Godt Nytår

The title of this one is my attempt to hide my late New Year's greetings by speaking Danish. It will take you so long to figure out that it says "Good Newyear," you won't notice it's a few days late. That's the theory, anyway.

As promised, here are some pictures of the snow we got here in Denmark while mom, dad & my poor dog have been suffering with high 70s and low humidity back home in Texas.

The first snow day was fun for me because of the drifts; it reminded me of my kid days back in Chicago, where you could get 2 inches of snow and have a 30-foot drift blocking the garage doors. OK that's a bit of an exaggeration, but there's a reason for that city's nickname. I opened the back door of the house here to take some pictures, found a drift up to my waist against the door, and decided pictures could wait until the wind was gone. Meanwhile, the wind had left the whole courtyard of the house (between the house & the barns) almost bare of snow in the middle, with high drifts at the edges.

We went for a nice walk yesterday, and I got this fine picture of the great little Danish church up the street from The Martian's place. I say 'up the street' and I mean 'up'; I always forget between trips how hilly this area is. The glaciers carved up the place a bit.

For New Year's Eve, we went to a party at the home of one of the guys who came to stay at my house last summer. Carsten is a nut, and the party was made more fun by the fact that he had to work all day and half of the evening. He does something with a shipping company, planning and executing the loading & unloading of ships. If a huge ship comes in on New Year's Eve, you don't ask the captain to park there for the evening while you go play with your pals.

Thus, the first guests to arrive found an empty house and a large sack of decorations sitting on the coffee table. (Rub hands together, use evil grin). What could be more fun than making a huge mess of someone else's house? hehehe. We were very thorough; we even decorated the inside of the refrigerator. I'm pretty sure there are some streamers Carsten will not find until he moves out of the house.

The food arrived as we were finishing with the decorations; actually, some other guests had stopped at the caterer to pick it up. Carsten came shortly after that, but still had to shower and change into nice clothes. What a nut!

A Danish New Year's Eve party follows a general schedule: At 6, everyone gathers around the tv to watch the queen's annual speech. Then you can eat, eat, eat -- the Danish national pastime. There is much toasting and laughing, some silly hats and party games. Then everyone gathers around the TV again to see "The 90-Year-Old Woman." It's a German comedy duo, performing in English, with Danish subtitles. How it became a staple of Danish New Year's no one knows. But there it is.

Near midnight, the guests climb onto the furniture so that at the stroke of midnight they can LEAP into the new year. They then leap into their winter coats and other warm stuff, to go out and see the fireworks.

Fireworks are legal for all here, so rather than having one centralized fireworks display choreographed to music by some professional outfit, you have the exuberance of 5 million inhabitants whose goal is to have some fun and maybe outdo the guy next door. The upshot (heh) is that you have fireworks basically anywhere you care to look, for much longer than even the best American displays I've ever seen. (Danish dogs must really hate New Year's Eve.)

The Martian took some great video of the fireworks but I can't get it uploaded just yet. It may have to wait until I get home. Anyway, a good time was had by all!