December 17-- Advent at ADAFT 2015!

Danes love the sun. It's clearly a case of "absence makes the heart grow fonder". The best way to enjoy moments of sunshine it to run out into your garden and take off all (or most, if you're shy) of your clothes. It doesn't matter if it's only 50 degrees and weak, watery sunshine.

So, imagine our parental pride this morning when C asked what we were going to do today. We told her that it would be warm and pretty sunny, so we might spend some time in the garden. C thought about it a bit, and said: "And we'll take off our clothes!". She's leaps and bounds ahead of us in adopting Danish culture.

Summer: Solstice, Sankt Hans, and Students

June is a busy time in Denmark, when we're either having summer or pretending to have summer.  If the weather is good, you can bet that every Dane around will be leaving work early to sunbathe in the park with sausages on the grill and a beer in hand.  If the weather is not good, everyone will still go to the beach, stay out late eating ice cream, etc--but wear raincoats the whole time.

When we're feeling disappointed in the weather, I like to remind myself that summer doesn't officially start until June 21, the solstice.  (So all those cold, rainy, windy days in June don't really count).  Everyone knows the solstice is the longest day of the year, and here it's pretty darn long.  I know we've written about it before, but 20 hours of visible light, when the sun neither rises nor sets, bears mentioning again.

Sculpture by the Sea 2015.

Considering the Danish "summer" weather, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that the big Danish midsummer festival prominently features bonfires.  June 23 is Sankt Hans Aften-- a strange holiday that blends ancient magical rites with the saints' day of John the Baptist, June 24th.  John the Baptist is known as "Johannes Døberens" in Danish, and his name is easily shortened to "Hans."  And since the 23rd is the night before his day, it's called Sankt Hans Aften-- or Eve.  Notice that that date is exactly six months before Christmas Eve and consider that the Gospel of John says of Jesus, "He must become greater, I must become less."  It's nicely poetic--after John the Baptist's day, the days grow shorter and shorter until midwinter (Christmas), when they become longer again.

Typical Danish Sankt Hans weather.

But everyone imagines it'll actually be like this.

Shortly after all this hullabaloo, it's time for graduation.  In Danish this is known as "becoming a student."  I don't know why, since it seems to me like when one stops being a student.  Suddenly the streets are full of young people wearing funny hats.  Unlike at American graduations, students here proudly wear their hats all the time for a week or so, and it's customary to greet and congratulate the people you see wearing them--even if you don't know them at all.

One of my lovely students.

Not only that, but the new students celebrate their student-ness with a long tour around the city, typically in a decked-out vintage wagon.  They'll spend all day driving from one home to another, making sure to visit the parents of every student in the graduating class.  The parents are responsible for providing drinks and sausages (has anyone else noticed that virtually nothing in Denmark can happen without a sausage?) and taking many, many pictures.  The students are responsible for sitting in the trucks making lots of noise and waving at everybody they see, but fortunately not for actually driving the vehicles.

C describes these as "the noisy buses.  Dyt, dyt!"

Summertime?

Here in Denmark we don't have Daylight Savings, as such.  Instead we change the clocks twice a year, in late October and late March.  From October to March we have Vintertid, winter-time.  And from March to October, it's Sommertid, summer-time. 

In a way, this is hopelessly optimistic, since March in Denmark is not especially balmy or sunny.  And yet, there's something true about it.  Of course we get the extra hour of light in the evenings, and it comes right when the days have actually started getting longer-- just over 13 hours long this week.  And if you've ever been to Denmark in the summer, then you know the evening light is special in a heart-breakingly nostalgic, Nordic sort of way.  And when Sommertid starts, that kind of light starts up too.

Despite the special summer light, it is actually just becoming spring.  The first sign of spring here is when the crocuses start popping up.  Some years they have to fight their way up through the snow, but when you see them carpeting Rådhusparken and the grounds of Vor Frue Kirke, then it's springtime in Aarhus.

