Tut's Birthday

Last weekend we went to Denmark to celebrate Anette's aunt Tut's 90th birthday. We left at around noon and after about an hour we were in Köpenhamn (København in Danish, Copenhagen in English). First we had a celebratory lunch along with lots of other Danish relatives and the biggest bottle of champagne I have ever seen. Apparently, the champagne was Churchhill's favorite. The first course was some kind of fish jello that I tried but did not like. Next we had really really good steak and mushroom. Dessert was a choice between creme broule or cheese. I went with the creme broule, but almost everyone else had cheese. I thought that was interesting. It was a plate with maybe five or six different types of cheese and toasted raisin bread and grapes.

After lunch we went back to an apartment for cake and presents. The cake we had was called "lagkage" (layer cake), which is a traditional Danish birthday dessert. We also had tea, coffee and soda. I was very full by the time we went home at around six o' clock.

I noticed a lot of things about Denmark and Danes. They are much more open than Swedes. They often greet each other by kissing each other on the cheeks, whereas a Swede would usually keep you at arm's length with a handshake. According to Kjell, Danish people smoke and drink much more than Swedes and have a shorter life expectancy. They are also higher up than Sweden on the list of the worlds happiest people. Denmark is 3rd and Sweden is 18th on the list for "subjective well-being".

Then the language of course. It is genetically similar to Swedish (and Norwegian), but is pronounced much differently. It's often described as "like someone talking with a hot potato in their mouth", though I prefer the more descriptive (but probably less accurate "having gravel vomited into your ears". They also use different letters: "æ" and "ø"which are the same sounds as the Swedish (and German) "ä" and "ö". Also, Danish has a lot more toned consonants than Swedish. For example: och = og, bok = bog and söt = sød, (and, book, sweet).