In London

"One Pint please", yes that is the sentence I have used the most the last few days. Right now I am UCL seeing how my, inshallah, future university campus looks like. Yesterday we had a nice party in Toothing together with all Max's friends. Good times.

I have done a lot of shopping (how do I get all these books and suits home), I have done a lot of cosy drinking (how do I get my liver back again) and I have done a lot of talking with Charlie, Max and Klaus.

Life is good. My credit card is being emptied and I could live and study in London.

Bank

Jeg spare ikke op
jeg bruger hvad jeg har i øjeblikket
Jeg vil bruge al min tid med dig
Jeg vil ikke vente

Du banker på mit hjerte
for det banker for dig
Jeg vil lukke dig ind
så du kan løbe rundt i mine baner

Men istedet får hjertet bank.
Bank, bank, bank.
De hårde hjerteslag rammer mig
Knock, knock
Hvem der?
Det er mig som banker på dit hjerte.

F*@¤

WHY?

Why did the snow has to come to Denmark. Why did the coldness conquer the warm weather? Why, why, why? Give me summer and sun. Give me cold beers and hot girls. Give me driving the car with open window and Razorlight playing loud. Give me Roskilde, travelling, visiting friends, reading books in my garden in the hammock. Give me, give me, give me all the things that I don't have...and I will pay you back with happieness and a smile.

The Eyes

One question, another question, a third question, the 1000nd question, they just keep coming. I have estimated that I talk with around 542 different people a day (yes, I have a little free time) and this is not included friends and other crew onboard.

Yesterday was a day like every other day onboard the Pearl of Scandinavia. I was answering questions and pointing directions when suddenly someone stopped my empty mindflow. It was a man a bit older than me looking very "latin" and his two female friends who also looked very latinamerican, one of them just got stucked in my head. It was not because of her perfect created body, her wonderful smile or her charming accent, no, what stucked me was her eyes.
I see so many people in the eyes everyday, just working not thinking, however this girl made my brain stopped and my heart started to pump just a little faster. She barely spoke any english or norwegian, but her male friend was fluent in Norwegian. They came to ask quite a lot of questions the whole night and I had to concentrate on focusing on all three of them and not only her when I answered them.

Her eyes took me from the ground and lifted me up in the sky, far far away from work and responsibilities, her eyes talked with me, she smiled, I smiled back.
When the ship dock and the passengers had to leave the ship she was sitting right in front of me, waiting for the line of people to move, I had eyecontact with her again and also "smile contact". She walked down the stairs talking with her friends, but then suddenly she stops, turns around, look at me and blink.

I wish I could see this wonderful blink of this wonderful woman soon again.
It reminds me of the story of the Princess who had a beautiful bird that came to hear window everyday and sang the most wonderful songs in the world. One day, the princess captured the bird and locked it inside a cave - soon it started to loose is feathers and only 3 days later the bird died. The princess got very depressed when she realized what she had done, so she killed herself. She realized that the love for the bird only existed when the bird was free and volunterily came back to the window to sing everyday. Sometimes you have to let the people you love just fly away and let the memory stay in the heart....

I let my bird fly away today... Hope she will come back again so I once again can see these two magic stars in her eyes.

White Power....

There is white power in Oslo today, the city is all covered in thick layer of snow. It looks like the "good old" Oslo - just with cotton wool.
As I have written earlier in this blog, I really do not like snow. Especially not when I have to be outside! For me snow is rain, that just stays.
On the other hand, I must admit that sitting inside, with a good book (or another "person" that you like to spend time with), a good hot cup with warm tea and maybe even some quiet jazz playing in the background, only disturbed by the sound of the burning wood in the fireplace... and then if I even had some of my mothers wonderful homebacked cakes, yes then I don't mind the snow outside...actually,that makes everything much "Hyggeliger" (cosy).

Yesterday night we had storm weather, 28 m/sec and 6-7 meters high waves. That not only meant that the drunk guests were puking all over the ship but also that we were 1½ hours delayed...damn, 1½ hours extra work (in my already 12 hours workingday.)

I think I will go outside today. Step in the deep snow. Touch some of it - and then send a happy thought to all Humvee owners in the world. Because of Global Warming I had a wonderful warm winter without any snow in Denmark.

Actually, I had one good experiences with snow, that was on Ski-week were we celebrated Mica's birthday in our homemade wonderful and fantastic snowcave. (Eske - the Danish version of Crocodile Dundee and McGyver showed us "how to survive in the tough Norwegian Nature only with a showel and a candle).

Six days left and I will be on my way to the land of fish n' chips and Earl Grey tea with milk.
Cheers Chap!

