Stuck in a Rut?

After following my Saturday morning routine (this time I got the yellow and pink calla lillies), I couldn't stop thinking about the club sandwich at the Danish cafe. Am I stuck in a rut if I had dinner at the same place on Thurs and Fri, and then had lunch at the same place on Fri and Sat? I don't think so because these places are delicious! Katie and I met for a late lunch and enjoyed the beautiful fall weather (72 degrees and sunny blue skies) and the yummy sandwiches!
I also really liked the interior of this restaurant...super Danish. What qualifies as super Danish? Sleek Danish design furniture, funky light fixtures, and candels for the hygge!

Art...Brazilian/Norwegian Stye!

My dear friend Cecilia works at an art gallery in Copenhagen (Mogadishni) and they had an opening for a Norwegian artist that I went to check out. It was very interesting, not my typical scene! The art was all pretty modern, which usually isn't extremely intereting to me. This artist painted with bright, neon colors and did futuristic city scapes. The most intestesting piece was one were he has been collecting the color labels (the things that are like bar codes on products but instead indicate the correct color to be used) and he made a futuristic city by pasting these label onto cannisters.
Cecilia's dad had just arrived from Brazil and it was fantastic to meet him at the gallery. Afterwards we went to an amazing Vietnamese restuarant in Vesterbro (I went back the next night before seeing Mama Mia - which was so fun!) which was pretty popular with everyone from the gallery as we saw a lot of them there.

First Danish Haircut!

Okay, okay...I know, I have been here almost 2 yr and this is my FIRST haircut??? Well, Danish haircuts are super expensive and I have always managed to be in the US or some other country (i.e. Estonia) where I could get my haircut for a lot cheaper before it was necessary to get a haircut. My cut was $110 (without color or anything) and it took about 90min...so I decided I better get something semi-drastic and make them earn that money!

So I headed to a salon on Elena and Sylvie's reccomendation. I felt like I was walking into a heavy metal studio...neon pink and yellow walls, people with tatoos everywhere, ect. But Kasper did a great job! He told me about 50 time that my hair was very thick...this is true and a common comment by hairdressers, but they usually only say it once or twice. I realized later that the Danes have pretty fine "baby" hair, thus he must have thought I was a freak of nature!

So Excited for October!!!

I cannot wait for October! Why? Well, the agenda, so far, is as follows....

Oct 1-3: London to see David Lutes, of Plumtucker, play at the Green Note. Also in attendance: Julie Wareing Aldrich, Leslie Overstreet (sshhh Carolyn, don't tell David, Les is a surprise!), and maybe Shannon Watkins Catlett and Whitney Roach.

Oct 3: Department Progressive Dinner - Appitizers at Katie's, Dinner at my house, Desert at Claudiu's.

Oct 5-17: Sao Paulo, Brazil on a business trip.

Oct 30-Nov 3: Athens, Greece to see Mike.

Stay tuned for pictures!

Relaxing Sunday

Since Emily likes to know about my "exotic expat" life here on the other side of the Atlantic, I figured I would indulge her with a description of my Sunday.

After church today, I walked over to Cafe Bopa for lunch. I had a delicious cauliflower soup and glass of red while that I enjoyed while (re)reading The Sun Also Rises wrapped in a nice toasty blanket.

Tonight I'm off to Cecilia and Gu's to celebrate Gu's birthday...with some carrot cake I made!

Probably the Best Beer in the World

On Saturday Udit, Sanhel, Liz and I went to the Carlsberg factory for a tour. We learned the history of making beer, the history of Carlsberg/Tuborg, and got to see the walls and walls of beers from around the world.
Just like in the Busch factory, they have a bunch of great horses.
They have you smell 20 different scents and mark down what you like, what you are indifferent towards, and what you don't like. Then, based on your responses you have a lot of different options for your beer choice.
Enjoying our 2 "free" (and basically free, cheapest beers I have ever had in CPH, came with the 50kr admission) beers and playing the dice game.

Facilitation at work in Tivoli

This week I'm in my second week of Green Belt training and on Wednesday a few of us headed to Tivoli after the course. I am proud to say that I went on...and enjoyed...The Demon (I am not typically what you would call a fan of rollarcoasters). Afterwards we enjoyed an excellent dinner on the lake.

