New Year's in Copenhagen

Tuesday, Dec. 28, Part II

Lotte served a Christmas buffet for dinner. We had fried herring, several kinds of pickled herring, shrimp, smoked salmon, meatballs, and fried duck livers. All of these, we ate as open-faced sandwiches with duck fat to seal the bread. She served four kinds of snaps, three of which she had flavored herself. Afterwards we had four kinds of cheese. Then we had coffee with candies. It was a filling night in Denmark, as usual!

Wednesday, Dec. 29

One of my favorite museums in Copenhagen is a small one called Den Hirschprungske Samling. It has lots of landscapes of Denmark and is home to many of the famous paintings by the Skagen Group in the late 1800's-early 1900's. Grethe was off work today, so we went to the museum. She hadn'tøt been there for 20+ years, and I hadnøt gone there for three years. We walked from gallery to gallery discussing the paintings and looking carefully at the details of them. http://www.hirschsprung.dk

We walked quite a ways when we left the museum. On the way, we had fun making up songs. In Denmark, people write personalized lyrics to common tunes when there are celebrations. So we took the tune to the popular New Year's song here and created special lyrics for the fun of it as we walked to our luncheon spot and onward to the bakery.

Our neighbor from Arne's building, Annette, came for dinner tonight. I bought a wonderful crusty loaf of Italian bread from a small Italian bakery and served it with olive oil that had crushed garlic and salt in it. Along with that, I served a salad (lettuce tomato, red onion, and smoked Italian ham with balsamic vinegar and oil dressing) and spaghetti with butter and Parmesan cheese. We had a Frascati white wine that was dry and good and later a red wine. For dessert we had my Danish butter cookies and kransekage, (baked marzipan cookies).

Annette doesn't speak English, so I spoke more Danish than I ever have before. I think Grethe was surprised. But it is nice to try to speak Danish with Annette. She listens and figures out what I mean even if my pronunciation or word form isn't exactly right. That's rare for a Dane. Usually anything not perfectly correct gets a dumbfounded look as a response.

Annette confirmed that she was the one who had put the second candle on Arne's grave on Dec. 26. I had figured it was her. Sheøs such a caring and considerate person.

Thursday, Dec. 30

Today was rather quiet. Grethe was off work again. We both slept late. We stayed inside until the afternoon. Then we walked through the local parks, by the neighborhood ice skating rink, and to the library. Grethe loved being able to read the newspapers for free. Afterwards, I shopped for some of the things I need for making a salad for the party tomorrow night.

Grethe made dinner--wonderful weinersnitzel topped with lemon, horseradish, and herring strips; oven roasted potatoes (sliced about 2/3 of the way through and buttered and salted twice while roasting for a little over an hour); green beans; and bernaise sauce. We watched TV and visited in the evening.

Friday, Dec. 31

Grethe tried on her outfit for tonight. She's wearing things given to her by Sue, Arne, and me over the past year, and she looks so good in it. She's wearing a gray suede shirt over a sparkly silver pullover vest, a black velvet skirt, black hose, and black shoes. She's going to a party at Ejgil's and Preben's home, and she will look great. I'm staying in town to attend an international party that will be small but have Germans, Americans, Danes, and maybe others there. It's being hosted by Reiner from WHO.

Arne and I lived on the 27th floor of a highrise apartment building. For the past few years, we have stayed at home alone on New Year's Eve. We loved having a quiet evening together. The best aspect of being there, however, was the great view we had of the fireworks. People spend a fortune here in Denmark on expensive fireworks which they begin bursting far in advance of midnight. It increased unbelievably at midnight, though. We could see all the way to the horizon with fireballs bursting and glittering. It was beautiful. Within 10 minutes or so, however, the smoke buildup was so great that the view became limited to local bursts.

After a quiet day of sitting around Grethe's apartment, I prepared for the evening. Reiner is a vegetarian, and each guest was asked to bring a vegetarian dish. I was asked to bring a mixed salad, so I took one with mixed greens, tomatoes, mushrooms, red onions, boiled eggs, Parmesan cheese, and an olive oil-balsamic vinegar dressing. We also had a baked puff pastry-mushroom pie, hummus, guacamole, red pepper-garlic dip, tomato-mozzarella salad, hot Italian bread, and other dishes. Besides me and Reiner, there were Reiner's partner Jorgen; Jarred, an American from WHO; and his friend Martin who is a Dane. Two young German students from downstairs in their building also joined us briefly at the beginning before leaving to host their own party in their apartment.

We met at 17:45 so we could hear the Queen's speech on TV. After dinner, we sat around the fireplace visiting until midnight. We turned on the TV to see Town Hall Square then, and we sang the Danish new year´s song and the country's two national songs. Then we went onto the roof of the building to watch the fireworks. There were many to see, but the display was nothing like the view Arne and I used to have from our apartment. It was rather scary standing on their sloped roof with no guardrails on the sides, but the view was better from there than it would have been from the windows or from down on the street.

At 1:30, I excused myself and walked back to Grethe´s apartment. For the first time in 20 years, I had spent a New Year's Eve without Arne. 2005 is going to be a year representing a new life for me. It will feel as if it has really started, I guess, when I leave for South America on Wednesday.

Saturday, Jan. 1, 2005

It was a lazy day as usual. Grethe and I stayed inside until the evening when we met Morten and Helle at a local restaurant for Italian food. We made a couple of calls to Texas to say hello and check on things. Then we went to bed early to make up for missing sleep from last night. Life will start getting back to normal tomorrow.