Draw a house

From drawing a house, the internet made an analyse and found out that my personality is:

You are sensitive and indecisive at times. You are a freedom lover and a strong person. You are shy and reserved. If you've drawn a cross on each of windows, you always want to live alone. Once you have a problem, you need a friend with you. son.
When it comes to love, you shut yourself off. It's difficult to win your heart because you have decided to keep your feelings deep inside. You have a strong personality and you like to command, influence and control people.
You added a flower into your drawing. The flower signifies that you long for love. It also safe to say that others don't see you as a flirt. You don't think much about yourself.

If you want to add a house on "My street", then do it here

(from www.drawahouse.com )

On Sea again

I am sitting here again. In my own little office, in my own ugly uniform, with my own beautiful seaview. The ship has been in dock the last four days, but do you care? I doubt it.
Now the real working Life will start again and 10 days together with screaming kids and drunk norwegians (same,same, but different) will be all around me asking me questions.

I wrote a letter to a famous danish author yesterday, I don't expect him to write back (because they only answer when you write them e-mails), but I just felt like writing this person who has been giving me so much insperation, now I just hope that he reads it and not his secretary.

I have realized that I could live the Life I am living right now for many more years. Yes, I know that some of you might say: "noooo Mads, you have so much more in you" etc etc, however I must admit that I enjoy working for 12 hours for 14 days and then just have 14 days off just to read and relax in, furthermore I earn a lot of money so I can buy even more books.
I just finished "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe, probably one of the best books I have ever read, just afterwards I read "Veronkia Decides to Die" by Coelho and then I read "Radiator" by a danish novelist. All three books is about suicide in one sense of another, hence it was a great pleasure to read Coelhos book "11 minutes" that focus on Love and Sex...two thing I have almost stopped beliveing in the last couple of weeks, nonetheless this book gave me some hope.

Oh, back to where I started. I have realized that I could continue working on this cruiseship for many more years, actually I don't find it as attractive as I did two years ago to go to university. Especially not when talking with all the people who are doing their exams these days... Still I decided to apply to UCAS, I applied to Goldsmith College for "Media & Communication" and "Media & Litterature", I also applied to the same course as I did at the college, that was at Queen Mary and "Journalism and Contemporary History". Just to write some more, I ended up applying to LSE (most as a joke) and at Edinburgh, mostly because Matt helped me out with some of my personal statement and recomendations. In the next month to come I will most likely apply to some Danish universities....why not?

So, the plans until then. I know I will be going to London on the 27th of January with Klaus and later Mathias. I will go to Cuba on the 8th of April with my family and then I will most likely go interrailing in June, trying to see how good www.couchsurfing.com is. Then Roskilde with Mathias is coming in july and finally...yes, I still don't know what the BIG BANG before university should be....Something extreme.... maybe just something relaxing.

I visited Mathias here the other day, he is going back to the college in some days....I am going back to the college in some eight years time....interesting thought. More interesting could be to see myself come back to the college as a teacher, like Bente and Yoki did, I would actually like to do that.

Okay, thats all for now. I will go and jump in the Big Blue Sea. Au revoir!

My clock is going towards the end...

You know when you get this feeling that you should mature faster than you are doing? Hm.. okay, maybe not. The reader of this is most likely at university and feel "very mature and intelligent", me on the other hand is working my *** off trying to get some money. As my "lack" of university studies is not enough, I discovered something very scary the other day.

I was out drinking with some of my friends. We were going to hear Martin's (my old childhood friend) band playing at a local pub. At the pub I met three of my old classmates. Three maybe doesnt sounds like a lot, however in our class we were only 8 guys and 6 girls, and now it was Martin and I and three others - so quite a lot.
The three others gave me updates on all my old classmates and I realized that I am far behind, okay, only two of them is studying at university (of all the 14 people I graduate primary school with), but the most scary part was that out of the six (6!!) girls THREE of them already have children. One of them even have two. These girls are all at least a younger than me, and one of them is "lonely" mother because her husband died in a caraccident.

Yep, so I can see that I need to settle down soon and get some children....
My biological clock is ticking....

My Life in 2006

Two broken chairs, one destroyed laptop, three cups, one sauna, and a carpet full of spots from drinks and puke. That is how my new year ended at a penthouse summerhouse where I celebrated New Years together with 22 other people, some friends and some strangers.

We almost had a, what I called, “Murphy’s law + extra” party. Murphy’s Law says that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. At my New Year things that couldn’t go wrong also went wrong. Nevertheless, we managed to have a great party and an even better warm-up party the day before.

My friend Martin (who is a chef) and I cooked the nicest dinner for everyone – sometimes it is very practical to have a friend who is a chef. If this last party of the year is the standard of the many (inshallah) more parties in the future, then it is looking to be a good and splendid 2007. Now I can just wish that the first day of 2007 is not my standard for the many days to come, because I have some really bad hangovers.