  

It's getting warm enough now that C and I have been finding lots of ladybugs--more and more each day.  Today we found nearly 100 mariehøns!  Luckily we know the Danish rhyme to say when we find them:

Marie, Marie, Marolle
Flyv op til Vorherre og bed om godt vejr. 

Marie, Marie, Marolle.

Fly up to Our Lord and pray for good weather.

So far it's working!

December 7--Advent at ADAFT 2014!

 When I was a little girl my mom and I watched White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney every year.  Not only that, but we had Bing's Christmas album of the same name (yes, it was an LP) and listened to it all through December.  So even though we've mentioned White Christmas on the blog before, I'm bringing it up again because for me, it's the sound of Christmas past.

Since we moved to Denmark, we've only had one actual white Christmas, though we have had plenty of snow.  I read last week that on average Aarhus only gets a white Christmas once every 12 years.  That's OK, though--some of us are still hoping!

Snow!

I'm pretty sure some of you think that since we live in Scandinavia, every winter is an endless frolic with reindeer through a magical Narnian snowscape.  This, sadly, is untrue.  We live on the east coast of Denmark and have mild winters (well, mild in Scandinavian terms; not mild if you live in Arizona or California).  It's a lot more freezy rain and a lot less seal hunting than you were imagining.

We do wear furry boots though.

And it does snow!  This winter was just extra mild, but we got some real good, sticky snow this week.  Obviously we had to take little C out to frolic in it since she probably doesn't remember her snow baptism from last winter.  (Maybe she does remember how when we came back from the States last April, it continued snowing for another two weeks.  Two weeks!  Mild--hmmph).

I'm also pretty sure that you're wondering when I'll stop blathering on and just post some cute pictures of babies in the snow.  So here they are.

Snow, huh?

Yeah! Snow! I dig it.

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you.”

What is this mysterious art of snow balling?

I love it! Throw them at Dad!

Good. Snow didn't wreck the playground

Yay! The swing works too

You swing too.

Summer Sky

B took this photo of the early morning sky from our living room window.  I love it and want you to see it too.

Summer Music Festival!

Oh, we are the worst bloggers. 

Moving on--summer is music festival time in Denmark.  Think Woodstock, but smaller, less hippie, more chipper Danes, and about equal amounts of mud.  Possibly more beer; it's hard to say.

If you wanted to, you could just tour around Denmark all summer, camping and listening to bands of various degrees of famous-ness in different fields.  It would be expensive, and you'd have drunk a lot of Tuborg, and you'd probably pick up some nasty tummy bug, but you would gain a lot of Northern European youth cred.

(Of course, if you wanted to spend the summer in Denmark, you should just come visit us, your lonely American friends and their lovely baby, instead).

Northside Festival was more than a month ago already (see above) but it is actually so close to our apartment that we can hear the music and meet the cheerful concert-goers on our bike path.  This inspired us--yes, you now know about Emmilie de Forest, but what about other Scandinavian musicians?  Probably you don't know them!  Probably you should!  Here are our top picks, which should be enjoyed with beer and ice cream, preferably in the rain.

Agnes Obel.  (Danish). Impossible to miss if you ever eat sandwiches or ice cream; every Danish cafe owner loves her debut album "Riverside."

The Tallest Man on Earth.  (Swedish).  I know I'm always singing his praises, but he is just so good.  NPR agrees.  I think "Leading Me Now" has a nice summer evening feel.

Avicii.  (Swedish).  B is the one who first cottoned on to this guy, who is actually at several festivals this summer, but I picked this song, "Wake Me Up."

Tina Dickow.  (Danish).  She's from Aarhus!  But it was too cozy for her here (I'm serious, this is in print), so she ran off to the big city before making it big.  My current favorite is "In the Red."

Finally Forår!

Yes, dear readers, it's true!  Spring has come to Denmark at last!

Here's photographic proof.

Also, we know it's spring because yesterday at the farmer's market we bought flotte danske jordbaer, and rhubarb too.  Which means only one thing--strawberry rhubarb crumble tonight!

