a siren on the way back from silence … we’re shooting startled me. i think it’s the first i’ve heard in this city. funny how quickly you become accustomed to surroundings: the quiet seems natural and a siren strange. people outnumber police easily 20 to 1 here. no one seems to feel unsafe. illogically i still do but i recognize that it’s illogical. not that that ever stops me.

but today, an unequivocably pleasant day: i spent six hours in roskilde, a pleasant town 42 kroner outside of copenhagen where katie’s host-family lives. kris, who looked remarkably animated for her several hours sleep, and i met at the station and trained in together. katie met us and we three strutted through as though we owned the place, finding tucked-away sandwich shops and alleys that led to squares of squabbling roosters. naturally we didn’t stop laughing until we settled down, in katie’s freezing cold basement, to watch romeo and juliet. also sentimental, also retro. we got to relive being 13, only with a little more of a knowing edge (i kept wanting to rearrange romeo’s hair. 6 years ago, i was spellbound.) we ventured out again afterwards, to the very tip of the pier in the harbor, steadying each other against the wind and watching fishing boats and birds play with the water.

mel’s comment this evening (“ester, you’re not a hippie”) was innocuous enuf; of course i didn’t take offense, replying lightly that i’ve gone thru phases; but a desire sprouted from it and for the first time since i’ve been in copenhagen i pulled my birks out of the blackness of the backness of the closet and slipped them on. they fit like glass. i almost feel like dancing.

housing problems may be solved. i received a confirmation email from eliz, challenging, Am i up to it? good question: am i? joining the almighty triplet? cautiously, i extend one pretty glassed foot, stepping towards what i can only hope will be a Worthwhile future … wish me (and them! it’s not over yet) luck.

i nearly got a pastry this morning. chose a bagel instead — substance over sweetness; but i could have gotten a pastry. hesitant at the lack of ceremony at first, i broke pesach last nite over sub-par italian food (pasta rarely excites me.)

there are other psychological barriers that make food choices significant, ones that last much longer than eight days. there was a time i would never order a pastry, or eat salad that arrives dressed b/c russian waiters do not understand “on the side.” guilt when it peaked towards the end of high skool never would have let me, or if it had would have guaranteed furtive, joyless consumption.

on an unrelated note i got an A on my film midterm and she read part of it aloud to the class. that brings my average for the four i have in hand to a sturdy B -. go me!

anne liked my newly developed pictures so much she went running off with them. it’s always nice when one’s possessions or productions merit theft. luckily she brought them back. they are, not so luckily, from the wrong roll, which is to say not the roll i had intended to give. but that’s okay! after all, i would have had to get these seen to eventually. it allowed me the opportunity also to reflect that i look so much better [in pictures] when i’m happy.

my midterms were a less pleasant surprise. i resolved i wouldn’t regret not studying [extensively] and i won’t. my grades don’t transfer. for now i’m taking comfort in teacher jeanne’s comment that my essays were, if not perfect, “well-written.” actually i did fine on her test. hopefully the two i get back tomorrow will be same-par or better. –get thee behind me, satan of guilt and shame! i still have my finals and piles of work to mitigate those less-than-happy numbers. in all honesty, that’s my real balm.

elated. the sky is blue and i want to wear orange in it. cairo station turned out to be a silly black+white 1960s moralistic film heavy on the close-ups-of-eyes while violins surged in the background. but interesting, still, shannon and i agreed, for those reasons.

came home leisurely and curled up in a corner in my bed, verses in hand, quaking, as the devils deliciously described on the pages tripped off of them into my bedroom. then i dreamt that eliz and andrea merged. from the beginning they struck me as senselessly similar; now they’re both bunnied, so more so. i woke up laughing. read aleichem’s charming autobiography (pp. 1 – 33) for my j. in e. class (“why novels? life is a novel” –> exactly) over an elongated brunch of matza creamcheese and strawberry jam. my mother used to make me sandwiches of that nature everyday for lunch til i despised the combination, associating it as strongly with being young as i did sucking my thumb backwards. my longawaited package should come today and i can pick up my film. only 50 kr. for howmany! pictures of ben? what a deal.

sorry for the recent morose nature of these posts. i’m feeling a little out of place, out of time here. what makes it worse is i don’t have any sort of fixed ideal in my head. certainly towards the end of the russia trip i got antsy and wanted to back here (home?) now that i’m here i’m still shifty. the film festival is starting. maybe that will anchor me. i’m seeing my first of at least six (i bought the package deal) in thirty minutes or so with shannon, who i ran into this afternoon here. cairo station, an egyptian flick neither of us know anything about.

