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Welcome to the weekend and the end of another week, or in another perspective, the beginning to a new, fresh, exciting week. Notice that my predictions for the upcoming week are based on the effects of my morning coffee and desperation for a positive outlook.

Amy Williams won Team GB’s first gold medal at a Winter Olympic games since 1980 (picture thanks to ‘The Telegraph’)

I see in the Saturday newspaper, ‘The Guardian’ that British people are complaining relentlessly about the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

I take a section from the article that sums up the typicality of the great British nation,

‘After finishing 13th in the downhill, Chemmy Alcott tried to explain our mind-set to the rest of the world by saying that the “British just love to criticise”. And so we do. Despite the fact that some of the sport in Vancouver – such as Lindsey Vonn’s gold medal run in the women’s downhill – has been captivating, it can’t match the satisfactions of a good grumble. In Britain the sourest grapes taste the sweetest.’

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Britain has one gold medal and lingering near the bottom of the medal table, or maybe we are right to criticise the Olympics in Canada. We hate the snow and surely mountains of such magnitude are tiresome and inconvenient for likes of us. Then it is Canada after all, re-known for… ice hockey and controversial animal killings that have led to numerous petitions and protests. Maybe it’s all in the perception of a place. Winter Olympics in the Alps however, sounds mighty attractive!

However, maybe those gold medals are the reason for the bitterness, doesn’t success = positive feedback?  I have a feeling that those Summer Olympic games in London in two years will bring build-up scepticism and criticisms over government spending, but if team GB can match or even beat the medal haul of Beijing, then the atmosphere will be distinctly different to these winter games.

As some of you know I am a post-graduate student at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and today I am a little bit prouder of where I study as something quite potent caught my attention.

The University of Copenhagen was founded in 1479 and is the oldest and largest university in Denmark. The University has a student body of 37,000 including 2,300 international students. The eight faculties are located on four campus areas in Copenhagen and encompass approximately one hundred different institutes, departments, laboratories, centres, as well as museums and the Botanical Gardens. At the University of Copenhagen, research and teaching interact to create the most challenging and exciting learning processes for students and researchers.

The University of Copenhagen has produced no less than 8 Nobel Prize winners and in 2005 the University joined nine other of the world’s leading research universities to form the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU).

No less than 8 Nobel Prize winners! Well, I’m not sure if I can stake a claim to being a future number 9 but it’s certainly inspiring, and adds an aura of possibility to the experience.

ICICLE WARNING!

Maybe this is humourous to a person that doesn’t normally live in such cold conditions, but according to the ‘Copenhagen Post’ we should ‘Be aware. Look up. And jump towards the wall if you spot a sharp pointy icicle heading your way, warn experts’.

Authorities in Copenhagen have issued warnings to residents to be careful of falling icicles this weekend as temperatures heat up slightly.

‘Because of the temperature increasing above freezing point for long periods, there is a danger that snow drifts and icicles could slide down from the roofs. This is one of those cases of the danger of nature,’ said Kasper Ninn Johansen of the Copenhagen Fire Brigade.
Meanwhile, Copenhagen Police have advised pedestrians to be aware of their surroundings. If they see icicles or heavy snow on the edge of a roof, they are urged to seek shelter against the wall.’

Music Video of the Day

Today the video’s (in order) come from ‘Vampire Weekend’.

Sitting on the S-Toget (train) to Hellerup from Copenhagen Central Station today, I slumped into the only available seat at the front of the carriage, next to three, heavily fur dressed inspired ladies that in itself will make anyone look twice.

It made me think; what if our human eyes could save moments and glimpses that evades the instincts of any photographer.

Here I am, probably looking slightly dodgy as my eyes gaze around the carriage, looking at small details, how people are dressed to defeat the sub zero temperatures. I don’t know if you have ever ridden to S-Toget, but when the train pulls in at each station, there is always ONE person that will fall forwards and cling to the best available leverage. If you could take a series of photographs of moments like this, it might just be pretty funny.

