Chris was thoroughly spoiled, although he really has no concept of what was going on, but it was a very special first Christmas for him!
So again, Merry Christmas to you! and here's to a Happy New Year!
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Merry Christmas to you and yours! We trust everyone had a joyous Christmas Day. We celebrated on our own in the morning and managed to have talk to most all of our family back home as well. We had a nice dinner with Dom & his friend Danielle, and it was a lovely dinner! Chris was thoroughly spoiled, although he really has no concept of what was going on, but it was a very special first Christmas for him! So again, Merry Christmas to you! and here's to a Happy New Year!
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Well, David Cameron has definitely been making waves lately. I don't know if it made the news over there, (it probably did), but he vetoed a Eurozone treaty last week which means that basically no other European country likes him at the moment. Especially the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nikolas Sarkozy. But what's done is done I have to admire the man for at least having a point of view, and sticking to his guns.
Next he came out over the weekend and reminded people in this country that we are a Christian country, by heritage and design, and that at this specific time of year, there's really no better time to be reminded of that fact. Of course, this has the Op Ed section absolutely rife with articles on either side of the fence, but I have to agree, that right now it's good to be reminded of why Christmas has us get a few days off work. We really enjoyed our Christmas carol service at church last night. It was bit odd for us as we didn't actually recognize about half the hymns and they sang O Little Town of Bethlehem to a very odd beat. But it was a very nicely put together service. We're wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas!! Wednesday in Denmark turned out to be cold ... very cold! The site that was doing the test which required me to be there was actually an unmanned site. So there is no convenience store at this gas station, just gas pumps and a car wash. There's no staff ever there, just the electronics. But that means that there's also no place on-site which is heated, and that means that I nearly froze my buns off!
We spent nearly the entire day huddled in the car wash with thermoses of coffee trying to keep warm from the wind and near-freezing temperatures and I barely made it. By the time 8 hours of standing in the cold, I think I literally had ice blocks for feet. I was so glad when it was over! But I was also determined to not let the cold keep me back in the hotel room. I was feeling under the weather (and now have a cold as a souvenir of my trip to Denmark) but decided that this might be the last time I see Copenhagen, at least for a long while, and I may never get back over Christmas, so I headed out for Copenhagen's famous Tivoli Gardens. This amusement park has been around since 1843 - the second oldest in the world - and again, features heavily in a lot of novels I've read, so I really did want to go see it firsthand. I started my night with dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was altogether disappointing compared to the lovely dinner of the night before, but as it was right next door to the park, it really couldn't have been a more convenient place to eat. Tivoli Gardens turned out to be quite a mix of things, but very Christmasy, nonetheless. It would best be described as a mix between the lights at Stanley Park that the firefighters set up, and a small Playland. I know that sounds weird, but over here (Europe, that is) we're learning that Christmas means a lot of amusement park rides. I really enjoyed walking around and taking in a bit of Danish Christmas, and their theme this year (they decorate with different themes each year) was Russian Christmas (go figure!) so they had a miniature city that replicated the Red Square in Moscow, specifically the Cathedral of St. Basil, with its famous buildings. It was quite a site. I took in a laser show, and watched kids go on rides and generally enjoyed the Christmas spirit that permeated the place. It ended up being a great cap on exploring Copenhagen! I headed for dinner in the Nørrebro district. Somehow, this area of town felt familiar to me. Again, I'm not sure why I felt a connection to Copenhagen or it's different districts, but in addition to the grade 5 project I think it might be because there's an inordinate amount of novels I read that are set in Copenhagen. (And weirdly, all the protagonists in these novels start life as booksellers but then get caught up in international mystery and intrigue. Maybe there's something I'm missing about bookstores; are they really the best cover you can find for organized crime or something, and only Danes have figured this out? Ah, never mind). So I headed to the Nørrebro Bryghaus (beer house) and was treated to quite a gastronomical experience!
