Safari Sampler

Week before last we took a short-notice trip to South Africa. The wife was working in Cape Town and Jo'burg -- I met up with her in Jo'burg and from there we drove all over the place. We started out heading east of Jo'burg, through the Blyde River Canyon and into Ngala Private Game Reserve for 2 nights. From here, we did 5 more nights and 2 more lodges as we burned a trail across southeast South Africa and through a little country called Swaziland. There have been some people asking so I had to get some pictures up. Seven days of safari is a whole lot of animal watching, but this time (we did this once before) we saw lots of cats -- lion, leopard, and cheetah -- and even managed to spend a morning watching hyena. Cool stuff.

Denmark Is Full Of Slots

The place we are currently residing in is a bit cramped compared to what we were used to both in England and in Chicago. No lawn, three rooms, and a windy dog. Yeesh. It doesn't take much incentive to go somewhere on the weekends.

On short notice, we decided to head to Svendborg for the night, a small coastal town on the next big island to the east of us, Funen. It was a quick 2 hour drive to our hotel that was very conveniently located right on the harbor (map markers near bottom right.)


View Danmark in a larger map

Saturday night it was too late to do much in town, so we wandered around a bit, grabbed some dinner, and wandered some more. Despite being on the water, not much was open in town.

Sunday, though, we got up early and made our way south to Tåsinge, an island connected to Funen by a bridge. You can also drive to Langeland, another island, via Tåsinge, but we didn't get around to that. Tåsinge is home to the first of two castles we saw on our little trip -- and the word in Danish for castle, by the way, is "slot".

Valdemars Slot was commisioned in 1644 by King Christian IV as a home for his son, Christian Valdemar. That didn't work out, though, when the young Christian died in battle with Poland in 1656. The castle was then given to Admiral Niels Juel in payment for victory in a key battle with the Swedes at Køge Bay. His family still owns it. It is the largest private home in Denmark. The grounds now also house a mini-golf course, a toy museum, and a yachting museum. We really enjoyed this place -- there were few other visitors and it was wide open to explore.

From here, we set out north, back to mainland Funen. About 25 minutes drive led us to the second Slot we visited, Egeskov Slot or "Oak Forest Castle". This place was built in 1554 in the middle of a lake. The builder, Frands Brockenhuus, leveled an oak forest to underly the castle's foundation, hence the name. It is now a hodge-podge of various attractions, including the castle itself, a car museum, a motorcycle musuem, something that had to do with Dracula, an award-winning rose garden, and a bamboo maze. If I had kids, I would take them there. Boo found the place hot and lacking sufficient bowls of hundvasser (that's my attempt at Danish for "dog water") -- but she did like that the only place she couldn't go was inside the castle. A very dog-friendly destination, she was allowed in the museums and restuarant.

Skål!

Everyone Knows About Venice

The final destination in our mini-tour of northeast Italy was Venice. We stayed at a hotel near the airport and then rode the cheap 20-30 minute bus in to the town. Venice is an amazing place to walk around -- the surreal setup with canals instead of roads was a wonder to behold.

All that said, I would avoid going again during any festival period or on a weekend, and definitely not when there is a festival on the weekend! With each hour, the Saturday crowds got thicker and thicker. That night, there was a fireworks show starting at around 11PM. At 5PM, there was a steady stream of people flowing to the sides of one of the big canals. By the time the fireworks started, leaving Venice was no longer an option. If you are even remotely bothered by crowds or have any sort of claustrophobia, this was an awful situation. We tried to leave about halfway through the fireworks so we could catch our bus back to the hotel and simply could not. Every passage was packed with people. I had never quite understood how people get killed in the stampedes at Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving, but now I have a much better understanding of how that sort of thing gets started. We missed the last bus and had to find a taxi -- luckily we didn't have to wait too long.

Food in Venice was hit and miss. We tried for a nice dinner Saturday and had one of the worst meals I've had in quite some time. Thankfully, the pizzas we had for lunch were excellent -- mine had truffle oil on it -- nice. Sunday before I left, we had a good lunch at a newer restaurant in the Jewish Ghetto -- really good eggplant!

The pictures say the rest... salute!

“Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.”
Henry James quotes (American expatriate writer 1843-1916)

I've Lost My Mojo

On our tour of northern Italy near Venice, our second stop was Verona. Verona has a long and sorted history going back to around it's first written record around 550 BC. In 300 BC, it became Roman territory. Then for about 2000 years, it was a centerpoint of battle between feuding families and battling Italian city-states. A bit later, around 1797, it was held by the French (Napolean), then Austria, then finally in 1866 the Austrians left town and it became, at last, an Italian city.

Verona is well-known for the Roman architecture and other historical buildings that still stand. For this, it is listed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Large portions of the original Roman city exist in tact a few meters below the surface of the modern day city. It's also the setting for Shakespear's Romeo and Juliet.

We spent the last hours of the day here, wandering around the cobbled streets. A storm was passing overhead -- we had to take refuge underneath the large umbrella's of a small café for about an hour at one point. Once the storms passed, we found a small restaurant just off the main square and had a good dinner (truffled mortadella to start -- fantastic!)

