Jul i København

The Danes began decorating and celebrating the holiday Christmas season (Jul) at the end of October.  It was a bit strange to see Christmas trees and lights being put up before Halloween and Thanksgiving, but it has certainly put me in the holiday spirit!  The whole city is decked out for the season and it looks beautiful!  There are lights, trees and garland EVERYWHERE!  Something I have noticed is that although the lights everywhere are very pretty and impressive, they are all white.  I miss my blue icicle lights from home!

This picture shows the decorations on one of the pedestrian walking streets in downtown CPH.

On our last day of classes (last week) some of my friends and I decided to celebrate by going ice skating next to Nyhavn Harbor.  It is a pretty little rink set up in the middle of a square and surrounded by Christmas lights.  We chose a wonderful night to go skating outside... it started raining once we got there.  The picture below shows my incredible skill on skates (I fell down right after the picture was taken).

For our final week in Denmark, Erin's brother and his girlfriend visited us.  We decided to show them around a bit and we took them to Tivoli.  Tivoli has re-opened temporarily for the holiday season and it was completely decorated and very festive.

There was a building set up as a Nisse (elf) village.  Even though we walked through the building, we felt as if we were on the Danish version of the "It's a Small World" ride in Disney.  The picture above shows Erin and I popping up through holes in the ice to meet some local Nisse.

On one of our last nights in the city, several of us decided to check out the Absolut Icebar.  This is a bar made entirely of ice (walls, bar, seats etc.).  It is a fun, unique place to go and we had fun.  In order to keep the place from melting, the bar is kept at a very cold temperature.  Therefore, we were supplied with big parkas, gloves and Kirby even had to wear booties.  We were allowed to spend 45 minutes inside and we got our drink served in a solid ice cup... it was extremely chilled.

So... thats the end of my story.  I have now shared with you my whole study abroad experience (for the most part) and I hope you have enjoyed my semi-regular postings.  I am literally at the close of my trip because I currently sit in the Copenhagen airport waiting for my flight.  In a matter of 12 hours I will be tackling my mother and Uncle John in the Boston airport.  I am extremely excited to be coming home.  I have had a trip of a life time, but I cannot wait to see all of you.

Thanks for reading! God Jul (Merry Christmas)!!

Holiday with my Visiting Family

First, I should let you know that I am writing this post as I wait for my visiting family to pick me up and bring me to the airport to come home.  I have one hour before they get here, so I will try to make this quick.

One of my favorite parts of my study abroad experiences in Denmark has been the time I have spent with my visiting family.  I really enjoy talking to them and learning about Danish culture.

Part 1
Two weekends ago our family brought Erin and I to Den Gamle By, which is an old town and open air museum in Åarhus.  We traveled 3 hours by car to experience this village made up of historical buildings and exhibits from the 1800s.  The buildings are real historical structures from all over the country.  They were taken down, brick-by-brick and rebuilt to establish the Old Town.

As we walked the cobble stone streets of Den Gamle By we could enter various buildings to observe traditional ways of making food, sending mail, brewing beer and weaving fabric.  There was also a variety of traditional Danish foods to try and shops to visit.

Later that day, our family introduced us to a traditional Danish Christmas dessert and drink.  We really enjoyed aebler skiver, which is a doughnut-like ball that we dip in powdered sugar and strawberry jam.  We also had our first taste of the classic holiday drink, Gløgg.  This is a hot wine drink with snapps (kind of liquor), raisins and almonds.

Part 2

Last weekend we visited our family for the final time.  For this special occasion out visiting parents prepared a traditional Danish Christmas lunch.  Typically, this occurs on Christmas day with the whole family and lasts for at least 3 hours.  There is A LOT of food, drinking and conversation.

Our lunch lasted almost 3 hours.  Now, as many of you know I am a relatively picky eater especially when it comes to meat and fish.  I have to say that I think you would be very proud of the kinds of food I tried.  We had about 4 different kinds of fish (including HERRING... yuck!) and at least 6 different preparations of pork.  My least favorite food was leverpostej (liver patte) which looked (and smelled) like a pile of mashed up... well, it was unpleasant.

My visiting mother and sisters also taught us how to make Danish paper hearts.  This is a very common thing for families and friends to do at Christmas time to get in the holiday spirit and to decorate.  The hearts a generally hung on their trees and they get filled with little presents and sweets.

Thanksgiving

My friends and I decided we really wanted to make a true Thanksgiving for ourselves here in Denmark.  Originally, it was just going to be a small dinner for the five of us.  We thought it would be fun to cook a big dinner for the Danes in our building, but we knew it would require a lot of money and time to pull off.  Well, apparently some of the American students who lived here before us had made Thanksgiving for the Danes.  When they started asking if we would be doing the same we didn't feel like we could say no.  So, we put sign-up sheets on our doors and figured that we would get maybe 20 Danes to join us... almost 50 people signed up!!!!

Thanksgiving Eve...

In order to save time, we made pies the night before.  We made pumpkin, peanut butter oreo and coconut cream (mine).  Erin's mom was nice enough to send us pumpkin pie filling and a box of pie crust.  In the picture above, I am rolling out the pie crusts.  The boxed crust turned out okay, but couldn't even compare to Gramis'.

Note:  You must be wondering how 3 pie could possibly feed 50 people... well they didn't.  First, cut them into teeny tiny slices for people to try bites of them.  Second, we made a chocolate cake and brownies to supplement our dessert selection.

Thanksgiving day...

We all had class on Thanksgiving day (a travesty, I know), but we began cooking around one o'clock in the afternoon. (We didn't serve food until 9:15 at night)  In order to put us in the holiday mood I turned on some Christmas music and opened a bottle of wine.  Any good cook will tell you that music and wine is essential in pulling off a successful meal.  Above, I am demonstrating my ability to multi-task by drinking wine and slicing garlic.

My friend Whitney's mom is a cook, so she was our head chef.  For the most part, we were her minions and we did what we were told in the kitchen.  Most of the recipes were from Whitney, but Erin made the sweet potatoes.  I helped her peel them (above) and they tasted pretty good, but they were NOT my mother's sweet potatoes!!!!  (she put balsamic dressing in them and mashed them to death...weirdo!)

In order to feed our whole party we cooked 4 turkeys.  Whitney was brave enough to tackle the cleaning and preparation of all four.  I give her major credit because there was no neat bag inside the turkey for its innards... I gather this was no fun task.  When it came to cooking and basting she assigned us each a bird to care for.  The one I am pictured with above is mine.  I dutifully basted my citrus-orange turkey every half-hour.

Our spread included turkey, corn bread stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce (the can-shaped kind), rolls, cornbread, pies, brownies and cake.

I think the Danes were really pretty impressed with what we made for them.  They all seemed to like the food and many asked for recipes.

What I missed from Thanksgiving at home:

-leftovers

-pie for breakfast the next morning

-Mom's sweet potatoes

-Grandma's pie crust

-Jake's camp fire turkey

-board games with the cousins

-Macy's Thanksgiving day parade

-All of you