Julefrokost

Here in Denmark people follow traditions which are suited to surviving the dark winter months and enjoying the long summer days. Christmas and the preparations for Christmas are an important part of making it through the dark days. This time of year, people attend Julefrokosts. Julefrokost literally means "Christmas lunch" often in the form of a buffet with traditional Danish fare, beer, and aquavit. These are held by employers and other community organizations. Alexa and I both attended Julefrokosts on Friday, I with my work colleagues and she with hers. Spouses do not attend these parties as they did for Christmas parties in the U.S. We have another scheduled with our choir, but they cannot find a place to hold it so it will probably fall through. Alexa will go to one more next weekend for her other job.

At my Julefrokost on Friday we went to Sankt Gertruds Kloster, an old convent turned into a restaurant lit entirely by candlelight. We had several courses, appetizer (veal and pickled fig), starter (salmon and salad), soup (sea bass and scallops), main course (veal and buttery potatoes), and dessert (apple pastry and ice cream). Each course accompanied a wine selection. We sat down at 5:30 (17.30) and I stayed until some people started leaving around 10:00 (22.00), others were making plans to go to a bar. It was a nice time to talk with colleagues and get to know people better. These events have a reputation for getting out of hand, but that wasn't the case here.

On the language front, we have had our employer-paid Danish instruction extended by 5 more weeks. After that we'll try out other options. We've also discovered a group of international people trying to learn Danish that meets monthly for Danish conversation. That might be fun.

Danish

We have two weeks left with the Danish instructor who is being paid for by my employer. After that we can either keep learning on our own or try one of the evening/weekend courses offered by the city. We'll probably do some of both. We definitely want to keep it going. The subsidized courses have a reputation for being a little, shall I say, abusive, but they may provide the push we need to keep improving. We figure that if we were living in France (or Spain, or Germany, or Italy, or any other country where English isn't as universally known) we would both be speaking it semi-comfortably by now (after almost six months). Here we don't have the practice with native speakers that we would be forced into elsewhere. We surely could be more stubborn about speaking only Danish, but it's too easy to fall back on English when I know that the cashier, or customer service rep., or waiter, or neighbor speaks English nearly as well as I do (or maybe better). So far, I've gotten proficient at ordering bread at the bakery or ordering a pizza (food is a good incentive to learning Danish). I even requested (in Danish) that I have the mushrooms on only half the pizza (Alexa's half).

Looking back, we've improved a lot, but there's definitely a long way to go. Most signs I can read pretty readily. I can work out most of the newspaper articles in the free papers that are common here. They're clearly written at a lower level than the traditional papers such as Politiken. Conversations are a different matter. I think at this point I can understand about 15% of a given Danish conversation on TV, on the radio, or at work. Obviously that's not sufficient, but it's a big improvement over not being able even to distinguish words. There are still some people at work who I can understand not at all because they speak so quickly.

We'll keep at it, and fill you in as we go on. Wish us luck!

Cycling in Denmark

Today we took a trip on our bikes to Lyngby, about 10-11km northwest of Copenhagen. This is where Alexa works her second job and we were giving the route a test-drive. The bike path was very good following the highway most of the way there. There were highway lanes, access road lanes, bike lanes and then the sidewalk. There was also a steady 20mph headwind on the way there, but it helped us on the way back.

It is very nice how cycling is encouraged here. Recently, the city re-timed the lights on a main thoroughfare to allow cyclists to get 11 green lights in a row at an average speed of 20km/hr. Bike paths are nearly everywhere and cars are very aware of bikes. I'm told if a car hits a bike, it's the car's fault, no matter what. That tends to get a driver's attention. It also makes for some pretty aggressiver cyclists, but that's another story.

Goblins run amok!

You may not have known, but today is the big day. Jim Hines' book, Goblin Quest, is being released. As part of his virtual book tour Jim has volunteered to take questions from bloggers. You can read more at the virtual tour headquarters: http://www.sff.net/people/jchines/GQ/Tour.htm

I read Goblin Quest last year before its mass market release. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an adventure book with wit, humor and compassion. If you have any questions about the book, check out his site. Else you can post a question in the comments with the hope that Jim may pay us another visit.

Q) I understand there is the possibility that Goblin Quest may be published in Europe. Here in Denmark, role-playing games (RPG) are popular. Stores (even local grocery stores) carry costumes, swords, etc. (not just before Halloween) and Alexa sees teenagers at the train station most afternoons with cloaks, elf ears, and other embellishments. You can also see from one of my early posts about the medieval festival that there's a large group of reenactors here. Do you see RPG popularity growing in the US?

