Costum danish style...

Here kids love to dress up for Fastelavn. Of course, you can choose princess, Ben10 or Jedi, but it is so much more local to choose the viking style!

Fastelavn costums

Fastelavn is primarily a celebration for children. They must be well dressed for the occasion.
If today everyone celebrates fastelavn (schools, kindergartens, shopping malls and even car dealers), the Church remains in the race and still holds its own events. Children are allowed to go to mass in costume! If you find yourself nearby a church on that occasion, the sight can be quite funny! (here Slotskirke Frederiksborg in Hillerød, photos from last year's Fastelavn) ...
A fairy teenager ...
an Easter bunny (a little early!)

Shrek,


And many others (spiderman, superman, teddy bears, little devils, Charlie Chaplin and so on).
The toy stores shelves are indeed very busy with costumes since beginning of January (from baby size to adults), but you can also find them in clothes stores and supermarkets...

Fastelavn

In a few weeks, the Danes will celebrate Fastelavn. But what is this? Here is an opportunity to write a little series on the major characteristics of this event, as we have discovered it in the previous years of our exile here.

* Costumes
* The boller
* The barrel

But first a little summary...
Fastelavn is a semi-Christian festival. It marks the beginning of the fast, 40 days before Easter. Well, most people don't really care about that, but a many cultures have used this opportunity to start a great tradition: Carnival.
Yes but here, the Danes prefer to do this their way, so they celebrates fastelavn.
In principle, it is similar, yet completely different of course.
Well, we'll now say that's enough for the introduction (I ca see two persons sleeping in the back of the class).

Winter slides

Your skates are rusty? So why not get closer to the ground?
Easy, start by reading your local paper. In it, you can find out where are the slopes closest to your home. For the Danish speaking, you can also visit AOK.


Then you have to choose your ride: old style wood, or modern aerodynamic plastic

Discover our photo galleries

Discover the pictures of the blog on those themed albums:

Danish gastronomy: a strange journey among hot dogs, ice cream, beer and smørrebrød...


Bicycle: enter the country of the bicycle and its sometimes very personalized accessories...


Nature : The green danish landscapes, from cows to windmills...


Boats and coasts: when you live on an island, the sea is never really far away....


Art and design : What would be life in Denmark without design?


Denmark at night: Danish nights are beautiful! Good thing, as during winter season, they are sooo long!


Cold wave: A nice white layer is spreading accross the country...


Enjoy!

Time for ice-skate?

In this period- as almost everywhere in Europe - it is freezing in Denmark ...
The Dares are happy: they can now go out and exercise in the cold: bike in the snow, sledge or even ice-skate on lakes!
Access to the various lakes is regulated: the city council performs depth measurements every day and if the ice is over a certain thickness, the lake can be "officially" opened to the public. Humm that's the theory, as can be seen here on Lake Castle in Hillerød, the skaters are enjoying themselves despite the interdiction sign. Oh là là these Danes, they respect absolutly nothing!


On today's program: ice skating (animal powered or not), hockey, sledding ...





In Copenhagen, the town maintains this page that shows which lakes are allowed (for pictures of Copenhagen lakes, you can check Aimache's page). Most cities (those with a lake of course) offer an equivalent page on their site.
Enjoy!

Fish in a box

In a plastic box!
Yes, in Denmark you can get fish in individually sized boxes. I have been tempted by it, because it was a great offer (2 dkk a piece, 27 Euro cents!). So let's taste it, for the sake of the blog!

Finally, after some effort in decoration, it doesn't look so bad.

Well of course you should not serve it to Jamie Oliver, but it's rather ok. Many Danes have this kind of preparation in their lunch box .
But as any individual portion, a bad point for the environment with all this plastic packaging.

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