Focaccia is my new favorite food.

Do you like...
  hiking  ✔
  pasta  ✔
  wine  ✔
  the sea  ✔
  gelato  ✔
  charming villages  ✔
  friendly people  ✔
?

Then, search no further for your next vacation spot...Cinque Terre is your heaven.  David and I took advantage of the extra, extra long weekend over Easter in Denmark and spent a few days saying "Scusi, non parlo italiano" and stuffing ourselves with focaccia as we hiked through Cinque Terre National Park.

The name means "Five Lands" and comes from the five small villages sitting along the coast of the Mediterranean.  The villages are surrounded by the national park, and there's no cars allowed through the small streets (like they would fit, anyway).

Stepping off the bus into Portovenere

We started at the southern end of the Cinque Terre region

Hiking around Isola Palmaria just off the
coast of Portovenere

in Portovenere with its tall colorful houses built close together to help fend off pirate attacks back when...well...back whenever pirates still attacked these villages.  The village isn't technically one of the "official" five lands, but it oozed plenty of charm (and Italian food) nonetheless.  We met Giuseppe and Donatella who made us feel so welcome at their restaurant/guesthouse despite them not speaking much English and our lousy attempts at speaking a (very) limited vocabulary of Italian.  We knew Giuseppe was a good chef when even I could say that I liked the seafood he cooked (in all honesty, I liked some but not really all of the seafood dishes, but I tried, ok?).



From Portovenere, the plan was to walked northwest along the coast and end up in Riomaggiore (the southernmost of the official Cinque Terre villages) for the night.  Well, we did end up in Riomaggiore for the night, but it was after about two hours hiking through a light drizzle, about 30 minutes hiking through some soaking rain, attempting to fuel ourselves with focaccia in Campiglia (the halfway point) but ultimately deciding to wimp out and take the bus/train the rest of the way, making puddles in the fancy restaurant that also was the only place in Campiglia to buy bus tickets, buying french fries from the McDonalds (I know, I know, don't judge) at the train station in an effort to get some warmth back in our bodies, and ultimately ending up in Riomaggiore as the clouds cleared and the sun returned (of course).

Looking back towards Portovenere and Isola Palmaria from
the trail...it's about to get wet

Starting the hike from Portovenere past the old
castle wall and towers

Waiting for the bus and trying to warm up

We found the trail into Riomaggiore that we
would have taken if we hadn't wimped out

Fortunately for us, the weather redeemed itself the next day as we made our way from Riomaggiore through Manorola, Corniglia, and Vernazza and ended up in Monterosso al Mare.  Cinque Terre knows how to do hiking: start in one village...hike a couple hours to the next village and eat some focaccia...hike to the next village and eat some gelato...keep hiking to the next village and break for some wine overlooking the water...then end your hike in the last village with a dinner of pesto and homemade limoncello.  As much as I enjoy PB&J while hiking, I think this way is my new favorite.  The trails wound through the villages and the vineyards that overlooked them, and I definitely got in my stairmaster workout for like...the entire year but all while enjoying breathtaking coastal scenery instead of looking at other sweaty people in the gym.

There was a lot of this...

...and then a lot of this

Most times, we go for a hike to get away from civilization, but here I think the villages only added to the loveliness of the place.  The tall, colorful houses, the narrow streets, the sense that the villages are about to tumble down into the water.  They served as very conveniently-spaced pitstops to fuel up on exactly the carb-loaded food I like.  Not to mention the generous, hospitable people who welcomed us into their hotels and guesthouses (and are lucky enough to live in this beautiful place).  Sign me up for that any day.

Finishing the last stretch before Monterosso

The only thing we managed to bring back to less-than-tropical Denmark from this lovely corner of the Mediterranean was a fresh lemon snagged from one of the ubiquitous fruit trees.  Well, the lemon and legs that ached for three days every time I tried to walk up or down stairs.

#5 of 5...The End!

One year in.

So before we close out March and head full on into spring, we have a big anniversary to celebrate here.  The Gerhardts officially made it through one whole year on the Jutland peninsula back on March 11.

These pictures aren't really related to the blog post, but a post
with no pictures is kinda boring.