Our drive back from here to our hotel near Venice was a nightmare --- for some reason, most of the signs for off-ramps on their recent highway renovations are posted well after you would have already need to taken the ramp. This, combined with a very confused GPS navigation, caused me to miss the right exit over and over -- at one point forcing us to go about 20 miles before we could turn around. Finally, we got off in the right direction to get caught in a drenching down pour that, combined with a construction truck blocking a lane on a bridge for no obvious reason, brought us to a halt for over an hour. Not cool.

Salute!

There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exile is death.
—William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene iii

Somewhere in Italy

The wife and I were able to spend some quality time in and around Venice. Venice was great, but the first part of the trip in an area around Lago del Garda and Verona was just as good -- if not better. The food was miles ahead of what we found in tourist-trap Venice.


View Danmark in a larger map

We stumbled first upon Provenza wines... and spent an hour talking about local wines, olive oil, and grappa and tasting with our host, Lorenzo. That stop led to some very heavy baggage on the way home -- 6 bottles of wine weighs around 4 kilos, by the way. Lorenzo recommended a restaurant in nearby Desenzano del Garda by the name of La Frasca. What a find this place was -- easily the best food of the trip. He specifically recommended the taglilini with a fish from the lake -- fantastic. The pasta in this dish is fresh. Another interesting entré was my main course, a seared steak of horse meat. I'd had horse in Japan, but there it was thin slices served raw. Eating a whole steak is a different story. Horse is a very sweat meat but the flavor is good -- if you can get over eating Mr. Ed.

After lunch, we walked the lake front, wondered out loud about the glowing green water, had some gelato and then we were on our way again. Next stop... Verona!

“Show me your horse and I will tell you what you are.” - English proverb

But It Is My Cheese!

Tacos are not easily found in this part of the world. England wasn't any better. The stores here sell taco kits for around $9 that are good enough for an occasionaly fix. But the real surprise in Denmark is that they apparently love nachos. And by nachos, they mean mountains of taco-spice seasoned tortilla chips, a load of melted cheese, and then some combination of jalapenos, salsa, and sour cream. It works for an occasional fix of Mexican pizazz but I normally regret eating it when I'm done.

"I was wondering if you would like to join me in my quarters this night... for some toast." -- Jack Black as Nacho Libre (2006)

Night at the Wine Bar

From Cologne, we made our way along the winding Rhine River to the tiny tourist town of Rüdesheim am Rhein -- recommended by a coworker. The trip there had to be one of the most picturesque stretches of road I have had the pleasure to travel on. Not only was there the wide river and the hills covered thick with trees, but dotted along the entire way were terraced vineyards and cozy towns and towering castles. We had to keep stopping to take pictures.

By that evening, we arrived in Rüdesheim am Rhein and checked into our hotel. From there, we made our way to the river to scope things out and stop at a small wine bar we had seen on the way in. We thought it would be a tourist trap but good enough for a cool drink of one of the local wines.... ... ...

... fast-forward 4 hours later. We had now seen only one other non-local and everyone except for Boo was a bit tipsy. Every one there was someone local from town and they get together at this place every night. This was far from a tourist trap. The wine never really stopped flowing and everytime we turned around another glass was there to try. The white wines were quite good, the reds were best avoided.

The barkeep spoke about 50 words of English and one of the ladies spoke English well. Between the two of them, we had many broken conversations with the folks around the bar. They were surprised that we lived in Denmark -- and maybe this came across as more critical than intended but their overall opinion of our current home country was that it's a bit odd, said with some eye-rolling. Huh. Hmm.

At one point, I ordered what was apparently 'wine cheese' and bread (not many food options here, only this and chips and pretzels) and my handling of the bread and cheese was apparently good amusement for the locals. I still fumble with using a knife and fork for just about everything here -- what's the point of a sandwich if you are going to eat it with knife and fork?

It wasn't long before we had tried all of the wines, I think, and moved on to the schnaps -- some I ordered, some were just served. These are nothing like what we call schnaps in the States -- these are strong spirits without sugar and the light fruit flavor wafts (burns?) up through your nose as you drink it down.

We hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we polled the locals for the best place in town and were given a few options. We finished our wine and I went to pay the tab. Four hours of drinks came to 20 euros (about $30) -- I think more than half of our drinks had been on-the-house, especially since at one point I would order a schnaps for me and another for the happy barkeep.

The next day we started a bit slowly -- Boo especially (seriously, she wouldn't get out of bed) -- and backtracked to some of the towns we had driven through the day prior, including a long stop at Bacharach. From there it was on to Frankfurt for the night.

Prost!

“How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on” -
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Pilot, Writer, and Author, 1900-1944)

The Dom and Donuts

We spent just one night in Cologne (also known as Köln for those of you like me that can't find a major city on a map of that city) on our first German road trip. We stayed at the Hilton right in the city center -- their rates were good and they took pets. What they didn't disclose upfront was that they had a pet fee -- not uncommon -- but here it was more than half the price of the room. With that hefty sum, Boo was provided a massive bed that she really didn't like, a bag of treats she was allergic to, and food and water dishes that I think she could have bathed in. Living large!