we ended up wandering back up to christiania and looking more closely at it while debating the wisdom of traveling by oneself in eastern europe. she’s planning a solo trip to poland. considering she just navigated herself through finland and the arctic for a comparable length of time, i’m sure she could handle it. psychologically the camps are something different though, or at least having been there that’s my opinion. something you just don’t want to go through alone.

so you’re hardcore jewish, she says. i squirm under the label, hearing echoes of abby’s disdainful ‘superjew’ and other adjectives+ people having used in reference to me: cynical jew at barnard that summer: straight jew on eliz’s page. is this worse/better? hardcore makes me think settlers and haredim; rigidity, dogma; at least observance. things voltaire would sneer at. religion isn’t intellectual, faith isn’t cool. do i really want those things associated with me? the people who can pull them off have admirable strength of character. i respect them much. so in a way i despise myself for squirming; still, my answer is to play the Cultural card, meekly. she nods, having neither gained nor lost respect for me. to her it was merely a question.

my resolution that Housing doesn’t Matter is being called into question by everyone’s fretting –reminders that it must, cuz surely swatties don’t stress over nothing. it’s hard being so far away. i can’t be active; i can only write emails and read read read.

i’ve been thinking about skool more in the past few days that i did the past few weeks. anne asked me yesterday what my best classes have been. she’ll be a senior at bryn mawr and is a little bored with the choices so she’s considering taking something at swat. i got all excited and blanked at the same time. best classes? can’t go wrong with religion. film. uh. everything’s, moreorless, been at least good. when do we have to choose classes by? i haven’t heard a word about it.

haven’t heard from cty either. my summer is very much up in the air. meanwhile, with little to distract me, i get sucked into the de–bates raging on the opinion page of the post. ben mentions casually in email that it’s a good thing he and i don’t discuss israel. he might be right. on the other hand, people here ask me what’s going on sometimes, or ask if i have family. the most anyone does thereafter is nod politely. no one challenges, no one fights. (no one cares?) with no opposition, to whatever it is i’m thinking, i can float along without a solid opinion myself. somebody, say something. inflammatory. awful. wise. thought-provoking. just so long as it’s important.

no water and no carbs have affected me strangely today. the former self-denying action has no religious significance: i just casually realized that i’ve thrown back a couple liquids today, but no water. not as such. no. i simply have yet to correct that. perhaps i shouldn’t assign too much weight to my theory of chemical connections. perhaps i would be feeling cloudy/rocky/crumbly even if i’d drowned myself in Evian and gnawed through mountains of bagels, biscuits, and bread. perhaps, as i originally speculated, it’s just a product of the natural difficulty i have with reentries.

i ate another indian meal yesterday and read 100 pages of the terrific satanic verses. don’t mind me. i’m sure in a couple days the long awaited springtime sun will have soothed me, smoothed me. i’ll be back to normal, slide right in, no reentry problems, no sir, none at all.

sapna made me veggie curry for lunch. it was extra spicy so i had to make the executive decision to eat rice. not such a big deal, i’ve done that at home. i’m eating chocolate too — i decided that in russia. i have no k. for passover options here. surely i have to get points for creativity: craving the taste of macaroons (just imagine making do without them!), i bought a bounty. no meat or bread in this country is hard enuf without trying to remember whether chickpeas are legit, especially when there’s no logic behind half the rules. to make things trickier, supermarkets are closed on sundays and today too as it’s a national holiday. luckily the cafe in my building has cheap, if bare bones, tuna salad and i still have half a box of russian matza.

it’s particularly hard at the moment. every time i think about food i’m reminded that i’m jewish. that on top of confronting constant mideast coverage leaves me much more aware/sensitive than usual. maybe i wouldn’t, under normal circumstances, have cared. but it’s hard to know.

i can’t tell whether copenhagen is actually giddy or whether it’s just me giddy to be back. it’s a glorious 15 degrees here and on my way home i kept looking up at apartmenters reclining on balconies and over at kids playing soccer. i rode the bus back with kris on the top decker with our feet on the railing feeling quite regal and accomplished indeed. what a break it’s been; what hopping i’ve done.

it’s been so long since i’ve been able to sit at a computer without rushing. i have so many emails to write; i have two letters — one from lananomijamie, one from darling liz — to read; i have to shoutout HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY to pennbecca; i have to call andrea to congratulate her on her various french exploits; and i have to figure out how i’m going to feed myself for the next four days. thanks for the lovely thoughts, by the way, throughout the week. they made me grin even if i didn’t have time to respond straight away.