Mum and Chas in DK 2007

Mum and Chas 2007 - Ribe/Fanø/Kolding

Mum and Chas 2007 - Copenhagen

Mum and Chas 2007 - Ærø

Liz and Lauren in Denmark

Liz, has been in England for a couple of weeks slaying with Lauren, checking out the Blackpool Ballroom dancing competition, Chelsea Flower Show, Kew Gardens... and she needed a change of pace...

Welcome to Aarhus...


We went up to the Royal residence in town and had a look at the gardens.


As usual when we have Lauren visiting the weather was glorious.


Jump in the car and an hour later we are in Kolding, visiting Anna and Erling. As usual, Anna put on a culinary display par none. Of course the Danish specialty: Pork on the fork!


"This was me in the 80's", explains Rikke.


Carl Emil was fascinated by Lauren but a bit weirded out that she persisted in speaking gibberish (ie. English).


This shot really embodies the spirit of Liz's stay. Here Lauren and Liz relax in the garden.



Thank you both for a lovely weekend! Please bring the sunshine again soon...

Love,
Rikke and Aaron

Those so inclined can click on this image for more photos:

Liz and Lauren in DK

LK comes to DK

On Monday my sister, Lauren, arrived in Aarhus on holiday from her new home in London.


The first thing we did was hit the shopping strip in Aarhus. The girls are in their element...


This is more my style. Tuborg Beer in the sun!


We then headed up to Skagen at the Northern tip of DK. The houses in Skagen are painted in the traditional local colours of yellow and red.


The entire North of Denmark is and big sand dune and this church (the "sand-buried church") fell victim to the moving sand in the 1700's.


The Northern-most tip of DK the "Grenen" or branch. To the left is the Skagerak Strait to Norway and to the right is the Kattegat Strait to Sweden.


Lauren and I found some boxer shorts that brought on a spontaneous show of patriotism.


As the sun sets over the North Sea we say goodbye to Skagen and head for home.

Next stop: The island of Fanø on the west coast.

The boys are back in town...

For some reason Braden seems to always bring the weather with him... This time he also brought Tony and Phantom.



The sign is not a caption...


This is the same shot as the "Aussies come to town" blog... sans snow.


While Braden, Luke and Rikke slept off their hangovers, Tony and I went out and saw a ruined castle outside Aarhus.

Braden's 30th Birthday!

Finally have some new pics from our trip to London last weekend for Braden’s 30th Birthday Party. It is a little outrageous to fly to London for the night but, hey, we live in the neighbourhood now…

Braden has started his own basketball team over here and as usual with his parties I felt something like an academic garden gnome amongst those big buggers. Here it is the use of a strategic camera angle that makes me look so tall and masculine…

Had a good chat to Tony – Braden’s mate from his time working in the bar. You can tell he is a bar tender by his face… a “stirred but never shaken” mix of interest in both Rikke’s cocktail and cleavage.

Braden works on his Hugh Heffner party hosting skills by donning a bathrobe… Who’s next in the hot-tub?

A night in London is not complete without a trip to a niteclub. I was very impressed with the establishments attention to detail... With the music so loud and all there must be many that get headaches because occasionally a considerate young men would ask me if I needed any pills…

Thanks for a great weekend.

Happy 30th, B!

New Year 2006

We managed to create quite a party in our little living room! Here we are enjoying the starter of venison prepared from a buck roe deer shot by Steen (one of our friends, actually to my right out of view). As I mentioned in the previous blog, hunting is popular here. If I remember, the distaste that I felt the previous day out in the forest at the thought of hunting those beautiful animals, was replaced on this evening by a rather lovely taste and washed down with copious amounts of red.

Ruth and Romain donned disguise to get closer to the locals.
Inge and I made a good cocktail team. As expressed in my face, this taste testing is a serious business!

Some of my Aussie habits have to be maintained, despite the sub-zero temperatures... Frozen daquiri anyone?

Come midnight the sky lights up with the spectacle of an every-man-for-himself amateur fireworks free-for-all that honestly has to be seen to be believed. The sale of fireworks is not restricted and it is a rite of passage for every young man to loose some portion of their anatomy during their teenage years to this orgy of fire. The body count was low this year - no deaths, several buildings and apartment burnt down and only one serious injury when one of this countries brightest minds put the rocket in his mouth before lighting...

Happy New Year!

Aussies come to town...

Denmark, being a part of Scandinavia, has a reputation for cold winters which is not really true. However, as we were having some of our friends from Oz to visit over New Year, fate conspired to keep this myth alive and well. The days following Christmas saw a snow storm come in over DK giving us sub-zero temperatures and blanketing the country in about 10-15 cm of snow - the first real snow fall of the year. There was a lot of snow around - Romain and Ruth's plane could not even land on the day they were due to arrive (29/12) and they had to return to Paris and try again the next day.

We took a walk in the winter wonderland in the forest south of Aarhus. Here we are at the gates of Marsellisborg Manor which is where the Royal Family spends Christmas (r-l; Me, Diane, Rikke and Romain). In a show of patriotism we had packed some vegemite sandwiches in the hope that Mary might be in but unfortunately they were not home.







This is the view along the coast to the south of Aarhus and out over the bay. Anyone for a dip?












Ruth and Romain getting up close with some of the local "wildlife". They are actually in an enclosure but I am not certain if this is to keep them in or the hunters out. Hunting is popular here and every other deer in Denmark lucky enough to be "wild and free" has every man and his dog chasing them with a shotgun.








After our walk it was back home to get stuck into the herring and the snaps... Skål!

Aaron's Birthday - 10th December, 2005

The birthday boy and Rikke