The dominating focus of Cologne is Cologne Cathedral -- in German, Kölner Dom -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The building in it current form is over 700 years old and took 600 of those years to build. This place is massive: it's spires are the second-tallest in the world, its facade is the largest in the world, and the cathedral as a whole is the largest in northern Europe. The most important treasure inside the cathedral is the Shrine of the Three Kings, a golden relic believed to hold the bones of the Three Wiseman -- but our schedules didn't work out so we had to pass on seeing that.

The area around the cathedral is a mid to high-end shopping district, dotted with a few bakeries selling what appeared to be the German version of the jelly donut. I said "donut" in one of the bakeries and was corrected with the word "Berliner", which, by the way, was a subject of humour and urban legend when JFK made his famous speech in Berlin on June 23, 1963 stating, "Ich bin ein Berliner" -- or "I am a Berliner."

The last piece of our Cologne adventure was Kölsch, the local beer. It's a less bitter beer than most of the German pilsners on offer. There are several brew houses serving up this stuff in rapid-fire fashion in small cylindrical glasses. The small glasses aren't just for show -- the beer is best when just from the tap and has had limited exposure to air. Drinking many small glasses of the brew is the best way to maximize your Kölsch enjoyment. Careful though, once you start drinking, the barman will keep replacing your glass until you make him stop!

Prost!

“Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world.” -- Kaiser Wilhelm

Do These Shorts Make My Butt Look Fat?

This past weekend we were hanging out in Venice when I noticed this tart walking around St. Mark's Basilica. I think more than one person hurt their neck doing a double-take on this action. Yowza. For a few minutes, I think she was the only taking pictures of the church and all its glory -- everyone else was grinning and taking pictures of the rare crescent moon in midday.

This blog was approved by my wife.

Salute!

Turn Left, Board Ferry

We took a road trip a week or so back that led us through an impressive chunk of Germany -- basically from Denmark to Frankfurt and back via Cologne. The drive from Frankfurt to home we did in one chunk and it took around 9 hours. For the bulk of the trip, we relied on our portable GPS to guide us from point A to point B -- and for the most part it did a great job.

But I had to laugh: We were winding along the roads we took from Köln to Frankfurt -- trying to make our way to our overnight stop in Rüdesheim am Rhein (my new favorite tourist trap!) We had already made one detour when we convinced our guidance system that finding a winery was really the right thing to do. After that, the wife was driving, I was navigating (she gets carsick otherwise) and I was looking ahead on the GPS map to see where it was taking us. I saw we were crossing the river ahead at a place called St. Goar. "Huh," I said, "I don't remember there being a bridge there. Oh well. " Sure enough, the GPS was telling us we had about a tenth of a mile before our next turn -- but there was nothing but water ahead. It all came clear when the GPS then announced, "Turn left... and board ferry."

The ferry ride was impressively efficient. The ferry crossed every 10 minutes or so, just going back and forth across the river in ping pong fashion. I'd guess it held about a dozen cars but no more. For about 6 bucks each crossing (we crossed three times by the end of our travels), it wasn't a bad way to get where you needed to go.

“The hasty and the tardy meet at the ferry.” -- Arabian Proverb

Weekend In Barcelona, Take Two

We were lucky enough to spend another weekend in Barcelona. We had a great time, stayed in a great hotel, ate some of the best food of my life, and saw more than I can fit in one blog post. I somehow narrowed down about 900 pics to around 60 -- too many, I know, but Ma will appreciate it.

Some highlights: the trip up and back down Montjüic, the Hill of the Jews. There is a leisurely two days of sights in this one place, including many gardens, a few substantial museums, the Olympic Stadium, and finally, the impressive Castell de Montjüic. We went to the Picasso Museum but no pictures allowed there. Finally, we did a fine job of eating and drinking our way through the rest of town -- including my first shot at the odd but delicious gooseneck barnacles, lots of grilled and fried octopus and squid, and my fair share of anchovies.

¡Salut!

The Grass Isn't Greener

Look at this: we leave England and next thing you know they are having Donkey Shows right in our old neighborhood. And Donkey Classes? They teach you this stuff? My, my -- our little Callow has come a long way.

"Do you think yourself wise? Then there's a donkey inside your waistcoat”
Charles H. Spurgeon quotes (English preacher of 19th century 1834-1892)

Midsummer Lovin'

June 23rd is the day that Denmark celebrates Midsummer's Eve -- or Sankt Hans aften (St. John's Eve.)

Varde, the small town we are living in now, had a bit of a party down by the river. The center of the event is a massive bonfire that was once believed to chase away evil spirits that were active in this time of receding daylight. Had I been a medicine man a few hundred years back, I would have spent the night harvesting my eleven potent healing herbs and spices to make my extra-special crispy chicken.

In the 16th century, the bonfire also became a convenient place to burn the witches that were more common in that time. In the 1920s, they started putting fake witches on the fire just for fun. Unfortunately, Varde didn't have a fake witch so the fire was just a fire. I found this rather disappointing. Sorry, witches of today.

