The Wayne and Tanya Tour

Michaels mom and stepdad, we will call them, "Tanya and Wayne" got here on Tuesday and we have been busy having fun since. As each day passes we are all quickly getting more and more red. The weather has been more than beautifully perfect. It's mind boggling. Today the high was 70 degrees, tomorrow 72. Last year while Mary and Jason were here at about the exact same time, in fact, actually it was a few days later, we were still in warm jackets and it was quite cold. brrr...

Day 1: They arrived and we took it easy. :)

Day 2: "Lyngby Fest" (as Mary called it)
We gave T&W the grandtour of "Our Lyngby". It mostly included the main street that we walk on daily and the things we see and do around town. We got to visit inside the Church, which Michael hadn't done before, and we took a little tour of Michaels office. They got to meet several of the Danish students that did the DTU/TTU program that lived in Lubbock and Dallas for a while. After that we went and showed them some of the forest and the older area of Lyngby. While we were walking around town these loud strange sounding sirens started going off. Michael and I mentioned to each other that it sounded like something from WWII warning of an attack that you might hear in the movies. We asked one of the Danes at work about it and sure enough, they test these sirens every year at this time to make sure they are still working. They were put in to say, "The Germans are Coming!!" For me, that was something pretty cool to hear.

The forest in Lyngby

Forest

Day 3: Copenhagen
We spent Thursday showing them what I call, the city section of Copenhagen. They saw the main train station, The Town Hall, Strøget, Kgs. Nytorv and Nyhavn. We drank coffee at one of our favorite cafes, ate lunch at Nyhavn and stuck them on a canal tour while Michael and I baked in the sun on the canal ledge. We finished the day with a nice cold, "Soft Ice".

Tanya found a new favorite chair at "Illums Bolighus"

Flowers at Kgs. Nytorv

Tuborg Man and horses

T&W on the Canal Tour Boat

Sun-Burning

The Must Have Shot at Nyhavn

Day 3: Beach, Bakken and Dyrehaven
Anyone that knows Tanya knows she loves, loves, LOVES deer. The first time we lived in Denmark we knew she would love "Dyrehaven". We were lucky enough that today the deer were out in full force and we were able to get quite close to them. We spend much walking through the park and a lot of time watching the deer walk about.

At Bakken

Stopping for Lunch

Michael and the statue

This Picture is for Mr. Jason Graduated from Law School today loves the hunting lodge Partney!
Congrats from the Hunting Lodge Jason!

Chillin' with the Deer

Still Chillin with the Deer

Michael pretending he is on Safari

We have a ton planned for the rest of their trip. I'll try to get stuff up here more often especially for Nana and the rest of the Family in Lubbock! :)

A Royal Day in Copenhagen

Remember last year when I did this: Queen Margrethe Turns 67

Well, today, Queen Margrethe turned 68!
Because I had so much fun last year, I did it again this year, this time with Hubby in tow.

We got to Amalienborg (The Queens winter residence) about an hour before the balcony appearance and enjoyed the happy atmosphere of the crowd. Not much was different this year from last. The Royal Guard band still marched around and played,little girls still wore their paper crowns, a few little boys were still dressed up in royal guard uniforms, and of course there were still Danish flags everywhere! The only thing different was the Crown Prince, Princess and their two kids didn't take part this year. But you know how it is with me, been there, done that, seen them...so no biggie ;)

Waiting

See all the construction workers in the shafts?

Little girls had on with their paper crowns

Cute Mini Royal Guard

VIDEO
The Queen Making an appearance

HRH Queen Margrethe

The Danish Royal Family
The Prince Consort (AKA The Queens husband) is the older man
The younger man is her youngest son Joachim and his fiance Marie
The two little boys, Nikolai and Felix are Joachims children from his first marriage to Alexandra Christina, Countess of Frederiksborg.

