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.