I don't know what you're thinking, but what I'm thinking is "What the heck?  It's been a whole year already?"  I'm pretty sure this has been the fastest year of my life.  New places, new people, new language, new foods, new job, new apartment...I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that it all seemed to go by so fast.  But it's hard for me to believe that it's been a year since we moved because I still feel kinda new here.  I think part of it's because I'm still not really comfortable with the language.  But a bigger part is probably because, no matter how long I've been here, I'm living in a culture that is not the culture/society that I'm most familiar with.  There will always be things that just seem weird to people who did not grow up Danish.

I'm currently reading a book called "How to Be Danish", but since I don't plan on changing my name to Mette or dying my hair blond (and the book is really more of observations on Danish culture than an instruction manual), I'll just have to be glad that I can now make it through a grocery store trip without feeling illiterate and I can at least tolerate the salty black licorice.

We caught the train down to Rold Skov/Rebild Bakker
which is a huge forest south of Aalborg.

And there are some things that I really like here.  Off the top of my head (meaning this is not a complete list but just what came to mind right now)...
The bike infrastructure is great, and traveling by train is actually a viable option (unlike in most parts of the US).  Paid vacation days, paid sick days, maternity leave, flex-time, and working from home seem to come standard with most jobs and aren't things that you have to negotiate in your employment contract.  The wonderful hours of glorious sunlight in the summer almost make me forget about my winter time complaints.  And the pastries...oh the pastries...how did I live without hindbærsnitter for 28 years of my life?  That thing Americans call a Danish is a complete insult to deliciousness that I have enjoyed over the past year.  And the beaches...definitely a nice surprise.

But for all the chocoladeboller that have blessed my stomach in the past 12 months, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't miss some things from the USA.  Like Mexican food.  And mountains.  The American kind of football.  Turning lights on by flipping them up instead of down.  120V kitchen appliances.  And being around people who have known me for longer than a year.

It's not the Rocky Mountains, but you definitely can't complain.

That last one is hard.  As someone who's pretty extroverted (surprise!), I enjoy meeting new people and hearing their stories.  And when you're a foreigner in a country, you tend to meet a lot of other foreigners in that country.  So I've been able to meet people from all over the world here and learn how similar and different their stories are from mine, and I've definitely learned a lot.  (Meeting new people here has also made realize that the "Boulder bubble" is definitely a real thing.  Boulder friends, did you know that not everyone likes camping, craft beers, and kombucha???  :D)

But, while meeting new people is exciting for me, sometimes I don't want the excitement but rather the comfort of being around people who already know my story.  People who know what I mean when I say "the rollerblading incident" or "that time I broke my elbow".  People who don't need me to explain why I doubted that I would ever finish grad school because they know, they were right there with me.  (And right now, I'm remembering just how thankful I am for David in my life.)  Of course, it just takes time to tell those stories to new people.  As most people who have moved to a new place as an adult can tell you, making friends is a lot harder when you're the only one who's new and you don't have tons of people (i.e. college classmates or whatever) who are also new and in the same situation as you and all wanting to make new friends at the same time as you want to make new friends.  And that realization makes me hugely grateful for the people we've met here who have been willing to share their already established lives with us.  It really makes me think about how I welcome new people that I meet and if I'm willing to show that same hospitality and love.

So there's some thoughts on this adventure so far.  I'll let you know how the next year goes.

We made it.

Walking from my office to the bus stop...it's actually
light out and the sky is blue not grey!

To March, that is.  Whew.  We made it to March, a month where sunlight is a thing that actually exists.

When we moved to Denmark last March (more on that big anniversary later), we arrived on this beautiful spring day with the sun shining and most of the city out riding bikes.  And it pretty much just improved from there.  The days got longer, the weather got warmer, and we settled into to life here.  But I did think it was a little odd that, often, one of the first things people here would ask me when they learned that I had just moved to Denmark was "can you handle the weather?"

Can I handle the weather?  There didn't seem to be too much to handle.  Moderate temperatures and no snow until January with the bonus of the best summer weather that Denmark has had in past 10 years.  Didn't seem too hard to me.  Sure, it rained a lot, but nothing crazy.  "Just wait until the winter" they'd say.  Ok, but it's not like cold and snow are foreign concepts to me.

