It wasn’t as cold as it has been over the last few weeks so I took a walk over to Greenpoint today to mail a few letters and shop for soup ingredients. I am making a potato-cauliflower soup tonight and I needed to pick up the cauliflower and garlic but ended up also getting chives and an extra bag of potatoes.
It was a good walk. On the way I passed: a house that looks like it could have been home to Norman Bates, some groovy street art and a little delivery truck with a mustache drawn on it’s back.
Groovy street art aside I actually didn’t intend on going to Greenpoint today. I needed to mail a couple letters and it was the nearest post office to me.
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Well I am happy to report my Danish is coming along nicely. It was a wise move to start taking classes! You can only go so far on your own and I feel it really helps to be amongst other people struggling with learning a new language. One thing I did not expect from taking a Danish class is how much I have learned about my own language. I never thought about why we say things the way we do in English. It’s been challenging but also a lot of fun.
The people in my class are very diverse. Everyone is learning the language for a different reason, but we all have one thing in common-we all enjoy learning about Danish culture. Our teacher is from Copenhagen, her name is Camilla (it seems-all girls are named Camilla in Scandinavia) and she is very sweet, but tough! She really forces us to speak Danish since almost of the class is taught in Danish.
Overall, the experience has been very positive and I intend to stick with it. I will keep you posted on my progress!
I have a friend visiting from Denmark right now and we have been doing a lot of walking around the city. Yesterday, we caught the Gay Pride parade down in the West Village. It was so much fun!!
The energy was electric, so many happy people. I love watching the drag queens and many creative floats (a lot of gay marriage themed). By the time we reached the parade it had been going for about 5 hours and still no end in sight.
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Just returned from a lovely visit home. I took some pics of my mom’s lovely lawn and garden. This is the front.
And here is a picture of part of the back garden.
I mowed both lawns and was quite proud of myself! I also did some lawn repair on the back. Hope it grows! Mom said she would send a photo. :>
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Today was a really nice day. The sun was shining and blue skies as far as the eye could see. I was happy to get get a phone call from my friend Dan inviting me to lunch in Chinatown. Dan (a.k.a. Gastrodomus) is a total foodie. I have enjoyed many fine and memorable meals with Dan. He makes it not just fun but a learning experience.You can see Dan here photographing our yummy Vietnamese lunch.
After lunch, Dan took me on a little tour of unknown Chinatown. OK maybe not completely unknown to most New Yorkers but I can honestly say I had never been to some of these streets. The best thing about the tour is NO TOURISTS! I had never been down the street you see here. And see the couple in the corner? They were actually being photographed for what I can only assume was a engagement photo, since there was a lot of canoodling going on for the camera.
After some walking around we decided since the weather was so great we needed to have a our first ice cream cone of the season. So Dan took me to Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. It was super yummy and well worth the wait. I guess everyone else had the same thought we did.
Overall, a fantastic day!
Was walking home from a sunny day in Chinatown and saw this pink unicorn in atop a mound of junk. It was so odd and out of place, I had to take a picture of it. It kind of looks like a hippo. Can hippos be unicorns?
Well today was my last day in Copenhagen (at least until warmer weather comes!) and it was lovely spent with a new friend. We walked all around Copenhagen revisiting some of my favorite sites and exploring some one new ones. I have always wanted to go up in the Rundetaarn or “Round Tower”, an old 15th century astronomical observatory. 
Instead of stairs, you climb a spiral walk to the top of the tower.
When you climb to the top you can see the whole city of Copenhagen. It was a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. Farvel Copenhagen! See you when the sun is shining again. :>
Well just three more weeks til I head back to New York so I’ve decided to get out of the city and take a short trip to Århus to visit with my friend Bjørn. I was there just over a year ago and am looking forward to visiting again.
Fun Facts about Århus:
*The second largest city in Denmark.
*Was first settled by Vikings, who called it “Aros,” an Old Norse word meaning “river mouth.
*One of Scandinavia’s oldest cities.
I was riding my bike to Nørrebro (the northern district of Copenhagen) yesterday to meet a friend, when suddenly I saw a group of children dressed up in costumes and smacking the hell out of something that looked like a wooden box. Being a seasoned New Yorker, I am used to seeing people on the streets dressed in all sorts of costumes and sometimes wearing nothing at all , so I quickly forgot about it after a few blocks or so. Later that day as I was when I enjoying some hygge with my roommates at home, I mentioned to them what I had saw. They explained that Sunday is the Danish children’s holiday, Fastelavn, similar but not entirely the same as our Halloween. Fastelavn is actually on Sunday the 22nd of February but the kids also celebrate at school, just as American kids would if Halloween fell on a weekend.
I found a brief explanation of Fastelavn on wiki here it is:
“Fastelavn occurs seven weeks before Easter Sunday and is sometimes described as a Nordic Halloween with children dressing up in costumes and gathering treats for the Fastelavn feast. The holiday is generally considered to be a time for children’s fun and family games.Traditional events include slå katten af tønden (“hit the cat out of the barrel”), which is somewhat similar to a piñata, except that there is a wooden barrel, which is full of candy and has the image of a cat on it. Historically there was a real black cat in the barrel, and beating it was superstitiously considered a safeguard against evil. After the candy pours out, the game continues until the entire barrel is broken. The one who knocks down the bottom of the barrel (making all the candy spill out) becomes kattedronning (“queen of cats”), the one who knocks down the last piece of the barrel becomes kattekonge (“king of cats”).”
Poor cats! Actually, felines are no longer the sad victims of Fastelavn festivities. Instead of putting the cat in the barrel, children are now satisfied with a painted version on the side of the candy-filled barrel.
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So if anyone is reading (Hi Mom and Dad!) you may have noticed my blog’s new look. Since I have moved to Copenhagen I have been obsessed with how many swans they have here! It’s their national bird and you see them everywhere. My friend Camilla officially put me in “Swan Rehab” the first week I was here after an overdose of swan picture taking. But now I am out and like any addict worth their salt I am back on the (swan) stuff.
You can see how many of them there are. I’m not talking about a few swans here and there, I am talking about swans everywhere! And they are huge, massive creatures. You can see their long swany heads from a kilometer away. And when they come in for a landing-watch out! They make a huge splash when they hit the water. They are not only beautiful but they are mesmerizing to me. In America you may see one or two on a lake and that is something special but here, there are so many of them people hardly give them a second glance. I am sure you can see why I am so fascinated by them. Oh no, I think they call this a relapse, back to swan rehab for me. :>
