Do as the Vikings do

My left thong is broken from overuse. The weather is amazingly hot and walking all day long is tiring. Plus, not owning a bike is conspicuously non-Danish. My bike has 'character'. It is a renovator's dream. You may think that not having a cable between the hand brake and the brake mechanism is impractical; I'd call it unique. The seat will be too high until I can translate 'alan key' into Danish. At least no one will want to steal it. I bought the bike from a police auction. All through copenhagen there are old bikes lying in the streets, some badly damaged, some simlpy disused. The police routinely collect the old fellas and run a saturday morning auction. Actually the auction was a great introduction to learning danish numbers. In a sweaty crowded room full of bikes and Danes, you can bid bid bid. Laura, another aussie student here, and I only bought a one-way bus ticket and weren't planning on buying another. It turned out we bought 3 bikes. The second was a good example of caveat emptor. Fortunately we managed to sell that on to someone else, at a small loss. Most of the bikes have something wrong with them. As we rode back to town, Laura and I took advantage of a cycle shop being next to a beer cafe, and we celebrated our purchasing success with a carlsberg, as I attended to the brake situation. I intend to prove wrong all those people who say it won't last 5 months. Uni hasn't started yet, although I have met a few people already. On the internet at uni I overheard an aussie accent on the phone - which belonged to a girl called Beverly from Sydney. Next addition to the group was Laura, who I know a little from Melbourne. And then there's Fernando, who some of you know - the argentinian/american, investment banker/novelist whom I travelled with in Vietnam and NZ. He has been staying with me since Wed night. The exciteable landlord's daughter, Sine, and her musician boyfriend Ryne are heading to Buenos Aries for a month, so that was an easy sell. Even as they're teaching me Danish, Fernando is teaching them to speak like Argentines.My apartment has been the scene of feast after feast. Fernando, Sine and I all love to cook; this has resulted in a pastel de papas (argentinian pie of potato) and last night fresh sushi. We've enjoyed wine from NZ, Croatia, France and Argentina and oh-so-much beer. Sine's mum taught me to bake bread before she and Tom left to their normal house in Bornholm, so instead of cereal or those wierd scrambled eggs, we are having fresh bread and cheese for breakfast. Far more Danish. Tomorrow the whole uni thing starts, so we'll see how it goes. Just wait til I rock up on my brand new wheels, I'm tipping the tall blonde vikings will come running.