dot dk

There may be, somewhere in the world, a father that thinks his daughter is cuter than mine.

But he is clearly insane. Unlike me. Who is not.

Ellen is ten and a half months old now, and ever since she was born I’ve been telling Lisbeth, “I think this is it — maximum cuteness” and “She just can’t get cuter. It’s just not possible” and “I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

But then she goes right on getting cuter. So much so that when I look at pictures of her from three or six months ago I think, “Well sure, she was sort of cute, I guess… but look at her now!”

But, like house prices, Ellen’s cuteness cannot go up and up indefinitely. No. It must peak at some point, and then go down. It just must. It defies the laws of the universe, this.

Not that I’m complaining, especially since she has a personality to match her cuteness. In fact, there may be, somewhere in the world, a father that thinks his daughter is more charming than mine… poor fool.

Overall, Christmas in Denmark isn’t that different from Christmas in the US. There are differences, but they’re fairly subtle. Except for the tree. That’s not subtle. But in terms of Christmas being a special time, in which family gets together and eats entirely too much — that’s the same.

Naturally the food is different. I’ve gotten so used to the food that I don’t think about it very much anymore, but the Danes have a lot of of specific foods that they only enjoy on special occasions, so there were two dishes I hadn’t had before. The first was brunede kartofler, which translates to roasted potatoes, but are in fact caramelized potatoes. I’m of the opinion that you can’t improve on the potato, be it mashed or merely boiled, so I wasn’t particular impressed by the description, but they’re very good. (more…)

Up until now, no matter where I’ve been living, I’ve managed to get home to New Mexico for Christmas. But on this, my fortieth Christmas, I’m not going home. We’ll spend next year in New Mexico, but this year we’re spending Christmas with Lisbeth’s family.

It’s quite strange not to go home. It’s nice not to have to worry about airports and jetlag, but I miss my family, I miss the food, and going to my grandparent’s ranch.

But it’s not all bad. (more…)

It’s been a surreal two weeks. Security around Bella Center was incredibly tight. Tall barriers were constructed around the center, engulfing entire streets. There were generally five to ten police officers at every gate, 24 hours a day, and many more than that on days when protesters were expected. On Friday, when Obama came in, guards with assault rifles were added. It was like living next to a military base.

I took these pictures from our terrace on Wednesday morning (I had a headache and it was bitter cold, so the blur in these pictures is my unsteady hands). Protesters were expected to make another attempt to push past security and get into Bella Center. But, as seemed the case the entire time, police were two steps ahead, and were clearly not going to let things chaotic, even if it meant arresting 600 people at a time. (more…)

Haven’t been on it, don’t know anything about it, but it’s in Copenhagen right now and it just nice lookin’.

Starting tomorrow, 100 heads of state from countries around the world will meet in Bella Center, the largest conference center in Scandinavia. There will be about 15,000 participants and the Copenhagen police are expecting as many as 50,000 protesters — and as a result, over half of Denmark’s police force is in Copenhagen for this event.

Apparently every hotel in the greater Copenhagen area has been booked for months, and many people are hosting participants in their homes. Obama will make an appearance at the conference. It’ll be brief, but this is the second time in three months that Obama has been to Copenhagen, so the Danes aren’t unhappy about that. (He was here for the Olympic committee meeting in early October, which also took place at Bella Center.)

We live across the street from Bella Center. We’ve watched over the last few months as the preprations have intensified. Every entrance is heavily guarded. We’re sure to see many a protester, many a cop, and — mostly likely — some trouble. Last week we got a note form the building management announcing that extra insurance has been taken out on the building, and advising residents to make sure their private policies are up-to-date. (more…)

Denmark was recently featured on Oprah, partly because of the buzz it’s gotten as the happiest country on earth, and partly because she was here anyway in order to push for Chicago’s olympic bid.

In the first clip Oprah tours an apartment that is portrayed as being fairly typical. But it’s not even close to being typical. There are some typical things about it, like the extremely compact refrigerator (by American standards), but most of it is not at all typical. The “cave” where the kids live is quite strange. Sure, Danish bedrooms are often small, but that’s more of a closet than a room. And the parent’s bed and bedroom is extremely unusual — it’s in the freakin kitchen! I’ve been in dozens of Danish homes and never seen anything like this apartment.

The second clip is more interesting. (more…)

Adams is a very short and clever story by George Saunders, whose work I really admire. It’s a good story on its own (and in typical Saunders fashion, delightfully strange), but it’s also quite a political. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I didn’t write it.

Officially it’s not over yet, but it feels that way. Fall can be glorious in Denmark, but is sometimes disappointing. There are so many colors, and they hit all at once. If you’re lucky it won’t rain for a while, but it usually does, and the crisp and vivid colors get wet and murky.

But fall is still a special time of year.  There’s something profound about fall. It makes summer seem like a silly, frivolous season. Fall is a return to reality. It’s both more sane and more sentimental than summer, and the transition surprises me every year.

Ellen’s preferences continue to emerge, and one thing that’s clear is that she has no interest in crawling. She takes real offense when I put her into the crawling position. She drops down to her stomach, starts whining, and looks to Lisbeth for sympathy.  “Look mom! Look at what dad did to me!”

Walking, on the other hand — now that’s interesting. If you hold her hands and walk her around the room, she makes her happy noises and looks up at you as if to say, “Look! I’m walking!”

Apparently not all babies crawl before they walk. Lisbeth never did. Maybe Ellen won’t either, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop trying.