As it turns out, questioning my ability to handle colder temperatures and a few snowy days was probably the wrong thing to be asking.  In that respect, the winters I experienced in Pittsburgh and Boulder were definitely worse than Denmark.  No, the worst part of Danish winter, by far, was the utter lack of sunlight for practically 4 months.  (Now, I'm pausing here for a sec to ask myself "Am I exaggerating here?  Were there really no sunny days from November until March?"  And when I think about it, I think I can remember a few.  But a few sunny days over a third of the entire year is not that much.  So despite the tiny bit of exaggeration, I stand by my statement.)  It was SO dark!  At it's worst, winter days had barely 7 hours of "light", if you can even call what made it through those pervasive, grey clouds light.

Aalborg's Christmas Market

One of my co-workers, a Dane, described it to me like this... In November, the short days start to get to you, but then Christmas cheer comes to get you through December which doesn't seem so bad until the party's over in January and you never want to get out of bed and February is the longest month of your life.  But, he said, if you make it to March, then you have hope.  I remarked to him that most of the world is not like this.  You can live places where you naturally get vitamin D...year-round!

But this is not any of those places.  This is Denmark.  And since we're living here not there, we've picked up on a few things to get us through the season.

For example, Christmas is really big here.  Without Thanksgiving to hold them off, Christmas festivities started in November, coinciding with the begin of the dark days.  Streets were decorated, a giant tree from Norway appeared in the center of town, little stands popped up selling gløgg and carmelized almonds, and there was some kind of Christmas party every weekend.  So for a while, you actually enjoy the darkness because it makes the Christmas lights and candles look even prettier.

It's not dark...it's cozy.

Which brings me to a key item to surviving the winter...candles.  Candles everywhere.  I've never seen a bigger candle selection in my life.  But they really work.  When you light some candles, your house is no longer a sad, dark place, it turns into a cozy place where you want to curl up with a blanket and a mug of something warm and good.

And with that, you're well on your way to a very hyggeligt evening.  Throw in some friends and some good conversations and make it last as long as possible...who needs to go outside anyway?  The Danish (/Scandinavian) concept of hygge proudly has no direct English translation but roughly means "cozy togetherness".  It's believed to be a factor in how places with consistently terrible winters still manage to be the "happiest places in the world" (according to the people who rank those kinds of things) and is a big enough deal that the Danish tourism website even has suggestions for how to experience it on your next trip to Denmark.

And we'll definitely be spending as much time in the sunshine as possible now that it's starting to show itself again.  David noticed during the summer that everyone seemed to be outside all the time.  Not really doing anything special outside, just sitting in the park reading a book or hanging out with friends.  He thought that people must be outside so much in the summer in order to make up for lost time in the winter.  I didn't want to believe him, but now, I know.  He was totally right.

Our Czech Outing

Prague is cheap.

That’s what everyone said. Being connoisseurs of good deals, we opted to see for ourselves if it was true. First off, getting there was cheap. 30€ for a 5 hour bus ride for two from Munich to Prague was pretty nice. After a bit of a delay due to a snowstorm that oh-so-thoughtfully waited until we were finished snowboarding to begin, we arrived in the capital of Bohemia.  

The first thing we noticed about Prague was that they don’t use €. Instead, they use the Czech Republic Koruna (let me google that for you: 1 USD ≈ 24 CZK). Alana & I are accustomed to the Danish kroner (1 USD ≈ 6 DKK). We were surprised to see that some things in Czech (beer) had the same numbers next to them as in Denmark; thus Denmark is sometimes 4X to 5X more expensive than Prague. Nogle gange er Danmark for dyrt!