Just in case you're not totally tuned into the Europop phenomenon, I'll also report that Denmark won the Eurovision Song Contest this year!  (This is a BIG DEAL). Stort tilykke, Emmilie de Forest.  You can see her performance below.  Thanks to her, Denmark will be hosting the contest next year!

Sure It Looks Good Now...

Today has been a beautiful day in Denmark.  Sunny (mostly... well, some of the time anyway) and warm--a high of 21 C!

We went to the forest and the beach.  There were a non-zero number of naked Danes at the beach.  This was not a surprise.  Today pretty much marked the epic high of summer weather that any Dane would hope for.

That's OK with me; I've adjusted enough to know that if it's nice, we just have to go for it!  And if it's not, it is perfectly acceptable to gripe.  Danes love to complain about their terrible weather.  It's like a national joke.

Here, in fact, is a recent cartoon by the Danish duo Wulffmorgenthaler.  It appeared this week in the newspaper Politiken.  Wulffmorgenthaler sometimes write in English; sometimes in Danish--I almost always think they're hilarious.  So, here's what they have to say about Scandinavia this week.

And while we're talking about pork, the Scandinavegan will be back soon with news on the best vegan eats in Copenhagen!  So stay tuned!

On Optimism

It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”

Today B and I were bemoaning the "wintry mix." If you're lucky enough not to know what that is, it's when it rains and snows and maybe sleets all at the same time. Now the wintry mix has turned to snow, which is certainly an improvement, but also kind of a disappointment since we were thinking maybe spring was coming soon.

(According to the Danes, it already is spring, since March 1st is always the first day of spring! I guess that also shows a certain optimism).

Anyway, we're thinking about how we'll go to Holland soon and see the tulips and wait for spring to come to Denmark. And we're also thinking, well, we haven't had any earthquakes recently either.

5K Festivity

It's been an embarrassingly long time since the last time we've blogged, but that's just because we've been busy having adventures for you, dear reader. Today, we're going to bring you up to date on B's birthday and a fantastic Scandinavian tradition, all in one post!

For B's birthday, we had a party themed around "5K". That stands for "koldt" (cold), "kaffe" (coffee), "kakao" (hot chocolate), "kage" (cakes, broadly construed to mean any sweet baked thing) and "kubb" (description follows). You can see why Danish is such an awesome language now - alliteration is so easy!

Kubb is typically a warm weather game, but "varm" doesn't start with "k", so we had to make some allowances. In any case, after all the dark and snow, we were excited about going outside to play a game, even if it was a bit cold. Kubb . . . how can we explain it? It's like if Vikings played croquet. There are two teams, and they take turns throwing sticks at the opposing team's wooden blocks. A full description can be found here. The rules that came with our set also helpfully recommend that one should play kubb "like a Viking, not like a lawyer".

We bundled up and headed out to Skanseparken, where boys played girls in a rousing match. It's not important who won. After one match, we were all pretty cold, so we headed right back in for board games, hot drinks, and cookies. And that time everybody won!

Croatian M makes a hot play!

E lets fly a stick!

PS--Happy birthday to B! And special thanks to American P, who gets the photo credit for this post.

ROYGBIV and HB EM PSA

Denmark is often quite grey.  Grey sky, grey sea, grey trees.  It's pretty in a sort of stark, cold way, but sometimes you need a little something more.

That's when we like to go up in "Your Rainbow Panorama," the huge art installation on top of ARoS Kunstmuseum.  You walk around in a giant tunnel of colored glass (designed by our favorite half-Danish artist, Olafur Eliasson) and look at the views of Aarhus in every hue.  B really likes the yellow panes; he says if you look through them, it looks sunny and warm!

Well, it wasn't sunny and warm yesterday.  In fact, it snowed.  But I thought that looked pretty cool outside, and it might look even cooler from my rainbow panorama.  Here's the virtual view.

