My lunch gets some Danish fashion sense.

I eat ridiculous lunches. Perhaps it is part of my workaholic 21st century, scatty academic tripping over the curb while trying to keep the inbox under control, or writing down a brilliant thought on my digital notepad (that will never make it to the final draft anyway let's face it).

Or maybe I am just a lazy vegetarian? My New York lunches always consisted of whatever I could ressurect from the bottom of my oversized canvas bag- think yogurt with a makeshift spoon molded out of the foil cover and a plastic baggie of crushed Raisin Bran; my Mississippi lunches always consisted of what leftovers from some catered event someone donated to the kitchen where the grad students had their offices-think desperate vultures hovering around cold pizza  in hipster thrift store outfits and unwashed hair; but now my lunches have taken on a classy twist in the trendy city of Copenhagen: my version of smørrebrød, the Danish open faced sandwich that looks NOTHING like the one above:



While I can appreciate the "art" of throwing meat on bread and calling it a meal, the lazy vegetarian in me cannot follow the rules of matching certain bread with toppings, grains with flesh, egg with spread, and so on. SO I made up my own rules 

1. The bread must not have mold.
2. The stuff on top must not have recently been bleeding.
3. The toppings must withstand someone who is not paying attention to the art of fine lunch-crafting, probably reading articles online, or posting about articles I just read online from somebody else who has just read that article online, probably while eating lunch. Therefore the toppings must stick to the bread (As the astute observer may note in my photograph, I have broken rule number three in my implementation of the English delicacy, "baked beans," a selection that would make an old Danish woman pass out in her herring and cheese smørrebrod. However, I was desperate and it was there on the counter, so I took a risk, bent the culinary rules if you will...and spend the next ten minutes cleaning processed bean juice off my iPad- rule number three is there FOR A REASON.) 4. The sandwich toppings CANNOT, I REPEAT CANNOT be the same for both slices. Or else you really need to rethink your creative abilities in this life. Change it up.

So I eat sandwiches with a knife and fork now, so what? We all get civilized sometime.

Back to the blog. After months of being here in Copenhagen with no record of my experience except the smiling Facebook photos countered directly by records of frustrated, depressing emails to family and friends, I finally realize I should record some of this in a productive manner so I don't reflect back and wonder why I didn't realize that I had a split personality. But I do...have a split personality. I am both positive about my decision to come here and think it was really stupid. I like working in an exotic location and I wish I had my family and friends around to interrupt me from my work. I am a cosmopolitan international traveler getting places on my bike, muddling through Danish, winning the hearts of young Scandinavian students, and completely an American in a way I never knew before, a screw-you-stop-taking-all-my-money-with-your-taxes kind of way. This has been one big lesson in the failure of self-expectations (and of the futility of setting ridiculous self-expectations. But more on that later, for now I have to try to enjoy the perks of being in Copenhagen- and since I have to work all the time and I have not yet made friends- I have brilliantly combined engaging in a tourist activity with work by sitting in a Copenhagen cafe drinking a latte with one hand, surfing my Mac with the other. Funds are limited so I enjoy one of the best work places in town, Nutid, a cafe located across from Sankt Petri Kirke right near the central University in town. The coffee is incredibly cheap, the Wifi consistent (very unusual here since there is only a small group of us cafe goers who work- most seem to prefer social interaction), everyone is young and good looking since it is right near University of Copenhagen, and it is also one of those non-profits with pictures of laughing Africans on the walls of the bathroom. It has the best view of bustling university cyclists (and the occasional cycling granny because there is always an a cycling granny. I heard somewhere that the Danish state hires them to cycle around smiling all day to improve the city's moral. It works.