Sunday, May 5, 2013

The best ice-cream I have ever eaten!

Three weeks ago I cycled to Kerteminde with some friends. Kerteminde is a small coastal village located at 20 km from Odense. Kerteminde is such a nice place to spend the hole day and there is a beautiful beach. 

                     

                     

You should go there, not only for visiting Kerteminde, but for enjoying the trip from Odense to Kerteminde. 

 

Maybe the main attraction of Kerteminde is the Fjord & Bælt; which is an aquarium and research center (they especially work with whales!) where you can learn about the world under the sea. 
                       

But I want to show you another reason to go to Kerteminde: In Kerteminde I ate the tastiest ice-cream I ever tried! The ice-creams are home made and, actually It is the first ice-cream shop where I have seen how the owners were making the ice-cream cone live. Afterwards, a friend of mine sent me some information of this shop and I could read that it has been elected the best ice-cream shop in Funen ("Kåret til årets bedste ishus på Fyn"). 

                    


You can enter into her website and read by yourself: http://www.vaffelhuset.dk/

                                  

 Bon appetit!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Why today (23rd April) is the best day of the year?

Hi everybody. Today I'm taking the liberty of not talking about Denmark. I will talk about the only day I miss from Catalunya. There is only one day I would like to come back to Catalunya and to be in Barcelona. Is today, on 23rd April. It's a special day for me and for everyone in Catalunya. This day is only comparable with "La diada de Catalunya" (National day of Catalonia), on 11th September. 

23rd April: Sant Jordi’s day

Sant Jordi is the patron saint of Catalunya and each 23rd of April, in Catalonia, we celebrate “La diada de Sant Jordi” (Sant Jordi’s day). On my opinion is the most beautiful day on the year and everybody should go to Catalonia on this day, especially to Barcelona. On 23rd April Barcelona turns magic. The atmosphere is incredible and everybody has good mood.


Sant Jordi is the Saint Patron of Barcelona
For catalan people, Sant Jordi’s day is the day of love and culture. That’s why men give a rose to women and women give a book to men. Since XV century Catalans took Sant Jordi’s day as the lover’s day (we don’t celebrate Saint Valentine) and that’s why we give a rose to our loved women. But also since 1929 this day is taken as the day of the book. That’s why we also interchange books.

Some years ago, it was popular that men gave a rose to women and women gave a book to men; but nowadays, it has changed, and both women and men can interchange books and roses.

23rd April we celebrate Sant Jordi: The day of the book and the rose. 

It’s such a beautiful day because everybody is outside in the streets and walk through the Barcelona’s city center with a rose and a book in their hands. All the streets have stands of roses and books, and you can walk with your partner or your friends enjoying the day. This day Barcelona smells different-it smells to roses- and it is plenty of different colors- there are roses of all colors you can imagine, even multi-colors. 







 It’s especially nice to walk through “Les rambles”; maybe the most popular street in Barcelona, because besides stands with roses and books, there are a lot of stands where the books-writers are, and you can talk with them, take some photos and get a signature on your book.


Les Rambles are every Sant Jordi full of people, althought it is raining.
Everybody is walking through the streets looking
for a rose and a book for their partners.

With this video you can have a vague idea about the atmosphere in Barcelona on Sant Jordi's day, but I insist that you have to feel it by yourself. 


The Legend of Sant Jordi and the dragon

Once upon a time, the inhabitants of Montblanc, one of the most important Medieval villages in Catalunya, were terrified by the threat of a dragon who lived in a close cave. The dragon was really scaring and he flew every day to the village asking for food. First, the inhabitants of Montblanc gave him chickens and sheeps. But they were too small animals for the dragon and he was still hungry. So they decided to give him the cows of the village. But the dragon soon finished with them. Desperate, the people gave their horses to the dragon, but anyway they were not enough to fill the stomach of the dragon.

I honesty recommend you to visit Montblanc, specially on Sant Jordi's
week, because there is a very nice atmosphere these days.

Montblanc is surrounded by walls. 

 The dragon was never fulfilled and he turned more aggressive every day because he was very very hungry and the villagers couldn’t offer him anything to eat. Finally, one day, the dragon went to the village and made a request:

“You have to give me one of your villagers every day. If not, I will burn and destroy your village”.

The villagers did what the dragon had said and they decided that a raffle had to be done in order to choose the person would be eaten by the dragon. So, the names of all people of the village were written down and put into a bag and every day, the king took one of the pieces. The third day the king took one piece of paper and went suddenly blank. He took the name of his beautiful daughter, the princess. Both the king and the princess cried, but they quickly accepted her destiny. So she said goodbye to everyone and walked to the dragon’s cave.