There was one particular moment that made me feel like I should have my camera more today though.

Picture the scene. Two women, dressed in furry hats and coats. One had just told the other woman off for sitting on her bag. Both looking in opposite directions, moody faces. There through the glass behind their seat is a mans backpack pushed up tight to the glass with a cartoon reindeer (wearing a t-shirt saying “LOVE DENMARK”) hanging on a key ring. It almost looks like the reindeer is mocking the two women.

Possibly a picture worthy of welcoming all people to Denmark, although I’m not sure it’s what the Tourism sector is looking for in terms of promotion.

Surely you too see things you wish could be transformed to film, to be kept forever, a moment to look back and remember, the emotion of that very split second. It is a shame that we miss so much, or we may have seen, but soon forget.

I urge more of you to take photographs, and I will certainly take it upon myself to try and keep a camera with me at all times.

Okay so not everyone is interested in photography specifically, but here is a good website that is culture/art based and has a lot of great examples of current shows across the UK and elsewhere. Check it out:

http://www.culture24.org.uk/art

COPENHAGEN FOCUS SPECIAL

Today we look at the Oresund Bridge that changed the face of Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Stretching a staggering 8-kilometres, it opened in 2000, carrying both road and rail traffic from Copenhagen into Sweden.

Here is a documentary of the bridge thanks to Great Engineering.com and National Geographic.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

(This post will continually be updated over Saturday and Sunday)

Happy first weekend of the month – the longer the weeks go on, the more anxious I become about the safety of my current Masters thesis’ and current novel. Lunging paranoia aside, the more likely it is that my computer will go into an operatic series of crashes before simply dying in my arms, the more I tend to admire the shiny, sleak Apple Mac’s and yearn to hand over my debit card gladfully, before ruefully remembering that the possibility of this scenario is as likely as me winning the Nobel Peace Prize (although when you see Obama getting one, it seems easier each year, all I need is for the Scandinavians to believe that I will bring ‘future peace’).

Back to the blog, it’s the first ever ‘WEEKEND EDITION’, this post spans over Saturday and Sunday, and will be updated all the way until Sunday night, with videos, writing and links etc.

In news for next week, the good news is that ‘FRESHFROMDK’ is to be featured as ‘BLOG OF THE WEEK’ on Copenhagen University Student Newspaper, this will be published from Monday 8th February on http://universitypost.dk/, so go check that out from Monday.

I have the photographic urge once again. It’s been around 8 months since I last took a real film and camera and took photography seriously. I’m an Internationally Sold Professional Photographer, but the so far 8 month break has been gratefully recieved. So for those that have not seen any of my photography, I have some old links (bad self-promotion on my part here), from my own website and from other sites I am featured, enjoy!

MY PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE – http://www2.clikpic.com/drewphoto/index.html

SOURCE PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE REVIEW – http://www.source.ie/graduate/2009/swanseapj/bardre/bardre1.xml#pagedown

SAATCHI GALLERYONLINE – http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/4ns/studentDetails/Drew+Bartle/87763

WEBSITE OF THE WEEKEND

Here’s one for the fashion concious … Love vintage clothes? Here’s a good website,browse for clothing and buy online – simple!

http://www.rokit.co.uk/

In another new feature next week in order to pay tribute to ‘FRESHFROMDK’ being featured as BLOG OF THE WEEK, I will be hitting the streets of Copenhagen and areas of interest, taking photos and reporting on places of interest for those of you reading from Denmark and to those with interest of the city. I will especially focus on the vintage district and other points of Danish custom that other nationalities may not be aware of.

COPENHAGEN FOCUS

Today’s Copenhagen focus looks at Rosenborg Castle, in the city of Copenhagen. The city has many great parks but its most royal is the King’s Garden surrounding the Rosenborg Castle,  a summer residence to Denmark’s Royal family.

