Day 278 - Chicken in a Bag

As we are fancy Danish folk, we prefer to buy our chicken in a paper bag.

Note, this was not more or less expensive than the standard plastic / cell-o-phane option.

For my cooking friends who have not already heard the gospel...THIS, is the best / easiest way to cook and enjoy a whole chicken. Go drag yourself to ACE Hardware and buy a $10 cast iron skillet. Thank me later.

Day 275 -- Biopharmaceutical Research Unit (BRU) Research Day

Friday was Novo's annual BRU research day.  Novo is split into two research units:  Diabetes (called DRU) and everything else (called BRU).  Collin and I are both in BRU and therefore got to attend this day together.   This year's venue was an area in the northern part of Copenhagen.  The site is called "Docken" and is where, a long time ago, ships were built and then released into the water.  Now it seems like a large warehouse/ shipyard area that is also starting (?) to be revitalized.  We took the train to the closest station and walked the final 2.2 km along construction sites and large warehouses, hoping we were going the right way.

I guess they roll out the red carpet?!   Actually, despite the outside appearance the venue is pretty nice.  Of course we failed to capture any pictures once we got inside, but here are two from the Docken website

sandy outdoor space out back

view from the back

The day started with a scientific talk on FVIIa by Ulla Hedner (who discovered and pushed forward Novo's only currently-marketed haemophilia treatment in the 80s) and a few talks on inflammation and immunogenicity.  Lunch was a typical Danish lunch of meats, breads, mayonnaise potatoes, and frikadeller (Danish meatballs).  The afternoon had more scientific presentations followed by a performance by three sopranos from the Royal Opera.  They performed a medley of songs from both operas and musicals, in English and Danish, ending of course, with a rousing rendition of Abba's "Thank you for the Music".  

Dinner followed the musical act.  We sat with our departments so I didn't see Collin through this part.  It started with a salad with some sort of ceviche, followed by meat and beans and tomatoes and potatoes, of course.  Dessert was some sort of nutcake.  Nothing to memorable  

Following dinner, a cover band took the stage and played a mix of music in both English and Danish...some I knew, some I did not.  And everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, danced.  Danes apparently love dancing.

Collin and I got home shortly after midnight.  It was a long and busy and tiring day.

I will leave you with a picture of the sign outside the bathrooms that made me laugh.

Day 274 part II -- Our anniversary dinner

As Collin has already mentioned, we celebrated our 8th anniversary last week.  Collin wanted to take me out to dinner at a Copenhagen restaurant called 1.th.  The closest reservations we could get were for last Thursday night.

Suave Collin on the metro

1.th stands for "første, til højre" which means, first floor, to the right, as in an address.  The concept of the restaurant is to mimic going to a friend's house for dinner.  There is no sign outside the building.  In fact we walked past it the first time and had to look up the address to find it.  You just ring a buzzer labeled "1.th" like you would when visiting a friend and they buzz you up.  (for our American friends, 1st floor in Denmark is actually the second floor.)  When you walk in, they take your coat and welcome you into one of their two living rooms that are set up with couches, chairs, coffee tables, bookshelves, etc and music is playing.  Again, just like anybody's house.  They bring you a cocktail and an appetizer.

hanging out in the living room

Everyone who is eating at the restaurant that night is supposed to arrive at 6:30.  Close to 7, they open the doors to the dining room where you are lead to your table.  I was happy to see that each party did get their own table and we did not have to sit at one communal table!  The kitchen was at the end of the dining room.

Dinner consisted of 6 courses plus a few desserts.  These were paired with two whites, two reds, and a dessert wine.  The waitstaff was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable.  Each course was explained, both the food and the preparation.  The head chef himself brought out a number of the dishes.  My favorite dish was probably the "Vandmelon, bacon, and hørfrø"  This was a little soup of a mussel and bacon broth with watermelon and roasted flaxseeds.  The way the watermelon infused with the smokey bacon flavor over time was amazing.   One of the desserts, "gedefriskost and fennikel" was also amazingly simple and inventive....whipped goat cheese with buckwheat and just raw fennel stems/leaves, where you used the fennel like a spoon to eat the goat cheese.  That would have been a good use of all our root/bulb-less fennel Collin and I grew in Boston!

After the desserts we were invited back into the living room for coffees, liquor/liqueurs, and small chocolates.  We really had a fabulous night.

menu from our dinner

Day 274 - Counting by the week / Kartoffelferie

When I started at Novo, one thing that required some getting used to was the use of "week numbers" when discussing anything involving a future date in the calendar.

It's as you probably imagine it. We start each year with week one and we end with week fifty-two. Would you say, "I'll be out of the office from October 1st through the 11th"? Of course you wouldn't. You would say "I'll be out of the office in week 40 through 41".