This entry now becomes one for the foodies out there - Fogarty, if you're reading hopefully you'll appreciate it and maybe we can all go for a visit back to Copenhagen! The entire theme or raison d'être of this place is that beer is just as good a drink to have with a nice meal as wine, and that it can be paired with dishes just as effectively. It's a growing trend, but I have never been to a restaurant quite as dedicated to proving that point as this one. It was such a treat though. I was presented first with a two menus: one for food, the other for beer. Nowhere was wine mentioned (although I did find out it was available if people wanted it). The beer menu had more pages than the food one, which was the first indication that this place had a lot of choice. I perused through the first 40 draughts before making a choice of what I would start the night off with and then moving to the food menu. It turned out to be set up as a tasting menu - yeah! I haven't had a tasting menu since I took a special someone (wink wink, Sarah!) to Lumiere when Feenie was still the head chef. And boy did I enjoy that one. I have always described it as the only meal - nay, dining experience - where the quality and taste of the food was an actual topic of conversation. As such I was quite excited to have the experience again. I ordered a starter of carpaccio and crackers, a steak with seasonal vegetables for my entreé and a plate of selected cheeses with bread and a date jelly for dessert. I then studiously selected some beers to match with my courses. However, when I told the waitress my food selections, and proceeded to the beer, she stopped me and informed me that beer was already paired with each dish! I gave her a bit of an idea of what I liked and didn't like, and she then chose the beers for me! Just like a wine tasting! I thoroughly enjoyed my Norwegian wheat beer to start, an American lager and Christmas Danish Ale (hints of orange and mint) through the main - with steak cooked to perfection, and my Winter Classic Porter (infused with espresso) with the cheeses (a nice selection of blue, mozzarella, edam, and mature cheddar). It was quite the pairing they did (my compliments!) and I had one of the best gastronomical experiences I've had in quite a while! It was great, and one reason I might want to head back soon! Last week I got a call from my boss on Monday, asking me if I wanted to go to Denmark ... on Tuesday! I had actually been making overtures for a few months, saying that if the opportunity for travel to Denmark came up that I would love to go, despite the fact that it's not one the countries that I'm specifically responsible for. So when he asked it took me all of two seconds to answer in the affirmative, and start making travel arrangements! I was pretty quickly booked onto a flight for the next day and set up with a hotel; then it was on to packing my bags and making sure that I hadn't forgotten anything! What a quick turnaround. Less than 24 hours after getting the initial call from my boss I was on my way across the North Sea to Copenhagen. Oh how I'm loving this European travel!
The descent into the airport wasn't as illuminating about the city as the one that I had into Amsterdam. At this time of year, as you all well know, it's dark out at about 3:30pm, so I didn't see much of the city from overhead, but I was still really excited to see this city. (I don't know why exactly, but ever since I did a project on Denmark and Copenhagen in grade five, I have wanted to visit this city. It could be that it's another country that's a constitutional monarchy (and they currently have a queen, just like Canada and England), or it could just be that it's so darn old. You get a hint for how old when you see words that still use that archaic letter "æ" from middle ages English. Or maybe it's the allure of a city which was actually walled and building not permitted outside the walls, until 1850. I cleared passport control with no problems (with my new passport, thanks Kyle & Heather!) and headed for the trains. I got my ticket for the metro, which would take me from the airport to almost directly outside my hotel, and it was my first experience with what would turn out to be a very confusing currency. While Denmark is a part of the Eurozone, they're not on the Euro; they use the Danish Kroner (DKK) which has one of those crazy exchange rates. My ticket was DKK36.00, but this turned out to be only £3.25 or thereabouts. And I would continually be caught up with the huge prices over the next few days; it's just weird when a cup of coffee costs 25.00, you know? So I made it to the hotel and checked in without any problems. The hotel was nice enough, and I found out along the way that most Danes speak English, so I was already feeling comfortable about exploring this great new city! After dropping my bags in the room and a quick call home to Sarah and Chris, I headed out for dinner in the Nørrebro district .... I know it's been a while - sorry! Here starts a number of updates that we have for you over the past few weeks. On Tuesday (Dec. 6) we hired Dominic as our babysitter and once again left Chris at home so that we could take in an English treat. This time, football! We had bought tickets to a match what seemed like ages ago, and the day was finally here. When we bought them we didn't know that it would turn out to be so close to our Christmas party, but Dom was a good sport about coming over twice so quickly. Sarah and I had bought tickets to watch Chelsea, basically our local team, play against Valencia in a Champions League match. I had wanted to see a Champions League match against a Spanish team as they're some of my favourite teams, and the way it turned out, it couldn't have been better! For those of you unfamiliar with the way football works over here, there are two (main) leagues that English teams compete in during the season. They play in the Premier League, which is a league of English teams only, and comprises the top 20 clubs from the country. Each year the bottom three teams are relegated to a lower league, and the top three from that lower league are promoted to the Premier League. The Champions League, however, is a competition between football teams across Europe; the top four Premier (English) League teams qualify to get in, along with the top teams from countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Italy, et al. So the match we were going to see was an international one, and it turned out to have big consequences for Chelsea. They had lost something like four out of their last five matches and were in danger of missing the Champions League, and dropping near the bottom of the Premier League, to possible relegation status. In baseball terms this would be similar to the NY Yankees (and their huge payroll) being at the bottom of the league. This match turned out to be a must-win for the Blues (Chelsea), so we were lucky and got to see their top lineup. Didier Drogba, their top player, scored in the third minute with a fantastic goal, and from there it was all Chelsea. Sarah and I were thoroughly impressed as they continued to press Valencia, and ended the match with a winning 3-0 score. I felt a bit sad for the Spanish fans that had made the trip to support their club! All that way and their team didn't get even one goal! Oh well. If you're dedicated enough to make that trip, I guess you have to expect that you're not going to see a victory every night. Sarah and I really enjoyed the match. We thought it would take a while to get into the cheering and such, but it honestly wasn't that bad! The cheers that Chelsea fans use were clearly made by drunk people so that they would be easy to remember. For example, one cheer (repeated quite often throughout the match) was: "Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea! (ascending in volume and pitch). Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! (descending in volume and pitch). That's it; one word, repeated six times. Wow. Original huh? But speaking of enthusiasm from the home crowd, we were treated to two "streakers" near the end of the game! I guess it was a bit too cold to bare all because the two clowns who jumped onto the pitch didn't take their clothes off (for fear of embarrassment, maybe?), but they did manage to run the length the pitch before being tackled by security. It was entertaining all the same. The crowd were good sports for the entire night, and while the tube was crowded, we actually managed to get on just the second train that came into the station headed for home. What luck! Last Friday night was my work Christmas party. It turned out to be quite the event! I knew that something was afoot when on Thursday I was "pre-chastised" for not intending to wear true black-tie ....
