Springtime in Denmark

Spring has arrived and we have had two weeks of almost constant rain. As we talked to some friends back home, we started getting nostalgic for our days at Queen’s (and in Canada in general).

We miss living close to all our friends. We miss the diversity of a multicultural country. Anthony misses the blue skies and mountains of Alberta. We miss student clubs, and student bars. Marieke misses recycling (and hates that Danes wear fur). We wish we knew any of our neighbours or at least that they would smile once in a while.

Then, just as we’re starting to feel homesick, the skies cleared and the sun came out (literally). Suddenly, Denmark didn’t seem so bad and we realized that we’re really enjoying ourselves here. We both really like our university programs and we love our apartment. We’re having fun learning Danish. We get to bike everywhere, and the public transit is so good you really don’t need a car. The grocery stores sell tons of organic food, and super cheap beer. We get lots of holiday time, and are planning many trips. We’re loving it.

Speaking of trips, I’m off to England for a week to visit some relatives. Marieke will be staying here to work on her first-year thesis, so if you’re procrastinating, give her a call (with Skype, it’s only 4 cents/min). Her mobile number is +45 60 62 74 35.

Recent Visitors

So we've been getting visitors at our place again! First my mom, in the beginning of February and then Anthony's parents in mid-March. My mom's visit was a surprise - everyone else knew about it but me. I knew that my mom had been planning to visit my Oma in Holland for a week. A while back she had mentioned that she might stop off in Denmark to see me, considering that she would be in Europe anyway. Closer to the date, she kept saying that she'd think about it but that she probably wouldn't have time to see me. So I was kind of bummed, as I'd gotten my hopes up that my mom would visit.

So anyway, Anthony had asked me about a week beforehand if I could be home around noon one day to receive a package (it was close to my birthday and we had made a few travel plans/ticket reservations that required someone to actually be home to receive the package - so I wasn't suspicious). So, when the "package" arrived it turned out to be my mom- albeit a little late due to inevitable flight delays. I couldn't believe my eyes! There was no way that my mom was standing in my living room! We had a really nice visit, despite it being extremely short (about 24 hours from the time she arrived until she had to be back at the airport again). We didn't get to do very much sightseeing but that'll have to wait until August when the whole family is due to come out and visit!

Anthony's parents were here for 3 days after having gone to Anthony's cousin's wedding and before their 25th year anniversay holiday to Sicily. It was a lot of fun! We went up to Helsingør to see Kronborg castle (the famed Hamlet castle) , did a walking tour of Copenhagen, went to the Carlsberg Brewery and went to Christiania (that hippy village that we always refer to). The last night that Brenda and Michael were here we had our "landlords" over for dinner, which was great since they had a chance to meet some real Danish people.

So now we're in the midst of organizing our summer and our next guests' visits. In April, my brother Pieter might come out, and a girl I know from the Queen's triathlon club who's in Holland on exchange is coming out to visit over Easter. In June, some of our friends (so far Berns and Etienne) are coming out to go the Roskilde Festival and do some traveling with us. In August my whole family (maybe minus Pieter) is coming out to visit.

Get paid to go to school

As if free tuition was not enough, Danish citizens receive a salary while attending university. Each month, students get about 4000 Kr (800$). This in intended to cover housing (2000 Kr), food (1500 Kr) and fun (500 Kr). As well, they receive money each semester to cover the cost of textbooks. And free printing at all university databars.
Of course, they'll pay 60% tax for the rest of their lives...

"Do you dream of spending the summer in Canada?"

