Vermont Does Denmark

While this past week was a stressful one, as I tried to juggle my family, my host family and my school work, it was well worth it in the end.

On Monday and Tuesday my host mom graciously took two days off work to entertain my mom while I was in school. It was a huge relief, although I was expecting it, that my host mom and real mom got along so well! I did my best to get as much work as possible done in advance, while also trying to meet up with them when I could. On Monday, my mom and I attended a Danish Christmas Lunch, which is really a dinner starting around 7pm, for my Danish Class. We enjoyed classic dishes such as roast pork, brown (caramelized) potatoes, boiled potatoes, red cabbage, and frikadeller (meatballs.) After gorging ourselves on an amazing amount of food, we played charades and sang (with TERRIBLE pronunciation) Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer in Danish. Tuesday night was more relaxed as we prepared for our trip to the airport the next day.

Although picking up the rest of the family was unnecessarily stressful because their flight got in at noon and I had to be back at DIS at one, it was so great to see everyone. I loved having the rest of my family here, and it made all of the activities we did and the BUSY schedule I had planned a lot more fun. While they were tired, they went to the Round Tower and did some shopping on Stroget before meeting me in Tivoli in the evening of their first day. Tivoli is redecorated for Christmas, complete with an elf village, thousands of Christmas lights, vendors selling gifts, ornaments, and toys, scattered heaters to keep you warm, and yummy Christmas treats sold at every turn. It was a really magical place to be….I LOVE CHRISTMAS!
The rest of the week was a whirlwind. I was dodging in and out of classes to meet my family in between. We ate lunch at Nyhavn, walked around Christiania and spent more time on the shopping street. At night we drove back home to my host family where we were treated to homemade frikadeller, a Danish Christmas dinner with the grandparents on Thanksgiving day, and a mini Thanksgiving dinner the day after.

Saturday was our big day, and although I wasn’t feeling well, we made the best of it. We started off the day with a family run, including the host parents, around the lake. Luckily, the weather cooperated, as it was the only day of sunshine in the past week, although it was chilly and I don’t think everyone was as happy to be there as I was….see picture. :) Regardless, it nice way to get the day going. After a delicious breakfast, my family and I drove north along the coast to Helsingør where we visited a castle and ate a yummy lunch, including open faced sandwiches (very Danish!), at the café nearby. We drove back along the coast stopping at Louisiana, a modern art museum that I had always wanted to go to, to see a photography and painting exhibit. While we had originally planned to do all of this and make it back into Copenhagen for a soccer game at 5, at the museum we decided we were a little ambitious and chose to go home, watch a movie and have a nice dinner instead. To keep it Danish I made them watch ‘After the Wedding’ a beautifully shot, but slightly depressing movie that was filmed in and around Copenhagen.

On Sunday, their last day here, we went for a short run in the morning before packing up the car and heading to the Little Mermaid on the way to the airport. Although everyone in Denmark seems to think the mermaid is overrated, it was good for them to see one of Copenhagen’s main attractions before heading back home.
Now that everyone is gone, it’s a little sad, but I know I will be seeing them again very soon. Too soon almost. I’m excited to go home for Christmas, but not only do I have a MILLION things to do before I leave, I’m also very sad about having to leave my host family. They have been really amazing, and moving out of my home in Denmark is going to be hard.

In the meantime, I am being sufficiently distracted by trying to catch up on all the work I missed last week while also getting organized for the weeks to come. I am heading on a ski trip to Sweden with a local Ski Club this weekend, which will hopefully be a fun and interesting experience!