A) My agent, Steve Mancino, has done a wonderful job of selling foreign rights. At the moment, we have translations coming out in Russia, Germany, and the Czech Republic. It's been so much fun seeing the translated title (DIE GOBLINS, in German), or my name in Cyrillic, or the different artwork other publishers are using for the book. We'll probably do another round of foreign marketing now that the DAW edition is in print.

I do think role-playing has become more popular and more accepted than it was when I first started playing, almost ::mumble-mumble:: years ago. (I played First-Edition Basic D&D, if that tells you anything.) Back then, I didn't see too many other games, and of course I lived right by Michigan State University, home of the college students who were rumored to have snuck down into the steam tunnels and gotten themselves killed. All inspired by that horrible, Satanic role-playing, of course.

These days, there are too many gaming systems to count. You've got the traditional paper and rulebooks and dice games like AD&D, the CCGs like Magic the Gathering, the multi-user computer games like City of Heroes... The stuff's everywhere! Not to mention some great gaming-related material. Comics like Dork Tower and PVP and Order of the Stick are on my daily Favorites list these days.

I haven't seen quite the popularity you're seeing in Denmark, though. No cloaked elves on my way to work or swords in the grocery stores. But I certainly think it's been growing here in the U.S. Sadly, I had to stop attending our local game back when my son was born. But Jamie has already proven his skill with his big plush die. Given his size and his propensity for tackling things, I think he'll make a great dwarf.

Thanks for the fun question, Andy! If I ever make it out that way, I definitely want you to take me to these grocery stores!

To elaborate more on role playing games in Denmark, Alexa says she saw a father running down the street by the train station with a sword that his son must have forgotten at home. Live action role playing is big here. Wikipedia says an estimated 100,000 Danish children play on a regular basis. That's a lot of people in a country with a population just over 5 million. If things go well with the German translation, a Danish translation might be a logical followup. Best wishes and congratulations to Jim!!!

Lights out

I've replaced the duplicate photo (viking ship) from a previous post with a picture of the lake near our apartment. We enjoy running around the lake and watching the ducks, swans, and seagulls.

It was bound to happen. By law in Denmark drivers must have headlights on at all times. Cars here are set up to have the light come on when the engine is running. Ours isn't, nor does it beep at us when I leave the lights on and get out of the car. So, on a shopping trip Saturday I left the lights on and ran the battery down. Alexa took the perishables home on the train and I went off in search of jumper cables (no jumper cables either!?!?). Another thing about Denmark is that the vast majority of cars are manual transmissions which allow one to start the car with the help of a small hill or a push from some willing participants, thus few jumper cables. Anyway, a nice man pointed me toward the nearest gas station. I hiked over, found cables for $50, and returned to lay in wait for the next nice passerby. Not long after that, the family parked to my right returned to their car. I politely asked (in English) if they could help me. They did and everything worked out fine. The funny part was that when I was backing out of my spot, I saw the back of the man's jacket as he got into the car. On it was "Schuylkill Rowing" and "Philadelphia" (my hometown). I chose not to harass him further, but it was another manifestation of the "small world syndrome."

Regnvejr og Blæsevejr

(rainy and windy weather)

One of the most common topics of conversation here is the weather. I know it's a bit of a cliche, but it's true. Since we arrived, we haven't had much reason to complain about the weather; but of course we arrived in June. July and October had record high temperatures. August was rain. Today was our first real storm. There was a steady 40-45mph wind all day with rain and snow. From my office window I could see whitecaps in the harbor and the flag poles straining against the gale. People at work prodded me, saying that this weather only lasts until June. And if it doesn't clear up before next summer - it will by the time summer '08 rolls around. While I know the novelty will wear off eventually, it's still a nice change from Houston where autumn did not really feature strongly in the calendar.

The worst part of the last week was the coming of standard time. It's now getting dark around 4:30. We still have 7 weeks until the winter solstice when I'm told we'll be down to 7 hours of daylight. I console myself by thinking that I could be living in Norway instead. The Danes seem to combat the darkness in part by filling up their social calendars with julefrokosts (Christmas lunches). These are big parties (either lunches or dinners) put on by employers or social groups. I have two coming up - 1 with work and 1 with our choir. I'll report more on that when it comes up. After Christmas there is a winter holiday week in February and most people try to go south. In between, I guess they hunker down with family and friends and candles and food and wine and anything else that gets them through the winter.

On another note, my danish driving license (kørekort) arrived in the mail last week. I'm official!