Which brings us to Potato Week. Potato Week generally happens in Week 42. What, may you ask, is Potato Week? I'm glad you asked.

Danes like potatoes. Like is far too weak. Love. Danes love potatoes. Example. Once, at the Novo canteen, there were THREE DIFFERENT POTATO DISHES. Ireland weeps in shame.

Anyway, back in the day, country-type Danes needed extra help around the farm come fall potato harvest time. As everyone knows, potato trumps book-learning, and so it goes without question that Danish country kids quit on school for the week and happily labored in the potato fields.

Today, potato week continues! Sadly, most kids no longer have to dig up potatoes. It's fall break or Kartoffelferie. Kids get a week off from school but Danish farmers have to harvest potatoes on their own without the aid of any tiny potato digging hands. Poor potato farmers.

Day 272 - Danish Essay Writing

As you are probably aware, Emily and I have been taking private Danish lessons though Berlitz for something like eight months. Our class is in our apartment and it is twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays.

It can be exhausting. The classes are from 6-8:15. After a full day at work the last thing I want to do is learn. We have had several different teachers but have now settled in with a "permanent" teacher, Andreas. Andreas is great and if I have to take Danish lessons, I'm glad that we have a teacher that we get on well with.

Anyway, as this "module" wraps up, our homework has primarily consisted of writing "essays" about, well, stuff. One essay was about our trip to Barcelona. Another was about "anything we wanted to write about". A third was about "the differences between Danish and American culture".

As you can imagine, it's hard to write about most of this stuff with very limited language skills. The essays tend to read as if they were written by an eight year old. Here is a sample of this week's homework, "what did you do on Saturday?".

i lørdags morgen, løb jeg, Emily, og Charlie i Frederiksberg Have. Jeg har glemt når jeg løb siden. Det var meget svært, men jeg er sjovt jeg lavede det. Mens vi løb, min hundposer faldt op af min lomme. Jeg løb bag at finde dem. Jeg fandt dem og løb bag at besøge Emily og Charlie.  

Efter vi løb, lavede jeg morgenmad. Emily fik yogurt med frugt og jeg fik bacon med æg. Jeg kan godt lide stærk chili sauce med mine æg. 

Efter morgenmad, gik vi til Nørrebro Bazar at køb som mad. Jeg købte tomater, bønner, og oksekød. Det var meget billige. Jeg var sjovt fordi de havde kylling ”wings”. Det har været svært at finde dem i København. 

Jeg købte disse ting for at lave chili. Mine chili er meget stærk normalt, men denne gang det var lille stærk. Det var stille godt.  

Emily og jeg set en film. Den film var ”End of Watch” med Jake Gyllenhall. Han er politimand i Los Angeles. Det var ok, ikke fantastisk. 

It's fun to put this into Google translate for two reasons. One, my Danish is terrible. Two, Google translate's Danish is terrible!

Saturday morning, I ran, Emily and Charlie in Frederiksberg Gardens. I forgot when I run the page. It was very difficult, but I'm funny I made it. While we ran, my dog ​​bags fell out of my pocket. I ran back to find them. I found them and ran back to visit Emily and Charlie. 

After we ran, I made breakfast. Emily got yogurt with fruit and I got bacon with eggs. I like hot chilli sauce with my eggs. 

After breakfast, we went to Nørrebro Bazar to purchase the food. I bought tomatoes, beans and beef. It was very cheap. I was funny because they had chicken "wings". It has been difficult to find them in Copenhagen. 

I bought these things to make chili. My chili is very strong normally, but this time it was little strong. It was quiet good. 

Emily and I watched a movie. The film was "End of Watch" with Jake Gyllenhall. He's a cop in Los Angeles. It was ok, not great.

This whole experience makes me want to re-read Me Talk Pretty One Day.

Day 268 - Danes and Pop Music

When Emily and I started to consider a move to Denmark, my knowledge of the country was fairly limited. I knew about Lego. I knew about Søren Kierkegaard. I was pretty sure that Lars Ulrich was Danish.

That was about it.

So we did some research. One of the first things I learned was that the pop group Aqua was from Denmark. Yes, this Aqua.



Aqua is the most successful - in terms of record sales - Danish musical act of all time. Let that sink in. Aqua, the Danish equivilant to their Dutch cousins the Vengaboys, is the biggest selling musical act in Danish history.

I didn't think much of this at the time. I figured that it had more to do with the fact that Aqua is probably the only Danish band to successfully sell records in America and that aspect alone put them well ahead of some other more substantial Danish bands.

I've reached the conclusion that this probably isn't true.

Let's go back a bit here. My first clue was when Robbie Williams played Parken. A few people in my lab, around my age, had tickets and were super excited. It was a little weird that a 40-ish year old straight man with a family was pumped about going to a Robbie Williams concert, but different strokes for different folks.