 

 

 

 

Also, in exciting news, Denmark beat Spain last night in the European Championship semifinals for men's handball!  So we're on to the finals tomorrow at 5 PM Danish time.  Handball is super fun and exciting to watch, so we recommend tuning in if you can.  In Denmark you can watch live on TV2, but maybe you can find it somewhere on the internet too.  Cheer loudly and drink beer!

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.

Two Take in Tulips

It's spring! Well, it's almost spring if you're American and have been taught that spring begins on March 21st. If you're Danish, though, you know that spring begins on March 1st, so even if it's snowing and raining at the same time, it's totally reasonable to ditch your hat and eat ice cream. If you're a studious scientific type, searching for hard evidence to back up claims of spring, you might be kind of disappointed.

But.

There is good news. There are more birds! And there are tulips! Like me, Danes love all bulb flowers. They are everywhere. Observe and rejoice.

Here's a tiny bonus farmers' market next to Domkirken.

This Danish man is rightfully proud of his wares.

Tulips and daffodils for sale on Strøget.

B peruses the display outside a fancy Danish florist. Danish florists are all super classy.

This florist has "Excellent Fresh Danish Tulips!"

Because the thing is, as the great H. C. Andersen said,
"At leve er ikke nok, man må have solskin, frihed og en lille blomst."

Or, for my English-speaking friends,
"Just living is not enough, one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

We'll All Be There With Snow

Snow! It's snowing right now--hasn't stopped all morning, and this is the third day of it.

We always pass this windmill on the way to Danish class.


My favorite parking lot in Denmark. See how you have to park your car between the trees?


In the Botanisk Have, or Botanical Gardens


I'm so brave about the cold! (But only when wearing multiple layers of wool. In this picture, wool pants, two sweaters, a coat, scarf, and hood. Go sheep!)


B is naturally tough and cheerful.

OK, so it's kind of cheating to take pictures of Den Gamle By, but there really are buildings just as old and picturesque as these in Midtbyen, or the downtown.

All this snow just makes me want to hygger myself! I'm planning a cozy (or as the Danes say, cosy) afternoon with tea and knitting--what better way to spend Thanksgiving in Denmark? I hope all of you have a happy and cozy holiday too!

Glaedelig Jul!

The Christmas season has begun in Denmark!

How do we know? Because there are more candles than usual, everyone is drinking "Juleøl," and we have been invited to at least three Julefrokoster. (A Julefrokost is literally a Christmas lunch, but these days it's pretty much just a drunken pre-Christmas revel of great cultural significance).

It all really begins with "J-Dag," the day on which one is officially permitted to begin drinking Christmas beer. This year it was on Sunday, 7 November.

This might seem really early. But consider that here in Denmark, we went off of "Sommertid," or daylight savings, on 31 October. So it's basically dark all the time now. You really need a special beer and some extra candles to make up for that.

Juleøl. It's special beer. It has licorice in it. Not in chunks, just licorice flavor, along with barley and hops and stuff. It's pretty good. (Dane-ification is clearly progressing nicely if I've just endorsed a licorice flavored beer).

The big business, though, is Julefrokoster. Every possible entity has one. Families, businesses, departments, apartments, etc. B and I attended our apartment buildings' Julefrokost last night, and we have plans for the biology Julefrokost, the computer science Julefrokost, and the International Club Julefrokost. (That's also why you have to start early).

It's hard for us to say if last night's Julefrokost was traditional. Some people said it wasn't; that if it had been traditional, there would have been a lot more meat and fish. (There was still a lot of meat and fish). Also, nobody drank schnapps or gløgg. (There was still a lot to drink). And it was not, in fact, at lunchtime. (Nobody cares about this. You can have Julefrokost at pretty much any time of day, I think). It was a good time.

Some people told us that you can count on Danes pretty much giving up all of their habitual reserve at Christmas lunches and airing all their dirty laundry. The day after, of course, everyone will pretend none of it happened. So we went into the whole thing pretty excited. Nobody told us about their secret lovechild or Swiss bank account, but they did tell us what they don't like about Denmark--and Danes don't like to criticize Denmark, especially in front of foreigners.

