For the sake of this blog entry, let's pretend that . equals ! and ! equals !!!!!! If you actually see more than 4 exclamation points in a row it's probably best to picture the situation through the rapid heartbeat and big smile of a three year old who managed to eat a giant pixie stick before walking into a room filled entirely with presents waiting to be opened.
Now that that's settled: I LOVE JULEFROKOST (dansish thanksgiving)!!!!!!!!!!!!
What might be even cooler is that this Danish Thanksgiving (hence to be called by its true Danish name Julefrokost), though spectacular and fabulous, was just a highlight in the reel of my exclamation point filled week.
Other high points of my recent life include (but are not limited to):
· German Karaoke where I astounded English challenged Germans with my ability to spit mad rap in the form of Nelly “Hot in herre” while my roommate added her, uh, dance moves in the background. Tequila helped.
· WG party [translation: apartment gathering, casual, byob, but beer and pretzel sticks provided] where I met 2 new friends. The first, named Lisa-Marie Ploog, and I made dinner and went to Harry Potter with the rest of my group of friends on Tuesday. Yes, I said group of friends. I have one. It’s awesome. They’re all Germans, and I might not have all of their telephone numbers, but my piece of poop 20 euro pay-as-you-go phone doesn’t really work anyway.
· The second person I met is a Norwegien who is in Flensburg from Sunday-Tuesday getting private German lessons. His dad imports cars from Germany to Norway, so upon finishing his lessons he drives a brand new, to be imported, Mercedes or BMW back to Norway. I DO have his number. Hitchhike to Norway in a brand new luxury car anyone?
· In my school life, I gave lessons on “table manners and small talk” by baking the class a pumpkin pie from scratch and stuffing from scratch and having them try it. My students were not as willing to try new foods as I was to cook all these things for them and sadly, much of it went to waste. BUT I got practice in for real Thanksgiving which I will be celebrating in Köln, Germany with my American Fulbright friends. Can’t wait!
· In other school news I also led a discussion on Kafka’s “Vor dem Gesetz” or in English, “Before the Law” in a GERMAN class. Auf Detusch, natürlich. I’ve now led 2 full classes in German and hope to lead more. I wonder if Fulbright can give me a raise for teaching in 2 languages? Maybe?
· The last bit of cool stuff before I get to Julefrokost is mentioning that my apartment had a WG party ourselves on Friday. It was a great success, though the apartment smelled like smoke for a good 3 days afterwards and my boy roommate (Christoph), who is in most cases boring and just super German, invited his crazy, loud, how-the-heck-are these-people-in-any-way-connected-to-Christoph, friends. They were loud and obnoxious until 2am when they finally went to the Club, and then they were loud and obnoxious at 5:00am when they returned. It made for a rough start to my Julefrokost day, but I was only grumpy because I didn’t know what magic awaited…
So now: JULEFROKOST!!!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. And again, and again… I LOVE DANISH PEOPLE. I’m pretty sure I studied the wrong language, and God knew precisely what he was doing when he placed me in this random tiny town on the Danish border. While I know I can’t use the limited experiences I’ve had and the few real Danes I’ve met to make a judgment for an entire country, I’ve been pretty darn impressed with the general friendliness and willingness to have a good time by every Dane that I’ve met so far.
Julefrokost was a nice example of this. SO what is Julefrokost you ask? Or not? It’s a Danish Christmas lunch that celebrates the beginning of the advent season. The sentiment is similar to Thanksgiving, but unlike thanksgiving, they can celebrate it every weekend of the advent season if they want to, and often do.
The meal is served in 4 courses with a main dish of “Aquavit” which is a nasty licorice tasting shot. Don’t worry, it gets tastier by the end of the night.
The first course is freshly baked bread and cold cuts. For the Danes “cold cuts” include roast beef (yummm) other unidentifiable meats (yum?) and pickled Herring (oh hell no). Unimpressed by my students lack of courage for trying new foods I had already vowed to try everything. I regretted that decision when I saw the grayish fish looking stuff on a plate before me, but with some Curry sauce it actually was quite tasty! Who knew!?
It should be established and understood that throughout these courses, anytime someone says something funny, or breaks into song, it is accompanied with a lifted shot glass, yelling “SKOL” and drinking what might as well have been gasoline. The shot glasses are then immediately refilled so as to be ready for the next time someone says something remotely worth laughing about. By the end of the night we were laughing a lot. It was a vicious, but very entertaining, cycle.
The nice thing about Julefrokost is that in between each course, the next part of the meal has to be cooked, so there is sufficient time for digestion and story telling. I got to know the 5 families who were also there very well and if I didn’t feel like family right when I walked in the door (but I did… ) I certainly felt like family by the end of dinner.
The second course was the “hot meal”. It included Wurst, Potatoes, and the second excuse-me-you-expect-me-to-EAT-that, cultural experience of the night: Green Cabbage. Green cabbaged is loved and cherished among northern Germans and Danes. It looks like overcooked, hard to chew, spinach and is served in heaping portions. Again, surprise surprise, it actually tasted pretty good. Touche Danes.
Continuing the pattern of rest, digest, and drink, we rested and laughed our way through several youtube videos before eating a dessert of tapioca pudding, and the final course of cheese and crackers and coffee.
All in all the feast lasted from 5:00pm to 3:00am.
With that I wish you HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Celebrate like and American, drink and laugh like the Danes, and know that I am thinking of you while I’m here in Germany.
Love always,
Mere
Happy Thanksgiving from Nashville!! Love you!
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