A Real Winter in DK

Perhaps because I sort of made fun of the Danish winter in the past two years, this year Denmark, like much of the rest of Europe, had an unusually cold and snowy winter. I've decided that while snow is prettier, it is much more of a mess to bike in the day to day getting around that I do in the city. So as much as I have not been thrilled with the rainy winters in the previous 2 years, it is far easier (and safer) to bike in rain than on slippery, icy, snowy bike lanes that often have but a single narrow bike track running through and who knows what ice lies underneath on either side? Plus there is the annoyance of getting behind some Slow Sally going along slower than an ant and due to the unsureness of the conditions outside the super narrow bike track you just have to wait and wait and wait and hopefully go by her at the next stop light!

On a few occasions we got out into the forest and enjoyed the snow. This is a nice pic from a forest area not far from Morten's parents house.



















This next picture is particularly funny, and part of the reason I had to do some late posts on the winter season here. In this picture Morten is pointing to the messy, snow covered sidewalk.



















The line between the cleared sidewalk and the snowy one was just outside our apartment. The reason for this is that each building is responsible for clearing the snow on the sidewalk in front of their building. Apparently, according to the law if you have a particularly snowy day then you should shovel the sidewalk 3 times: once before you go to work, once when you get home from work, and once before you go to bed. All in all the sidewalks should be clear and safely walkable from I think 8 am to 8 pm! This applies to everyone, even the Danish Prime Minister - who apparently while away on work travel this winter reporters went and showed that he wasn't fulfilling his legal responsibility in front of his house - from what I hear that resulted in some phone calls and the teenage son having to schlurp himself off the couch and out to the sidewalk to shovel!

We have a person in our building who takes care of all such things, but apparently the place next door didn't - or had a lazy guy or something. If you don't shovel and you get reported you can get fined! And if someone falls in your area of responsibility and gets hurt you can be held responsible. Wow! I can't imagine people in the US going for such a system. Fortunately it doesn't snow very much in Copenhagen very often!

One of the unique things about the winter as well this year was that the 'lakes' in Copenhagen froze over for the first time in about 15 years. The three lakes are semi-man made, before the man made edges were made these wet areas were the boundary between the old city center of Copenhagen and the countryside. I took this picture on the way home from a course in Sweden. The sunset was just so gorgeous - too bad I still only had a crappy disposable camera to take it! Anyway at least you can see the color of the sunset and people walking around on the ice...













Lastly, at the end of February/beginning of March each year there is a celebration of Fastelavn. Fastelavn is the Danish version of Carnival which is celebrated in many Catholic countries. In Denmark on this holiday kids dress up in halloween-like outfits and go around knocking on people's doors. When you open the door you see a few little goblins who then start singing a song. At the end of the song you are expected to dish out a few coins, and then they go happily on their way.

Another tradition with this holiday is fastelavnsboller, tasty sweet pastries with a cream filling and chocolate or vanilla sauce on the top. This year Morten made some home-made ones for me. As you can probably guess they were DE-LISH!