Rag-Bag

1 : A bag for scraps

2 : A miscellaneous collection 

Related Words: gallimaufry, hodgepodge, muddle, oddments, sundries, dog's breakfast (chiefly British).

Or, more to the point: Collage - An unorganized collection of various things.

Many thanks, Merriam Webster, for such a verbose definition of the post I am about to write.

---

Clearly, I've been reading far too much British lit as of late.  I am increasingly inclined to use twenty unnecessary words when three or four will do perfectly well, Jane-Austen-style.  The cure: Ernest Hemingway.  Must read more Hemingway to balance things out a bit.

My next post will be sparse in comparison, I promise.  Mostly photographs.  With terse, minimalist captions and not a single flowery adjective to be found.

Onto the hodge-podge!  Things About Denmark (and my weekend), Etc.

---

• This weekend, I unpacked my coffee-maker.  It's a black-and-silver, five-cup Mr. Coffee with stainless-steel carafe (so the poor thing wouldn't get smashed in my luggage while en route).  I brought it, along with two bags of coffee grinds, in case Denmark didn't have coffee.  As it happens, they do.  Excellent coffee that costs roughly $2.00 per shot-glass (size small).  I wanted to wait and unpack the thing until we had moved into our own place, sort of like a house-warming present to ourselves, but it just couldn't wait another two months.

• Yes, I did say two months.  The current tenants refuse to leave until November 1st, a Tuesday.  I'm trying very hard not to have bad thoughts about them but oh well it can't be helped: Those stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herders.  (Thank you, Ms. Skywalker.)  Actually I don't know what they look like, having never seen them before, but I do think they are probably scruffy-looking.  As to being nerf-herders I can't really say, having no idea what a nerf-herder actually is.

• Unfortunately, this means No Couch Until Sometime In November.  The bakery apartment, despite it's happiest attributes, is couchless.  It may sound absurd, but one of the things I miss most is curling up in a couch corner with a good book.  No matter how darling these little wooden Ikea chairs look, they are not nice to sit on for any length of time.

• Been feeling utterly exhausted lately - sort of like jet-lag for two weeks straight accompanied by horrid headaches.  I've ridden out the worst of it with Dorothy Sayers and a box of biscotti.  (Mono? I knew I shouldn't have kissed all those people in the airport.)

• On Saturday we were planning on visiting downtown Copenhagen, but the weather had different plans and poured buckets of rain.  That'll just have to wait until the next sunny Saturday as it costs $50 to get there and back by train, and would hardly be worth it in poor weather.  

• Instead we went to Hoeje Taastrup City2 - which is basically a glorified mall.  I hate malls.  But I really need warm clothing.  Which brings me to The Point of Telling You This: good lord are things expensive in this country.  The cheapest pair of jeans I found were $110, half-off (which I did not buy).  The cheapest pair of walking-shoes I found were $90 (which I did not buy).  (I think the U.S. has spoiled me.)

• I miss Plato's Closet.

• I really like our church.  It's amazing how you can relocate to a foreign country and immediately find people who will accept you like family.

• A little about Denmark (thank you Wikipedia): Denmark, or Danmark, is a Scandinavian country composed of the large peninsula Jutland and over 400 other islands (including Zealand, where we live), as well as Greenland and the Faroe Islands (a self-governing territory).  Denmark is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government, a mixed-market capitalist economy, and a large welfare state.  Frequently ranked as the happiest and least corrupt country of the world.

•  Here is a photo of Frederik and Mary, Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark.  Pretty, aren't they?  The European media portrayed their alliance as "a fairytale romance between a prince and commoner" who met in an Australian pub.  Now they have four children with enough first names between them for a family of seventeen.

• There are some very funny-looking birds in this country that we always see hopping about in large green fields.  They are mostly black, with white-tipped wings and specks of blue.  We decided they should be called Crowgulls, as they look like the unfortunate off-spring of a crow and seagull.  And perhaps a bit of pigeon got in there somewhere too.

• We bought whip cream and it was sugarless.  Sugarless.  Why.  Why.  Why.

• Something Isaac recently picked up: He stops (rather abruptly and theatrically), puts his hand under his chin as if he had a beard to stroke, says "Aha!" (loudly), and waves his point finger in the air as if he just made an ingenious discovery.  This is usually followed by him asking for something he is not allowed to have.

• Notice my new blog page titled In Case You Were Wondering (see above menu or blog post directly below).  This page has got five new songs my sister and I recorded over the summer, before I left for Denmark.  If you click the play button on the left-hand side of each song, it will open a pop-up player for your convenience. Happy listening!