The Lions Club (yes, it's here, too) was selling some beers and sodas and a pølse (sausage) man was on hand to sell hot dogs and buns. See, contrary to our inside-the-box view of the hot dog, in Denmark and elsewhere, it is common to get a hot dog delivered to you as a weiner and a bun -- two seperate entities. You pick up either with your fingers, dip into mustard and such, and eat. The meat never enters the bun. Even more bizarre to you Yankees: Some people order the bun and NO MEAT. I even saw one young lad eating two buns with mustard, mmm hmmm (slingblade) -- NO MEAT.

There was some music and a speech by the mayor. No idea what it was about but apparently he explained why they didn't have a witch. I doubt his reason would make sense to me. Once the speech concluded, townsfolk in wetsuits floated up the river with torches in hand. These torches then lit the fire.

I liked it -- people got together, had some fun, dranks some beers, ate some weiners, and watched the show. An easy-going, comfortable evening with friends and family -- a good night in Denmark.

Skål!

“My mother says I must not pass,
Too near that glass;
She is afraid that I will see,
A little witch that looks like me;
With a red mouth to whisper low,
The very thing I should not know”
-Sarah Morgan Bryant Piatt (American poet 1836-1919)

And It's Not Carlsberg

I think I am having some withdrawel from the great beer options I had in England. There were so many choices -- and almost all of them were reasonably priced. I developed a liking for the heavy, stronger-flavors of some of the real ales (unfiltered, unpasteurized). Even worse, I started drinking my dark beers right out of the pantry. That's right: warm beer. Then we moved to Denmark where most everything I have tried so far is a lighter, crisper lager. Not necessarily a bad thing but a bit of an adjustment from England.

In Denmark, the prominent beers are Carlsberg and Tuborg. These two beers seem to mimic some of the marketshare rivalry of Bud and Miller in the USA -- with the notable difference that both Carlsberg and Tuborg come from the same brewery. Huh. Carlsberg bought Tuborg in 1970. After some reading, I found that some of the rivlary's roots are forgotten: Carlsberg supported the arts and Tuborg supported scientific research. Artsy types drank Carlsberg, and men of science drank Tuborg. Therefore, I shall now drink Tuborg.

Beer is a huge industry in Denmark with exports of something around 100 million gallons of beer per year. It's also important culturally and drinking beer is widely accepted at just about any time of day (or so I read -- I haven't seen anybody tipping one back at breakfast but I eat breakfast alone in this small apartment and Boo doesn't drink beer...) There is even a holiday of sorts that I am soooo looking forward to. It is the day they release the Christmas beers and is known as J-Day (after Juleøl meaning Christmas Beer.) It normally is the first Friday in November. I've read stories of Christmas-decorated wagons rolling through town with Santa-capped staff giving out free samples of the new, typically potent, Christmas brew. Just wonderful.

Anyway -- In the last post I mentioned we stumbled on the Ribe Bryghus, a small brewery right in the heart of Ribe, Denmark. I've tried three of their beers now and I am becoming a fan. These beers are much more like what I knew in England. We sampled the Black at the brewery -- a flavorful stout with sweet coffee overtone. Back home, we tried the Blond (a lighter, citrusy Belgian style golden ale).

They don't sell the brew here in Varde, but there is one place in Esbjerg to get it. We haven't figured out where we will live yet so maybe that was the final straw.

Skål!

"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemmingway

It Didn't Look That Old

This past Saturday we took the short day trip to Ribe, a town south of Varde, that is known above all else for being the oldest town in Denmark. The first documented evidence of the town shows up in the year 854 -- but archeological evidence puts it back to at least 710 AD. They are planning on celebrating their 1300th anniversary next year.

View Danmark in a larger map

We just barely scratched the surface here -- we didn't go in the old cathedral, nor one of the two Viking museums, and nope, not the other museum either. This is definitely a spot to hit with visitors (hint hint) so we saved a few things til then. The town is a great place to stroll with quiet cobblestone streets and not nearly as many tourists as we expected.

We did manage to discover the Ribe Bryghus (brewhouse) right before it closed and purchased a few bottles of my new favorite beer. We did have a good lunch at the Hotel Dagmar next to the Cathedral. It was a meal of (I think) typical Danish food -- again it followed our current opinion that, to us anyway, Danish food is 'weird but good.' The less adventurous, I'm afraid, will think it is just weird.

Skål!

Hunka Hunka Burning Love

Howdy. Today we are going to talk about another selection from the freezer aisle at your local Danish grocer. With my limited Danish skills I knew I was getting some potatoes, probably mashed, with a meat topping of some sort. Back home, I took the time to look at the easy-to-translate ingredients and found I was about to cook up some bacon and fried onion covered mashed potatoes. You may remember the same fried onions cropped up on my less-than-delicious Cowboy Toast.

Easy as pie, just prick the plastic film and bake for 25 minutes. The result wasn't bad -- mostly very creamy potatoes but all in all it had good flavor.



