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!

A Scandinavian Summer

Why hello again, friends.  Yes, David and Alana still do exist over here in Denmark, and it's been a lovely summer here in the land of the almost midnight sun.  And (for those of you who don't live here), yes, at the peak of summer, the light really does last almost until midnight.  And while we did get to experience some uniquely Danish aspects of summer this year, summer remained just as full of popsicles and cookouts and yard games and being outside as it was in the US.

Birthday brunch picnic overlooking Aalborg.

The summer season here in Aalborg seemed to unofficially start with the famous/infamous Aalborg Karnival in late May.  Apparently, it's northern Europe's biggest carnival celebration, and the main event consists of 25,000 costumed party people parading through the center of our city.  A common question that kept coming up when we first moved here was "so do you know about karneval?"  The questioner would then usually proceed to tell us about how "one year at karneval...someone urinated on my window/there was puke on my apartment door/I was flashed while minding my own business/I lost my cell phone in a river of beer/I saw something I really did not want to see happening under a bridge...".  So with that reputation preceding it and with our apartment being about one block from the main parade route, David and I were quite curious to see what the day would bring.  And actually, we had a really fun day.  It got a little uncomfortable and some elbows were thrown when we got stuck inside a rather aggressive mass of people all trying to push their way in different directions.  But the weather was great, some of the costumes were really cool, I convinced myself that the puddle I stepped in was beer (and not urine), and spending all day outside in the sunshine sure makes it feel like summer.

Most common Karneval costumes:
Waldo, old NBA players, neon/tie-dyed anything
Most creative Karneval costumes:
Lego people and choreographed people riding a roller coaster

Another mark of the arrival of summer here in Denmark was the prominent displays of koldskål med kammerjunkere that seemed to pop up out of nowhere in every grocery store.  I was, at first, uncertain that cold buttermilk soup with biscuits was really what I was craving on a hot day.  But I have to say that it didn't take long before I was buying it every time I was at the store (sometimes even making special trips just for that).  And it's a very versatile dish...snack, dessert, breakfast, lunch, dinner...all of the above...

My personal Copenhagen tour guide

The last national Danish holiday (read: "free day off") until Christmas fell on exactly the right weekend in early June for us to fly to Copenhagen to celebrate my Danish friend Louise's birthday with an introduction to the Copenhagen swing dancing scene and to introduce traveling American friends Melanie and Sam to Danish culture.  The Little Mermaid was seen, smørrebrød was eaten, and canals were toured.  We even got to assuage our homesickness for Colorado with a little visit to Christiania, the former-military-barracks-turned-hippie-freetown smack in the middle of otherwise very orderly Copenhagen.  There were Buddhist prayer flags; there were dreds.  There was a vegan restaurant, and there were posters of

Canal touring

Bob Marley and Ghandi and Jesus.  And a certain earthy/grassy smell was ubiquitous.  It was basically the opposite of everything I had come to associate with Denmark up to that point, and for a few hours, it really did feel like we were almost back in Colorado (almost...until someone selling homemade food called out to us in Danish).

Walking through
Christiania forest

Making our (temporary) mark on the Copenhagen
art scene at The Happy Wall

We got another little taste of America when, through the powers of Facebook, a collection of Americans living in Aalborg got together for the Fourth of July.  There's quite a few of us here actually, way more than I expected before moving here.  We grilled, we had flag cakes, we played lawn games, we had sparklers.  Any Dane within earshot was treated to a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.  And I realized one problem with the extremely long summer days, fireworks aren't nearly as cool looking when it's not completely dark.

In addition to the long hours of sunlight, July actually brought some hot weather to Denmark.  Summer up to that point had been this random mix of warm-ish sunny days intermingled with rainy days more suited to March than June.  But after about 3 days of the July heat, I was complaining with the rest of them that it had been practically 30°C (about 85°F) for a week!  Even then, it took me a few more days before I realized that everywhere else that I've lived regularly experiences temperatures that hot (or often hotter!) for 3 whole months not simply 3 weeks.  But I'll blame my complaining on the fact that any brief relief supplied by this modern technology called air conditioning was simply nowhere to be found.  Not at my office, not in the library, not at a coffee shop, certainly not in our apartment.  But ok, ok, I'll be honest, air conditioning really isn't needed here; the weather's just too convenient a topic to complain about.

So, when standing in the dairy section at the grocery store was no longer cutting it to provide some relief from the heat, we finally remembered "Hey, Denmark is surrounded by water on three sides! Let's go to the beach!"  I had been told that the beaches here were pretty awesome.  But, let's be real, sandy beaches and ocean waves really aren't what you think of when you think Denmark.  At least, I, as an American who grew up enjoying California's iconic beaches, did not.  Apparently, lots of Germans take Danish beach vacations every summer.  Anyway, the Danish beaches did not disappoint, and one of the nicest beaches is only 45 minutes away and reachable by public transportation.  As someone who has sat in traffic in Orange County, CA going to/coming from the beach, Denmark definitely wins in that area.

Where Denmark does not win is in having any natural places higher than 170 m (560 ft) which, for 2 people who spent the last 6 years in Colorado, took some getting used to.  The mountains and fjords of our neighbor to the north were calling out to us, like whoa, so we bought some ferry tickets, packed our bags with tents, sleeping bags, and cheaper (compared to Norway) Danish food, and spent 3 days in the Lysefjord area of Norway.  And seriously...whoa...jaw-dropping, spectacular beauty in a landscape different than anything I had ever experienced.  For those who want details (and not just me trying to find the words to describe how incredible it was), we took the ferry to Stavanger, a city on the west coast of Norway, then took another ferry into the Lysefjord.  We spent a morning dodging the crowds hiking up to the breathtaking but popular Pulpit Rock and then spent the next day completely alone hiking along the north side of the Lysefjord before hiking down to the water to be picked up by another ferry and taken to the little village of Lysebotn.  After a very experienced bus driver safely navigated one of the curviest roads I've ever been on, we hiked along the south side of the Lysefjord to Kjeragbolten for some pictures of us looking awesome and an unexpected chance to watch some basejumpers in action.  We ended the trip trying to outrace a thunderstorm down a steep, slick rock face only to have the clouds part and the sun come out just as we made it back to the trailhead.

