The FAMILY invades CPH (and surrounding areas!) - Part I.

Look who came to viiiiisit!!

THE FAMILY INVADED COPENHAGEN! For a week and a half! SO many activities ensued. First and foremost...Gløgg :)

Even though the weather is kind of NOT so great (I'll elaborate on this later), Christmastime is the PERFECT time to visit Copenhagen. Gløgg (delicious mulled wine) and æbleskiver (mystery Danish Christmasy dessert!) are everywhere, Christmas markets are on literally almost every corner, and everyone is cozy and jolly :) We made a point to have gløgg every time we saw it advertised, and kind of ALMOST succeeded.

On their first Copenhagen-filled day, we climbed the ROUND TOWER. Thanks to Colleen, I now know that this lovely building was built by Christian IV and he implemented a slanted walkway instead of stairs leading up to the top so his HORSES could pull him. Lazy bum. Anyway, photography ensued of course :)

We also went to Nyhavn, where they have a LOVELY Christmas market set up. There are craft booths, lights, music, gløgg everywhere you look...NOTHING BETTER :) Copenhagen really does Christmas correctly. We had a great dinner, too!

The next day was BRUNCH day (a necessary aspect of Danish culture!). LOOK what we had:

Salmon, cheese, REALLY yummy bread, fruit yogurt, SMOOTHIE, and cappuccino. PRIME.

EXCITED TO EAT (Danny's taking the picture).

It was grand, and VERY filling. After this, I had to go to dumb class and they took a canal tour. Here's what Christmasy Nyhavn looks like in the daytime: (sorry for the lack of night pictures; use your imaginations) :)

The backs of the Christmas booths and the pretty garlands over the street :)

After class, I picked them up and we went to see Bob Dylan, Picasso, Matisse, and some other Danish modern artists at Statens Museum for Kunst. This was also my first time at this museum, and I'm very glad we fit it in. Picasso was kind of a weirdo, but that worked out for him in a pretty great way.

The next day (Wednesday), we went into Helsingør to visit Hamlet:

(IT WAS FREEZING)

We had an informative and VERY enthusiastic tour guide. I even used some of her facts on my Danish final the next day :)

Of course they had to see SWEDEN, so we hopped on the ferry and went into Helsingborg. We shopped, walked, and had Irish coffees to thaw out a little. It WORKED :)

That night, we had a wonderful WONDERFUL Christmas dinner (a little early, but we had to have Danish Christmas SOME time) with my visiting family :) They made REALLY yummy sugary buttery potatoes, pork (Danny ate at least 15 slices), gløgg (of course), Julbryg (Christmas beer!) and LOVELY conversation. We had traditional Danish rice almond pudding with warm cherry sauce for dessert. Everything was GREAT. I have the best Danish family! (AND real family, I suppose) :).

Thursday (Thanksgiving!) after I took a final that I studied VERY hard for (HA), we rented a car and drove on over to Lars and Karin's (visiting parents!) summer house in RURAL Denmark. The house is in a small town called Sæby, and it was a real treat to find! The area and house are BEAUTIFUL, though, and we wish we could have had more time there. However, we made good use of the time we had and, after a slightly stressful trip to the grocery store, had a very hygge, albeit unconventional Thanksgiving dinner :)

Danny hard at work!

Rach and Dan hard at work!

Mom hard at work?

Mmm pasta and green beans and wine :) AND candles!

The next day, we hung out in the cabin, listened to Christmas music (which was the first day of it's being OFFICIALLY acceptable by American standards), read, and made a delicious breakfast. That night, we headed back into the city and, picked up Emily, spontaneously watched a gospel choir and a TREE LIGHTING ceremony in Central Station, and went to...

Christmas in Tivoli! WHILE it was SNOWING! It was such a winter wonderland.

AHHHHH!

Well, this is really cool light show, but it's a LITTLE hard to tell.

Market and games to play and things!

Ohhhh YEAH.

COOL. Literally and figuratively.