With a bit more work on the Google Translate tool, I found that "brændende kærlighed" literally translates to "Burning Love" and is a classic Danish dish. That led to finding a recipe for the dish at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the website for the Danish Consulate in New York. The website has a good starter course in Danish food. Burning Love is not a difficult dish:

Burning Love - Brændende kærlighed
2-2½ lb (1 kg) floury potatoes
1½-2 oz (40-50 g) butter
About ½ pint (3dl) cream
8-10 thick rashers of fat bacon
3 onions
Salt
White pepper
Pinch of nutmeg

Peel and cut up the potatoes. Cook until tender in unsalted water, drain and mash. Whip in the butter gradually, and finally the cream, until the mashed potato is light and airy. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Cut the rashers and onions into small cubes and fry until crisp in a little of the bacon fat. Pile the mashed potatoes into a dish. Scoop out a hollow in the middle, pour in the fat and sprinkle with onion and bacon cubes. Serve with slices of rye bread and pickled beets.

Next time I will skip the frozen variety and make my own heart-clogging version.

“That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, It's cool, he's with me.” -- Mitch Hedburg (one of my favorite Comedians 1968 - 2005)

Flashback to Spain

I was cleaning up my photos and found these I have never posted...

Are You Drunk? No, I Have A Cold...

This past Friday night in Denmark, we went to the summer party for my wife's office. A good time was had by all!

We have learned a few new party activities to bring back home with us. A new favorite is a seemingly dangerous game to combine with drinking. It involved a large, solid tree stump, giant 8 inch nails, and multiple hammers. Depending on the number of people playing in the current match -- and depending on how many hammers you have on hand -- it's either a game of precision where you take turns round-robin hitting your nail, trying to knock it in flush with as few hits as possible OR it's a throw-safety-to-the-wind ordeal where each person with a hammer in hand swings as fast and wildly as possible at their nail in a race to the finish.

Maybe a little harder to bring home with us was the 'hole-in-one' machine that was a mini-golf style contraption that rewarded a well-placed shot by automatically filling a shot glass full of whatever bottle of liquor is strapped in to the machine -- and here that meant shots of Ga-Jol Blå (means 'blue' -- pronounced 'blaw'), a vodka infused with salty licorice and menthol. It tasted very much like cough syrup and when I asked a Dane about it, she said that they have medicine here that tastes the same, too. I always did like cough syrup, though.

Dinner was served at the party: a whole roast pig! Creamy potato salad (more dairy and less egg, I think), a coleslaw with apples and raisin (again, more cream less mayo), and pasta salad. Nothing too different than a good American BBQ. Great food -- but more than they could deal with. We ended up with two giant bags of roast pig to take home when we finally wandered out of the party in the wee hours. Boo comes running every time we open the fridge now.

We found that most of the liquor for the event was

bought in Germany -- even though we were drinking Danish brands. You can buy Danish beer across the border in Germany for less than half of what you would pay in Denmark. The rule is tha

t the beverages are supposed to be for personal consumption and a few folks at the party told stories they had heard about Danish authorities following them home from the German border and making them pay duties and fines on their purchases. A flip-side to that story is one I read about the European Union (EU) cracking down on Denmark for their policies that attempted to control the free movement of goods from other EU countries. As a member of the EU, Denmark is supposed to be bound by its cornerstone Four Freedoms, one of which is the free movement of goods. Denmark lost the battle in EU court and I think the limits on the quantities of products you can import from the EU have been adjusted to match the EU guidelines which aren't very limiting (110 liters of beer?) as long as it is for personal use.

By the end of the night, I had been lucky enough to have long conversations with many folks about our experiences so far and ahead of us in Denmark. Many showed a true interest in our situation and offered help and advice as we try to navigate things like buying a house. We also found many that spoke highly of the USA, including one huge fan of Nike Town in Chicago. I had to appreciate that in many cases, an entire group would switch from Danish to English when I was joining in the conversation.

Best yet, there was ample opportunities to say 'cheers!' in Danish: Skål! (pronouned 'skowl')

"Licorice is the liver of candy."
— Michael O'Donoghue

Ice Cream With The Safety Off

The missus and I took a field trip yesterday to a nice little vacation area called Henne Strand, about 20 minutes drive north and west of Varde. Unless I am over-simplifying the translation, Henne Strand translates as something like 'near the beach' or 'along the beach'.



I think most of the housing in Henne Strand is what is classified as a sommerhus or "Summer Home". The biggest difference I know between these houses and a regular house is that, by law, we can't buy one. Even to buy a 'normal' house, we need special permission to do so. This is all because our visas expire in three years, making us temporary residents. These laws, I have read, have a lot to do with keeping folks from a certain nearby country from coming in with their more abundant cash (due to lower taxes) and turning these areas into German resorts.

Henne Strand has a small main street, with lots of shopping that was open even on Sunday. In Varde, almost nothing is open after 1 o'clock Saturday until Monday morning. I've been told that this is due to a law the excludes businesses from government-enforced non-working hours if they are within view of the coast.

Ice cream is the big item on the Henne Strand strip, and almost every ice cream dealer featured a concoction called "The Mexican". I broke out the Danish phrasebook and with some guesswork, figured out that the Mexican is comprised of a giant waffle cone filled with many scoops of different flavored ice cream, then a few swirls of soft serve ice cream (mostly vanilla and jordbær), then whipped cream (fløde?) and then jam to top it all off. How or why this came to be called, "The Mexican" is beyond me to understand.