Everyone at the company got an email from one of the partner's PAs reminding us that the dress code for the event was black tie, and that we should arrive punctually at the set time for the Champagne reception. I replied to confirm how essential it was that I was in traditional black tie: bow tie, dinner jacket, patent leather shoes, etc. The reply to me was, "Well, it is advertised as a black tie event. I'm sure that they won't turn you down at the door if you're just in a suit and tie, but you'll likely be the only one wearing such attire." Ouch. That settled it for me, I was going to have to find myself a tux, and toot sweet! So during the middle of the day on Friday, I whipped down to Clapham Junction and nipped into a shop; it had been recommended by a few of my work mates as a good place to go for this type of thing, so I trusted them and didn't even bother looking for any other shops. Well, it turned out that it was cheaper to buy a shirt and bow tie to wear with my existing black suit, than to rent anything, so I quickly became the new owner of a shirt and tie, and was ready to go. Despite not having an actual dinner jacket and patent leather shoes, I figured that in the dim light these types of affairs are notorious for, I would be able to pull it off. Sarah also did a last-minute wardrobe change, but by 6:00pm, we were both ready to go. Dominic, our friend from back in Vancouver and who now lives here in London, made it to our place for 6:00pm sharp all the way from Rugby, and he was so excited to be spending the night with Chris. (It was Chris's first night with a babysitter!) He didn't even really say hello when he arrived - he went straight for Chris! We arrived a touch late, but luckily only for a pre-party for my company only. We said hello to everybody, and Sarah met a lot of my colleagues whom she otherwise had only heard of up until this point. They were all as excited to meet her as she was to finally put faces to names, so it was all a good thing! After our own cocktails, we headed to the Dorchester Hotel for the actual party ... and the Dorchester did not disappoint! The 2011 Mistletoe Ball had a masquerade theme this year, and it turned out fantastic. A masquerade ball is one of those things that you think is cool, but only if everyone else doing it. So when you go shopping for your mask (like Sarah and I did, weeks ago) and you look around and try a few on, ever present in the back of your head is the thought, "Am I going to look like a dork in this if I'm the only one wearing a mask? Or is this cool enough to pull off if I really am the only one wearing a mask?" It turned out that that thought was not necessary. Everyone - everyone - had a mask, and the vast majority put them on as soon as they entered the front doors, and kept them on for the entire champagne reception. It was very cool so see the huge array of masks. A lot of men had Pulcinella masks, which was great to see them really get into the spirit, and many women had masks with a lot of flare (feathers!) or hand-held ones. I was bit more tame in my selection and had a zorro-esque type of one, but Sarah's was quite nice with silver and a flashy bit of pointy flare over one eye. We enjoyed the reception with my friend Matt and his girlfriend Liz, and perused the many items up for auction to support Cancer Research UK. I thought the most "classic" item was a day of finishing school represented by a poster of Audrey Hepburn. There were plenty more, and if I had the money I might have been interested, but it was certainly just as fun to pretend! Dinner was fantastic, with white glove service, and the entertainment of the live auction was also excellent. English author Jeffrey Archer was our auctioneer, and he even managed to persuade one of my company's partners to part with a considerable weight of pounds (£) for a diamond necklace for his wife. It was fun to see someone actually bid in an auction - one of those things you see in TV and movies, but aren't always around to spot the event live. We then danced the night away on the ballroom floor, just around the corner from the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park! We've put up some pictures on the pictures page so have a bit of a look! |
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