And the day when the fat men in red invaded Tivoli

As I promised, I took a look at Tivoli at Christmas time to bring you some pretty pictures just for you (well, what I could, the night falls early at this time).

No, the little hearts are not falling.
They hang to the branches of a tree without leaves just behind.

At the edge of the lake

That is exactly my kind of humor

Of course, there is a Christmas market:

But the most impressive temporary installation is a kind of huge tent, standing on the square in front of the main stage, but a tent with walls and roof, looking like small wooden houses stuck together (I don't know if I'm very clear). Inside, a village of little elves, all animated, has been reconstituted.

Crossed by a little train:

And at the end of your trip in Elvesland, to help you to recover from your emotions, comes the unavoidable seasonal stand, the one that sells the æbleskiver/glögg duo. These are the traditional Christmas delicacies you find in all bars right now so you feel obliged to try it.

Æbleskiver, literally means "apple slices", but actually it is not that at all. It seems that however, it was made with apples in the good old days... Today, it is a kind of small round pancakes, served with sugar and jam.

In their special machine

And glögg is mulled wine with spices.


Here is the recipe if you want to try. For a liter of red wine you need:

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 8 cloves
• a piece of bitter orange peel
• some orange juice if you want
• sugar

Heat the wine in a saucepan with all the spices but don't boil it (watch out the fumes!) Add sugar to your taste. Ready! Actually, it is recommended to prepare it a long time in advance to allow the wine to absorb the flavors of spices. At serving time, raisins and almonds are often added directly into the glass, so don't forget the spoon. The real Vikings even add some vodka.

Then, I wish you a glædelig Jul (a day late) and a godt nytår, a tillykke med fødselsdagen to my original blog (a year already!) and velkommen to its little brother in English. See you next year.

I've tested for you: the Julefrokost

Anyway, I could not escape to it. And I was told since months, that it was The Unmissable Party, and bla bla bla ... For those who don't know what it is, basically, the Julefrokost is the traditional Christmas party, and I'm talking specifically about the one organized by the company. It consists of a dressed-up party with a dinner, and all Danish companies organize their own, I mean absolutely all of them. That's why in Denmark all the restaurants and banquet halls are almost fully booked every Friday night located between November 20 and December 20.

Mine took place in the suburbs of Copenhagen in a vast hall filled with candles. After an open bar cocktails phase, people started to dine. Not worth fantasizing over the food, it was just a buffet, interrupted by speeches, jokes (a stage and a microphone had been provided for this purpose), and the screening of a short funny film about the company.

After the meal, people head gradually towards the dance floor. Then, that was the time when it began spinning out of control. And it was still open bar. To give you an idea of how it looked like, imagine an student party with in the role of students, your fellow workmates, from 20 to 60 years old. Actually, the Julefrokost is the only day of the year when people allow themselves to crack down in public, with the rallying cry "Skål!" (*) And I can assure you that it's weird to see these Danes losing control of themselves while they usually are quite self-contained.

And another funny thing, on Monday morning, all the people who went there greeted me solemnly by adding the ritual formula, "Tak for sisdt!" which means "Thank you for the last time" although of course I didn't do anything for them personally. Yes, the Danes still have not yet invented the "please" (**) in Danish, but forget your "tak for sisdt" and you will pass as a lout.

(*) Cheers!
(**) This word just doesn't have any equivalent in Danish

Who said that politics was a serious issue?

Next week, the Danes are voting for the municipal and regional elections. And of course, right now, all the poles of Copenhagen are covered with election posters.

Among the clutter, some weird posters are hidden, and that caught my eye. That's why I went biking today to hunt for the most bizarre of them. And I didn't come back empty-handed.

Here is a totally serious party, but with a little bit of humor, I love this

I just don't understand

The Progress Party (WTF?!)

Another bike-lover-weirdo

Is it really to support someone?
"veldfærd" means welfare

Is this to make fun of the politicians and their stonewalling?
"enhed" means "unity"

Mmmmh, I can smell the spirit of Christiania there

But for the big nonsense matter, nobody does better than the Nihilistisk Folkeparti. It is a political party "just for fun", but which does exist for real. Their motto is "Det hele er alligevel ligegyldigt - Spild din stemme på os!" and that's means approximatively "Nothing matters anyway - Waste your vote for us!" I presume that their name is a parody of the extreme-right wing party, the Dansk Folkeparti.

Here is an anthology of their achievements:

"For psychedelic colors in the metro
Stop the grey brainwashing!"

"Nothing matters
except the cute little animals"

"Because an asshole can be as good as another one"

The one on the left made me smile (note the little mermaids at the bottom)
But I burst into laughter when I read the one on the right:
"Stop the church bell! - Fuck our salvation - we are hung over!"

"At have tømmermænd" is an expression which means "to be hung over". "Tømmer" is "timber" in my dictionary and "mænd" means "men". And to finish subtly, this is how must look like a "tømmermand ":

"More vomit in the streets!"

What do you think of all this? I personally find that they are quite fearless ... But I realize that I probably lack some cultural references to understand everything. And to be quite honest with you, I'm not really interested at all in Danish politics.

By the way, did you know that Denmark is one of the less corrupted countries in the world? (according to the NGO Transparency International, sources here)