After a minor fiasco buying tickets for the metro (thanks German fellow travelers that helped us out!), we made it to the SE corner of the city where our hotel awaited. The first thing we noticed coming out metro station was a giant tower lit up in blue and red with giant babies crawling all over it. Apparently the babies were part of a temporary art installation, but public outcry made them permanent.

the good king duke

...do like the babies do?

don't ask us to pronounce this

Aside from the giant baby rocket tower, Prague really does have that old European city feel. On our second day we headed straight to Wenceslas Square in the heart of downtown Prague. Yep, it's the same good guy that "looked out, on the Feast of Stephen", although he was never a king (the song was written by an British guy in 1853). The square was a great place to get rolled bread with cinnamon/sugar treats, locally known as Tredelni'k (luckily pointing is a universal gesture). Afterwards, we perused some local (much cheaper than Denmark) shops in search of sweaters. Sidenote: I (David) have been fairly obsessed with sweaters during the Danish winter, and I'm glad to say, by the end of the trip, I procured a few more sewn-together bits of sheep hair.

we only witnessed a few train wrecks

 We then sought out the Prague Astronomical Clock but were more excited to find gluhwein and polska. After an afternoon of relaxing / exploring / shopping / staying inside to keep out of the cold, it was time for dinner. Naturally we went to the place that uses model trains as a beverage delivery system. Our inner 7-year-olds were super excited (the place had plenty of actual 7-year-olds too). Our 2nd evening ended with a stroll by the river with views of the castle that we would conquer the next day (spoiler: conquering castles used to be much harder).

hordes of foreigners invade the castle
(15th century kings are rolling in their graves)

trespasser caught in the act

Our 3rd day in Prague was new years eve. After a late start, we trekked to the castle at the top of the hill and got more delicious trdelni'k. The castle is about as picturesque as you could imagine. Wandering the rooms, its always amazing to think just how old some structures are. We wandered around all the exhibits - kings quarters, dance halls, even a window that people were pushed out of during a revolution (good ol' middle ages). The highlight of our visit was the church, which we weren't technically allowed into - we paid for a tour but it was closed for the evening due to a ticketed new years eve service. That's the first time we've ever had to sneak into a church :). After that we headed out for the evening.

Czechs are very fond of exploding small parts of their country. The first explosions started around dusk and continued throughout the night. The residents aren't very particular about where fireworks go off either - anywhere more than 1 meter from another human is fair game. I suppose this is why American cities sponsor their own fireworks - to dissuade the homebrewed fireworks shows that were happening all over the city (though most Americans just watch fireworks on TV anyway).

oh hey.

During our wandering, we found another peculiar instance of public art, from the same artist responsible for the giant babies. Pretty strange to look up and see a man hanging by one arm, but that's just how Czechs roll (hang?).

safety not guaranteed

Wenceslas approves

We planned our excursion to end at the Charles Bridge at the stroke of midnight. As we approached, the crowd grew dense. Somewhere around midnight ±1 minute, we had just stepped on the bridge when the crowd decided to change direction, pushing us out to a square with a big statue of our old buddy St. Wenceslas. Figuring this was as good a spot as any to celebrate, we settled in to enjoy the (abundant) fireworks. A 3 x 3 meter hole in the crowd formed as everyone threw their lit fireworks in there. Exhausted and thankfully not exploded, we headed to our hotel to prepare for our 8am train ride home.

just the right amount of exploded

Looking back, it's hard to believe how much happened in 2014: finishing PhDs / getting jobs / moving across the world / living where we moved / making friends / missing everyone back home. Here's to an even better 2015 - I hope we get to see your smiling faces soon :)

Ready for the Super Bowl?

I don't have too much to say about this other than it wasn't exactly what I was expecting to see while checking the Danish grocery store ads.  I guess stores will use whatever occasion they can to sell more stuff.  And I certainly don't mind that Reese's cups are on sale.  But I can't say that I know too many Americans who eat the pizza burger (the thing for 18 kroner to the left of the BBQ sauce).

I also found it kinda funny that a little blurb was necessary (the paragraph on the right under the American flag) to explain what the Super Bowl is.  I guess the same would be necessary if an American grocery store was advertising about the Danish handball championship.

But the most interesting thing is in the blurb next to the beer bottle...the highest scoring NFL player...is a Dane.  At first, I thought that I was not translating correctly.  But Wikipedia confirmed the blurb in the grocery store ad.  Morten Andersen (kicker) has scored more points in his NFL career than any other player.

I did not know this.  I'm not sure that the average American football fan knows this.  But after I saw this ad, I asked a few Danes about him, and they all were like "Oh yes, Morten Andersen, of course, highest scoring American football player.  Doesn't everyone know that?"