Professoressa di Pizza

I am Elena's Professoressa di English and she is my Professoressa di Pizza. She and William had me over for a great evening of pizza making, looking at wedding pics (Elena is very intersted in the US customs!), and learning about harvesting the grapes.

For 3 people:

50 grams yeast / 1/2 tsp sugar

600 grams flour / 3/4 tsp salt

tomato sause, oregano, salt, olive oil

mozerella and other toppings of choice

1. Crumble the yeast into small pieces, add sugar, and mix with hot water

2. Add flour and salt. You add the flour until it is not sticky, if too sticky add flour; if too floury, add water

3. Make into a ball, cut a cross in the top with a knike (pretty deep to let it get air). Put in oven on low heat, covered in towel for at least 2hr

4. Knead (important to get lots of air in the dough)

5. Either push with your hands into a pan to make the crust, or use a rolling pin. Poke with a fork in several places.

6. Make sauce by adding spices and olive oil. Add to pizza, make sure you put sause all the way to the edges.

7. Cook in over at 250 (celcius) for 20-22 min. Dice mozzerella into very small pieces. Add to pizza and cook for 8 more min.

8. Enjoy!

Saturday Morning Routine

Every Saturday that I am in town and am not hosting guests I follow the same routine.

1. Wake up. Enjoy coffee. Do my devotional and any household tasks that need to be done.

2. Head over to the Charlottehaven Gym where Brian kicks my butt with a fun kickboxing/circuit training class.

3. Shower. Head out to do some grocery and flower shopping.

4. First stop, Super Best Grocery Store for fresh mozzerella (to make my Saturday Caprese salad) and any other things that look good.
5. Then to the Blomster - flower market - where I have to restrain myself, reminding myself that I only have 2 vases. Today I chose the gold gerbera daisies...I already have some sunflowers at home in the other vase. 6. Finally, I stop at Mona's Frugt & Grønt for fresh fuits and veggies. Mona doesn't speak English and she teaches me at least one new Danish word upon every visit.
And then time to see what the rest of the day has to bring.... :)

Ein, To...Ein, To, Tre, Fir

It hardly seems like it has been a year since my first Fredag Rock concert at Tivoli and my first time seeing Alphabeat...both of which happened to occur on the same evening!

Cecilia and I braved the incredibly windy night and sang our hearts out!

An Aplhabeat song is featured on a Diet Coke commercial that is super popular in Denmark right now...super cute ad! Check it out (sorry, having trouble directly linking to YouTube).

Custom House

We headed to Custom House for Daron and Mike's last night in Copenhagen. We got a great table right on the water and enjoyed wine and appitizers.

I had a fabulous cheese plate, Mike has gazpacho with tuna civiche, and Daron had curry herring.

Mike couldn't accept the fact that he lost the previous night's game of Mexican Train, so we had a rematch. This time the results were no different: 1. Daron-300 2. Christy-333 3. Mike-374

Tøg, Treno, Traukiniu, Trem, Železnice, τρένο, Train

Whether in Danish, Italian, Lituanian, Portuguese, Slovakian, Greek, and English the train unites us all...the Mexican train that is! Okay...that was super lame (up and down and all the way around!) but the night was anything but that. 14 of us crammed into my apartment for a night of Mexican food and Mexican train. Yes, this is a very common occurance in my house...but when you find something that works, you stick with it!

Daron and Mike were great helpers in getting ready for all the guests. Mike even did a fantastic job of setting the table...I would show you the picture but someone thinks it is not cool to smile in pictures...
The Sour Cream and Chicken Enhiladas were a hit...thanks for the recipie Melissa!
And the scores of the Mexican Train game: 1. Alaska (Daron): 328 2. Greece (Mike): 435 3. Chicago (Christy): 489 4. Slovakia (Jan): 502 4. California (Udie): 502 6. Australia (Liz): 749. Those who left the game early: Team Italia (Elena & William) and Team Brasilia (Cecilia & Gustavo).

Congrats to a very successful evening!

Why are you going to Croatia? Why don't you just go to the Lake?

