December 19

Great, I lost my phone today on my way to work. Just exactly what I needed to deal with before flying home tomorrow.

I got off the bus and by the time I realized I didn’t have my phone with me, it was too late; I tried to run after the bus but we, humans, are not fast enough to catch a bus that is four blocks ahead of us. Not even Usain Bolt. Kat has already called the bus company but they haven’t found anything yet and she has also tried to call my phone but no one picks up.

I really doubt we’ll find it, especially because is a relatively new iPhone but hey, this is Denmark, miracles could happen…

December 18

I have spent almost 40 minutes trying to get tickets for the AC/DC show in Madrid and I can’t still get the fucking website to work; after much struggle, I managed to secure a ticket for the Paris show but Madrid has been impossible. It has always baffled me how ticket companies fail miserably to do the one single thing they are expected to do, time and time again. I mean, a major band announces a big tour and a pre-sale for a show in a massive stadium, they get people excited about it and then, when the time comes to finally put the tickets on sale, the whole thing crashes within seconds? You gotta be kidding me.

To add insult to injury, if you ever manage to actually get any tickets after refreshing compulsively the browser window, waiting in a virtual cue for hours, filling up forms over and over again… when that finally pays off, the greedy motherfuckers still charge you a service fee, as if the purchase experience has been flawless and the service provided impeccable.

It reminds me of Transport for London during winter, every year it snows and every year they find themselves not knowing how to deal with the situation accordingly. Yet they charge you a fortune for an Oyster card. Fucking ridiculous.

* * * *

So it was Kat’s birthday yesterday and we had a great time. Early morning she unwrapped her presents, then in the evening we went with her parents to have dinner at Magasasa, our favourite Chinese restaurant. As always, I ordered much more food than I could eat. Kat gently tried to warn me against ordering noodles but I thought that massive portions of crispy chicken in sweet and sour souce, beef in black beans souce, pork, rice, beef with Pa Choi, deep fried wan-ton with chili souce, and spring rolls was not enough so I just went ahead and ordered a big plate of fried noodles with vegetables which, of course, we had to take back home with us (at least Kat won’t have to cook lunch today).

After dinner, Kat and I went back home and had cake with champagne, watched an episode of Masters of Sex, and then had some more champagne and more cake after. Like it should be. It was wonderful.

December 17

I had my second Danish class yesterday and although I fucked up twice when asked by the teacher to answer a question from the book on the spot, I’d say things are going relatively ok. I can understand *very* basic texts using *very* simple words put together in a *very* straightforward sentence structure BUT at least I understand a bit more than I used to a week ago. I can also count to 20 and my vocabulary is now composed of about 50 words, maybe a little more. That’s progress.

* * * *

It’s Kat’s birthday today. I spent an hour last night trying to properly wrap a couple of presents and writing her birthday card, all of which I handed gleefully to her this morning along with a hot cup of tea. I knew she was going to like one of the presents as it was a personal request she had made a while ago but I was a bit worried she wouldn’t like the one present she hadn’t asked for: a book that compiles all the issues of an infamous British fanzine published between 1987 to 1990, which offered a mix of experimental film and book reviews, true crime novels, wild music, interviews with icons of cult cinema and adult entertainment, weird cartoons and cutting-edge art.

I saw the book when we were in Brighton but couldn’t buy it then because she would have inevitably seen it so I just waited until we were back in Copenhagen, bought it online and kept it secret along with the rest of her presents, including the Christmas gifts I will give her before I head home on Saturday. Today, I finally handed the book and I think she liked it. She actually spent a few minutes browsing through the first pages and found a few things she thought were interesting, so hopefully she will enjoy it once she delves into it.

As a side note, we just got tickets for AC/DC in Roskilde! Hooray!

December 16

“So, how did the Christmas party go?” I hear you asking. Well, dear curious reader, I’m happy to inform you that our 80s themed Christmas bash went well, with most of my co-workers making a decent effort to dress up for the occasion. There was an Indiana Jones, a Mr. T, a hair metal band dude; a very convincing Maverick (Top Gun) played by Mette, who dressed up in a pilot’s suit and walked around the office while the film’s theme song played through a wireless speaker hidden inside her bespoke helmet; and then there was me in (almost) full Run DMC outfit. As you can see, my beard could have been better but hey, it still did the job.

I left around midnight but I heard the party went on until five in the morning, with some of my co-workers actually passing out in the stairs of the building and others deciding to crash on a couch in the office until the morning after. It’s always like that. Last year, one of the guys working in the office got too sleepy halfway through the party and decided to have a nap in the toilet. He woke up at 4am, just when the last guys where about to lock the door and leave the office, following a series of missed phone calls from his son (who also works in the agency) who was desperately trying to find out where the fuck was he. Typical Danish Christmas party behaviour.

* * * *

We’re starting to plan our summer holidays and it seems that next year we’ll be heading to Croatia. Kat and I had talked about going somewhere warm, ideally on the seaside, and we both have heard really positive comments about Croatia, which apparently is not only stunning but quite affordable, so in the end that’s what I think we’ll do. The basic plan is to fly to Split and from there, take a bus or a ferry to some of the surrounding islands. I really can’t wait.

To top it all off, AC/DC has finally announced their European tour and I have decided to go see them in Paris, Madrid and Roskilde. Although Kat is only attending the show in Denmark, she’ll be joining me on my mini rock tour, which is fantastic. We both like Madrid, and she’s really excited to show me her favourite spots in Paris, a place she knows quite well, as her mum used to live there a while ago. We have already booked our flights and we’re just waiting for the tickets to go on sale this week. I think we will have an amazing time.