As I write this, it's 2:45, so the sun is setting. Then again, B claims it never really rose. But we can't complain too much, because Friday night we exited the cinema (Harry Potter #7! Of course we were there!) and it was snowing as we walked home. It was perfectly picturesque.

It's not snow, and it's not (technically) at night. But it is out our window and it does look great.

All this talk about Christmas lunches always reminds me of something, and it's so charming and hilarious that I really want to share it. It's the Vicar of Dibley "Christmas Lunch Incident." Go find it online and watch it. (Try youtube.) And stay tuned all the way past the end credits so you can hear the Vicar tell her joke. (Especially you, R. I know you will love the Vicar and her classy jokes).

Whistling in the Dark

You know what time it gets dark here? 4 PM, that's when.

OK, the weather website claims that sunset today was officially at 4:13 PM. But what I know is this. Yesterday I walked to my knitting club. When I left the house it was pretty dark, and when I got there, just after 4, it was really dark. Night dark.

Tomorrow will be 3 minutes and 58 seconds shorter.

I'm just going to have to walk everywhere whistling this little tune. And remind myself that as of today, it's only 38 days until the Solstice.

Legoland!

Last weekend we were lucky enough to be gifted with some free tickets to Legoland! (That's the original Danish Legoland. Legos are Danish, you know). So we hopped on a bus to Billund and rode all the way to Syddanmark.

We were joined by B's colleague, French J, and his girlfriend Lithuanian A. (Sorry, I know this is getting complicated, but we already have a J and an A. And we have to protect the identities of the innocent).

The bus trip was about an hour and 45 minutes. The bus picked us up just across the street from our apartment, drove through Silkeborg, stopped at the Billund Airport, and then dropped us off approximately at Legoland. Actually it was about a kilometer away, in the middle of a field, but we didn't mind, even though it was about 7 Celsius and raining. (That's because we're practically real Danes now. Cold and wet? No, pleasantly soggy and refreshing! Brisk!)

At first, we thought the key attraction would be Miniland, a huge replica of famous locations all built out of Legos. It was in fact very cool.

Look at all the windmills!

Copenhagen harbor

Anyone recognize this location? E did! (Answer at the end of post).

A little piece of home

But Legoland has a lot more going on than just awesome models. They have boats you can ride as you tour the models! And the boats are made of Legos!

Never thought I'd be on a Legoboat! (That's French-J and Lithuanian-A behind us!)

On our second boat ride of the day! Watch out for sharks!

We made some new friends, too.

B gets cozy with a Legolady.

E poses with a genuine ancient Egyptian. Hey, doesn't he remind you of this guy?

At the end of it all was a pretty impressive Lego store. Of course, they had all of the sets you could ever want, but they also had these:

Legos in bulk! (Look closely - they're actual Lego people parts!)

B is overwhelmed

Our day ended with some excitement. We weren't entirely sure where to catch the bus back (perhaps because we'd just been abandoned in a field earlier?) and it was the last one of the day. B and French J asked at a help desk, and discovered--oh joy! that the alleged stop was a mere 200 meters away. This seemed surprising as it was nowhere near where we'd disembarked that morning.

Well, we walked along for about 200 meters and came to a bus stop... that wasn't ours. No 913 X bus at that stop! After briefly reviewing our options, we decided to go search for another bus stop somewhere in the vicinity of the morning's drop-off point. Sadly, no sign of a returning bus stop did we see. So, with only about 12 minutes before the bus was supposed to come, we decided that our best bet was to walk (really fast) to Billund Airport. We could see it in the distance and knew it to be not more than 2 km from Legoland. Well, after tearing across the Danish countryside for just about 2 km, we made it in the nick of time! Exciting stuff.

* The mystery location? Norre Vorrepoer - home of the Nordsoe Akvariet, made famous in a previous ADAFT post!