day 106: julemarked and other adventuresThe weather was rainy and gray, but the market was busy.
I didn't buy one of the cork screws pictured on the left, but I did find some cute, non-sexual gifts. My strategy lately is to find things that are small, preferably flat, inexpensive, and easy to pack.
Mindy and Melissa are an interesting pair. Mindy is a Women's Studies/Literature major from Southern California who carries around an arsenal of Estee Lauder make-up, an unapologetic femme who even admits to missing her car. Melissa, on the other hand, is a "Moho", a Mount Holyoke hippie who refused to use my shampoo or soap because of the chemicals. She helped me convince Mindy to buy a menstrual cup and today she convinced me that I should throw out my Nalgene because I've been drinking carcinogens. "Glass is the answer!" she says. She also eats meat and wears Gap jeans. A conflict of interest? Hardly!
They are my favorite Americans in Denmark. I rank them as being at least 500% more interesting than the other 99.98% of students here.
Some people have asked me what Christmas is like in Scandinavia. It's definitely different than Christmas at home, but it's hard to describe. Christmas is a fun, festive season, but there's hardly any religious significance. In all of my shopping, I've only seen one reference to the nativity, ever. Even the word for Christmas has nothing to do with Christ (jul). When I went to Stockholm last month, the Copenhagen Airport had already put up their Christmas decorations, complete with large, sparkly banners wishing visitors as "Merry Christmas" -- something you would never see in the States. Whether or not you're Christian, it's just assumed that everyone celebrates jul.
Danes enjoy decorating with candles and nisser (elves), writing wish lists, and drinking glögg (mulled wine) and eating aebleskiver (pancake balls) with jam and powdered sugar. In some ways, it almost seems more commercialized because there are a lot of products for sale during the Christmas season that aren't available the rest of the year -- special Christmas cakes, Christmas beer, Christmas cookies, mulled wine, and so on. When I tried to think of equivalent products at home, the only things I could think of were egg nog and peppermint ice cream. Also, Danes are really into Christmas elves (everyone decorates their home with little elves), but there aren't many depictions of Santa Claus.
Anyway, no day of Christmas shopping is complete without a trip to the mall. We bought crackers, cheese, and choclate for the trip home, as well as some glögg to drink after dinner. You can buy a quart of glögg for about $7 and they also sell little packages of special raisins and nuts to put in the glögg for about $3. All you have to do is heat it up.
Faced with a 45-minute wait for the bus home at my train station, we decided to go to a nearby bar and grab a Christmas beer. ($5 for 33cl of beer! Bah humbug.) The ever-photogenic Melissa perfectly illustrated what I call the Tudman Process.
Stage 1.
Initial Tudman encounter. Confusion, uncertainty, denial, and fear. I've said something unexpected/inappropriate. You have no idea if I was just being sarcastic or if I really meant it.
Stage 2.
Contentment, happiness, pleasure. This is the part where I take back my back-handed compliment and tell you about the time I bought a Valentine's Day present for my boyfriend and sent it to my mom's house. Hijinks ensued.
Stage 3.
Sheer, relentless joy. I deliver the punch line and flatter you simultaneously. You are completely and totally in love with me, eternally.
After dinner with my host parents, we heated up our glögg and they brought out the aebleskiver. It was instinctual. My host parents saw glögg and then, automatically and without thinking, retrieved aebleskiver from the freezer. Because why would you ever want to drink glögg without aebleskiver, of course?
I don't cook very much, mostly because I don't have the time, but I put myself in charge of preparing the glögg. I was having some trouble transferring the glögg from the pot to the glasses and I spilled some on the stove. My host father was wiping up after me when my host mother walked in and said in her slow, accented English: the wine goes in the glass.
We sat at the dining room table and drank glögg, ate aebleskiver and talked for hours. At one point I asked the time.
"A quarter 'til ten," said Mindy.
"Nej!" I said. I couldn't believe it. We'd spent two and a half hours helping Melissa with her Danish (much to her chagrin) and discussing religion, geography, our Danish families (both Mindy and Melissa live with host families), and my host parents' other "American daughters". Apparently I speak much more clearly than the girl from Delaware (which I found sort of flattering in an odd way -- not only do I speak A+ Danish, but I can speak understandable English, too!), and they once hosted a girl who was Pentecostal, never drank, and went to daily services. My host parents were surprised that none of us are religious, because every girl they've hosted so far has gone to church.
"I guess we're all going to the Other place," I said, and they laughed.
My host parents are just so unbelievably, jaw-droppingly kind and generous. My host mother has been having problems with her back and although she recently bought a new mattress, it hasn't been delivered yet. She's been sleeping in the guest room but, out of courtesy to my friends, she slept on her old bed last night so they didn't have to sleep on the couch or the floor. They made dinner and aebleskiver for us, talked with us for hours, and helped us with our Danish. They wouldn't even drink any glögg until we practically forced it down their throats. "Are you sure you don't want more?"
"No, you must have some!" we said.
Next week my host dad will use his "family card" to get us free admission to Tivoli (which normally would cost about $16 each) so we can see it all lit up for Christmas. Now I'm left with this dilemma: what do I get for Christmas for the people who took me into their home, fed me, cleaned up after me, paid the bills, drove me to the train station, and helped me earn an excellent grade in Danish? A chocolate box seems a little inadequate.
This morning we made apple pancakes with apple compote (maple syrup is rare & sometimes expensive in Denmark). I love the smell of cooked apples. I'm excited to go home and make an apple pie. I know my mother is excited about this, too.
Mindy and I visited the Glyptotek because it's free on Sundays and I needed to cross it off the list. We saw mummies and lots of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculptures. My favorite piece by far, though, was this little number by Louise Bourgeois.
It was neatly tucked in with all the Rodin sculptures and classical figures. And then there's weird, little, pink Louse Bourgeois, who, as I argued in my very first art history paper (three years ago!), also emphasizes classical themes.
It's like coming full circle.
