It's hard to believe we haven't posted an update since early December! Our only excuse is that real life has taken over and we are settling into work mode. Unlike our year in Paris, our lives in Copenhagen are filled with two full time jobs, regular schedules, and other mundane, normal activities. Unless we make a weekly post on what we've eaten during the week, there often isn't much to report!
Christmas is a big holiday in Denmark. There are many shared traditions (Christmas tree, work parties, Christmas cookies), but there are also a lot of Danish traditions that were new to us. In Denmark, you put real candles on the Christmas tree! Sounds like a fire hazard to us (in fact, everyone keeps a bucket of water next to the tree for just such a mishap). There is Pakkespil (a fun gift exchange game), nisse (mischievous elves that live in your attic and play practical jokes on you around the holidays), risalamande (a rice pudding with one almond in it, and whoever gets the almond receives a gift), and traditional songs which you sing while holding hands and dancing around the Christmas tree. Bobby and I were especially fond of all the Christmas parties (we attended 4!). At one party, there was a competition to make the best table setting. Bobby, along with others at his table, created this amazing reindeer. Needless to say, his table won!
A friend of mine from work came over to teach me how to cook traditional Danish Christmas cookies. We had a fun time making two different cookies, which we shared at the office. I taught my friend how to make spiced zucchini bread.
After we attended all the great Danish Christmas parties, we headed off to the States to visit our families and partake in some American Christmas traditions. We spent some time in Colorado, where we visited Bobby's family. We also go to briefly see our good friend Wes and Andrea. Bobby stayed in Colorado a few days longer than me, during which Wes taught him to weld. Above is the super-hero photo of Bob the Heroic Welder! Below is Bob (right) with his Colorado family.
After spending time in Colorado, we headed off to California to spend time with my family. We spend New Year's Eve with my Mom and Joseph wine tasting at Bridlewood Winery in Santa Ynez. We had a great time on our first wine tasting! The wines were great and the estate was beautiful.
After our fun times with my Mom, we stayed with my Father and Gloria, where we also had a lot of fun. Gloria lives near a great surf spot in the Los Angeles area, so we finally got some surfing in! However, it soon became obvious that we are really, really out of surfing shape. The 6 foot waves were just too big for us, so we stayed on the inside and splashed around like newbie kooks. We had fun though, and it was really nice to get back in the water.
That is sissy Katie, lille bébé Iris, and proud papa Olivier! On that day we all went downtown to have shawerma, and see the Strøget and the holiday markets. Lille Iris was warm as a bed bug, and bravely dodged the snow missiles I hurled at her mother's head.
Carla and I bought a very Danish hat to prepare Iris for the cold. She loved it on her somewhat oversized head. What a cutie!
On the Strøget, which is the main shopping street downtown, we saw a shop that had a Christmastime display full of the dark Danish humor we love. At right we see Farfar (Grandfather), who apparently won an award for becoming a fine sausage. |
Bobby and I had a wonderful weekend in Cologne, Germany. Our weekend away included ancient Roman ruins, Gothic cathedrals, awesome German food, and, of course, German beer! Cologne is home to the beautiful Cologne Cathedral, or the Kölner Dom. Begun in 1248, the cathedral wasn't completed until 1880. |
 Bobby and I were both particularly fond of this stained glass window, which looked like color pixels. |
 The cathedral houses the Shrine of the Three Kings (the same ones from the Christmas song "We Three Kings"). Dating from the 13th century, it supposedly holds the remains of the Three Kings.  The cathedral has a very rich treasury. I especially liked the pieces with emeralds!   |
 I think this is a neat photo. |
 Here is a photo of us with the Rhine River behind us. It was cold in Cologne, but no where near as cold as Copenhagen is now! |
 Here are some photos of a few of the other churches in the Old Town.  |
 We went to the Roman-Germanic Museum on Sunday morning, which houses a huge collection of indigenous archeological finds. Here Bobby poses with a large gate, which he says proves evolution Ray Comfort style since the carved creatures are half ancient sea serpent, half goat. He's the scientist, so I trust his judgment! |
 We saw this bicycling bar on the street. The people bicycle while a guy in the middle pours everyone beers. This particular grouped looked like they had been bicycling/drink for a while... the moved very, very slowly. |
 Christmas is nearly upon us! Since Europeans can't use Thanksgiving as the marker for when you can put up Christmas decoration, they begin a bit early. Sadly, the Cologne Christmas Markets opened up the day after we left, but they were setup and decorated with lovely Christmas trees. |
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 The other highlight of our trip was the food and drinks we consumed with gusto. Bobby drank beer with every meal except for breakfast. I made it a point to consume as much animal protein as I could. |
 I arrived in Cologne on Friday evening. After meeting Bobby at our hotel, we took the tram into the center of town. On the tram ride, Bobby noticed a small but nice looking restaurant. We decided to take out chances and hopped of the tram. Good thing we did! Ox und Klee was very small, with only 6 or 8 tables. The waitress translated the small menu for us. I picked the 'Chef's Surprise', a 3 course menu created by the chef. My first course, pictured here, was a rabbit terrine (animal number 1). |
 My second course was ox cheek (animal number 2) on mashed purple potatoes and haricots verts with a cranberry sauce. |
 Bobby ordered the evening's special, roasted goose (animal number 3) with red cabbage and potato dumplings. |
 The third course, which I kindly shared with Bobby, was a blueberry cheesecake, nouget 'air', and stewed quince. |