Me with the Danish Royal Family

After the balcony appearance we went for a cup of coffee and then to Rosenborg Slot (Castle). They have a lovely rose garden tucked away in the park. In the spring of 2003 the garden was full of tulips and I was wanting to see if they planted them again this year. But there were none. They were however currently replanting all the roses. Despite the lack of tulips (and roses), it was a lovely day to sit outside so we claimed a bench looking over the garden and the castle. We were surprised to see th Royal Gaurd band at Rosenborg Slot. As they played a crowd began gathering. We sat from a distance and watched. Michael laid down on the bench and took a nap and I sat in the sun listening to the music and the birds.

Rosenborg Park

Rosenborg Slot

VIDEO
A little bit of music a little bit of castle and a little bit of Pates

Michael on our bench.....before the nap.

We were here about 45 minutes when out of nowhere, someone appeared!
I stood up on the bench, and low and behold saw the Queen again!
Twice in one day! Not too bad.

Queen Margrethe in the black hat going up the stairs

From here, our day felt complete and we came back to Lyngby.

Celebrating in the City

Friday morning we got ourselves up and headed up to DTU to listen one of the DTU/TTU guys defend his thesis. Well, Michael went to listen and I went to visit our friend Dorte. :)
Roland did great and got a good mark on his defense. There was no doubt that he would, he is a wonderfully smart guy.

Friday evening it was time to celebrate with Roland along with Jason, Bryant and David who are all in the DTU/TTU program. David is your "stereotypical" Texan. He goes everywhere with his cowboy hat and boots and it was a lot of fun being in the city with him to see all the attention he got. It was all good attention too. He said it is easy to meet girls! I don't doubt it. I'd be interested in a cowboy too if I hadn't ever seen one before!

We met in the city and ate dinner at Riz Raz. It is a great Mediterranean food restaurant. We had been once before with Kelli and Mads. The food was just as good as it was the first time and we had just as much fun.

One of Jasons favorite spots in the city is a quaint little microbrewery called, Brew Pub . It was packed and hoppin'. I've had their beer before from a bottle from the store, but never from the actual place. It was delicious. There is even one beer called "Amarillo". We stood around a tiny table, talked and enjoyed ourselves. There was a cute little courtyard in the back that was all dug up for renovations, but I believe we will be making the trip back here in the summer to enjoy it.

As it was Roland's last night in Copenhagen he had to visit his favorite spot, Copenhagen Jazz House. None of us in the group had been there before besides Roland. There was an entry fee which was a little pricey, 90dkk (19 USD), but as far as entrance fees to places, it was actually pretty reasonable. So, I'm not sure why I'm complaining! Hmmm??? The atmosphere was amazing and the music was incredible. The only down side was that we couldn't talk during the performance. I mean I guess we could have, it was a bar, but no one else was so I think we probably would be been hushed. I guess thats the difference between me, just enjoying jazz music and those who LOVE jazz music. :)

Here is a little clip of some of the music.

Saturday was an exciting day! If you're a long time reader you know that one of our favorite ways to spend our weekends is going to the forest. Saturday, we got to start that up again! The weather was nice enough, the sun was out so we put on our hiking boots and went on our merry way. We took different route than we had before and along the way we came to "Garderhøj Fortet". (A Fort) It reminded us so much of the "Lyngby Fortet" we visited in the fall, but less grown over with bush.

Garderhøj Fortet

Around the back of the fort

Caution!
Break Dancing in Progress

(It means roughly there is a steep cliff)

Wet Day in Copenhagen

Yesterday I went to the city. Much to my happiness, the clouds have been disappearing a couple hours a day for the past few days. But of course, the one day I decide to go spend the day in the city, this is what the weather looked like:

Nice, Real Nice. (said with ample amounts of sarcasm)