This was the comment from one of Kelly's co-workers, wondering why she would go to Croatia instead of just up to our lake house in Wisconsin. Maybe because Croatia is AMAZING!
We flew into Trieste, Italy on Saturday night…hopped in Peter Panda (our rental car)…and were off to our hotel. On Sunday morning we explored Trieste a little bit, but were not overly impressed. We especially were not impressed with the lack of signage as we attempted to get out of the city and head down to Split.
Once we finally got on the road we made the long hall (about 7hr) down to Split and made it to town with plenty of time to catch our 2hr ferry to the island of Hvar.
Hvar was incredible. Kel and I went on a sailboat cruise for most of the day on Monday while Daron explored the island.
There were 10 of us on the sailboat tour, 3 couples, the first mate, the captain, and the Parkers! First we sailed for 2hr to another island named Vis. Once there we went snorkelling in the caves…the water is unbelievably clear and super salty so you float really easily. Kel and I saw some guys jumping off the cliffs into the ocean below and decided to give it a try – so fun!! I swam back and took the below pic from our boat of Kel getting ready to jump.
Kel and I spent most of our time at the front of the boat, lounging and enjoying the sun and sounds of the sea.
The following day we sadly said goodbye to Hvar and headed to Dubrovnik. It was a gorgeous drive down the coast and Dubrovnik turned out to be worth leaving Hvar. In fact, I have decided that Dubrovnik is officially my favorite city in the world. While Daron searched for a hotel for us, Kelly and I enjoyed the Dubrovnik Palace Hotel's beach area.
We spent the afternoon exploring Dubrovnik, swimming, taking a boat cruise. Kel and I found a great restaurant right in the harbor...and that is where we staeyed for the rest of the night. A few kilos of mussels, pots of the best calamarie I've ever had, one too many liters of white wine, and a few amazing displays of lemon juggling skills on my behalf, we made our way back up the what seemed like 1000 steps to our hotel! The next day Daron and I droped Kelly back at the Dubrovnik Palace while we climbed the city walls. Later we all met up at the beach for some sun and swimming. We left Dubrovik in the evening and headed to Bosnia & Herzegovia for dinner. Here's a picture from an overlook we stopped at.
Sadly Kelly had to depart on Thursday morning, so we took her to the Split airport at the crack of dawn. From there Daron and I headed to Diocletian's Palace in Split which was built in the 4th century AD.
After a great lunch in Split we were off to Plitvice Lakes National Park. It was absolutely gorgeous, as you can see.

After the National Park we headed up to Opatija, a really cool historic vacation spot with tons of Neoclassic buildings. Sadly most needed a little sprucing up, but you could definitely see their former grandure. I found this diving board in the harbor and don't think I would be exagerating to say I jumped off about 50 times!!!

For our last day we drove around the pennisula of Irista and saw some gorgeous towns like Labin and Pula. Finally we stopped at a fabulous little city on the sea in Slovakia and enjoyed dinner in this lovely square before headed back to Copenhagen.
For all pictures from Croatia and Copenhagen see this link.

Being an American is NOT an excuse…

…according to the rude lady at the Wokshop after I apologized for our table being a "little loud" and stating – jokingly – that I was an American and couldn't help it. And so began Kelly and Daron's first trip to Denmark. They both arrived on Thursday and after work we headed over to the Skelton's to visit Nikki, Grant, and baby Bo. We had a great time chatting over wine and hor'derves. And Grant and Nikki were nice enough to let Daron and Kel borrow their bikes.
On Friday Daron and Kelly went exploring the city while I went to work. They met me for lunch and I snuck out for an hour to take the canal tour with them. After work we headed to Nyhavn to enjoy the gorgeous afternoon. We started on the Boat Bar, where Kel discovered her new favourite drink – Apple Cider with Bitters. From there over to Nyhavn 17. Then a group of us headed to the Wokshop for dinner…we killed the time at a shady bar next door with Thomas and Mattias teaching us Danish drinking games.
After dinner we headed to Tivoli. On Friday's in the summer they have free concerts and that night is was Dodo and the Dodos, a Danish 80s rock band…super fun!
We ended the night at one of my favourite bars – Oak Room. It should be mentioned that I made an agenda for the entire trip…a la the famous Chapin-Lewis wedding agenda….we were WAY off the agenda timeline on Friday night and Kel and Daron would not let me forget it ;) On Saturday Kel and I dragged ourselves to kickboxing and then met Daron for brunch on the Lakes. Afterwards we headed up to Hillerød to Frederiksberg Slot. Kel loved her first castle!
Then it was off to the airport to catch our flight to Italy.

For all pictures from Copenhagen (and lots more from the rest of our travels) see this link.