Happy New Year!

CPH
59 degrees, cloudy

This weekend we brought in the new year Denmark-style.  No, it was not the danish new year that is on January 1st (you may think this is obvious but you would be surprised how many people, including myself, asked).  The Danes love themed parties and so friday was new years!  Everyone dressed up to get in the spirit of the night.  Julie, Læsse, and Kaspar worked all day cooking for the feast.  We put two tables in the hall so we could all eat together.  The table was covered in streamers, poppers, small fireworks, and candles.  And, to improve the atmosphere we covered the motion sensor with ducktape so the lights would stay off.  We ate and talked for a very. long. time and by the end it didn't seem so weird to be sitting in a hallway, halfway around the world, in the middle of september celebrating the new years.
There is a lot more to a Danish new years celebration than just eating and drinking and counting down to midnight (although those are three very important things).
Every year the Queen speaks at six o'clock on TV so we watched an old speech on youtube.  This was followed by singing the the national anthem and a few other traditional new years songs.  I did not take part in this nor did I understand anything the queen said, but that didn't detract from the experience.  It is also a tradition to watch the movie The 90th Birthday.  The movie is also a drinking game... oh typical Denmark.  Here are the rules: every time the butler drinks you drink and every time the butler trips on the tiger rug you also drink.  If you watch the video you'll know why I say yikes.  What makes this game more challenging is the fact that you are drinking fisk which is a unique Danish alcohol.  Fisk is some kind of terrible that I've never tasted before.  It is like a combination of mouthwash and liquorish.  Those two flavors on their own are enough, but together?!  WHY?  Anyways, I STRUGGLED through the movie.  The next tradition made up for it.  At midnight we all drank champagne and ate marzipan ring cake.  If fisk and marzipan ring cake were on a scale from one to delicious.... you get it-- they are polar opposites-- marzapan ring cake is freaking delicious!

It was certainly a night to remember and a great memory to have from my time here.