I have been wanting to go to the "Danish Resistance Museum" for the past 5 years, and finally I made my way there. After my high school band was invited to Russia to help celebrate "Victory Day" I became absolutely fascinated by WWII mostly on the European front. I have over the years learned a lot about Denmark at this time. Denmark was occupied by German forces during the war. I have found the rescuing of the Jewish people in Denmark to be one of the most amazing stories I have read from WWII. So I was disappointed that there was only a small 6 ft case with artifacts from the rescuing of the Jews and hardly anything written about this. There was an extensive amount about the underground press and the different resistance groups which I found quite interesting. I spent about 2 hours in the museum learning even more than I had previously. It was a very well done museum, but when I left I didn't have a sense of satisfaction that I usually get when I leave a great museum. Perhaps it wasn't fair to this little museum because deep down I think I was judging it against the other INCREDIBLE WWII museums I have been to. All in all I'm glad I went and it made for an enriching day. If someone were to ask me if it was worth the time to pay it a visit, I would unfortunately have to say no. Which is too bad because I had high hopes for this museum. When we went to Jutland for the first time in 2002 we visited some German Bunkers that line the coast. We were able to go inside some of the bunkers where they had information and pictures and other stuff about them. That was really cool and that I would say is YES worth paying those a visit.

Pretty window at "The Danish Resistance Museum"

German Bucker on the Coast of Denmark in Jutland in 2002

Back at the beginning of January there was a HORRIBLE incident of a 19 year old boy that was stabbed to death at the entrance to Strøget. This is right at at some of the the big sites in Denmark like the Royal Theatre, Kongens Nytorv, and Nyhavn. I've talked about this street numerous times. It is the huge pedestrian street that stretches through Copenhagen. Anton was on his way to the Metro at about 6am when 3 others come up to him and wanted his hat. He said, no and a fight started. Then the worst happened. One of the guys took out a knife and stabbed him repeatedly. It was so sad to read about and hear about all of this. The place where he was stabbed has since been covered in flowers, candles, beer bottles, and letters to Anton. I knew I would walk past it today as I had a few places to go on Strøget. Ugg, SO SAD! And to think, it all started because some stupid kids wanted his hat!

Free Ride to the City

This weekend we were pretty lazy, but decided to something on Sunday to spice things up.
The first 3 Sundays of December the S-tog or commuter trains are free all day long. It is a Christmas Gift from the company to the people. We thought of 100 places we could go, but in the end, we ended up going to Copenhagen for the day. We went to a coffee shop and got some coffee to walk around with. The streets were PACKED with people. Usually everything is closed on Sundays, but because of Christmas, everything is open and the city was hoppin'. After walked around for about 2 hours we started to head back to the train to go home and took the long way through Nyhavn. Every year Nyhavn has a Christmas Market. It is always cute and charming. We have never really stopped to look at the little places selling stuff, because it is mostly stuff we aren't so interested in. Some stalls have lots of kids stuff, others sell jewelry, others sell clothes. Last year though, we stopped and bough crapes and one of the stands and it was GOOOOOD. :)

Nyhavn Christmas Market

Nyhavn Restaurant Decked out for Christmas

After Nyhavn we headed to a little path way that stretches along the waterfront. I couldn't believe how many people were out walking here either. It is usually quite with just a few people when we walk this path.

Me with the New Opera House
It was barely 4:00 pm when we took this picture!!

Then we hopped back on the train and came back to Lyngby. Ever since we spent the day in the city when we went to Tivoli for Halloween, when we get back home we both feel awful. I think it is because we have been in the cold all day long and then our bodies start to warm up??? I don't know, but I DO know...after Paris, I am hibernating inside until February.

When Two Blogs Collide

I'm sure everyone has noticed "Kelly and Mads" posting here for the past couple of months. She ran across our blog while searching Google for "Danish Lessons in Dallas". Funny enough, I was actually able to tell her where she could find Danish Lessons in Dallas and she started them! As it turns out, she lives in Allen not far from where we lived, and is getting ready to move to Herning, Denmark in June to be with her (as of this past Friday) husband Mads. The more we wrote the more we realized we had in common. I love that I met another Texan who is in the process of moving to wonderful Denmark and have enjoyed following her story of discovering Denmark as it reminds me of a time when Michael and I were falling in love with the country we have become to adore.

We had planned a few weeks ago to meet up yesterday for lunch in Copenhagen with her daughter Jess and Jess's friend Danielle. We went to a restaurant called, "Riz Raz". I had heard many good things about it from multiple people so we gave it a try. It is a Mediterranean restaurant and everything was vegetarian and very good. We all decided on the buffet and piled our plates full of food.