Second clue. Novo Nordisk has a big summer party every year. I'm talking big. At some point we'll probably have an entire blog post detailing the event, but I'll just mention a few things about music here. While I was just chilling with my department, drinking some Danish beer, we got to talking about music. One of the older guys in my lab got to talking about pop music.

Basically, it came down to this. He likes to listen to music with great hooks and, in his opinion, pop music offers the best version of that. While we had this converation, Alphabeat hit the main stage.



People of all ages were very excited to listen to / watch Alphabeat. I mean, all ages. One of my coworkers, who has worked at Novo for 25 years, was right up up against the stage, rocking out to Alphabeat.

Final - and possibly most important - clue. This morning I rolled into the office, sat down with my cup of coffee, and started putting my day together. My coworkers - who are both older than I am - asked if I was going to see One Direction. What?

Here is the actual conversation.

Coworker 1 : Are you going to get tickets to see One Direction?

Me : Um, no.

Coworker 2 : Why not?!

Me : Um, because I'm not a 15 year old girl.

Coworker 2 : What do you mean by that?!

 I actually felt bad for hurting their feelings. I didn't even take the question seriously! How could I? I really thought that they were joking. I had to cover things up with, "Ah, it's not really my thing. I'm not really in to pop music".

Maybe it's not Europe / Denmark that's weird. Maybe I'm the weird one. Maybe I should buy tickets to see One Direction.

Day 2920 / 264 - Lykkelig Jubilæum!

That Danish is courtesy of the folks at Google Translate, so who knows what it actually says.

As to what it means.

Life is pretty weird sometimes. I couldn't imagine navigating that weirdness with anyone else. I look forward to a day 50 years from now when, sitting in our hover rocking chairs, we activate the GoogleNanoBots® implanted in our brains, browse to an archive of this blog, and think "did we really do that?". Of course we did. Together.

To eight years. Happy anniversary Emily!

Day 262 -- Emily's Function Day

A while ago Collin blogged about his function day ("Day 160-161 Funk Tur").  Yesterday was my department's turn.  Ours was not an overnight driving extravaganza like Collin's.  Ours was just one day.  For those of you that don't remember Collin's, the function day is a day (or two days) where your "function" (which means all the departments under the same director/VP) spends time together team building etc.  My function consists of two department with about 45 people total.

Our day was held at one of Novo's meeting sites called Favrholm.   This is also were Collin and I attended our introduction day for all new employees but I couldn't find that in our blog.

photo courtesy of favrholm website

Favrholm is about a 30 min drive from our house; 1 hr and 15 min via public transportation (with many changes).  Luckily my department manager offered to give me a ride which was much much nicer than last time we went there!

Unlike Collin's day of Danish hijinks, driving, and alcohol, our day actually involved work-related activities.   The morning was spent on introduction to the importance of our function and a lot of group work about improving how we do things.  Favrholm is known for their emphasis on food, so lunch was delicious, putting our pretty good work canteen to shame.   The buffet included roast lamb with baba ganoush, an assortment of salads with nuts, fruits, cheeses, some sort of fish with roasted tomatoes, the normal assembly of danish Smørrebrød toppings and bread, roasted vegetables, and an array of cheeses.   After filling ourselves we went back to more discussions/group work on innovation; and then the fun really started....if you speak Danish...and if you like a more "low-brow" type of humor, from what I could gather.

The next 75 minutes was spent listening to Connie Svendsen: flight attendant-turned-humorous-motivational-speaker.

photo courtesy of Connie's website

Now maybe if I had some more Danish skills I would have gotten something out of her presentations.  Did I mention it was only in Danish?  But I have a feeling even if I understood what she was saying, it might not have been my sort of style.  I'm pretty sure there were fart jokes in there, and there were definitely pictures of half-clothed overweight people.  and some story about Denmark's second largest baby (I understood those words) and props.  including a clown nose, an oversized pen, glasses with eyes painted on them, and much much more...all of which were used in succession.  In my opinion she could have spread them out a bit more.

So after an uncomfortable 75 minutes of not smiling when everyone around me was falling of their chairs with laughter, she finally finished and we all headed outside for some healthy exercise.  We broke into 8 teams for a mini-tournament of "Kubb" aka "kongespill" aka "Vikingespill".  According to the Danish wiki, kubb was invented in the middle ages, but not documented until 1990. and probably invented in Sweden.  It can be played by 2-12 players.  It kind of reminded me of a Danish version of cornhole, in that you have teams that stand opposite each other and throw things...a good tailgating/picnic type of game

the kubb box....hasn't anyone told them vikings didn't have horns on their helmets?

the playing field mid-game

Kubb consists of 5 pieces of wood ("kubber") lined up across from 5 other kubber.  In the middle of the field is the crowned wood ("konge" or king).  The object is to throw fat sticks about a foot long ("kastepinde") from one side of the field and knock down the kubber on the other side of the field.  Once you have knocked down all 5 kubber on the other side, you have to knock down the king.   You take turns back and forth in throwing and the first team to knock the 5 kubber and king over wins.  If you knock the king down at any point in the game before you knock all 5 kubber down, you lose automatically.  I believe there are more rules than that, but we played an abbreviated version so that was all we did.

