenological genius.
which basically means he makes art that causes intense effects on your central nervous system.
this one, your blind passage, was a 100m long, enclosed passageway (as the title would no doubt hint at). inside, there was complete fog. you could only see about 60cm in front of you, and you had to navigate your way to the end. the effect it had on your eyesight can't really be explained. but after a certain point, you could only really see all the 'floaties' in your eyes and maybe like a million sparkly dots.
and occasionally you'd bump into your partner or the wall and remember what was going on.
oh, and the colour changes very gradually from white, to yellow, to red and then back again.
it was amazing.

I would like to second that. If a space has the ability to make you feel non-existent, this is it. After a few steps into this space, there were no walls, exit, or the original entrance to be seen. At all. Kent would be in front of me, take two steps, and then be completely gone. This was one of the most unsettling physical experiences I have ever had. Once I was in the space, I thought "oh my, maybe this isn't a great idea, maybe I should just leave." I turned around, and there was nowhere to go. Just bright yellow space. When I say bright I mean electrifying. Much squinting. Gave the sensation of a bizarre sand storm. I eventually discovered if I put my hand in front of my face, I could see that. That was all. Kent is right. It truly was amazing.

this is brilliant too.
the work itself explains its genius.
it's by a duo, i should remember their names, but alas.

some more random coolness from the buildings around town.
loving much of it. wishing for a giant blank warehouse shell to one day install some of the architectural goodnesses that we've discovered into a future house of AWESOME.
or, 'Orsum Huus' (dork)

art, art, everywhere, but not a drop to drink*

*This is a lie. Beverages are plentiful and good.

Helloooooooo!! Today's adventuring was cut a little on the short side because not only was it 'oh my god I can't feel my chin' freezing, it was also RAINING for much part of the day. And it was deceptive rain that appeared soft and nearly snow like until I went to grab Kent's arm and it was sopping. We were quite soggy by the time we got home. But though the rain forced us inside it didn't dampen our spirits! (Oh ho ho.)

In the last couple of days we have seen some great local areas and some very beautiful art and design, some of which I have posted below. We've discovered that Copenhagen is also great for funky little cafes that are almost installations in their own right. Good to slip in for a couple of hours to thaw out!


This shop among many others was quite awesome. This is a cardboard oven in the window. (No they didn't appear to sell any ovens, or oven paraphernalia, cardboard or otherwise.) It has inspired me to make my own cardboard furniture - who needs a real table anyway?



Now I know it doesn't look it, but it was VERY RAINY here. But I thought the good people back home should see a selection of sculpt-y goodness so here you have it. This is just past a partially FROZEN canal that was filled with beautiful (and probably very cold) white swans.




Here is an example of the good times to be had while you drink your coffee. These creatures are from a cafe played cards in for some time (waiting in vain for the rain to stop) - crazy doll heads for lights above each table and bizarre taxidermy in every corner. Mr Bear (pictured) was outside the toilets. In the men's room, I was told by my beloved that one had to urinate into a pair of open lips. Yum yum! I was also sitting next to a Antelope-headed man riding an ostrich.





We went on a train adventure to Louisiana, a massive 'estate' gallery museum about 30 k (I just made that up, I have no idea how far it is. A train ride.) north of the city. The building itself was stunning (had no idea how to capture it on camera, especially seeing as I am taking them from my phone!) and a maze in itself. The space was set into these amazing gardens (see above) and one felt that you were exploring an amazing rehabilitation clinic. The gallery space was sunk into the gardens, so walking through the spaces and looking out windows you were often only a head or so above the ground ... which may or not make sense. The collection was impressive and exhausting. There is only so much classic-contemporary that you can take in at once!



Kent having a giggle at the Paul McCarthy video work - good call.



Kent having his nose picked by a giant bronze thumb.



The main entrance of Louisiana.









The above pics are from a couple of shows we saw in Kunstforeningen in the city. One of them, WAX, which omg, was works by artists who use wax (oh so creepy), and a small show of Louise Bourgeois' work. Golly gosh I do love her work. The last image ... I don't really know.





Dear Mummy,
Here is the open sandwich I tried to describe to you on skype. It really was truly delicious and so very Brigid. Right down to the lehkebrot (not even going to attempt spelling) - the breads they have here are. so. good. Anything fun you can think of to spice up your bread experience, the Danes have thought of it first and put it into crisp, moist and fluffy practice.



I almost need to do a separate post of the very comical hotdog images that are everywhere in this city. So far this is my favourite, but I think I need to start collecting. We might need to do another infantile post of Danish words that are a little bit rude in English: I did see a sign in a shop window yesterday promoting 'SLUT SPURT' - what's not to giggle about?!




The gardens of the Danish Art and Design Museum. Again with the yum yum.




I had to post this, not so much for it's beauty (well it is all very beautiful and lovely) but more so for the fact that all over this museum, artifacts were simply stacked on the tops of wardrobes, or 17th century tea chests. Brilliant. Some of them looked as if they might topple off if you stepped to heavily.



Some things less beautiful and more oh my god that is frightening why god why?






This is amazing - I have been working on some drawings of 'ghosts' from when we moved, and all of our furniture was wrapped in sheets; we then stumbled on these statues that have been covered during some renovation/refurbishment of the building they surround. I am slightly curious at whose underneath the sheets, but loving that they look like their dressed up as ghosts. They look like they are chasing each other around the gardens in a blind game of tag. Heh heh.




The gorgeous Kent in all his glory - trying to figure out the technique they have used to get it 'that colour'.