J Day!!!

"The first Friday of November from 8:59 pm the Tuborg Christmas Brew (Julebryg) is released all over the country and free samples are given out at several Copenhagen cafés and pubs. Tuborg Christmas Beer has been part of the Danish Christmas tradition since 1982."

J Day is quite an experience...somewhat similar to St. Patrick's Day...but with it's own unique flair. Bars that are "participating" in the festivities all have huge flags out front that look the the label of the bottle. The Tuborg crew goes around the city in santa suits...busts into the bars playing "Julebryg, Julebryg" and passing out song sheets (sung to the tune of Jingle Bells...chorus sounds like 'Yule-E-Brew...Yule-E-Brew") and free beer.

Katie had some friends in town (still waiting on the pictures and will add them soon!) so we headed out with them and met up with Jason, Jeff, and Mike for a glimpse at the festivities. Truth be told...Julebryg is pretty strong...I'm not a fan...but it was still a fun night!

New Furniture!!!

While Leslie, Melanie, and I were exploring Christiana (the hippie village in Copenhagen) I found and purchased this fantastic orange ottoman!!!

Thank you Jan for helping me collect it and for lugging it up 6 stories! And also thanks for helping hang the picutres I got in Paris!!! Next up...a TV stand :)

More visitors!

It's hard to get too homesick here when fun friends stopping by so often!!! This time it was my traveling buddy Leslie and her friend Melanie. Leslie and Melanie live in San Diego, Leslie went to WFU with me and we also studied in Spain together. Melanie is South African...which was especially exciting because they visited during the Rugby World Cup in which South Africa beat London. We had a great time watching the match surrounded by some very excited fans...plus, my friend Grant used to play Rugby in the land down under so I actually somewhat understand the game!

Leslie and Melanie arrived on Thursday while I was still in Moscow and explored Copenhagen until I returned on Friday afternoon. We headed to Tivoli for their Halloween celebration and I must say I was extremely impressed...those Danes really know how to do Halloween! Hay and pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns everywhere!!! We met up with Julia, Cecilia, Jan, and Raimondas and enjoyed the hay mazes, mulled wine, and pumpkin carving.

On Saturday, after exploring a few of the highlights of Copenhagen, we decided to head to Sweden for a few hours. We took the train to Malmo which included a slight mishap where we got on a train going to nowhere! We thought it was a little strange when no one got on the train with us...but figured that Malmo wasn't a popular saturday afternoon destination...or we just weren't paying attention!!! The train got about 10min outside of Copenhagen and just stopped for about 15min, during which time the conductor came through and told us that this train was out of service, but would be heading back to CPH in 5 min...so not too much damage done...just about a 30min delay in our travels :) Above is the sign we should have read the first time around!!!

Leslie and I calculated that Sweden was our 11th country traveled together (USA, Mexico, Canada, Spain, England, Scotland, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden!)....can't wait to see where we end up next!!!