Wednesday, January 2

Happy New Year, folks!

Well, we're back from our Christmas holiday in Denmark. Arrived at Gatwick last night at 8:00pm and took a National Express bus at 9:00. We were back in our apartment by 12:30am. Mixed feelings about being back. On the one hand, it's nice to be in our own domain and in our own bed and we're anxious to get the year started. On the other hand, the apartment is freezing (52 deg F with the heat off, 55-60 deg F with it on), the shower really sucks, and we have to drive on narrow roads with cars parked on one side so traffic can't actually pass normally. By the way, the house we were in for Christmas was built at the same time as this apartment building and it was nice and toasty, had good water pressure, and didn't have mold growing on the walls. Hmm.

Sorry, just had to get that off our collective chest. Anyway...

We were in Denmark from the 20th to the 1st, staying at my aunt's house. We had a really relaxing time (I'm pretty sure I didn't think about work even one time) and ate copious amounts of great home-cooked Christmas food and went to the local bakery almost every other day to get some real Danishes (so good they make you weak at the knees).

Christmas Eve was held at my cousin AB's house. She and her partner, M, prepared a tasty turkey with some Danish trimmings (like Brune kartofler). We had the traditional ris a la mande for dessert. K won the almond prize. Then we circled around the Christmas tree singing Danish Christmas hymns and carols (K even tried to sing along with the songbook). This is a tradition that you have to go through before the presents are given out. I was Santa's stand-in, distributing the presents from under the tree.

Christmas Day was spent at my aunt's house. We had a three course Danish Christmas lunch of pickled herring, smoked salmon, various cold cuts, then medister sausages and a pork roast with "Green-Long Kale". All swilled down with beer and Akvavit. Later in the day, we played a long game of Risk.

Until New Year's Eve, we pretty much just relaxed at my aunt's house, reading, watching tv, going for walks, doing a bit of shopping for Danish goodies to take home, etc. I bought some fireworks for New Year's, too. Fireworks are a big deal for New Year's in Europe. We had dinner at my aunt's house. It was a cozy little dinner with all of us around a raclette grill on the dining room table. We finished eating around 9, so we had to kill some time before midnight by doing the dishes, watching Queen Margrethe's New Year's speech, playing a card game, and then catching Dinner For One just before midnight. We toasted with authentic champagne and had the traditional Danish "kransekage" before going out to partake the fussillade of fireworks. K was amazed at how many there were flying up everywhere. Got to bed around 1:30.

All of us slept in the next day and had a very leisurely breakfast then K and I started packing our suitcases for the evening flight back to England. And here we are.

I'm heading back to work tomorrow and K is going to get back to her PhD. It's going to be an active year, so it was nice to have so it was nice to have a relaxing Christmas vacation.

*Please make sure to read the preceding blog entry, our year-in-review. And we'll be adding more pictures HERE soon.
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