Well, anyway, this was just something that had me laughing a little.  None of the teams we care about are playing today so we'll probably be asleep before the 12:30am kickoff.  But I guess American football doesn't schedule its games for European fans.

Go Steelers!

Glædelig Jul!

So in an effort to blog about our fun times in a more timely manner, I bring you...CHRISTMAS 2014!!!  Wherein, David and I take the train south to Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic for our first Christmas outside the USA.

So, first off, traveling on the train, even with 2 suitcases and a giant bag with snowboards and gear, was about 5 million times less stressful than flying not to mention seriously cheaper.  For real.  Our train out of Aalborg was at 6:00am.  We left our apartment at about 5:48am, walked the 5 minutes down to the train station, and boarded the train with enough time to store our bags and find a good seat.  No security checkpoint, no extra bag fees, and no stale airplane air.  Trains -> highly recommended.

Note from David: the train does have its disadvantages - the main one being finding a place to put your gigantic/heavy snowboard bag on each train.

First stop...Munich!  On our way to Austria, we took a one-night stopover in Munich to check out the Christmas market action and fill up on some Bavarian food and drink.  Shout out to our Munich Airbnb hosts Nadine and Mark who gave us a bunch of great recommendations to make the most of the short stay.  Their apartment was conveniently located around the corner from the Augustiner brewery where they recommended that we dive into Bavarian food and beer culture.  The place seats something like 500 people on long tables with benches where you're encouraged to find an empty spot and make new friends.  While they probably had an English menu somewhere, there wasn't one on the table so I asked the waiter to bring me whatever he recommended and ended up with a giant leg of meat and a huge potato dumpling doused in gravy.  David picked something with a word he recognized "schnitzel", and neither one of us was disappointed.  Afterwards, we hit up the Tollwood Winter Festival (another Mark and Nadine recommendation) to check out the modern version of a Christmas market complete with vegan Christmas food and giant pig statues.  But no German Christmas market (even an untraditional one) is complete without glühwein.

Giant pig art at Tollwood Festival

Glühwein at Tollwood Festival

For the traditional Christmas market experience, we headed to Marienplatz the next day.  The Marienplatz Christkindlmarkt has its roots in the 14th century (or so the Internet tells me) and was oozing with carved ornaments, caramelized almonds, and of course more glühwein (tastefully served in actual mugs rather than styrofoam cups).  With some unexpected good timing, we showed up at Marienplatz just in time to watch the glockenspiel chime and dance.

If you look close, you can see the statues that
dance around when clock chimes at 11am.

The red cone is filled with caramelized almonds,
a Christmas market staple.

Santa Claus dressed as a priest handing out oranges with a
sleigh pulled by angels?  I'm sure this tradition makes sense to
people who actually know what's going on.

Sustained by caramelized almonds and pretzels, we tore ourselves away from Christmas land and caught our next train headed towards Austria and our first European snowboarding experience!  When planning this trip, we basically had no idea what were good versus not as good snowboarding places around Europe, but after some extensive Google-ing and soliciting recommendations from anyone who had an opinion, we settled on the village of Mayrhofen in the Tirol area of Austria.  What it lacked in early season snow fall, it made up for in mountain majesty and traditional Tirolean charm (and enough snowmaking that we still got 4 days on the slopes).  In hindsight, we should have started the trip just a few days later because it started snowing on our last day there.

We spent Christmas day snowboarding at the Hintertuxer glacier, singing Christmas songs as often as possible, and opening the little gifts we bought for each other the day before in Mayrhofen.  After an unsuccessful search for slippers, I got David a sweater.  He was way more creative and got me a fresh-baked pretzel, Mayrhofen hazelnut schnapps, and soap shaped like a pickle.

We probably could have spent another week in Mayrhofen snowboarding during the day and watching Breaking Bad at night, but we managed to say goodbye and headed back to Munich for a few more days of Bavarian goodness.  We braved the snow (yeah, it snowed after we left the ski area) to check out the Olympic park, Museum Brandhorst, and the church where the devil left his footprint.  The cold prompted us to stop in a donut shop we passed by and led us to experience the pastry revelation known as "the cronut".  And David tried something called a "pork knuckle" at another Munich beer hall.

