Trip to Aarhus

First, a couple of local pictures:

Happy hour in Christianhavn.  Don't worry, we haven't taken up smoking.  A large percentage of the population  here smokes (as in Europe in general, I guess), and it's horrible to walk down the street and be continually hit with puffs of cigarette smoke.

The street behind our apartment.  We like it because it's quieter than our front door street.  It's called (in translation) Big Cannon Street.

Fastelavn is the Shrove Tuesday celebration here before Lent begins.  It has turned into a secular Halloween type affair.  The kids' school didn't have regular classes; they had an all-day celebration and talent show.  You can see pictures here if you select "Fastelavn & Talent Show" in the drop down menu on the right.  There are some pictures of Maggie playing her saxophone.  She also won a prize for her Merida costume.  There are also pics of Maggie's friend-who-is-a-boy, Adrian.  He is wearing striped pants and a red beret.

Last weekend, we took a trip to Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city. It was an easy, comfy 3-hour train ride.  We visited a historic Denmark museum, Den Gamle By (The Old Town), where I took virtually no pictures for some reason.  We also visited their modern art museum, ARoS, which has a very cool rooftop walk.  You can see outside pics at the link, but here is Maggie inside:

And a boy with one of their most famous pieces, Boy:

Spring is beginning to spring here in Denmark, so we took the bus to a park south of Aarhus and hiked through some woods, across a field full of sheep and Iron Age burial mounds,

and ended up here:

 

Shoes off and all!  It was a great day.  As much as we are loving living in a city, it was really nice to get out in nature.

Oh yes, we also visited the cathedral, which was amazing.  Many churches here have ships hanging to symbolize the navigation of birth to death.  This boat was actually being sent to Peter the Great as a model of a warship.  The ship carrying it sank, and the model floated to the shore intact.

Fascinating to me was the fact that the original frescoes were covered in white to make the church more modest during the Reformation.  But they have been able to save a few frescoes from the church's Catholic days, like the one above.

Pictures!!

The kids had a week off school for vinterferie (winter holiday).  Mark had to work, so no big trips, but a short trip to Roskilde to the Viking Museum.  Roskilde is a very pretty little town, and apparently they have a really awesome music festival there in the summer.  The Viking Museum has ships that we sunk 1000 years ago to clog up the harbor so invaders from Norway couldn't get through.  I didn't get good pictures of the ship remains, but here are the kids in their Viking getup.

In Viking dress.

Ready to fend off invading Norwegians.

This is the central garden in the Carlsberg Glyptotek museum (yes, the beer family).   We went one day so the kids could sketch.  They have a wonderful collection of sculptures, but also more contemporary French art as you see below.

We also went to the new Blue Planet Aquarium, which is in this amazing building:

Giving the world some love.

This guy is holding up the door around the Parliament building.  Doesn't look too happy about it.

In front of the old part of the Royal Library.

Inside the new part of the Royal Library, which is a really amazing building right on the harbor.  They call it the Black Diamond.  You can eat in the library here.  A great place to study AND you can grab a good coffee!

In case you need to anchor your ship.

Here is a better photo of the Merman and his Seven Sons calling for their mother.  Creepy every time. 

Here's a shot of the Opera House from the water (we took a little boat tour).  It is bigger than it appears in this photo!

