Festivities with the Family

"Sometimes members of the same family do not grow up under the same roof"       

                                                          -Richard Bach

So as I've told you before, I have a Danish family from outside Copenhagen who have graciously adopted me into their little family for the semester. We have had dinners together and tours of the city, and this week they had two more great activities in store for me!

On Sunday, they took me to a Fastelavn celebration. Fastelavn is a festival that celebrates the coming of Spring and is often called the "Nordic Halloween." In Danish towns, children dress up in costumes and play traditional games like "hitting the cat out of the barrel," which looked to me similar to using a piñata, except in addition to candy the barrel was full of fresh oranges, and had pictures of cats on it.

(Historically there was a real black cat in the barrel, and beating the barrel was superstitiously considered a safeguard against evil.) The one who knocks out the candy first is the "catqueen" and the one who continues hitting until the last peice of barrel comes down is the "catking."

Iben, the adventurous 8 year old, was so determined to be cat queen this year. She even dressed up as a dancing cat for her costume! Unfortunately she didn't win, but she thinks she can win at her school party this Friday because "the kids at school aren't very strong."

Here are some pictures of us at Fastelavn...

Of course the only makeshift costume I could come up with was the most unDanish costume possible.... an American football jersey, woops!

 

Emily, my roomate, was lucky enough to be picked for apple bobbing...
only in Denmark you have to eat the whole apple in the water.
She was not as excited to participate as Annika and Iben were to watch her!

 

Fastelavn is also famous for the traditional pastries made on this festival. There was a huge buffet line of all sorts of countless pastries and Emily and I fulfilled some more American stereotypes and brought two plates each back to the table expecting everyone to do the same....My family each brought back one little pastry each. Oh well, it was worth the weird looks, sooo good!

Fastelavn cakes!

                                
While eating our cakes, I asked Christian and Susanne how their ski trip to Norway went last week. They said it was wonderful and asked if I liked to ski. I said I had once or twice and they said well, would you want to go this week? We will take you to Sweden!! 


An email later that night confirmed our plans along with an invite to Emily so we had one day of class and then SKI TRIP! They also provided us with all of the ski equipment and clothes we needed!

The trip was yesterday and it was unbelievable! They picked us up at 6:30 am, drove to the coast, ferried over to Sweden, and were at the mountain in another thirty minutes.  Now mountain is a relative term....
If you asked Shelby (from Colorado) what a mountain was she would respond with this....

                                           

If you ask the Swedes what a mountain was, they might say this....

                                        

But hey, a mountain's a mountain! I was just happy to be skiing :) 

We spent the whole day on the slopes. Since I hadn't skiid since my fateful trip to visit my brother in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last year, (and wasn't sure I wanted to again after that Black he tricked me into doing), I was happy to remember so quickly. I went on every run they had and Christian got a few pictures of our day....

bundled up

They even taught me a few new tricks!

                                        



We had a wonderful day, and we had a lot of great conversations about politics, Danish music, Denmark vs the US, and I learned even more about the Danish culture and way of life. They are such nice and generous people who are really making an effort to make sure my time in Denmark is memorable...and they are doing an unbelievable job.

I'm going to their house Friday for Susanne's birthday to meet all of her family.  Then to London all next week. Lots to post about coming soon!

X's and O's from Denmark,

Kelly