dot dk

December has already been a busy month. We were in London the first weekend, and in Århus the weekend after that. Lisbeth’s sister Hanne and her boyfriend Kaspar invited us to a Julefrokost, or Christmas lunch.

Hanne and Kaspar live in a cooperative. In this case it’s eight people sharing a house. Each person has a room, and they share the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the common living spaces.

It’s a great house — originally part of a military barracks — and it even has an area for a little workshop. It’s been a cooperative for decades now, and they have a well-defined system for everything from selecting new residents (they do interviews) to shopping (it’s done once a month, and that’s one of the things Hanne loves about living there) to making dinner (each person is responsible for making dinner for everyone once a week.)

We got there on Friday at around 9:00 and sat in the living room with Hanne in front of a fireplace and talked. (Kaspar was at work, but joined us around midnight.) The next day we went for a walk around town.

Living at 55 degrees North gives people a keen appreciation of the sun. When we set out the next day, Kaspar pointed out that, despite the fact that it was noon, the sun was hanging low in the sky. Just look at the shadows.

This also means that the average Dane is very likely to bask in whatever sunlight is available. This often happens without warning. They just stop in a sunny spot, close their eyes, and start smiling. At first I thought they were crazy. Then I tried it. I still think they’re crazy. (more…)

Codehouse, my new employer, threw their Christmas party in London this year, despite the fact that Copenhagen is the headquarters. They flew us over on Friday afternoon and we had a nice dinner. Most people went back on Saturday, but Lisbeth and I opted to stay for the weekend.

On Saturday morning, a few of us that weren’t incredibly hung-over went to the Borough Market – a market that has apparently been around for 20 centuries, but “only” 250 years at its current location. It’s an amazing market, and there were enough samples thatwe didn’t need breakfast.

But not everything was appetizing. I had some cheese that tasted exactly how Iimagine a sheep’s brainwouldtaste, for example. And, although I love seafood and even sushi, the seafood at the market seemed… too fresh. Notice all the blood oozing from the shark. (more…)

You may notice some strange characters and missing images. I just finished upgrading the fabulous and free Wordpress that makes this blog possible. And, while I’m pleased that I didn’t screw the whole thing up and that you’re reading something other than “page cannot be found”, there were some…irregularities…

I’m getting things patched up though. For the most part you shouldn’t notice any difference. Which — yes — does make me wonder why I bothered to upgrade in the first place…

It won’t last long, but for now Codehouse is located in a beautiful old building in the heart of Copenhagen, a brisk seven minute ride from my apartment. (Our offices are on the top floor — the ones with the lights on.)

It won’t last long because they’re looking for new office space. Something less centrally located. Something with parking spaces. It’ll still be in Copenhagen — it won’t be 15 miles out of town like Microsoft is, but still, it’s a pretty cool location right now.

In the summer there are tables in the courtyard, where customers of the brewery that occupies the ground level sip beer and chat. In the winter it’s just another courtyard in Copenhagen, but this one with a tree clinging on to the last leaves of the season, and a bike that is ready for Christmas…

This weekend we went to Vejle, where Lisbeth grew up, and where her parents still live. It was my second visit. (The first time I brilliantly forgot the memory card for my camera, so there were no pictures.) The occasion this time was Lisbeth’s 31st birthday.

Vejle (pronounced vie-la) is in Jutland — the largest portion of Denmark, and the only portion physically attached to the rest of Europe. It is quite different than Zealand, the island where Copenhagen is located, in that it has a lot of farm country and rolling hills. In contrast, Zealand is pretty much completely flat.

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The US dollar is taking a beating. It’s been on a steady decline for two years, and was recently surpassed by the Canadian “loony”. It’s at record lows against the Euro. Even the Mexican peso is at a seven year high against the dollar.

On the day I moved to Denmark, it took 6.28 Danish crowns to buy a dollar. Today it’s today 5.10 — almost a 20% difference. Given this, some of the prices I talked about earlier here have changed, especially compared to February 2006, when I got here.

For example, a Big Mac meal is now $9.21 in Copenhagen (it was $7.48). A large glass of beer runs about $9.80 in the popular parts of town (it was $7.96), and is $7.45 at my favorite cafe (it was $6.05). And gas is $7.43 a gallon here now (it was under $5.43, but part of that increase is just higher gas prices).

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There’s an election on Tuesday, and Copenhagen is plastered with campaign posters. Many of these posters are targets of…umm… creative alteration, but none more so than the Dansk Folkeparti posters. In fact it’s rare to see one that hasn’t been somehow abused. There’s a slew of examples here. Apparently the vandalism is so widespread that the party had to replace most or all of them. If they did, I certainly didn’t notice, probably because the vandals quickly soiled the new ones.

I have mixed feelings about this vandalism. On the one hand there should be freedom of speech, and a party should be able to run for office without having posters that they pay for ruined. On the other hand, it’s pretty funny.

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I’ve been wanting a new bike for a while now. Not because I don’t already have two good bikes, but one is too fancy to be left outside, and the other needs some serious work after being ridden hard all summer and has brakes that fade and squeal when they get wet. Besides, it’s always good to have a backup, in case one bikegoes flat,gets stolen, or whatever. I looked for a used bike, but it turns out that fall is a good time to buy a new one, as every bike store is desperate to sell bikes.

I wanted a “winter bike” — one with internal gears and internal brakes. Neither of these two things are frequently seen in the US, but they’re pretty common in Denmark because bikes are ridden all year and the winters are wet. I also wanted a mountain bike. although I love my city bike, sometimes I want to hop a curb or climb a short set of stairs, and my city bike doesn’t really like it when that happens.

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My youngest brother Ben and his wife Heather visited last week. Having just started a new job, I couldn’t take the week off, so I mostly saw them in the evenings. I did take one afternoon off, and took them up to Hillerød to see Frederiksborg Palace.

Loyal readers may recall that Lisbeth and I stumbled on this palace by accident back in June. This time, however, I took a much closer look, both at the garden, and of the palace itself.

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September 28th was my last day at Microsoft.

I resigned after taking a job as a “Senior IT Consultant” with a small Danish company called Codehouse. It’s small. 16 employees. It’s over 5,000 times smaller than Microsoft, with its mind-boggling 79,000.

Codehouse specializes in providing custom web solutions for large customers. In other words, big companies need big web sites, and Codehouse sets these sites up. They don’t do the content — they set up an infrastructure that the big company can then use to add and maintain content on their site.

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