Okay, there remains MUCH to tell about this visit (car pushing in a snowstorm, reindeer, Christiania wonderland, etc) BUT that'll be posted tomorrow. Promise! But, I figured I should get SOME of it out before the blog dies out. SO sorry I've been a terrible blogger this month. I WILL be better :) 

TRAVEL BREAK RECAP WILL COME!! ONE DAY!

Yet ANOTHER not QUITE travel-related post :)

HI. I reeealllly did have a big long blog all typed up last night about the first part of travel break in France, but the whole thing erased (magically?) somehow...before I got to post it :( I really would have throttled blogspot had that been an option. Anyway, it is now a project for later this weekend (the thing took me a good 3 hours to do!) and I'll try and have both weeks (France AND Italy) covered by then! WELL, there were some highly noteworthy occurrences this week, so I'll jot those down before this blog becomes obsolete.

I DID mention this already, but Copenhagen has become SANTA CLAUS CITY. Tivoli is all decked out, and there are garlands and wreaths and lights and cute little Christmas trees everywhere! Additionally, it gets dark by around 4 pm lately (oh the joys of living in a Nordic country! The Icelanders apparently only have 4ish hours of daylight at this point, which, according to my goofy Nordic Mythology teacher, "explains why Icelanders are the way they are."), so it's time to break out even more candles and blankets :) AND, this morning it SNOWED. I missed it (it was apparently around 9 am, and I got to sleep in until 10:30 today, SHUCKS), but it was supposedly the nasty sleety stuff that no one likes anyway.

Around Christmas time, the Danish breweries release special Christmas beers. Tuesday night, we sampled them along with Gløgg (Danish mulled wine) and HOMEMADE PIZZA! We also heated up some crepes with melted butter, and added some interesting combinations of honey and various jams (including KIWI jam! Delicious! And weird.). So Christmasy and Danish and cozy.

WELL, other than classes being classes and everyone not really being all that into school since travel break (myself of COURSE not included. HA.) Denmark has been Denmark and I love it more all the time! Today marks the first day of my last month abroad. I can't even believe it. Let's not talk about it.

Mom, Dad and Dan come to visit on Sunday! I'm SO SO EXCITED TO SEE THEM and can't wait to show them EVERYTHING. I'm already in the process of making an itinerary.

Tonight is the DIS mid-semester party! Yeeehaw! I'm off to get all dressy and cute and then to make dinner with some buddies :) PROMISE - the best France/Italy posts EVER! Soon!...Blame blogspot.

Good ol' CPH :)

I'M BACK! What a FANTASTIC past two weeks. But, it's good to be home. :) I didn't even forget which bus to take or which floor I live on! Impressive? Copenhagen is all decked out for Christmas. I am beyond excited about it.

I know this post doesn't quiiiite do my travel break justice. But I'm sleepy, so I promise a compelling and detailed report, pictures and all, very soon :)

WAHOO :)

A preview of what's to come...

A glimpse into these next two weeks! :)

Beaune, France

Florence, Italy

Lyon, France

Nice, France

Rome, Italy

Paris, France

Venice, Italy

For some reason they didn't come up in the right order; in JUST a few hours, Miss Emily Graham and I will be flying into PARIS to hang out with CHRIS all weekend :) Then we'll go with Jordy and Lauren to Beaune and Nice. After this, I'm heading to Lyon ALONE (AH!) to meet up with Ari for the day! After Lyon, I'll take a train into Rome, where I'll meet up with Sarah and we'll hit up Florence and Venice over the next week :)

After much deliberation, I decided to bring my computer so I'd have a place to dump photos. Therefore, there's a chance I'll do some blogging along the way! I'll do my best; if not, expect a SERIES of colossal posts when I return on November 14th (CHRISTMAS TIME will be in full swing back in Copenhagen by then, hopefully!). Anyway, wish me luck!! :)

LOVE YOU BYE!!

A little more WOOSTER in CPH!