The village was totally depressed by the fact that the dragon was close to eat their princess; but when the dragon was ready to eat her, suddenly appear a horse rider – Sant Jordi- taking a sword in his hand. The dragon saw him and blew a ball of fire towards him, but Sant Jordi avoided the attack, rode towards the dragon and stuck the sword in the dragon heart. The dragon screamed and died. The princess ran to her hero and embraced her, and then, a magic thing happened. From the pool of red blood coming from the dragon’s heart, a rose tree sprouted. Little by little, more roses appeared from the dragon’s blood. Sant Jordi took the biggest and most beautiful red rose and gave it to the princess.

Everybody in Catalunya knows the Legend of Sant Jordi

That’s why, from that day, the 23rd of April Catalan men give to their “princesses” (their girl-friends; wives; best-friends; mothers or grand-mothers) a rose.

Sant Jordi is our "Saint Valentine's day"

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Den Smagløse Café

Hi everybody, 
I told you few entrances ago that I would like to show you some of the bars in Odense. So, let's begin with one my favorites, if not my favorite: The Smagløse Café.


It is a bar I could spend all my day in. The bar is located in Vindegade 57, 5000 Odense C, and their phone number is 66 12 75 66. It is open everyday since 12:00 and it closes at 3:00 from Tuesday to Saturday and at 1:00 on Sunday and Monday. 

The entrance of Smagløse Café

I like going there and spent time with friends just talking and drinking; but you also can play foosball or pool. Prices are not so much cheap, but they are on the average of price in Denmark (There are something cheap in Denmark?) and the atmosphere is amazing. Everyday at every moment there are people, and specially from Thursday to Sunday it is usually full. In Smagløse you can find as much as danish people as international students.

The pool.
It is also my favorite bar because of the decoration. The decoration is astonishing: there are sofas, there are bus-chairs, there are small-round tables, big tables, a lot of pictures on the walls, even in the roof!, there is a chimney with a nice bookcase... but the best part of the decoration is the light. I think that the light is just perfect: Not so much; Not too less. Is exactly what I like. Furthermore is nice because they have very different types of lamps. The majority of them are home-made lamps and they have very strange shapes and, for example, there are ones that are made with the head of a doll, or another ones that are made with a globe.

Is very nice to sit down there and talk with friends while you
are drinking a beer and listening music

In that picture you can see the bus-chairs I have mentioned before,
and also the globe-lamp. 

This is one of all the different types of lamps you can see in Smagløse

As I have said before the prices are not so much cheap, but the relation quality-price is pretty good. Here you can read the drink menu (they don't offer food!). I recommend you the beer (of course!), especially I like the Albani 1859; but the tea and the smelt chocolate are also excellent. 



It is also good to know that there are some days per week where different events take place in Den Smagløse Café. You can check their webpage and take a look to them. 


So, my recommendation is that if you are in Odense you have to go to Smagløse Café, drink something you like and enjoy this bewitched place.

Friday, April 5, 2013

If you want to save some money..don't throw any bottle out to the garbage!

Denmark is a country where people take a lot of care of environment and they are more used to recycle than other countries, like Spain. But it is easier in Denmark than in Spain because in Denmark people are payed for recycling; so they have an special interest in doing that. 
When you buy a drink you are paying a small deposit extra for the plastic, glass or aluminium bottle, but if you give the bottle back into the supermarket, this extra deposit is returned to you. 

Which bottles can I recycle? Almost all bottles have a small black logo consisting in two arrows surrounding the word "Pant" and a letter, which can be "A", "B" or "C". This logo means that you can recycle the bottle and the letters are indicating the amount of money you will obtain for the package:
  • Type A = DKK 1.00
  • Type B = DKK 1.50
  • Type C = DKK 3.00
In this image you can see that the amount of money that you receive it depends on the material and the size of the bottle. 

But where you have to go to recycle the bottles? You can return bottles and cans in any supermarket, using an automatic bottle bank (flaskeautomat). You have to place the bottles inside, with the bar code facing downwards, and once you have finished press the green button and take the printed ticket that you can exchange into the supermarket's check-out.

Some machines have an yellow button, that you have to press if you want to donate your "recycled-money" to charities.

Flaskeautomat 
For example, in this ticket I obtained in LIDL you can see I recycled 13 type A-bottles and 5 type B-bottles; so they returned me 20,50 Kr.

Recycling it helps you to save some money!

In these videos you can see how the flaskeautomat works: 



Do you think that is a good way to motivate people to recycle? 

Monday, April 1, 2013

Hans Christian Andersen's statues in Odense


Last week I was in Copenhaguen, and I took some photos with the popular statue "The Little Mermaid", which represents the character of the fairy tale with the same name, wrote by Hans Christian Andersen. But Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, not in Copenhaguen. That's why in Odense, we have a different sculptures representing characters from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. In that entrance I just want to show you only pictures of these fantastic sculptures. Do you know all these stories?