This time of the year is a moment of looking back, remembering the past (and maybe even more important, forgetting the past).

2006 started on Antigua for me and it was not only a start of a whole new year for me, no, it was also a personal change for me. I stared to travel alone to a whole new continent, the long bus rides gave me time to think about the past, the present and the future – it also gave me time to the Weltschmerz that is so common for every “post-uwc” person, or just for many teenagers. An Weltschmerz that I somehow still have deep inside my soul.

I only met altruism on my way throughout the continent and I would like to thank Pedro, Pablo, Fiorella, Andés, Alita, Mariano and Micas family or/and friends who all helped me. Also a special thanks for UWC in Chile who found a place for me to stay in Santiago, and only with two days warning. All these impressions that I met on my way gave me a potpourri of feelings and thoughts. The countries and people I visited gave me so much new energy that I sure that I will come back again one day.

January month 2006 was also a time of the notorious Muhammad drawings, all over the world muslims raged against the Freedom of Speech that we have in Denmark. Danish embassies, flags and products were burned in Somalia, Lebanon, Gaza, Indonesia and Pakistan. This was for many Danes the first sign of “the clash of civilization”, should we change our deep values and ideas for a religion? It was interesting to see how the Muslims in Denmark didn’t do anything aggressive and most of them actually went out to tell the world, that the newspapers could write and draw whatever they wanted to. Still, as I wrote in my blog, I cannot agree more with Kierkegaard that when he said that “People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.”

I came home from South America by plane – a strange feeling to be transported in that way when I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a little boat, though it was even stranger to come home again. I ended up in feel of not having any “roots”. I guess that my PUWCD came later than for most other people. I had been visiting people from the college on my travels, Margret and Ace on Iceland, Itay, Donia and Olga in Israel, Hamzah, Noor, Nareg in Jordan etc. etc.

My way of getting out of it was to apply for a job, first I became a substitute teacher in my own town, but the job and the kids killed me in the end. Instead I took the job onboard a “cruise ship” going between Oslo and Copenhagen. In that way I could get away from Haslev (my town) and at the same time earn a lot of money for further travels. This was all in March 2006.

April came and with April came also Operation Flekke Storm. A trip back to the college was just what I needed at the time and I think it was healthy for me to see how much it had changed (and not necessarily in a good way) and it was not the same Flekke anymore. Also to meet my co-years and see that they have changed as well (luckily) was a good thing.

In June I got promoted to the job I have now in the Guest Service Centre onboard the boat, it is a much better job than the job as a “steward” I had before. However, the best occasion in June and maybe even the best occasion throughout the whole of 2006 was Roskilde Festival. One week of sunshine, beers and good music, furthermore I had some of my best friends around me.

A flower needs rain and sun to survive; if it only gets sun then it will burn out. The Sun was Roskilde for me; the rain came in July with the Lebanon conflict. It was the first time that I realized the problems with having UWC friends, because I was so nervous in that period. I feared that some of my best friends were going to face each other with weapons in their hands. I am afraid that the conflict in the region is going to escalate in 2007, however I wish for a peaceful solution.

Rain is important, but only if it gives energy for other things to grow.

The sun came back though, first the conflict was stopped by the international community and later on I had a great trip to Stockholm with AK, Max, Charlie, Linnea, Matilda, Lisa and Malin. It was really one of the highlights of the year.

Nonetheless, the majority of the time of the last half year of 2006 has been spent on working, working and working. The only things I remember from October and November is the waves coming to the northern sea and my “re-discovery” of music. I also started to read a lot more in this period.

December is my favourite hate month, but I had a fairly good one with working for two weeks, drinking with good friends, waiting for the month to finish and meeting all of my best friends. Either on sea or on land.

Looking back, all in all, I am glad that I took my second gap year. I am glad that I stayed in Denmark and I got to see so many people. Negar and Max in Sweden and DK, AK (better late than never) in Århus, Klaus regularly, Mathias, Louise and Pablo, Mette, Matt this summer, Michelle, Patrick and Nikolai in CPH last week, Matilda in Oslo, Stockholm and DK, Alejandro on Roskilde, Charlie, Malin, Lisa, Linnea in Stockholm, and I could continue the list for a long time.

2006 was also a year in blogging for me. I was close to stop at my time, but Sitemeter has given me the energy to continue. I have been asking myself a lot of questions in the blog and one of them fits very well to this time of the year.

If my Life was a film, would I watch it? Looking back…I will most likely watch some of it, but also fast forward long parts of it.

I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Seems to me now
that the dreams we had before
are all dead, nothing more
than confetti on the floor
it’s the end of a decade
in another ten years time
who can say what we’ll find
what lies waiting down the line
in the end of eighty-nine