Oh! And speaking of AC/DC… on Sunday, while I was studying Danish in the living room, I heard the sound of a guitar coming out of the kitchen. I walked there and what did I find? Kat, listening to “Thunderstruck”, while making us blueberries and Nutella pancakes. She just blows my mind, every time. My friends say I should put a ring on her, and you know what? I think they’re right.

December 12

Yesterday, I finally had my first Danish class and although it went relatively ok, it’s clear I will need to get my shit together really quickly if I want to stand a chance to keep up with everyone else. After just 2 classes, it was evident there are some people in my class who have a better grasp of the basic words and grammar although most of my classmates are more or less at my same level, which is a bit reassuring. Tom, our teacher, is quite nice actually; he seems to be very understanding and makes you feel at ease, even when confronted with questions you’re supposed to answer to on the fly. I like him.

* * * *

We’re throwing an 80s themed Christmas party today at work. You could tell from far away.

I was too lazy to go for a very elaborated outfit so I thought I’d dress up like Darryl McDanields from Run DMC, for a couple of reasons:

a) The look would be relatively simple to achieve, all I’d need is a tracksuit, a golden chain, a white t-shirt, hat, a fake mustache and white shoes.

b) If anyone else decides to dress up as Run DMC too, it would still be ok. Actually, if would have been ideal if two of my co-workers had also decided to opt for the same idea, that way it would have been the three of us shouting in unison the last words of every sentence spoken at the party tonight. I’m sure people would have found it both funny and annoying.

c) Even if my skin tone is not quite the same as Darryl’s, compared to the rest of my co-workers I’m still the brownest guy around, so technically I’m still on brief.

Now, I thought that going for a DMC look was easy enough but less than 3 hours before the party starts, I still have no hat, no white shoes, no t-shirt and no mustache. Typical me. I know I can sort out the hat, the t-shirt and the mustache but I’m afraid I’m not going to able to deliver in the shoe department. You see, last night I tried to paint some old black adidas shoes with white spray paint but it didn’t go well; the shoes kept sucking up the paint and after almost emptying an entire can spray, the shoes were still looking dark so I decided to give up and wear gray Nike trainers instead.

Fuck it. Let’s just assume I’m “Drunk DMC” for today and blame the outfit mismatch to the alcohol, which I assume I’ll be consuming in copious amounts tonight.

(Tonight!)

December 10

Yesterday, I woke up at 5:30am to take a bus to the Central Station to then go on a 2-hour train journey to Vejle to then take a cab to LEGO’s Innovation House for a 7-hour video shoot. Needless to say, it was a long day. On our way to LEGO, we heard on the radio The Rembrandts’s “I’ll Be There For You” aka the Friends theme song…it hit me then that it was probably the first time I’ve heard that song in its entirety, and being played through a telecommunication medium other than the TV.

Which just comes to show what a great bad The Rembrandts are, I guess.

* * * *

I have so much shit to do before I head home for Christmas that I’m starting to get a little bit anxious. Just today, I need to meet Carlos and Marisa for dinner as Carlos just got a job this morning and wants to celebrate, then I have to go home to review a whole chapter of my Danish book, go through the class I missed yesterday, do the homework I need to bring tomorrow AND catch up with our Christmas calendar, whose windows we keep forgetting to open.

Then there’s my physio exercises, the presents for Kat’s parents I still need to buy, the ones I got Kat for her birthday/Christmas that I still need to wrap, the 80’s outfit that I still need to sort out before the office Christmas’ party on Friday, the physio bill I need to send to my insurance company for refund, the paperwork I still need to do to register as a Venezuelan resident officially relocated to Denmark (after 2 years, I still haven’t updated it)… it’s all piling up, damn it.

Anyway, let’s just file this post under #firstworldproblems and move on.

December 8

I might have failed to keep up with the diary these days but that doesn’t mean good things haven’t happened lately. On Friday, Kat and I joined Carlos and Marisa at the opening of my friend Geoffrey’s new bar, Balderdash, and were treated to glasses of champagne and a fine rum punch, while waves of joyful people kept flooding into the space, keen to see what Geoffrey had been up to since he left The Union. The result? Well, if you live in Copenhagen, you better check it out for yourself. If you live somewhere else and you’re still curious to know what Balderdash is all about, then head to their website and have a look, I’m sure you’ll wish you were here to pay it a visit.

That same evening, before going to Balderdash, Kat’s parents invited us for a traditional Danish Christmas dinner, which included Flæskesteg (a glorious roast pork), potatoes, red cabbage and gravy, all perfectly cooked. For dessert, we had rice pudding with whipped cream, almonds and hot cherry sauce; I have no idea how this dessert is called but it was fantastic and I helped myself to two bowls, enjoying every spoonful of it. As if this wasn’t enough, Kat’s mum gave me Christmas presents! She got me a coffee maker and a coffee grinder, and the day after, Kat’s Dad surprised me with a set of electrical drills and accessories which are going to come in handy as Kat and I will most likely keep buying stuff to hang on our home’s walls.

Over the weekend, we also took the time to go around town, looking at second-hand shops and Christmas markets, eating 10-kroner soups, cakes, catching up with Sonic Highways, and watching season 1 of Masters of Sex, which we started last week. Kat likes Boardwalk Empire a bit better but we’re sticking to the former until we finish season one, then we’ll probably consider whether to go ahead with season two or change back to Boardwalk Empire, which we left halfway through the first season. We’ll see.

* * * *

It’s been 10 years since Dimebag got fatally shot on stage at the Alrosa Village, today. Very sad. I should have worn my Vulgar Display of Power t-shirt this morning…

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chj1T0uvx6s]