GUESS who came to visit this weekend :)

ERYN!! She popped on down to Copenhagen all the way from Reykjavik for the weekend :) It was SO great to see her!! We had all kinds of fun planning her visit (we presented her with a printed itinerary upon her arrival!).

Friday evening, Eryn, Emily, and I made dinner and spent time with Emily's host dad. He's so great (even though he DID mention that his favorite part of the United States was ARKANSAS because it reminds him of France. Just HOW many things are wrong with that statement?!). We had a lovely time sitting and chatting, drinking wine and eating yummy food.

After coffee, cake, and some good old Danish TV, we accompanied him to hear his coworker's band at a cute little cafe in the meatpacking district (COOLEST area! AND it's right by my apartment!). The band was a lot of fun, as was the general atmosphere. Before we knew it, we were closing down the bar!

DISCO!

Sparkly pink drum sets make any performance better.

The band! (Can't remember the name, oops)

This was the BEST NIGHT! It was GREAT catching up with Eryn and hearing all about her Icelandic life, as well as getting to know Emily's host dad! He was hilarious and very easy to talk to, and I already plan on going back to their home to meet the rest of her host family.

Taking Eryn to the Deer Park was a MUST, so that took up most of Saturday. The fall colors were beautiful and the deer did not disappoint! I'm so glad we got to see some BIG GUYS with the ANTLERS :)

He ran across the road RIGHT in front of us!

It was also some kind of organized kite flying day! It was fantastic; everyone was flying some kind of themed or generic kite. Some were quite creative, and I noticed that Toy Story kites were surprisingly popular!

They were playing King of the Hill (rock?); I HAD to photograph it.

It's a frog kite!

After the Deer Park (must've walked FIVE MILES in there! We were there for hours!), it was time for some Mexican food and THEN...

Tivoli in October is huge masses of ALL the Halloween decorations EVER - lit up, painted and piled on top of each other. But in a classy way! There was a lovely Halloween market set up, a corn maze, performances, people endearingly dressed as witches, etc. The rides were also still open! Were it not for Eryn's visit I'm sure we wouldn't have made it over there before it closed until its Christmas market opening (SO excited for that!! AH!), so this worked out well for everyone :)

Flying swings - Eryn, Emily, et. al. are somewhere on there :)

Testin' out the new PLAYSTAION! DANCE style.

Tivoli is phenomenal; I love that it does goofy seasonal openings and I CANNOT wait for the Christmas market. My goodness.

The third thing on my Eryn's "MUST SEE in CPH" list (along with the Deer Park and Tivoli) was Christiania, so that was Sunday's activity! We walked through the markets (barely resisting spending billions of kroner on snuggly wool socks and super cool t shirts), wandered through the residential areas by the lake, and played in the child's play area :)

We had dinner at the cute little restaurant I've started going to EVERY time I go to Christiania:

Not so attentive, but I like the hanging beads :)

After finishing the night with the best hot chocolate in the WORLD, we headed home for the night. Another very wonderful day with our favorite Eryn :)

Monday wasn't nearly as exciting as the previous few days; it IS worth noting, however, that I cranked out an eight-page paper in one night (it isn't a half bad paper, either, if I do say so myself!). Eryn left us Tuesday afternoon after a lovely morning coffee date. Miss her already :(

Unfortunately, the workload is actually existent and then some this week, most likely because it's the last week before our two week travel break (EEK!). I have a Danish oral midterm tomorrow, which should be... highly interesting. We'll see how it goes; I've been muttering random Danish phrases under my breath ALL DAY, so if that doesn't prepare me, nothing will. 

We studied at Cafe Paludan today - I'm seriously kicking myself for not discovering this place earlier in the semester! Very "hyggeligt" - candles, books, and warm food are a few of my favorite things in life, and here they were all in one place :)

I'll try to squeeze in another update or so before leaving for PARIS on Friday (they'd better have cleaned up all that trash from those goofy protests in the streets by the time I arrive!).

Hav en god dag! 

(...After a full day of studying, I've concluded that written Danish is just poorly spelled English)