Denmark for Christmas

I spent Christmas in Denmark with Mic, his mom Tove and dad Jørn.  When we arrived in Copenhagen, the weather was unseasonably warm and sunny; for Denmark that is.  To us it was still pretty cold. We had booked an Airbnb a block from his mom's apartment. It was my first Airbnb experience and it was quite interesting.  We arranged to meet the guy at 11 am and he assured us somebody would be home.  As has too often been our luck, no one was there. We tried calling and texting and were on the verge of going straight to his mom's when somebody finally opened the door. The guy was seeing a lady friend out and had clearly just rolled out of bed.  How they slept through the doorbell I have no idea. We rang it multiple times and for a long time.  He said he didn't expect us till 11 p.m.  The room was actually really nice.  It was a large living room with a bed in the corner. After settling in, we headed over to Tove's for a nice afternoon of catching up.  

Thursday morning we went to downtown Copenhagen. I was excited for Mic to show me around. He grew up in Copenhagen and had three record stores over a number of years, as well as managed a few bars. He showed me where they were, the clubs he went to, his favorite restaurants etc.  It was a trip down memory lane for him and quite interesting for me. One thing I couldn't help but notice, were the 7-11 convenience stores on every corner.  I have not seen a convenience store since leaving the States. I had been in Denmark in 1987 and I had taken the ferry over to Malmo, Sweden. The first thing I saw upon leaving the ferry was a 7-11. I thought it was so crazy at the time that there was an American convenience store.  And now apparently they're all over Denmark as well.

When I was in Denmark before, I had taken pictures of a beautiful little street right next to the harbor.  Mic said that was Nyhavn. It had colorful houses and boats moored in the marina. We went back to try to get a better picture and of course things had changed. What was once a picturesque sleepy little street is now much more commercial. The beautiful sailboats were replaced by industrial-sized tourist boats and there were cafe's all along the sidewalk.  There was also a building on the corner that has some sort of art show and it was covered in burlap.  I'm not sure why but it was sort of interesting.

You may recall, I broke my shoulder in September and had surgery in October. The shoulder was not healing well, to say the least. After walking around in the cold all morning, my arm was hurting more and more and more. By mid-afternoon the pain was agonizing so we decided to head to the local mall. I know, not the most exciting thing to do in a new city, but I was in so much pain I really didn't care what we did. I thought being inside for a few hours would warm my arm up and the pain would go away.  It did not.  Mic wanted to go do some record shopping and I told him I would happily stay in the mall.  You get to watch people and you get to shop, what could be better?  The prices were very expensive as was everything in Copenhagen so I didn't really buy anything.  It was still an enjoyable afternoon, except for the pain in my arm.

The weather report was predicting a huge storm and we got up Friday morning expecting rain, but it was a beautiful day. We decided to go for a nice walk. There was a little village nearby where all the houses had thatched roofs. We walked through a park and Mic told me about growing up in Copenhagen. Just as we entered the village, it finally started to rain but I got my pictures of the charming little houses. Our luck held and it turned out to be just a little sprinkle as we headed over to Tove's for our big Christmas dinner.

Apparently Christmas is much more structured in Denmark. The first thing you do Christmas eve is put your tree up. Tove had a darling little tree that we spent an hour decorating. The decorations included candles with flames, which I found to be odd. They of course found it quite odd that we do not put live candles in our tree. After everything was decorated it was time to wrap the presents. 

Mic's father and grandmother came about an hour before dinner. His dad lives in Nice and we were really lucky that he was able to come home for Christmas as well.  I totally lucked out in the in-law department!  I really, really like both of them and wish we got to spend more time together.  Mic and his mom were busy in the kitchen so Gramdma and I got to know each other. She actually spoke a fair amount of English and I really enjoyed getting to know her.  She is 92 and quite lively. She reminded me a lot of my own grandmother, who I was very close to.

Eventually dinner was ready and we sat down to eat. What a fabulous meal, Tove is an excellent cook! We had duck and pork roast which were both absolutely delicious. There were some traditional Danish dishes that they really wanted me to try. One was a pickled vegetable that is like nothing we have in the States. It's kind of a cross between a squash and a cucumber and was quite delicious. They also had red cabbage, which I have had and I'm not a big fan of.  The thing they were most curious if I would like were the sweet potatoes. But not sweet potatoes / yams. These are the small white new potatoes with a caramelized sugar glaze. They were surprisingly tasty. Much like our sweet potato casserole at Thanksgiving and Christmas, they only make this dish once a year. The meal was absolutely delicious and of course we were all stuffed.