When we were making our way back to the car, I noticed a sign on the sidewalk depicting something that just had to be an image of 'The Mexican.'


Huh. Is it supposed to look like a Mexican -- with a little whipped cream sombrero? Is this something you would get in Mexico? I never saw anything like this in all the time I spent there. Time will tell what the truth behind this thing is -- but I have already heard and seen some other evidence, both here in Denmark and in the UK (someone tell Domino's Pizza that 'peri peri' sauce isn't Mexican), that the Mexican culture is completely misunderstood in this part of the world. How else can you explain the lack of a good burrito place in an entire country? If only they knew what they were missing.

Skål!






“You can tell all you need to about a society from how it treats animals and beaches.” - Frank Deford, author (born 1938)

Peanut Butta Jelly Time

I'm not quite sure what to do with the food here in Denmark. I go to the store and after staring at a package for a few minutes, sometimes referencing my pocket Danish guide, about half the time I can figure out what exactly I am looking at. I buy a bunch of stuff that has no rhyme or reason -- and even this chaos takes 10 times longer than any trip to the store in the USA.

I get home and try to make the purchased food into something I am used to -- often that means some perversion of a taco or a pizza. Sometimes Rachel will offer some advice from what she has seen the people at work eat -- I will get into the phenomenon of smørrebrød (open-face Danish sandwiches) later -- but for the most part we are just guessing.


But then... I was walking alone through the grocery, a new one, my first time there. I was in the frozen food section near the frozen kartofler and across from the meals of frikadeller. Something stood out -- illuminated as if by divine fate. It was magical. How could something called "Cowboy Toast" not end up in my shopping basket?


In just 10 minutes under a hot grill, these little plastic-wrapped, frost-encrusted sandwiches go from rock-hard and pale white to sprøde and golden-brown... but still frozen in the middle. Five more impatient minutes later, you get this:


The result is a simple toasted sandwich, stuffed with what is apparently a low-grade meat patty that is covered with onions (I think) and what might be cheese or perhaps a Special Sauce. What shocked me though, was the amazing similarity to a big, square, over-toasted White Castle burger. I'll let you decide if that is a good thing or not.

Skål!







EPILOGUE: I spent some time using the Google translation tool to decipher the back of the box from the Cowboy Toast. The dish is comprised of four components: the toasted bread (43%), beef patty (30%), fried onions (16%), and dressing (ah ha -- it is special sauce!) That beef patty is some seriously compromised meat, with added wheat derivatives, beef fat, and various starches and extracts. Each sandwich has about 20 grams of fat and 400 calories. Mmmmm.... tasty!

Jeffrey. Love me.

I've only been in Denmark on and off for about a month -- so this post is just a starting point into some random thoughts and discussions.

Denmark was just ranked as the happiest society in the world and there are lots of opinions why -- some of the opinions are very critical of Danish culture, others applaud their expansive safety-net social system that removes many of the day to day worries of life. Some people, though, think that happiness here is "enforced" by an invisible set of laws that keep everyone at the same level, removing the disparity between facets of society.

In 1933, a man name Aksel Sandemose wrote a book called En flyktning krysser sitt spor, or "A Refuge Crosses His Tracks." The book portrays a fictional small town in Denmark -- a town where everybody knows your name (Norm!) Admittedly, I haven't read the book but I'll get to it. In the book, the town is named Jante and the town has a set of unwritten laws:

 The Jante Law
   
  1. Thou shalt not presume that thou art anyone important.
  2. Thou shalt not presume that thou art as good as us.
  3. Thou shalt not presume that thou art any wiser than us.
  4. Thou shalt never indulge in the conceit of imagining that thou art
     better than us.
  5. Thou shalt not presume that thou art more knowledgeable than us.
  6. Thou shalt not presume that thou art more than us in any way.
  7. Thou shalt not presume that that thou art going to amount to
     anything.
  8. Thou art not entitled to laugh at us.
  9. Thou shalt never imagine that anyone cares about thee.
 10. Thou shalt not suppose that thou can teach us anything.

These laws are referenced frequently in discussions of Scandinavian (not just Danish) culture. Every book we have on Denmark at least discusses the concepts. Often they are summed up into a single statement,

"Don't think you are special or that you are better than us."

In the book, violating the Jante law led to increased hostility from those around you and started you down the path to becoming an outcast.

Many believe that Jante's Laws are a real part of society here. For Americans, this is a problem. We believe in "a better life" as motivation for what we do. To be rewarded at work or at school for a "job well done" is a good thing, to get a raise, to finally get that new car you've wanted. It is common to be singled out with "employee of the month", to celebrate success with your family and friends. Our entire adventure overseas could be seen as a severe transgression of Jante's Laws: We've left our society behind and we tell stories about our experiences abroad -- and simply having this opportunity displays a level of success and accomplishment that is hard to keep concealed. We believe that we worked hard and paid a price to get here -- but have we hurt our society by doing so?