Observations

1. No "radio edit" of songs here...ALL the words.
2. But French pop songs!  Yay!
3. Food generally comes in small amounts, e.g. milk only comes in 1 liters.  I've never seen a larger container.  This is a challenge for a family of four.  I dislike going to the grocery store every day.
4. Consequently, I don't think there is much preserving of food (which is fine with me!).  Therefore, if you think you are being clever by buying extra quantities, it will go bad.  (This could also have to do with our mini-fridges.)
5. They know how to make coffee here.  
6. And pastries.  
7. And bread.
8. All the cafés have free wi-fi, whee!!
9. The transportation system has a lot of "on your honor" built in.  There aren't turnstiles for the trains; you are expected to punch your ticket at little kiosks on the platforms.  Occasionally, a person comes through the train to check if you have done this or not.
10. Thus far, all the policemen (politi) I have seen have been...well...HOT!  I kid you not.  (I've seen one female officer, and she was cute, too.)  And they also look like they could take off and run a marathon without much effort.  With all due respect and gratitude to our American officers for signing up for a tough job, but you look like you spend a lot of time at the Double D.
11. The population of this whole country is less than the population of New York City.  That freaks me out.
12. I realize that Copenhagen may not be representative of the whole of Denmark.  Copenhagen is probably the New York of Denmark.  I'm hoping we can travel to the bigger island (Jutland) or north from here for a greater perspective.
13. They play a lot of American criminal dramas on TV, including CSI, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, Without A Trace.  I've never seen most of these before.  Of course, they also play ER.  
14. The UK version of Netflix (which we can access here) has a lot more on streaming than the US!  At least a lot more that we would want to watch. 
15. We have started watching Doctor Who (Christopher Eccleston years), and we are addicted.

That is all for now.

A birthday and some pics

Birthday celebration today!  She's 14!  Whoa...  We did some shopping for her birthday, mostly H&M.  

14 calls for double dessert!  A strawberry tart was procured, because, I mean, look at this thing:

 Not too old for the playground, though!

 A bike ride on Sunday, so we could find this place:

It was actually pretty hard to find, because Copenhagen is one big construction zone.  You really have to be seeking it out.  I was glad it was closed, because I doubt people inside paying beaucoup bucks for their meal would have enjoyed dorky tourists taking photos outside the window.

Noma is in Christianshavn, which has the most picturesque canal as its central feature:

 The Lego store did a giveaway in honor of the movie's release.  One happy boy:

The movie is very clever and cute, too.

Alternate activities with the beams in our apartment:

 A week earlier, another bike ride took us to HCA's grave:

 And also to Frederiksberg Garden:

We found the Heron Man there.  Apparently, he feeds the herons every day!

The kids are off of school this week for winter break, but we have settled into a routine of school and homework and music lessons.  It makes it feel like we've been here a long time in some ways.

I love a parade

Just in case you didn't see my post on Facebook or wherever I put it, this parade happens every day at 11:30am and 1:15ish pm.  The Queen's guard changes, and they parade right down the street by our house.  How can you not be charmed?

A Clear Day

This past weekend we took advantage of the weather: on Saturday, it poured all day, so we went to the Danish National Gallery of Art which is free!  We saw a Picasso and many old European paintings.  We will certainly head back there to see more!  We also found these dragons in the Rosenborg gardens.  

 Sunday it was beautifully clear, cold, and windy.  We walked to the fort nearby called Kastellet and walked to see the Little Mermaid.  

I am taken with this orange-washing that many buildings seem to have.

The windmill at the Kastellet.  We saw some soldiers changing the guard.

This is a gargoyle on St. Alban's Anglican Church.  I am very fond of gargoyles.

There she is!

More orange washing on these buildings.  Clearly very old.  The doors seemed tiny.

Another ridiculously cute street.

Since it was so clear and sunny, we climbed up the Rundetaarn (which is right around the corner from our house). This pic is from the top.

On the way up the cool spiral walk.

I think that was the last sunny day we had.  But it's OK.  We are getting into the school routine quite well, and the kids really like their school.  Sorry for the ultra boring text, but at least I'm getting some pictures up!  More soon!

Smørrebrød

Smørrebrød means sandwiches, and these open-faced sandwiches are a Danish tradition.  We tried four delicious varieties topped with pork, ham salad, potatoes, and cheese from the Hallernes stall at the Torvhallernes.  They are also beautiful.  Travelers' tip: we went close to closing and got a discount!  It's so difficult not to eat your way through a town when there are literally hundreds of restaurants around you.  But this meal cost us about $60!  At a discount!  Dinner at the vegetarian buffet the other night was $100.  Ooof.  It's worth it!