The cursed holiday

New Years Eve is a cursed holiday for me. Every year something always happens to make it a train wreck of a night. What better way to welcome a new year? Not that I want to get into it, but in the past couple of years there was the time we thought my friend Justin was dead, the time I accidentally mixed prescription medicine with alcohol (sidenote, turns out I'm deathly allergic to amoxicillin), and then the fist fight between my two good friends; just so you know what we're dealing with. My friends and I have learned to look back at these and laugh (oh Justin, remember that time we thought you were dead? har har har), but I don't think I'll be laughing about this one for a long time. (The rest of the entry is me whining, so feel free to stop reading here).



The story is a simple one though. My family is nice enough I suppose, but being around each other for more than a few hours at a time begins to cause a lot of friction. Someone decided we had to go down to the Champs Elysees (though later there would be much arguing about whose stupid idea is had been with nobody eager to take credit). We sensibly decided that we would be able to make it across Paris in 15 minutes on New Years Eve and get over there with plenty of time to admire the Arc De Triomphe before the corks popped. During the four days we were there we typically spent as much time planning our route as actually in transit, however, this being our first night we argued 20 minutes prior to setting off and then the whole time on the train. It quickly became apparent that we weren't going to make it, and decided we didn't want to spend new years on the subway so we jumped out at the nearest stop and tried to follow the crowds hoping it would lead to some festivities. So now here we are, Paris, the city of love and fine wine, except we are under a bridge in the middle of nowhere because it started raining. We rung in 2008 much like we would spend the rest of our trip, arguing over a map. We looked for the train station we'd just come out of but couldn't find it again. Also being unable to locate a cab we began our long walk home shooting mental daggers at anyone smiling.

God Jul!

It's Christmastime in Denmark and I was lucky enough to spend it with Jeppe and his family. I don't know when I've felt more welcome, especially at the holidays.


Note the real candles on the tree. I guess I've always thought of this as pretty dangerous but I was assured at the most there has just been a little smoke and never any real fires. Sweet! Anyway safety is probably the last thing you're thinking about while dancing around the tree and singing songs.


The food was also pretty amazing. Traditional Danish cooking is sort of weird just in that it's pretty straight forward, but also pretty delicious. It almost seems equal parts taste and tradition. Kind of like drinking schnapps at julefrokost, it's gross, but you keep doing it anyways. Here is the classic mother and daughter generational cooking method.


This method is called "drink until it tastes good".


And here's what's cooking! Just look at that pan full of sugar. That's what I call cooking.


Now the meal winds down with lots of wine. And it's almost time for...


Rice pudding! Now there is a tradition in which somewhere in the giant serving bowl of rice pudding (which really was quite large) there is hidden a whole almond. If you end up with this almond, then you get a prize, so it is in your best interest to eat as much pudding as you possibly can so as to increase your odds. Now the tricky part, if you get the almond the idea is to hide it as long as possible so that everyone else gets sick trying to eat all the rest of the pudding too fast. Just to you know, add a little injury to insult.


And this is what it looks like when you win. I've played this game twice now, and have won both times. I figure the odds of this are around 1 in 64 so I pretty much rule. The first time I won I didn't know the hiding the almond thing but this time I made so to hold on to it as long as I could, but trying to hide an almond under your tongue is only comfortable for so long.


After dinner it was time for a visit from santa! It was met with joy and a little confusion, but in the end it works out for everyone.






Glædelig jul!

Thanksgiving

Well its a bit late so now I'm playing catch up. There is of course no thanksgiving in Denmark so this was just a little something to remind me of home. Happy thanksgiving!