Birthday celebrations - guest post

My birthday was recently and, being the complete opposite of the party animal and not having high quantities of party entertainment, I chose not to throw a party. This was, in my opinion, an extremely good decision. Instead, we had a formal dinner with my mother's friend, who was stopping by on her way to Sweden. We had twice-baked potatoes, artichokes (for the first time in around a year),

and skillet-baked eggs and asparagus. Then, I opened presents. I received many nice gifts, including a pencil case and pencils, a subscription to Macworld Insider, and both The Sims 3 Outdoor Living Stuff and The Sims 3 Generations.

I was very excited about Generations, due to its many new features. These include imaginative play for kids, rebelliousness and pranks for teens, and memories for all ages. After that, we had a delicious flourless chocolate cake, and I played Sims for the rest of the evening.

We won!

We visited the Roskilde tourist office  to learn more about an event they were promoting and decided to fill out a form to win tickets to the local music festival.  Yippee!  We won!  Two tickets to the Roskilde Festival, each costing about $330!  Last year the headline performer (headliner?) was Prince and this year some of the big bands include Iron Maiden, Arctic Monkeys, and Kings of Leon.  The festival is also known for attracting smaller groups from a variety of genres and all get to play concerts, not just a number or two.

The festival is one of the six biggest in Europe, attracting over 80,000 attendees and over 20,000 volunteers.  It is run as a non-profit event with volunteers earning money for the local organization they represent (soccer team, theater group, Scouts).

The festival is also known for its camping, which opens several days before the first concert.  Our neighbor's teenage daughter has been working all year to save up for a week of camping and drinking with friends.  I'll pass, even though the tickets we won include camping.

And according to Wikipedia

Every year, on the Saturday of the Festival, since 1998, Roskilde Festival Radio organizes a nude run around the camp site. One male and female winner will receive a ticket for the next year's festival.

Emergency vehicles

When I heard a siren today I realized that it was maybe the second or third time this year that I had seen an emergency vehicle with its lights and siren on.  Life is different here.

In our area the ambulances have beautiful license plates, but most other communities seem to have standard plates.

End of the school year

As I read about my friends' kids having end-of-the-year field trips, shorter days, and parties I wonder why it is different here.  I have some theories.
   1.  Summer vacation is much shorter here so there isn't as much to celebrate.  The last day of school is 24 June and starts up again 8 August.
   2.  Each school day is already short, usually ending at 11:30 for the younger ones and 12:45 for the older ones so there is no need to have half-days at the end of the year
   3.  The classes loop, meaning the kids and teachers stay together.  They don't need to have farewell parties.
   4.  There are two more weeks of school so maybe I just haven't heard about celebrations yet.
   5.  There is something going on and I haven't figured it out.

Just as at Christmastime, there is no talk (yet?) of a gift for the teacher.  At our California school there was a parent who coordinated donations from families and the teachers were given gift certificates for restaurants, clothing, vacation, or home improvement stores.  They have a system here where the teachers are paid enough to buy their own food, clothing, shelter, and trips to the beach.  So clever.

Blog logistics

Twenty-six of you signed up as followers of this blog, but what does that mean?  Some people logically thought it meant they would be told when I had a new post, but were disappointed to learn this was not true.  You simply had to keep checking back, which helped my stats.  (Little aside - I can see all sorts of stats, like which operating system people use to view the blog - 49% on Macs and only 2% on Linux.  The statistics also show how many views I have received from each country - 33 hits from Ukraine!)

But now, thanks to alert reader Laura K., I learned how to add a gadget to the blog that will allow you to submit your email address and receive notification when I post something.

To reward you for your willingness to check out this blog without getting any email I will post a couple pictures, just because.

one of my favorite houses on the harbor

the view from that house

Swimming

looking out from the shore

We returned from Hungary in time for a four day weekend (Thursday was Ascension Day, or Kristi Himmelfartsdag in Danish) and the best weather you could imagine.  It was over 25ºC and clear blue skies.  We cycled to a harbor north of town one day, but the next day we cycled to a small beach closer to home.

looking toward the shore - if you look at the house above the boat you might notice that it has a thatched roof

Even though it is very shallow for a long distance, it gets deep enough to use the diving board at the end 

of the dock.  There are several sets of stairs off the dock if you prefer to enter the water slowly.

Twice during the week at 7am and at 7:30am on the weekends a group of skinny dippers meets at this same spot, rain or shine.  This morning the sun was definitely shining (official sunrise was 4:33am) so I cycled over and joined about a dozen nøgenbadere.  I have not had such an idyllic swim since my last visit to the Adirondacks or maybe Shapleigh Pond in Maine.  After our swim someone checked the thermometer and people were so surprised the water was 20ºC that we decided to get back in!

A. second swim of the day

During the day everybody wears suits, although some little kids are naked or in their underwear.  Many people change from their suits into their clothing right on the beach, and not under a towel.  It is definitely not a big deal.

R. holding a moon jelly

Bumping into jellies when swimming is both fascinating and a little creepy.  We have only seen the water jellies (as opposed to the fire jellies), and I hope it stays that way.

Hungary - guest post

Recently our family went to Hungary, along with my aunt, her partner, and my grandmother and Hungarian grandfather Apa. The trip was lead mainly by my grandfather, who still has an excellent grasp of Hungarian. We visited many historical sights, which I will describe later. We also visited some of my grandfather's old friends at a café. 

Hungary has many fine foods, including lángos, fried dough with either sweet or savory toppings, palacsinta, which are essentially crepes, pogácsa, delicious cheese biscuits, kifli and zsemle, bread rolls in crescent and round shapes, and quality smoked cheeses, which I cannot find the name of. A dish I have enjoyed at restaurants is fried cheese on rice, which is what it sounds like, a giant breaded chunk of cheese on rice. 

We tried many types of public transit, including the autobus (bus is a swear word in Hungarian), the tram, the metro, and a cog-wheel train, and and even an open-air scenic train staffed mostly by children. 

Among the historical sights we visited were the synagogue Apa attended as a child and the
Holocaust memorial in the back, the site of the old wall, and more. 

Hungary was an enjoyable vacation, although it was not what I would have chosen, since I am the sort who believes you should have an expensive vacation or have fun at home. I would recommend Hungary to the adventurous with a good grasp of Hungarian, or to those traveling with a speaker of the language.