Olympic park covered in snow

The last leg of the trip started with a 5 hour bus ride through the snow to Prague for New Year's Eve fun...
But this is where I have to stop since David has claimed that blog post (and claims he'll actually write it!).  Glædelig Jul og godt nytår!

Finding fall.

About a month or so ago, David and I were sitting around one weekend feeling a little discontent with how the seasons have been progressing recently.  The mild temperatures and long days of summer had given way to clouds and rain and early sunsets, but we still had a ways to go before Christmas cheer brightened things up, and it kinda felt like we were missing something...something comes between summer and Christmas.  Something that makes the transition to shorter days easier; something that has squash and football and warm spices and apple cider.  Something that is usually one of my favorite parts of the year.

So we got off our butts because clearly we needed some fresh air and went for a walk outside, and we found it!

Fall!

Crunching through the leaves in
Mølleparken, near our house

Yes, that wonderful in-between season...fall.  When it's cool enough that you can turn on the oven again and bake pumpkin cookies.  When the most delicious-sounding dinner is a squash soup.  When you can spend all weekend watching football and football and then more football.  Aaaahhhhh.  What we needed was more fall in our lives.  

Except, well, we couldn't find any apple cider in the grocery store and football games are on at all the wrong times here and...I have to go to work on Thanksgiving?!?!

Ok, ok, I'm being super dramatic.  But all that to say that it seems fall is the time when I've most missed some uniquely American things.  

But fall was still to be found in Denmark.  The Hokkaido pumpkins they sell here at the grocery store make really good pies.  Fantasy football is, fortunately for me, an online game.  And the sun, while not a frequent visitor, does still show up sometimes.

On a miraculous warm Saturday in November, we rode our
bikes to Lundby Bakker, a forest area southeast of Aalborg.

And we manage to enjoy even the gray, depressing Saturdays, but that's not too hard when you spend them at place with all this...

Creepy 5 meter tall boy;
David finds meaning in the room full
of random stuff (aka the art exhibit);
Fun with mirrors!

All this is at ARoS, the contemporary art museum in Aarhus, Denmark's second-largest city.  Aarhus is a quick 1.5 hour train ride from Aalborg, we've been there twice so far, and we'll definitely be back.

On our first trip there (back in September), we experienced the Aarhus Festival where, among other things, we watched the so-called King of Smørrebrød make his specialty which we then got to eat (and wash down with free snaps).  

A visit to ARoS was the primary purpose of our second trip, and it did not disappoint.  These people know how to put together an art exhibition.  Some exhibits were thought-provoking while others were just fun.  An entire room filled with smoke lit up in different colors where you can't see more than a foot in front of you...how can you not like modern art??

Walking along "Your Rainbow Panorama"
the 360 degree viewing platform/modern art piece
that sits atop ARoS.

Fun times in the smokey room

Most important fall moment of all...we successfully introduced the wonders of pumpkin pie to many who had previously been unacquainted with its awesomeness.  On Thanksgiving, I brought in a couple pies and some whipped cream to work.  It was all sitting on the table at lunchtime, and as people came into the lunch room, I hear again and again "Hvad er det?".  Fortunately, that's a Danish phrase that I understand so I could excitedly explain the day's importance and the necessity (in my mind) of the pie on the table.  While some co-workers seemed a little suspicious at first, I think my enthusiasm got them to at least try a slice (and they're all just nice anyway).  But it was no surprise to me that they actually liked it...I mean...it's pumpkin pie...who wouldn't?

Not only that, we successfully made all traditional Thanksgiving foods and celebrated my most favorite of American holidays all in another country...with a major shout out to our Team Danish Thanksgiving friends Bailey and Daniel (fellow Americans learning to navigate the land of smørrebrød and snaps).  But I will say that I missed sharing with that pie with those who appreciate it the most.  Like my mom who complains every Thanksgiving that I make too big of a mess in her kitchen and leave it all for her to clean up but who raves every year that my pie is the best.  Shout out to my fam-bam this week...couldn't stop thinking about you all as I made the pies this year.  Missing you lots!