Thanksgiving, Danish Style!

In my mind Thanksgiving is supposed to be a large scale event in all regards. A large number of attendees,  a large quantity of homecooked food, and a large amount of friendly banter. When myself, and two other host students started planning our large multi family feast we had this idea in mind. This was a great way to share the essence of Thanksgiving (along with the traditional foods) with our host families.

It probably does not surprise anyone that I was in charge of the desserts, while the other two students were in charge of the turkey and sides. So I made a total of four pies, two apple and two pear-cranberry.

Above is an uncooked apple pie.

Our big Thanksgiving feast was on Wednesday the 24th of November starting at 7pm and lasting until late at night. With our two turkeys, cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, assorted vegetables, and pies it was a great feast. The people there were all amazing and since there was such a great group we all had a blast!

Family members starting to take their places at the table. To the left is my friend Melissa and her host family and to the right is my host family.

Here Peter is carving up the first Turkey while the second waits. Peter's host family allowed us to hold Thanksgiving at their house. (my pies are in the picture!!)

As Thanksgiving was approaching I was really worried that I would get homesick, since it would be the first year I could not fly home for Thanksgiving. Fortunately, due to friends, and my host parents, I did not feel like I had been cheated out of a Thanksgiving feast with family.

My host parents and I in the middle of the feast. (And no we did not purposefully match...haha)

Thanks to everyone involved for a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration!

Nu er julen startet !

Now Christmas has started! It may still be before Thanksgiving back in the United States but here in Denmark, all our thoughts are already on wish lists, nisser, and Christmas celebrations. For me the Christmas season started this past weekend with my Danish family, some Christmas shopping and the scent of Danish treats.

Since I had come back from Greenland it has been darker and colder in Denmark, so thoughts of Christmas definitely adds cheer even on a cloudy day. It is wonderful to walk around Copenhagen and observe the Christmas decorations that are going up everyday. (That is as long as it isn't rainy or snowing)

This past Saturday, in the true Christmas spirit I spent the day with my Danish family getting gifts for those back home, and baking cookies with my host Mom. In total we made over 300 cookies! This seems like a large amount when you consider how big American cookies are, but Danish cookies are considerable smaller. These cookies are a perfect sized mouthfuls of holiday spirit, without the guilty conscience of gobbling up a gigantic American Christmas cookie.

Pictured above are some Pebernødder cookies.

After baking the three different types of cookies, Pebernødder, Jødekager, and Finskbrød, they were loaded into multiple Christmas tins. We tested out the cookies with tea, coffee and a movie, creating a wonderful end to the Saturday.

Though that was the end of our Saturday it sure was not the end to the Christmas baking for the weekend. On Sunday my host Mom made Æbleskiver, a traditionally Danish Christmas dessert. These round puffs are typically eaten with jelly or powdered sugar, which we promptly did soon after they were made. Below is a picture of the delicious dish of Æbleskiver, next to the special pan required to cook them. Such is not an easy task, particularly when they must be turned several times to create the round shape. Thus it was probably a good thing someone with more talent than me in the kitchen was making them.

Thus was the wonderful start to the Christmas season!

After a weekend of Danish Christmas treats, we will spend Wednesday evening with two other host families and my friend Sandra as we celebrate Thanksgiving!

Vi Ses!

View from a snow covered Mountain

On Thursday we had some time to go exploring on our own. Even though it had been snowing on and off for the past two days, there were eight of us that decided to climb a snow covered mountain. So off we went and here are some pictures from the way up the mountain.

 In total it took us around three hours to climb up and get down (getting down was the hardest) from the mountain. The view was so breathtaking on the mountain, if it was not so cold I would have stayed until it was dark.

I made it to the top of the mountain!

Here is the view from the top, I was not lying when I said it was breathtaking.

My trip to Greenland was absolutely AMAZING and I enjoyed every minute, despite it being so cold. I hope that someday I come back to Greenland. It has now inspired me to go to Alaska at some point to see the marvels there. Greenland is such a beautiful place and the people are so fantastic, it is truly one of the hidden treasures of the world.

Vi Ses!!

Ice Crawl Tasha Style

When talking about what we were supposed to be doing on our trip to Greenland I always made a point of saying how we were going to walk on the ice sheet. Well... that is not exactly true, since one can not simply walk on a smooth non snowy ice surface, instead we were crawling or scooting along until we would get to sections of the ice that had a little bit of grip due to snow that had fallen that morning. It is a good thing the ice sheet is uninhabited because we must have looked crazy making our way around the ice sheet. And then all semblance of cultured college students slid away as we realized that though it is hard to walk, it is easy to slide. The ice sheet, which can be described as rolling ice is perfect for sledding - without the sled.

Here I am, about to slide down an ice hill. I have to admit, having grown up with few chances to sled, the whole experience was AMAZING despite the cold.

In the picture to the right you can see what I mean when I talk about the rolling ice. Also if you see the patches of snow those are the areas in which you can walk, the parts that are blue have no snow. It is these areas that you can imagine me crawling around in for fear of falling! =D

After a couple hours, we had to leave the ice sheet so that we could get back to camp while there was still light. I was reluctant to leave and was one of the last people to come off of the ice sheet.
The experience on the ice sheet was, like most of my trip to Greenland, quite hard to describe through words or pictures. Where we were, one is surrounded on all four sides by ice as far as the eye can see. The only color visible is the blue of the ice and sky. It looks so picturesque that it seems fake until you touch it for yourself, validating that the ice is very real and not just a dream. It is magical when you are standing on this ice sheet, which is one of only two in the world. Truly another Greenlandic marvel!

Nature's form of night time entertainment!

Looking up into the night sky one typically sees stars, if one is far enough away from the lights of a big city. In Florida if you are close enough to one of the theme parks you can typically see a light show put on by humans. Kangerlussuaq is one of the few places were, solar storms and clouds permitting, you are able to see a light show put on by nature, the Aurora Borealis. 

The Aurora occurs when charged particles of the solar wind hit the world. This occurs typically due to a solar storm at the sun approximately 2 days (time the particles take to travel to the earth) before you see the aurora. Additionally there may be an aurora but if it is too cloudy, you will not see it. Much of the time we were in Greenland it was too cloudy to see the Aurora, but the Tuesday night that we were there it appeared shortly after our dinner. We all bundled up (I think I was wearing about 6 layers or so), took cups of hot tea and found comfortable spots outside to watch the twirling lights dance across the sky. The price of being cold was, to me, worth it to see this marvel of nature before my eyes.

With such marvels of nature in the far north, it is no wonder to me why Santa Claus is based on the top of the world instead of the tropics.