A 5-month trip to Asia

With about five months before we really have to join the "real world" and get jobs, we have decided to see Asia - in particular Russia, China, Nepal and India. We also decided to travel exclusively by land (bus or train).
So, on Sunday, we're setting out for the Czech Republic, through Poland to Latvia and eventually Russia. In mid-October, we'll spend a week aboard the Trans-Manchurian railway from Moscow to Beijing. We'll then tour China for about six weeks, finding our way to Tibet and across the Himalayas to Nepal by December. Around Christmas, we'll head to India, with no defined plans until our flight to Toronto on 15 February (just in time for Carl's wedding).

We'll try to keep this site updated with our adventures, and maybe even some photos.

Get a haircut and get a real job

Two bits of news:

1. Marieke has cut off her dreads! Thanks to all of our friends and family, who donated money to the Canadian Cancer Society to suppot this 'event.' She raised 700$. We even made a little video to commemorate the occasion.
2. Anthony has a job! He will be a 'Junior Wind Consultant' at Ecofys in Utrecht. So, we are moving to Holland. Marieke is excited too, as her Oma lives nearby, and she has already had a promising interview with an environmental consultancy firm. However, we won't be heading to Holland just yet, as Ecofys have agreed to let Anthony start next March, so we can travel 'a bit' first.

Some final thoughts about Denmark

Last Monday, we defended our thesis projects and officially stopped being students. As our time in Denmark draws to a close, we thought that we would write one last blog (ignoring that we haven't written one in 9 months).

We're a bit short on time, so we're just going to reference an email that's been forwarded around recently:

YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN IN DENMARK TOO LONG, WHEN:

• You know the meaning of life has something to do with the word "hyggelig".
• You don't think it strange that no one ever comes by to visit without being invited and you never show up at any one's place unannounced either.
• You find yourself lighting candles when you have guests - even if it is brightly sunny outside and 20 degrees.
• You go to the supermarket and buy three good beers and 10 not too good ones.
• You can tell the difference between a Grøn Tuborg and a Carlsberg beer
• You honestly believe that the distance between Copenhagen and Aalborg is long.
• The first thing you do on entering a bank/post office/pharmacy etc. is to look for the queue number machine.
• You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number.
• When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume that: a) he is drunk; b) he is insane; c) he is a foreigner or d) he is all of the above.
• The word "yes" is an intake of breath.
• You can't remember when to say "please" and "excuse me".
• You start to believe that if it weren't for Denmark's efforts, the world would probably collapse pretty soon.
• You can open a beer bottle with almost anything.
  

Coming soon to a town near you

Marieke and Anthony are coming home for the holidays.

We're both leaving Copenhagen on Saturday, December 16. Marieke is headed to Ancaster and Anthony is going to Duncan, BC - his parents' new home.

On January 6, Anthony will fly to Calgary for a few days before joining Marieke in Ontario on January 10. We then plan to visit with as many friends as possible in the Toronto - Kingston - Ottawa - Montreal areas.

On January 23, we both fly to London, England - for another week with friends and family.

If you're going to be in the same area as us and want to meet up, please drop us a line.

Is there anything Google can't do?

We visited Berlin for a weekend in October, and since then we have made several attempts to upload a blog with all our photos. However, the process is long, tedious and crashes pretty often, so we still haven't finished.

So, we were very happy to find another way to post photos - using Google. Now, we can upload our pictures much faster and they are easier to view online. Our Berlin photos can now be found at: www.picasaweb.google.com/mariekeandanthony (along with our other travel photos). We should be much better about keeping this new site updated (at least in theory)...

We do have one story that cannot be told with photos - our dinner at Dunkel restaurant. Cameras are not allowed in the restaurant; not that they could do much anyway. The entire restaurant is pitch black - in fact, Dunkel means darkness.

The concept is to experience dinner as if we were blind. We selected our food from a purposefully vague menu:

• The starter was described as a fruity salad of which "weak ones become strong and shy ones courageous."
• The soup was a crème soup of a vegetable that was planted a lot before the potato spread around the world, sophisticated with long forgotten wild herbs.
• The main course was a recipe of a wheat produce passed down by Japanese monks, excellently combined with a not quite sober cream sauce and mushrooms that borrowed their name from a settled mussel.
• And the dessert was an exotic salad composed of fruits of an evergreen melon tree, oval fruit with large stone, and Chinese gooseberries.

