Thursday, October 24, 2013

ARKEN hosts "FRIDA KAHLO - A life in art" until January 2013

Arken hosts "FRIDA KAHLO - A life in art" exhibition until the 12th of January 2013.


From Arken's website:

"Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is an outstanding artist and a passionate power woman. Strong and independent, she is an inspirational role model. The exhibition offers a look at Kahlo’s oeuvre through a number of her most iconic self-portraits, drawings, pages from her diary as well as jewelry and dresses from her time. The works reflect her tragic life, embracing a horrible traffic accident and countless surgeries, tormented love for the artist Diego Rivera, affairs with both men and women, miscarriages and childlessness, as well as political activism." 

Read more here: http://www.arken.dk/content/us/art/exhibitions/frida_kahlo





We visited Arken and we highly recommend a visit.
Writing this post, we are debating as to whether it should just be a tribute to Frida Kahlo or to Arken and its various very interesting exhibitions (even for those who do not get along with art).
We have decided to just stay objective :)

Take a sneak peek of Arken:



 Frida Kahlo

 Frida Kahlo

 Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

 Ciprian Mureşan - I am protesting against myself


ARKEN OPENING HOURS:
Wednesday: 10-21
Monday: Closed
Tuesday-sunday: 10-17

ADMISSION FEES:
Adults: 95 kr.
Students: 75 kr.
Children under 18: Free
CLUB ARKEN: Free
Groups (min. 10): 80 kr.
Pensioniers: 95 kr.

Read more about Arken here: www.arken.dk


P.S.: (it is going to be a quite big P.S. and it will have no relation to Arken)  

2011 - 1941 - 1938
A song, a writer and a painter

1938: After a tragic accident that changed her life, Fridha Kahlo paints "What the water gave me"


1941: Novelist, essayist, publisher and critic Virginia Woolf, puts on her coat, filled its pockets with stones, walked into the River Ouse near her home, and drowned herself. In her last note to her husband she wrote: 

"...If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."

2011: Florence and the Machine have a new song. The title (i.e. "What the water gave me") is inspired by a painting of Frida Kahlo and the lyrics from Virginia Woolf's suicide...

“Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the overflow
Pockets full of stones



Saturday, October 5, 2013

Must do: grab your friends and have a dinner in Vespa - Copenhagen

We have already mentioned this restaurant in a different post (read more here), but we cannot resist dedicating this post to Vespa in order to introduce you to the place.

Before visiting Vespa, we thought it was a quite high class restaurant: a quiet, calm, fine dining place... Well, it is not exactly like that. We would not recommend this place for a romantic dinner for two or for someone who wants to have a fine dining experience..

So what is Vespa?
Part of the Cofoco family, Vespa is an honest, easygoing, relaxed, simple restaurant that serves Italian food.
That's Vespa. It is in your face, it is clean, real and it does not pretend to be something else than what it really is: quite similar to the attitude of an actual Vespa if you think about it....

source here

And when should i go there?
Are you with your friends and want to have a delicious but at the same time fun dinner with loads of wine? Grab your friends and have a blast in Vespa! They have a special offer where you can have a full menu (antipasti, primo, secondo and desert) with all the wine you can drink (no limits) for around 400 DKK per person (when we visited the place the prices were at 400 DKK. We checked their website apparently now it is 425 DKK. Check their current menu here: http://cofoco.dk/vespa_menu.php).


And how is the food?
The food was great! Do not expect something super sophisticated. As we said Vespa is simple and easygoing. They have simple but delicious Italian flavors. What we loved was that in the beginning they bring you a lot of different antipasti. So right from the start, get ready to taste 10 different small plates of various delicacies.

 Insalata tiepida di polipo e patate – Blækspruttesalat med kartofler, persille, agurk og chili

 Insalata caprese con mozzarella di bufala – Caprese salat med bøffelmozzarella

Prosciutto di Parma – Parmaskinke
Finocchiona – Fennikel salami

Grissini e bagna cauda – Grissini med bagna cauda dip
Merluzzo alla Livornese – Friteret torsk med spicy tomatsovs

After all the antipasti, there are two more courses and a desert. Let's not forget that the alcohol keeps coming as long as you have chosen their special offer that includes the limitless consumption of wine :)

The desert: 
Susine caramellate con gelato al mascarpone – Bagte og karamelliserede blommer med mascarpone is

:) :) :) even though we were expecting something else, we loved Vespa just because it is down to earth. We loved the idea of having so many antipasti in the beginning and tasting all these different flavors. The wine offer was very appreciated :)

:( :( :( The place is small. Which is not necessarily bad, but it was very, very VERY crowded and noisy. There was no music in the background. All this noise and the fact that we were sitting very close to each other made us feel a bit uncomfortable and tired quite soon.


Vespa
St. Kongensgade 90,
1264 København K

Read more about Vespa in their website or in their facebook page
Also visit Cofoco website and facebook page to learn more about them :)

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Living and working with the Danes

Before coming in Copenhagen i have read a lot about working in Denmark.
How people are working in teams, how there is no clear hierarchy and that everybody's opinion matters..
Nothing could prepare me though for what i would really encounter here...

First of all, let me clear out something. I am a short girl coming from a southern country: even if i hate stereotypes, this actually means that i have dark hair, dark skin and since my country is under "crisis" i am used to work like a slave. My personal life was never a priority and my "rights" as an employee could be described as limited (if not non existing).


STEP 1: First impression

When i first arrived in this wonderful country, Danish people were just huge. White, blond and huge. They were looking at me from up there (since there is clearly a significant height difference) like huge white giants and they would start speaking as if they were puking (yes! the way they pronounce "d" sounds like puking in my ears. Try out the word "hedder" and you will get the point..). I was terrified. 


STEP 2: A closer look

Taking a closer look at the Danes, the first thing i observed was their relation with "time". My thought back then was that since they were so huge they are looking "time" from above. From up there. And even though looking things from up there should make time look tiny, thus not enough, Danes still feel as if they have loooads of time ahead. And that is why they never hurry. Some of them think they are anxious. But in reality and to my small southern eyes, they are never anxious. They take their time = They plan ahead = They avoid mistakes = They are efficient.


STEP 3: Getting to know them better and better

Danes have rights that are earned long time ago and noone can just cancel or challenge this fact. They have the right to have a personal life, which will always be their priority number one. And they do not need to fight for that. They work to live and not live to work. And whoever tries to challenge that, he will simply just fail. In this country people know that they have the right to smile and just say "No, thank you!".And that is accepted from all: boses, colleagues, managers, supervisors..
In the majority of this world's countries, people have a formal way of speaking to those they do not know or to their "superiors". Thus they are using what in english is the formal "you": a polite plural that expresses respect towards someone. Well, Danes do not use this formal way of speaking. Everyone is equal. Your boss is equal with you. There is no "Dear Mr. Andersen". There is "Hi John" instead. Even a giant Dane and a tiny dwarf like me are equals.
Their cities are made for them. They have the right to enjoy them. Whenever the sun is out, they forget that tomorrow even exist and they lie naked in the parks. They grab their bears and they stroll laughing around the lakes.



GENERAL CONCLUSION:
Danes have understood what is important in this life: living it. 
And we should learn something from them. 
Don't panic, stay calm, smile more, live the moment :)