We had a lovely time and Mads and Kelli were completely adorable together. I honestly thought they seemed as if they had been together for many years (in a good way). Kelli was just as great in person as I imagined that she would be and Mads was fantastic. He stuck both of us as one of those very rare, genuinely nice people. Jess could have been Michelle's (Michaels sister) younger sister. They looked so very much alike and had some of the same mannerisms. It was funny for us to see. Kelli and Jess will not be in Denmark permanently until June, but I am very much looking forward to big move here.

On our way out Kelli and I hopped downstairs to to restrooms and there was a sign on the door that said the womens was out of order, and we had to use the mens. We weren't the only women in there which made it slightly less weird, but it was a little (ok a lot) strange to be not only be in line while men were washing their hands, but also strange to walk out of the stall and have man using the urinal right in front of us. That was a first. I'm glad I had someone there with me to share that story with.

Mads and Kelli

Kelli and Me
It was cold, can you tell?

"We are like Brothers" with matching hair.

Kelli and Mads, it was so great to get to put voices and motion to the pictures and writings.
Tak for en rigtig god eftermiddag! :)

After parting ways with our new friends we walked around Copenhagen for a while looking at many of the shops that were decorated for and selling nothing but Christmas stuff. We also decided we would hop into Tivoli and see what was going on there.

On our way to Tivoli I stopped to get a picture with most famous Dane, Mr. Hans Christian Anderson. He wrote, "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", "Princess and the Pea", "The Emperors New Clothes", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", and "Thumblina" just to name a few. There is a huge statue of him in Rådhuspladsen just across from Tivoli. And so, I was able to cross number 126 off my list of things to do in Copenhagen before we leave. Take my Picture with the big statue.

Tivoli was CRAZY. The line to get into the park was the longest I have ever seen times 20! Since we have year cards, we got to skip the line and jump inside the park. We only stayed about 15 minutes. It was long enough to walk around a little bit and escape the insanity that was Tivoli.

I found time for one picture

We got home about 5 (after a brief stop at the grocery store because all Thanksgiving leftovers only lasted 1 day) , put on our PJs, made some tea and were lazy the rest of the evening. :)

Halloween Preview

We had planned all week to spend Saturday in Copenhagen, because there were three things we needed to get done in the city.

1. Get a Guinness :)
2. Purchase everything we need for our Halloween costumes
3. Go to "Halloween in Tivoli"

The air was quite chilly and according to the weather, it was the coldest it has been in Copenhagen so far this season. I can, without a doubt, feel winter in the air.

The Guinness was great (Always is). We hit a new Irish Pub and I think this one will be our new favorite and regular place to get our Guinness fix. Not only was our Guinness poured correctly (Pour and let it sit for 2 minutes, and then fill it the rest of the way), but the bar tender made little shamrocks on the head of the beer. Way fun! It was a pretty cold day, but the sun was shining and we were able to sit outside comfortably.

We did get everything we needed for our costumes and I think they are going to look great. Unfortunately, I can't say what we are going to be here because some of the people coming over read this blog from time to time. So you'll just have to wait and see what we are. ;)

Tivoli was a lot of fun. This was, I believe, only the second year that Tivoli has re-opened for Halloween. We spend a couple hours there walking around, eating, and checking out all the cool Halloween shops they had set up. This was a nice change because most stores sell very little Halloween stuff. The toy stores don't even have more then a small section of stuff set up. Denmark is just now starting to embrace Halloween, but they have a LOOOOONG way to go to catch up to all its hype and glory that it holds in the states.

Check out the cool Pumpkin Roof

Decorations

Me (with several layers of cloths on) and My New Friend.

I think Tivoli bought all the pumpkins in Denmark

Michael and the Pumpkins


We got back home about 7:00pm and were exhuasted. Both of our heads hurt and we felt like we were coming down with something. I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that we were outside in colder then normal weather all day long. We crashed at 9:30 and got a good nights rest and felt all better this morning. :)