WEEKEND SPORT UPDATE

SUB-ZERO TEMPERATURES CAN’T STOP HIK WINNING BY SEVEN

Snowdrifts and artificial turf, not ideal conditions for a game of football, but it didn’t make any difference as HIK U19 defeated Boldklubben Frem 7-0, in a game where HIK’s new attacking formation really came into play. As me (Assistant Manager) and the manager watched on, it was a pretty routine victory after the first three goals were scored. Frem never brought the game to HIK, and it will have done the whole team alot of good to go scoring crazy infront of the sparse crowd (although the cold may have played a bit big part in that!)

RBS RUGBY 6 NATIONS

Champions Ireland began the 2010 tournament in convincing fashion 29-11 at Croke Park, Ireland.

2008 Champions Wales suffered opening day defeat to England 30-17 at Twickenham, England.

EURO 2012 DRAW FOOTBALL

Group G: ENGLAND, Switzerland, Bulgaria, WALES, Montenegro

Very interesting draw for Wales against England, should hopefully be a very competitive group!

Group H: Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Cyprus, Iceland – Here’s one if your living in Copenhagen and want to see some good football, Portugal and Norway will provide very good games.

Today we continue an interactive blog manner, by looking at some tv and music from Scandinavia (with the focus on Denmark).

TV ADVERTS FROM DENMARK

This advert is for electronics store El Giganten based in Scandinavia, but Britain’s John Cleese makes an appearance, in a rather desperate and stupid advert.

This next advert is a couple wearing nude suits – which from what I can make out is for a telephone company TDC. Quite bizarre!

TV CLIPS FROM SCANDINAVIA

Here’s a very funny clip from a Norwegian show, watch it through, very funny!

This video is mocking how the Danish language is becoming hard to understand even for Danes themselves! Funny also!

Here are some music videos from Denmark

This first song is very much on music channels at the moment and is a new group called ‘Hej Matematik’ (one half of the singers is a man from the group ‘AQUA’….from the 90′s remember?)

Speaking of AQUA, the scandinavian group are back here, and here is their latest song…

More tomorrow!

Enjoy!

Snowfall, sub zero temperatures and shoe’s that let in snow slush, is it February 1^st already?

You have to wonder why we go to so much trouble, building up the 1st of January as the day we start afresh, “a new me” promise. When most of us are sobering up and nursing a massive hangover, and the winter is firmly settled in, money is low, and the thoughts kick in, “here we go again!”

So I have started again today, after what one can only say was a January to forget (for the majority of it!)

Today is the first day of the new University of Copenhagen semester, a return to football training (after heavy snowfall had disrupted practice and cancelled our weekend fixture), a fresh start and time to build again.

I will confess I’ve failed to maintain my enthusiasm for parts during the day, the snow is still thick on the ground, and walking up a street takes those extra few precious   minutes longer. This is apparently a freak winter, history being made here in Copenhagen, as this is the longest period of snowfall and mass in over 14 years, and before that it was around 14 years also! So there you go, some may think that Copenhagen, Denmark is a snowy place most of the year; this however is not the case. However, I’m hardly thrilled that I’m participating in this ‘historic Danish winter’. I don’t believe I’ve been above 1 or 2 degrees since the end of November / start of December (I’m just about clinging onto that summer of 2009 tan).

Today, the entire playing field and training pitches at the football ground were totally covered in the white stuff, no floodlights either, so was my journey to training in vein? Not quite…

The manager greeted me with the sentence, “So are you ready for a nice run?”  How long was this run you may ask? 5KM, which is just over 3 Miles (this is in snow, icy roads, sub zero temperatures, after 6pm) I’m not complaining….

I finished in the front of the pack, so quite an achievement I feel, plus not a bad start to the new ‘January 1^st”

As you can see I’ve put a few photographs (Sunday 31^st January 2010) on this article, with a view of the morning after MORE heavy snow, and apparently if predictions are true, more is on the way in the next 24 hours.

I also want to add that today we are seeing a fresh layout for the blog, which I think eases the readability, hope you agree!

More new sections will become available on the sidebar (to the right), sections including art and music and football and the Copenhagen scene will be popping up within the next week!

Thanks and enjoy!