 On Saturday afternoon, we found a little cottage restaurant for a good, hearty lunch. I had the bratwurst (which I think is made of either beef or pork, either way, animal number 4) and roasted potatoes, which was delicious with spicy mustard. |
 Bobby had venison goulash (animal number 5) with maggots... just kidding, those are potato noodles, and apple and pear sauce. |
 With a lunch as hearty as the one we ate, you'd think Bobby and I were set for the rest of the afternoon, if not the rest of the day. But you should know us better... we like to eat a lot (especially when the food is so cheap compared to food in Denmark!), and we love sweets. While walking around in the late afternoon, we came across the Cologne Chocolate Museum. We looked inside the gift shop the saw the cafe. We just want 'a look', which turned into tea with a piece of chocolate-layered cake. Chocolate heaven... |
 We lucked out once again Saturday night with our restaurant selection. We saw a big crowd outside of a restaurant door in the Old Town area near the cathedral. We went in and discovered a giant traditional beer hall! The Brauhaus Sion has been a beer house in the same location since 1318! We sat down and ordered another fantastic meal. Bobby had the house bratwurst with potato salad. |
 I had pork knuckle (animal number 6) with stewed cabbage and potatoes. As we were eating, we noticed that the size of the restaurant was the only giant thing. Nearly every person who walked by our table was well over 6 feet tall, including the women! It turns out that the Germany 'Tall Person Club' was in town. I felt like a real munchkin around these people! |
 On Sunday, we ate our final meal in Cologne. While walking around the previous night, we saw this restaurant and wanted to have dinner there. However, the wait was too long so we moved on. We walked by again on Sunday and decided to try our luck one last time. Our good luck persisted and we had a wonderful lunch of mussels (animal number 7) from the specialty mussel restaurant. |
Colors have definitely changed over the past month, and the trees at the university are barren. The grass is covered in all shades of yellow and red, which makes orange. Our front court is now nicely framed by a warm-colored shrub. Our two bicycles are at the lower right.
To celebrate the changing colors we made an Ethiopean dish called "doro wat," which is like a cinnamon chicken stew with a hard boiled egg added to spite the hen. Our injera (the bread used to eat the food) turned out more like a crepe than anything else! But it still was tasty! Next time we will have to prepare the injera batter days in advance so that it can have the proper fermentation.
Tonight I schooled Carla in conditional probability. We played a game called Monty Hall. Ten cards are face down, one of them is an ace. Carla picks a card at random and I uncover eight of the other cards that are not aces. She can then keep her choice or pick instead what is hidden under the unflipped card. Carla said that in that case it will be a 50-50 chance she wins, so she will always keep her choice. My eyes bugged out of course because the best strategy in this game is to always switch. With this strategy one will win 9 out of 10 times (in this particular scenario). So Carla played this game five times and won none of them. Then it was my turn. I could literally hear her begin to respect conditional probability.
I (Carla) tried my hand at cooking a traditional Danish dinner over the weekend. I made a Danish Christmas dinner, which seemed appropriate considering the outside temperatures (low 40s... brrr). The meal consisted of flæskesteg (pork roast with cracklings), brune kartofler (caramelized potatoes), brun sovs (brown sauce, or gravy), and rødkål (pickled red cabbage). It was a hearty meal and we look forward to eating it again in December.
No Danish Christmas is complete without æbleskiver. These pancake-like doughnuts are best eaten fresh, filled with jam (or, in our case, some of the Speculoos spread Bobby received as a birthday present) and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Funnily enough, the recipe I used came from my Grandma Townsend, via Aunt Carolyn. Grandma Townsend used to make these every Christmas morning. I didn't know æbleskivers were Danish until we moved here. I wonder how she came to making them...
To make æbleskivers, you need a special æbleskiver pan, which is on the top left burner (this photo also shows me caramelizing the potatoes). I found my cast-iron pan at a Lion's Club used goods store. The pan worked perfectly, though the first batch of æbleskivers tasted like fish... kind of gross. But the following batches lost all the fishy taste and were just lovely!
Sharon brought about 40 pounds of gifts, including an assortment of hot sauces, several packages of macaroni and cheese, Japanese curry cubes, teas, a hat, and some warm sweaters. She also brought two right boots for Carla.
In return we gave her a lovely and authentic troll, the last picture of whom is above. He is guarding Carla's first apple pie --- which turned out to be a big hit with non-trolls.
That is an accordion tie! And chapstick. And Europe's favorite biscuits: speculoos. Thank you Sharon and Carla!
From Carla's dad I got this awesome pull printed with the mascot of his local high school: the Grapepickers. Thanks Dale!
For one dinner we all went to the restaurant Klubben, which serves traditional Danish food including all you can eat fried pork, and wonderful all you can eat roast beef. Accompanying these dishes were gravy, potatoes, pickled pears, beets, and cucumbers, and some little berries. Between the three of us, we could hardly finish the first two platters, let alone ask for more. Next time I will fast before I go. And bring some backup arteries.
We had some lovely hygge at dinner time with a festive centerpiece crafted by Sharon from all local ingredients found on our hike earlier in the day. Carla made duck with citrus sauce, which was delicious, but not so friendly on the oven. A week later we are still finding grease in strange places.
Carla also made an awesome chocolate cake with frosting! This was such a wonderful way to turn 35 that I think I will turn 34 tomorrow.