If you happen to be planning a trip to Norway, know that even in already expensive Denmark, Norway is known as being the opposite of cheap.  So camping is definitely a good choice (you can set up your tent anywhere as long as it's 150 m away from any buildings and not on cultivated land), and bringing food from Denmark will definitely keep costs cheaper.  And a word of wisdom for the ferry...earplugs.  Stavanger is far enough away that the ferry traveled through the night.  While you can book a cabin with a bed to sleep in, the significantly cheaper option is to just book a seat in the main area and sleep in your seat like you would on an airplane.  But unlike an airplane, the ferry is actually rather quiet which means that you can hear about a dozen people all around you snoring their faces off and when those people finally roll over and start breathing through their mouths, another dozen pick up the chorus right where the first ones left off.  Let's just say, I slept better on the ground in the tent than I did on the ferry.

Ok, whew, whirlwind recap of the Gerhardts' summer, Scandinavian style, and I didn't even mention the outdoor movie watching, the biking, the grilling, and all the ice cream eating, but you probably did that this summer anyway so you don't need me to tell you how it is.

Feeling comfortable (in London).

Fear not, dear readers, we have not dropped off the face of Denmark.  We have just momentarily dropped out of the blogging world.  Sorry about that.  So many things to do, but so little time to write about them.  (What a horrible problem, I know.)

If you go to London and don't take a picture,
with Big Ben, were you really there?

For instance, the day after we moved into our new apartment, (and this is where I make all you readers in the USA jealous) we took a quick little weekend trip to London.  Mike and Courtney, some friends from Colorado, were visiting London for a week, and we couldn't not meet up with them (it's so close!).

London is a HUGE city.  Normally, I like walking around a city because I think it helps you get to know a place.  But if we had walked everywhere in London, we wouldn't have had time to do anything else.  (And we wouldn't have had the entertaining but slightly unnerving experience of sitting in the front row on the top of a double decker bus where it seriously looks like the bus is about to hit pedestrians/bikers/other cars/anything in its way the entire time.)

Since we were only there for 2 days, of course, we couldn't see everything.  We mostly skipped the royalty-centric part of London in favor of free museums (the National Gallery, the British Museum, and the Tate Modern were the ones we visited) and sunny walks/boat rides along the River Thames.

We were all big fans of the Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum.  There's an actual human body still wrapped inside that box!

 

London's public transit system includes boats that run up and down the river which double as a cheap river cruise.  And the Thames river walk takes you past Shakespeare's Globe, the Tate Modern, the Millenium Bridge, and places to enjoy a Pimm's cup while watching the sun set.

Sunset over the Thames

Tower of London seen from the boat

Millenium Bridge

St. Paul's Cathedral

Millenium Bridge

We also saw a funny little play, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, which happens to be the longest running play in London (we realized after that's why the tickets were so cheap...everyone else has already seen it!).

Besides all of the fun London tourist-y things, one highlight of visiting London...everything is in English!  This was something that I didn't think bothered me too much about Denmark.  I mean...it's Denmark...of course everything is in Danish.  Why wouldn't it be?  It takes a little while, but the official-looking things we get in the mail we can usually translate online.  The random billboards, advertisements, and signs around town we can mostly just ignore.  Grocery shopping took a little getting used to, but even there, lots of things are obvious and there are usually pictures on the boxes.  And being surrounded by Danish advertisements and Danish signs and Danish everything has actually helped me learn a lot of words.  When, after staring at it for entirely too long, I finally understand what some bus stop billboard actually says ("Start training today at Fresh Fitness!  Just 149 kroner per month!"), it kinda encourages me that I'm making progress in my language learning.  When I moved here, I expected to be surrounded by Danish and figured that I would just deal with it as best as I could.  But then in London... "New phone only 1 pound with 6 month subscription!" ... "This week only!  All sandals 20% off!" ... "Try our new chicken sandwich!" ...it didn't matter that I didn't want any of those things, I could understand what was being offered and decide what I thought about it in a matter of milliseconds.  Every billboard didn't have to be opportunity to practice my language skills.  Literacy is amazing!  Like I said, I didn't think I was that bothered about being surrounded by Danish especially because English is very widely spoken so I can easily find someone to help me if I need it.  But I'll admit that I do often feel embarrassed, self-conscious, and sometimes just plain dumb when someone talks to me and I have to put a pitiful look on my face and apologize for not speaking Danish.  So I guess that I'm not surprised that after being in London just two days, it somehow felt quite comfortable to me.  And I think a big reason for that was the language.

Well, the language and the fact that we spent our two days there with two really awesome people who we've known for more than three months and who already know us and like us!  It's easy being with old friends.  It's comfortable; it's relaxing.  They already know your story and have already lived some of life with you.  And I look forward to getting to that place with people we've met in Aalborg (some of who read this blog...Hi Friends!).  But in the meantime, I am very thankful that we got to talk about nerdy engineering things over some beers with Mike while Courtney rolled her eyes and drank Diet Coke.  Thanks for a great weekend guys!

I believe this was when David and Mike were discussing
the construction of the Millenium Bridge while Courtney
and I tried to talk them into finding somewhere to eat.