My team won our first round but lost in the semi-finals (to the eventual champions).  I am proud to say of the 10 things we knocked down in the two matches, I was responsible for 3.  It's harder than it looks.

After the kubb tournament we had a final work-related seminar and then dinner.  This was a sit-down meal starting with roasted beet root salad with crumbled rye toast and blackberries and a tarragon emulsion.  The main was venison with hazelnuts, freeze-dried celery, a plum vinegrette, some other sauces and parsleyed potatoes.   Dessert was buttermilk sorbet with torched meringue, salt and lemon verbana marinated raspberries, and freeze-dried white chocolate.

After dinner the fun continued with beers in the lounge but I was exhausted and had an offer for a ride home so I took it.

Day 260 - It's beginning to look a lot...like...

Christmas?

Americans get a lot of - to use a favorite British phrasing - stick for ramping up for Christmas waaaayyyy too early. I have no problem with that. It's a justifiable criticism.

This morning on the S-Tog I saw not one, but TWO advertisements for julefrokost. For those that can't remember all the way back to the early days when this blog crawled out of the ocean to wreak havoc on unsuspecting plant life, the julefrokost is the Danish Christmas party. It literally translates to Christmas lunch because, shockingly, that's pretty much what it is.

Well, I guess it's a lunch in the sense that everyone sits down to eat food during the day. That's where the similarities probably end.

In an effort to spice up this blog entry I attempted to find an appropriate picture. Aaaaahhhhh, too spicy! Note to others, do not do a GIS for julefrokost at work. Warning! Julefrokost may contain nudity. And possibly vomiting. Julefrokost at your own risk!

From what I can gather, the julefrokost involves sitting down, eating mammoth amounts of food, drinking mammoth amounts of schnapps and beer, and mostly not getting up for any other reason than to go to the toilet or the bar. Did I mention that Danes like to party?

Good news, Collin's work julefrokost - yes my American friends, in Denmark you get paid to do this - will take place on December 13. Two friday the 13ths in one year?! Wish me luck.

Day 256 -- København Zoo

Day 288 256 is somewhat of an estimate now exact thanks to Collin...it's been a long time.  We apologize for those that look forward to reading our blog.  August was a pretty busy month for us.   We have a lot more to update...I went to the US, Novo had a pretty big summer party, and Collin and I went to Barcelona.  But for now I am going to skip ahead to the more recent past and blog about our trip to the zoo this afternoon.


Collin and I live down the block from the København Zoo...this seems to be a regular occurrence for us as we lived in walking distance to the zoo in Boston as well.   As this weekend was gorgeous and sunny, and maybe that might not be so common in the upcoming weeks/months, we decided to take advantage of the weather and visit the zoo.

The star is our house...I circled the zoo location

The zoo was actually one of my favorite zoos I have been to in recent memory.  There was a huge range of animals in really neat habitats with lots of interesting information.  We were impressed by how happy and animated all the animals looked.  Again, a big difference between Denmark and the US...it was amazing how close you could get to the animals in some of the exhibits, even touching them and feeding them, despite it not being a "petting zoo".

Case in point:

I also saw people petting the camels, but only got a picture of them before that happened.

These birds are also visible from the park encircling the zoo.

A few more random animals

Here is a selection of frogs and lizards and the like...

 The elephant house is amazingly huge.   These guys can also be seen sometimes from the park encircling the zoo, but I never imagined how large the enclosure is from the inside.  There is a new baby elephant who was pretty lively.   We were there during feeding time.

I think this may be first toucan I have ever seen in person.

Collin was a big fan of the leopards.

We were also there for the feeding of the brown bears.  They seemed to enjoy the ribs more than the celery that was thrown at them.

The newest addition to the zoo is the arctic circle.  The highlight of this is the polar bears.  We missed them swimming but did get to see them being fed fish.

This is a pile of lions.  Although it is hard to see, they are just literally piled on top of each other sleeping, including two new little lion cubs.

We also got to see the hippo exhibit.  I don't think either of us have ever seen such HUGE hippos.  There was a little baby and two giant adults.  These pictures are of the big guy that was closest to us.

In addition to these we saw giraffes, zebras, chimps, a baby monkey of some sort that was born THREE DAYS ago and many many more.   If anyone ever comes to Copenhagen, we highly recommend visiting this zoo.  I will try to close with two videos...of some playing chimps and strolling elephants.