A big poster has been put up in one of my classrooms, advertising the exciting possibility of working in Canada this summer. Successful applicants could help develop new course materials and laboratory exercises for the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Fastelavn (i.e. Danish Carnival)

The Danish are really confused when it comes to holidays! Halloween doesn't involve costumes or candy. Christmas decorations are set up by the beginning of November.
And their take on "Carnival" or "Mardi Gras" is just plain weird: a mix of European, Mexican and Viking traditions. Like many other European countries, they dress up in costumes and have a big party. And, similarly to Mexico, there is a pinata, but it's a little different: it is a wooden barrel with a black cat outline painted on the outside. They take turns beating the barrel until it breaks open. There is no candy inside the pinata, but the person to break open the barrel is declared to be the winner and gets some prize (often beer, or candy for kids).
The winner is said to have "killed the cat." This is because this tradition is a tribute to their Viking past, when they used to put a live cat inside the barrel. The "winner" was the person who broke the barrel and revealed the dead cat inside. This was supposed to somehow ward off evil. The weirdest part is that Danes don't see anything wrong with this...
Stay tuned for their St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Reading Week 2006 – Day 0

It wasn’t technically Reading Week, but I’ve never really had a perfect attendance record anyway. Besides, from a Canadian perspective, the Olympics were so close to Denmark.

I apologize now for this overly lengthy description of our trip. To summarize: we went to the Olympics, as well as Florence, Venice and Milan. It was fun. If you want more details, please keep reading.

Our trip got off to a bit of a shaky start. As we were about to board the plane, Marieke noticed that she had lost her jacket somewhere in the airport. Luckily, the Copenhagen is pretty small. Then, our discount flight to “Paris” really landed in Beauvais, which is an hour’s bus ride from the outskirts of Paris. Some might question why we would fly to Paris to start our Italian vacation, but the flight was really cheap and everywhere in Europe is really so close together. The next morning, it was only a four hour train ride to Torino…

Reading Week 2006 – Day 1

Having only planned this trip two months ago, we had found that all reasonably priced accommodation in Torino was completely booked. Several people chose to stay in Milan (an hour and a half away by train) and commute daily, but we found a cheaper option.

We found a small campground in the mountains that was open year-round. When we first emailed them, they pointed out that they were primarily open to RVs and that it would be much too cold to camp. But we figured, how cold could Italy really be? Besides, we’re Canadians and we’ve camped in real winters before.

So, when we arrived in the mountains and found that the temperature was 10°C, we were feeling pretty smug. How could they possibly be holding Winter Olympics in weather like this? We weren’t feeling quite so confident though, when we found out that this warm weather meant that our campsite was flooded. We managed to find a couple of slightly elevated spots that weren’t soaked and set up our tents.

We had to hurry, since we had tickets to see the Canada vs. Germany men’s hockey game that night. The Palasport Olympico is quite a small arena, so we had a great view from our seats in the “nose bleeds” behind the net. The seats were far from full, but it was great to see that the Canadian fans vastly outnumbered the Germans. A large majority of the fans appeared to be Italians, but they still happily cheered and waved Canadian flags every time Canada scored (final score: Canada 5 – Germany 1).

Reading Week 2006 – Day 2

Back at our campsite, we had only a few hours to sleep, before we had to catch another train: we were going hiking along the Italian coast, about two hours south of Torino. We slept some more on the train, and when we awoke and looked outside, we were shocked to see palm trees and orange trees in full bloom. We even saw a few people playing tennis in shorts! We quickly realized that our long underwear and extra sweaters, which had seemed like such a good idea at 6am, would spend most of the day in our backpack.

We hiked along a small trail from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, through a beautiful area know as Cinque Terre. The trail was originally used by local farmers to travel between five (cinque) coastal towns and to access their orchards in between. The scenery alternates between spectacular views of the Mediterranean, lush vegetation and the small towns (all of the buildings are painted pink, yellow or orange). The trail is apparently a popular tourist destination during the summer, but was pretty much deserted for us.

That evening, we returned to Torino, where we met up with Ieva (Marieke’s classmate from Latvia), Tyler (Steve’s brother, now a British banker) and Vladi (Tyler’s friend, a Latvian-Californian). They were also camping with us, although Vladi was slightly under-prepared…