The problem many see with Jante's Laws is that they are written in an expressly negative way but have the good intention of promoting equality and fairness. I have seen re-writes of the laws, changing all of the negatives to positives and switching the focus from an outward criticism to a personal mantra. These revised laws come across as much less harsh. There is a good example in the comments here. Here, one line of anti-Jante:

"I am as good as those around me."

Now, that is a bit easier to swallow. It's like Al Franken as Stuart Smalley, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!"

Skål!

A Copy In Copenhagen

When we made our trip to get our visas in Copenhagen a week ago, our hotel was very conveniently located in an area with some prominent tourist sites. So, even though we only had a few hours of tourist-time, we were able to see more than I expected.

Just up the shoreline from our hotel was one of the most famous attractions in Copenhagen: Den lille havfrue, or the Statue of the Little Mermaid. Perhaps unfortunately for some, the real fairy tale behind the Little Mermaid and the history of the statue aren't the happy little stories we might expect.


First, the fairy tale goes like this: The mermaid falls in love with a human prince. The mermaid goes to an evil witch and exchanges her tongue for a potion that will give her legs. Drinking the potion feels like being skewered with a sword. She drinks it and gets some legs, but they aren't the best legs, since it feels like she is walking on swords and her feet bleed (ew) as she moves. Oh and about mermaids: they don't have souls but humans do. The only way the mermaid can get a soul is if the prince marries her. But in the end, he doesn't. So, then the witch gives the mermaid a knife and if she kills the prince and lets his blood run on her cursed feet, she will be made a normal mermaid again. She can't do it and dies -- at this point it is believed Hans Christian Andersen, the author and one of Denmark's most prominent historical figures, later revised the story. Instead of her simply just dying like a mermaid and turning to sea foam, she becomes some ghostly 'daughter of the air' and can gain a soul by doing good deeds and will eventually rise into the Kingdom of God.

The statue, then, was inspired by a rich guy (Carl Jacobson of the Carlsberg brewing family) watching a ballet about the fairy tale. He was so taken with the ballet and its primabella that in 1909 he asked her to model for the statue, created by sculptor Edvard Eriksen. The ballerina wasn't keen on the whole nakedness of the statue and the final statue only has a face inspired by her -- the rest is the sculptor's wife.


From the time of its unveiling in 1913, the statue has had a rough life. There have been three attempts (2 successful) to remove the statue's head. It was returned once and lost once and had to be replaced with a new head. The statue has also had its arm sawed off. The severed arm was returned 2 days later. The statue was blown off its rock in 2003, probably with dynamite. In 2006, a dildo was put in the statue's hand. On several occasions, the statue was painted red or pink.

To top off all that, the statue you get to see is a copy and the real one is at an undisclosed location. Good for you yanks, though, is that if you have statue-envy, you can make a short trip to either Solvang, California or Kimballton, Iowa to see other copies. If you decide to decorate your local copy with a sexy accessory, please send me a picture. The copy in Copenhagen is taking a trip to Shanghai, China for the 2010 World Expo.

Skål!

Sticker Shock

We went to Copenhagen this past Sunday afternoon. Early Monday morning we had to go to the Office of Immigration Services to get our visas. Copenhagen is about a 3 hour drive straight east of Varde, crossing two very long bridges on the way -- and paying a $40 toll. I had to ask what the speed limit signs meant that said 110km/hour with a line through them -- thought maybe it meant "No Speed Limit" but found it actually means 130km/hour (about 80MPH.)

As far as I can tell, the order of events that we should be following to get officially settled with the state of Denmark is this:

• File applications for visas. We did this well over a month ago. Just like in England, the wife gets hers via her position with an established company and I get one just because I can produce a marriage certificate. Easy living.
• Get a letter via the post that says your visa was approved. This letter is oddly important but I don't know what it says (all in Danish) -- right now, I have my visa but didn't get the letter yet and this is holding up some other steps.
  
• Next, go to Immigration Services and get the actual visa added to your passport -- another big sticker. Once again, mine explains how I am a deadbeat without a job and should be kicked out of the country if for any reason my wife says so. Or something like that -- who knows? It's all in Danish.
• Next, get our CPR numbers by going to your local Citizen Services branch. This is about the same as a Social Security Number in the USA. You can't get this without your visa-approval letter. The wife was able to apply for hers but I am now in limbo. We also had to sign-up to learn Danish -- this is a brand-new requirement. Apparently the country has been having some immigration issues and this is a step to make folks a bit more committed to living in Denmark and following the rules.
  
• Once you have your CPR number, you have to register at the local tax office. This is where things get hazy and confusing, and not because pot is somewhat tolerated here. The wife will very likely qualify for a tax scheme that limits her liability to 25% of income. For me, though, I might not make the cut and could be facing the much higher tax rates that most residents get. The bonus, then, is I can deduct any interest paid in a year -- this adds up and can make buying a home about 20% cheaper. But these are still theories on my part.
  
