Weekend in the West! (and North)

E and I took a trip to the northwestern coast of Denmark this weekend with some friends from the department. We rented a summer vacation house for a night, got a car in Aarhus, and drove out to the far side of the country (almost a 2 hour drive!). What was the occasion? Celebrating South African M's successful filing of her dissertation last week!

It was a really nice trip, if a bit cold and rainy. Nevertheless, we had some good walks on beaches, ate good food, played some games, and nobody blew away!

Here are some pictures:

B and E next to Svinekloev Hotel

Dunes!

Walking along the beach are Danish N, British C, and the daring duo!

Something is funny in the state of Denmark

British C works hard to get the perfect shot

In the evening, we hyggered ourselves with some games

"I Dag Har Vi Skiftedag i Danmark!"

I må undskylder mig, hvis I ikke kan dansk. Jeg kunne godt tænke om at skrive på dansk idag, men frygt ikke, i fremtiden skal jeg skrive kun på engelsk her, og på dansk her (www.adaftpaadansk.blogspot.com).

I går var noget helt specielt i Danmark--vi holdt det første folktingetsvalg siden 2007. Selvfølgelig kunne jeg ikke stemme (fordi jeg har boet i Danmark i kun et år) men det var alligevel meget spændende.

Måske ved I ikke, at Danmark havde 9 partier i valget. Selv om de fleste står meget mere til venstre end nogle Amerikansk politiker, siger vi her at der er to bloke, rød og blå.

Rød er dem til venstre:
Socialistdemokratiet
De Radikale Venstre
Socialistisk Folkeparti
Enhedslisten

Blå er dem, der står til højre:
Venstre (er det ikke sjov?)
De Konservative
Danske Folkeparti
Liberal Alliance (det lyder også sjov til os, men faktisk er de ligesom Libertarians)
Kristendemokraterne

Jeg er herreglad at fortale jer, at nu har vi fået et nyt folketing i Danmark! Vi er lige skiftet til rød igen!

Kan I gætte, hvem jeg skulle have stemmt for, hvis jeg kunne stemme? Kig ned for svaren!

Selv om Socialdemokraterne fik ikke så mange stemmer som Venstre, deres blok var stadig de største. Derfor fik vi her i Danmark vores første kvindelige statsminister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Hun arbejder ved Socialdemokratiet, men alle andre røde partier sagde, at de skulle peger for hende som statsministeren.

Jeg interesserede mig for at se, at de fleste engelsk aviserne skrev så meget om "Første Kvindelige Statsminister!" Det er interessant, men det er meget vigtiger, at vi har skiftet blokene, synes jeg. Men måske er det noget amerikaner kan ikke forstå-- da jeg læste New York Times idag, så jeg at de beskrev Dansk Folkeparti som "Danmark's tredje-storste blok." Det passer ikke; der er kun to.

Men da jeg læste overskrifterne, spekulerede jeg om hvad udlændinge tror om vores amerikansk politik. Da vi valgte op Obama i 2008, tænkte andre lander mere om hans hudfarve, eller om hans politik? Jeg tror, det var hans politik, men måske ikke.

Endelig vil jeg også sige, HAHAHAHAHA Pia Kjærsgaard! Hun regnede med at få 25 mandate, men faktisk fik hun kun 22! (Og det er stadigvæk for meget). Selvfølgelig er jeg også super-lykkelig, at Dansk Folkeparti er lidt faldet i magt.

Så der var et småt tip, om hvem jeg ville stemme for... ikke Dansk Folkeparti!

OK, om I har gættet eller ikke, svaren er...

Socialdemokratiet! Hurra!

Just Under the Wire

Today my new Danish teacher said to me,

"You have very good pronunciation for an American!"

I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not.

PS--Don't worry, dearest readers, we'll be back in September (tomorrow!) with fascinating reports of our recent escapades. And if you've missed us, well, just remember that as the Daring Duo, it's our job to go off adventuring!

Til dem i Norge...

I've never been to Norway, but already all the Scandinavian people feel like my countrymen. So I was distressed to hear of the events in Oslo and Utoya. I've been thinking about this all week, not sure whether to write about it on the blog or not.

Today I saw the letter our Danish Queen Margrethe sent to King Harald of Norway, and her words were perfect. She says,

"Vi sender... hele det norske folk vore inderligste tanker og medfølelser."

And we do too, B and me, we send all the Norwegian people our deepest thoughts and sympathies.

Lovely London

I have really been dropping the ball on my blogging duties lately, I'm sorry to say. But, better late than never!

Last month, E and I took a spur-of-the-moment, quick trip to London! Plane tickets are cheap, and our friend J (who recently moved to London) had offered to host us, so we grabbed the opportunity. Now, when I say that plane tickets are cheap, it's important to realize just how cheap we are talking. I don't remember the final total (do you, E?), but I do remember that the ticket price for the return trip was 5 dkk (that's about $0.95). There are fees and stuff on top of that, of course, but still!

We had a really nice trip. We hadn't seen J in a while, and it was great to catch up with him a bit. Plus, we got some good game-playing and Indian-food-eating in. We also saw some sights! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Our first trip out exploring. There are some famous buildings in the background.

Outside the Natural History Museum

The main hall at the Natural History Museum. Pretty cool.

E works on deciphering the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum

From the British Museum - one of the (maybe the?) oldest known board games! Awesome. It looks like an early prototype of Settlers! (not really)

We rode in the London Eye! It was pretty awesome, and a very fun thing to do on our last evening. Picture-wise it didn't turn out so well because it was raining. But, I do kind of like this one.

All Downhill Sledding From Here!

I'm exceedingly late posting this, I know. But it's exciting enough to post even if it's super late.

We're halfway through! B has actually been living and working in Denmark for a full calendar year! Happy one year Dane-iversary, Dr. B!

(I'm not sure what sort of tone you should imagine me saying this in. Sometimes it's awe and admiration at ourselves for doing this huge adventure. Sometimes it's sheer relief at the thought of one day living with people who speak our native tongue, natively. And sometimes it's more of a "no way! I'm not ready to only have one year left!" Maybe the thing to do is to read this post today, tomorrow, and again next week, and just try out all those different interpretations.)

And, possibly just as exciting, we had the longest day of the year. It was June 21st, and we had 19 hours and 50 minutes of daylight. That's a lot of daylight! We celebrated by going down to Sculpture by the Sea again and eating falafel at the beach late at night. I've never had such a long day in my entire life.

That was really fun, but B is a little bit sad since now all the days are getting shorter. I'm reassuring him that we still have lots of daylight--19 hours and 21 minutes today-- but he's right, it's a downward trend. In fact, that's probably the best way to interpret the one-year mark, too. I'm excited we made it this far, but just a little sad. I'm looking at how there's still a lotof time, but every day that time gets a little bit shorter.

Blog Backlog

It's summer in Denmark! One of the things that means this year is the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibit, in which the art museum sets up a bunch of sculptures (you guessed it) by the sea. And in the forest, but I guess that doesn't sound as good.

Anyway, it was really cool! We got great weather, there were tons of people out and in a good mood, and we saw some interesting/cool/weird/neat sculpture. Here are some pictures:











We still like inside art too, though. We like it even more, now that Your Rainbow Panorama has opened on the top of our art museum (Aros). We've been watching them build it all year from our back window and we finally got to go up in it! More pictures to come later.

(This is the museum's picture of it)