After dinner it was time to open presents. Since I was sitting closest to the tree it was my job to hand them out. Great job for the only person who can't use one arm LOL. Everybody got really nice gifts, probably because we exchanged detailed lists, which I thought was a great idea. I got a beautiful purse from Tove and some beautiful dream catcher earrings from Jørn. Grandma basically got chocolate from everyone.  She had enough candy to put us all in a diabetic coma! 

After resting up from the huge feast, and the gift exchange, it was time for a game. Mic kept telling me there's a traditional game involving a dessert called Risalamande.  It's basically rice pudding with cream and warm raspberry sauce.  Hidden somewhere in this desert is a whole almond.  Whoever gets the whole almond gets an extra prize.  The pudding was quite tasty and everybody was careful because if you get the almond and bite into it you don't get the gift. Mic won the extra gift.  Basically everybody buys 6 small items and you wrap them up. Everything is put in a pile in the middle of the table. You roll a die and if you get a six, you take something from the pile.  We went around the table until all the gifts we're gone. Grandma and I ended up with the biggest piles, but could we keep them? The next phase of the game involves a timer and goes much faster. A timer is set to a random and unknown timespan.. You again roll the die and if you get a six, you steal somebody's gift. Oh by the way, none of the gifts have been unwrapped, so you have no idea what you're getting. Our lucky streak held and Grandma and I maintained our bounty of goodies in the end. It was actually really fun because this part of the game was fast and furious because once the timer went off, the game was over. When it was your turn to roll, if you got a six you had to grab something fast. No time to agonize over which looks the best. Meanwhile the next person kept rolling and sometimes people would be grabbing the same item or somebody would take your gift and you would take it right back.  The buzzer went off after about 10 minutes and it was finally time to open them up.  I got some really cute things like a nice kitchen towel, a coffee cup, and some other little knick-knacks for the house. Believe or not Grandma ended up with even more chocolate. Mic got to keep the crackers he bought for the gift exchange, which suited him just fine because he wanted them anyway.

It was a really fun evening and I felt so blessed to be included. I felt like one of the family, which is unusual when you're the odd person out. But Mic has wonderful parents, who remained great friends after divorcing many years ago, and I really enjoy them both. The only downside to the evening was when Grandma fell. Everybody had gone into the kitchen, leaving she and I in the living room. I helped her up and we were making our way to the table for dessert when she just fell over backwards. She was unharmed and found the whole thing quite perplexing.  She couldn't understand what the fuss was about, everybody was so much more upset than she was. I said, great, you leave me alone with Grandma for 5 minutes and I drop her. Way to make a good impression.

It was quite late by the time we got back to the house. I had never stayed in an Airbnb before. Judging by the number of toothbrushes in the bathroom, there were 8 people living there. It appeared as though everyone had gone home for Christmas as we were alone for at least 3 days. The first night we could hear people walking around but after that we heard absolutely nothing. They had run out of toilet paper and had put a roll of paper towels in the bathroom. We thought seriously, 8 people and none of you can remember to buy toilet paper? I could tell it was a bunch of young people as the kitchen refrigerator was an absolute nightmare. I was afraid to put anything in it, it smelled so bad.  

We went back over to Tove's house for Christmas Day lunch. We had leftovers and they were just as good the second time around. This time she had added her special meatballs which Mic absolutely loves. This was your typical mellow Christmas day where you eat a big lunch and then lay around on the couch watching TV and chatting.

On Monday it was time to leave Denmark. We had a layover in Rome and had a full afternoon free. We ended up walking around a part of the city that was more residential. There were no restaurants to be seen. It was the day after Christmas but nothing was open.  We ended up eating at a restaurant directly across from our hotel and the food was actually quite good. We had a four-course meal for 20 Euro. Tuesday morning we got up bright and early to complete our journey home, where we were met with warm weather and sunny skies. Malta is a great place to be in the winter.