• Once all this is done, we can take our CPR numbers and head to the bank and open accounts. We can also then get the Danish bank cards that are the only type of card that every business here accepts -- many won't take non-Danish credit cards. Almost everywhere here charges you a 3% fee for using a credit card.
• Once we have bank accounts in hand and put some money in them, we can go buy that house we've always wanted and maybe even lease or buy a car -- but with a 180% tax (no, that's not a typo) included in the price of any car sold here, I don't think we will be getting that Aston Martin the wife keeps talking about! Comparing the 2009 Ford Focus base prices from the Ford USA website and the Ford Denmark websites, the USA price rolls in at about $16000, while the DK price shocks at 250,000 DKK -- around $45,000. Ugh!

Skål!

The Zen of Basho

My new blog has a funny name. The name comes from a quote in the 1980 movie Caddyshack where Ty Webb (played by Chevy Chase) shares his own brand of wisdom.

The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote:
"A flute with no holes is not a flute...
...and a doughnut
with no hole is a Danish."  

But even better, I think it does a good job of reflecting my continuing ignorance about the country I now live in -- since it really has nothing to do with Denmark. First off, I haven't seen any pastries yet that look like the "danish" that we know in the USA. Much to my blog's dismay, I have seen donuts with holes -- every grocery has them.

Some more important trivia worth sharing -- most of these have come up in conversations with folks back home:

• Denmark is not The Netherlands. It's Denmark -- a different country.
  
• Denmark is not Holland. Holland is a region in The Netherlands.
• They don't speak Dutch in Denmark. They speak Danish. Dutch is what they speak in The Netherlands.
  
• Denmark shares land borders with Germany to the south and Sweden (sort of -- there is a bridge) to the east -- but most of the borders are comprised of 4,500 miles of coastline. Norway is directly north but it would be a rough swim.
  
• Most everyone can speak English fairly well here. A large part of what is on television is current American television and much of the music we hear is current (or 80's!) music.
  
• Denmark has a long-standing and popular royal family, but the government is a parliamentary democracy. The current monarch is Queen Margrethe II.
• The Kingdom of Denmark also includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
• During World War II, Denmark was occupied by Germany and the official government position was collaboration, but a strong underground resistance was established.
  
• The entire country has an almost constant population of 5.5 million -- 4 million less than the population of Chicagoland. 9% of that is immigrants like us.
  
• The country is highly unionized with nearly 85% of the workforce being members of unions.
• Woman enjoy great equality here -- Denmark may have the highest employment percentage of woman in the world.
• Denmark has few natural resources. Over the last 50 years, they have discovered and developed an industry around oil and gas. Denmark has extended the concept of natural resources to production of items like meat, sugar, and milk and an industry has built up around the machinery used to process these items. Further, they built a shipping industry around the need to move these items.
• Taxes are very high in Denmark -- I think they cap at 59% of gross income.
• Cost of living in Denmark is very high -- but wages tend to be high as well.
  
• The social system is very developed: health care is guaranteed (they will even pay to send you outside Denmark if timely care cannot be provided by Danish services), and maternity leaves for both parents are extensive. There are many other services as well.
• Almost all education (yep, even college) is FREE here.
  

A final note: the population of Denmark is, in general, extremely happy. The country just ranked 1st in a survey done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The USA ranked 11th. In this article right here, the writer makes a questionable link between high taxes and happiness that seems foreign to the average American. From conversations with some of locals, I think there is a lot of truth in the simple fact that they don't mind the high taxes because there is a wealth of tangible services that give back to the people. They also simply don't have to worry about what will happen if they get sick or who will take care of them when they get old. That would make me happy, too.

A River Runs Through It

Little Varde is a nice place to go for a stroll. I finally got out today and did some walking about. A small river winds through town not far from our apartment -- maybe a 5 minute walk. The river is lined with boats bigger than I expected -- probably for both the lake that is further inland and the North Sea that I would guess is a lazy and crooked cruise ten miles to the west.

I've been surprised by the late sunset. According to my wrist watch that thinks it knows when the sun will set, sundown is currently at 9:08. By my estimates, the sun sets oddly slowly here and the last light doesn't leave the sky until well after ten. The wife said that her co-workers said its not long before it doesn't really get dark at night. I find it already screws up my internal clock -- like a subtle jet lag...

All in all, there is a marked difference between the weather here and England. The temperature is about the same but the sky here is mostly clear. In England, it was mostly grey with clouds either coming or going. It hasn't rained yet but I think they get their fair share here.

Just one quick picture from the riverside before I get some sleep!

That's Right, I'm the Big Winner

Well, after a painstaking selection process of deciding by which blog title's were already taken (sorry, "Eat me, I'm a Danish") the new blog is up and running with my own entry as the winner. Yep, I'm gloating. Thanks to all of you that put in your two kroner.

I don't have much to offer yet -- I've been in Denmark since Saturday and have spent most of that time as a hermit getting caught up on my real job. I've been reading up on Danish food and trying to learn a bit of Danish. I've already learned three new letters (there are only three extras, I think) that apparently somehow mean island, stream, and something I already forgot. My new letters:

Æ Å Ø

Wow. That was exhausting.

We are living in Varde for now, in an apartment owned by the Company. We hope to move into a house -- probably in Esbjerg -- within the next two months or so. Varde is a small town (pop 13,000 or so) and Esberg is a bit bigger (pop 120,000.)


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Ok --gotta run... more later.