If you don't know any of that stories, or you want to learn other fairy tales, you just can visit that website and read!
                          http://www.fairytalescollection.com/HansChristianAndersen.aspx


The Steadfast Tinsoldier

The Little Mermaid

The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep

The toad


The darning needle

The emperor's new clothes


The sea horse


The paper boat


The flying trunk

The wild swans 

Thumbelina



















Saturday, March 23, 2013

Slå katten af tønden

Yesterday I went to a great party in the lab where I’m working and it was really funny. We dressed up with costumes; ate very spicy Indian food and drank a lot. Furthermore we played to different games: A song quiz; different challenges… But the most surprised game was a typical Danish game called "Slå Katten af tønden" (Kick the Kitty Cat).

Danish people play that game in Carnival. For playing that game you have to buy a wooden barrel and cover it with wet towels for at least 8-10h in order to make the wood more resistant to break. 

Then you have to paste a picture of a cat into the barrel and fill the barrel with candy, sweets and cookies and hang suspended it in the air.

The players line up and take turns hitting the barrel with a wooden stick until all the sweets fall out. During the first round the players only are able to hit the barrel with their no-good hand. So, for example, a right-handed person has to hit with her left hand. 


The person who breaks the barrel is the Queen. But the game continues until all the barrel brakes. The person who knocks down the last remaining part of the barrel is the King.


The reason the game has such an odd name is that in the old days there used to be a live cat inside the barrel. Obviously, this was a very cruel game and nobody does that anymore, but part of the tradition has survived.


Monday, March 11, 2013

Are the Danish schedules very different from Catalonia schedules?

Last Saturday I went to IKEA because I wanted to buy a lamp for my room, which is too dark. But when I arrived at IKEA, after paying two buses (that are too much expensive!), IKEA was closed.
Odense's IKEA. 
But what is the schedule of the Danish people and the shops, restaurants or bars here? Is very different from Spain? Let’s see.

The day-to-day schedule of the Danish people isn't the same as Spanish people or people of other countries in South Europe. In general, here, people begin to work at 8-9 and they have a powerful breakfast based on bread (different types of bread); butter; jam; tea and coffee.
Bread with butter and jam

Danish have lunch between 12-13h, but they don’t eat so much. They usually eat smørrebrød; that is the typical Danish black bread and they add different ingredients to it, like vegetables (tomatoes; cucumber; avocado...), eggs, tuna, different fishes, salami, and a lot of different sauces (remoulade...). They also eat carrots, potatoes or fish (especially salmon).
One smørrebrød is formed by lettuce, eggs and tomato;
and the other is based in ham; onion and cucumbers

They rarely leave the work after 4 pm, and in this way, parents can be with their children for all the afternoon/evening. They think that the creating a family union is very important and adapt their schedules to that.

You can see that Danish people work fewer hours than people in Spain. I think that they work less hours, but actually they work more, because we waste a lot of time making small breaks, having lunch, talking... and, in my opinion, Danish people organize better their time and are concentrated in their work until having finished it. That is only my opinion and I don't know if that is really true. I promise I'm going to investigate that and write a entrance comparing the working hours between Denmark and Spain; based on scientific studies.

The hour of dinner is, as average, between 7:30-9; depending on each family and they eat more than during the lunch. I’m thinking in make some entrances about Danish dishes. So don’t worry about that.

So, that’s the general schedule of Danish people. But what about shops, bars or official buildings?

The open hours of shops depends on if they are small/local shops or big/supermarket chains. Local shops are opened from 10-18, as maximum; while the bigger ones are opened more hours. For example, LIDL and NETTO are opened from 8h to 22h every day, and FØTEX are opened from 8h to 20h every day and on Saturday/Sunday from 8h to 18h.
NETTO is a good supermarket, and it is as cheap as LIDL. I like it.

Regarding to bars, they usually open at the morning and close at 12h from Monday- Thursday (There are a lot of bars that are opened on Thursday until 3-5h); and Friday and Saturday theyopen until 3-5h. But I have to write about bars/discos. I’m thinking in making some small entrances of different good bars/discos here. What do you think? It’s a good idea?
Australian Bar (AB) is opened from Thursday to Saturday, from 22h to 5h.

Finally, the official buildings are opened very few hours and the schedule is different every day of the week. For example the “Statsforvaltningen”, which is translated as “State Administration” the day that is opened for more time is from Monday to Wednesday, which is open from 10h to 15h.

So, you know that my schedules in Barcelona are very different from the schedules I’m following here; but I’m getting used to their schedules and their eating hours.

Finally I want to share an opinion regarding to the Danish hours parties. I think they are advanced that ours and they are clever! We perfectly can go out to party at 1 am and leave the disco at 6 and have breakfast until 8; but they begin their parties at 7 into the bar and then they go out to discos, like us, until 6 am. It’s easy to see that they prolong the party some hours more than us. And, of course, I’m trying to adopt their party’s schedule. 
Skål !