From these vague riddles, and the use of our remaining four senses, we could try to figure out just what we were eating. More of a challenge was figuring out how we could eat it. And whether or not we'd eaten it all.

We also tried to guess the layout of the restaurant. Based on the voices around us , we figured we were in the centre of a large room. However, near the end of the meal, Marieke noticed that she was sitting beside a pillar. Further groping in the dark revealed that it was actually a corner of the room...

August to October (The Lost Chapters 2)

If anyone still checks this site, they might have noticed we haven't posted a single blog in the last two-and-a-half months. We might tell you we've been very busy with school, or that that nothing interesting has happened recently, or that we had a serious case of writer's block. But those would all be lies.

In fact, we haven't written anything for two reasons:

1. After a year in Denmark, things have stopped being quite so new and exciting. We're getting used to Danish life (and weather). We're beginning to accept the high prices, lack of friendliness and foreign language. We're settling in...
2. We're lazy.

Anthony has a particularly easy semester, so he has found a job. From 11pm-1am (Monday to Friday mornings), Anthony delivers newspapers in the local area. This isn't always the best experience (especially in the rain), but it has its benefits: two hours of quiet exercise and a whopping 35$/hour!

With this newfound wealth, we’ve decided to take a few weekend excursions. Two weeks ago, we visited friends in Munich and next weekend, we’re headed to Berlin. Anthony also bought himself a new digital camera and so we’ve got a lot of photos!

To check out where we’ve been, check out our “Travels Blog.”

Roskilde Festival

Roskilde Festival...What a blast! We'd been looking forward to it even before we bought our tickets in March. The festival lasts 8 days, with only 4 days being actual festival days with full music programs and stuff. Since we hadn't shown Etienne and Berns Copenhagen yet we opted to only come for the last 4 days. However, rumour had it that finding camping spots would be difficult if we didn't show up on the first day with everyone else to set up our tents.

So...Etienne arrived at Copenhagen Airport from London on the night of the 25th. After a quick stopover at our place we headed to Roskilde right away to grab our wristbands and wait until the gates opened up. In the morning, after having waited until the crazies had stormed the festival grounds we walked through an already mushrooming fields of tents and set up our tents. Little did we know then we ended up getting an amazing spot - right a the edge of the swimming area!

On Thursday we came back, in time to see Guns N' Roses. Guns N' Roses pulled a no-show for the first hour of their set. After a while people just assumed that they weren't going to show at all and begun yelling "Asshole" at the stage. When they finally did arrive, the first few songs were classics followed by a bunch of terrible, long solos. Partway through a few of us took off and checked out Sigur Ròs (which was an amazing show!).

Friday and Saturday didn't have very many bands playing. We really liked Morrisey, Tool, The Streets, Tool, Thäström, George Clinton Parliament/Funkadelic. Bob Dylan, was a suprising disappointment as he was just too old and had lost all stage presence. Despite being at the festival, we didn't have to miss the World Cup, as they showed the games on a huge screen.

Sunday was definitely the best day at the festival. There were so many good bands that we couldn't even fit them all in. We saw: Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Placebo, Franz Ferdinand, and the final act, Roger Waters performing Dark Side of the Moon. Roger Waters put on an AMAZING performance! Definitely the highlight of the festival.

Check out the festival website www.roskildefestival.com

Broløbet

At the end of June, we ran Broløbet - a race spanning the Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden. It was the last time the race was going to be held so we decided to take advantage of an opportunity to cross the bridge on foot (normally the Øresund is only open to vehicular traffic). Since the entire distance of the race is a half-marathon (21.2 km), we divided the race up so that we each did roughly half of the distance.

The coordination involved for this race is pretty impressive. About 10,000 people participated, about half coming from each side of the bridge (Copenhagen and Malmö). For this they had two seperate registration centres and buses shuttling all the runners to the starting point. In addition, about 500 people were running the race as a relay so buses had to be coordinated to shuttle second leg runners to the halfway point and pick up the first leg relay runners from the halfway point to bring them to the finish line. On top of all this they had to close down a lane of traffic on the bridge and section off the rest of the course.

To see pictures and how we did in the race, check out www.broloppet.com.