wonderful wonderful...
22 december 2001

..... i'm sure you can guess.....copenhagen, as the song goes. we seem to be hitting lots of nordic countries, which i've discovered are all individually beautiful. denmark is no exception and copenhagen is right up there with all other lively, interesting euro cities. you know the drill; gary had business there and was required to stay over to the following week which "required" me to journey there for the weekend. klm continues to offer great fares these days. i couldn't have left at a better time as we had a problem with our hot water and heating system all last week. it was temporarily fixed mid week awaiting a necessary part to complete the job, but by thursday night, there was no heat or hot water at all. we all know how well i react to being cold so i was hoping to warm up by travelling north. not really, but at least i was dressed in layer upon layer, expecting the worst. it was indeed cold but i've worked on my attitude and have gotten a little better over time. otherwise i would never do anything in these parts. the chill factor was quickly tucked away as gary and i ventured out on friday night. the lights, oh the lights! in general this is a very lit up with neon kind of town, but 'tis the season and the city was enhanced with the sparkle of holiday time.

tivoli gardens is a well known amusement park that is open during the summer months and also at christmas time. we should have known by the line of people waiting to buy tickets but we had no idea how special it would be. it's like a hidden village nestled back from the buzz of the busy city itself. there are many footpaths, each one leading to a charming shop or window offering belgian waffles, irish coffee, and other delectables to be consumed in the cold of the night. the displays of lighting were truly unique. different from traditional christmas showings were a chinese pagoda, trees lit with chinese lanterns, mosque shaped structures, a tree dazzling with red heart shaped lights, soft purple ligts dancing over the lake, along with a ferris wheel, the cars designed like hot air balloons. we saw people hovering inside one of the buildings so we followed the crowd. our eyes came upon a most awesome, and artistic sight-many different scenes had been depicted with mechanical gnomes and elves, so intricately detailed with animals that also moved. the penguins were moving their wings, the rabbits' fur looked very real and you could feel the warmth of the room where the sleeping dog was snoozing in a basket by the fire. each scene was truly evocative. i especially loved the gnome skiers, some riding the chair lift, others face planted in the snow. the whole room was a fairy tale come to life. it was the absolute best christmas display either of us had ever seen and later we were told that it was designed by the same artist who does the tiffany windows in new york. if we had come to copenhagen at some other time of year, we wouldn't have known what we were missing so we felt extremely lucky to be able to goggle this specialty.

you know us, late risers, and on saturday we missed breakfast altogether. i called the desk to order coffee in our room while we readied ourselves for the day ahead. they said they had no room service and breakfast was over so it wasn't possible to get coffee. with that, we decided to check the hotel directly next door and half an hour later, we checked out and checked in to what was sure to be a more accomodating facility. i mean really, if you can't get coffee in your room, there's something wrong with that. we were a lot happier at the new place. saturday was designated for shopping and casual sightseeing. gary's not a rapturous fan of shopping but we had a mission to buy him some pants, {unsucessful} and to score a long coat for me. anything to help me stay warm and minimize the complaining. before entering Stroget, the "shopping street", which happens to be the longest pedestrian mall in the world, we made our way to the city hall building. it has a lovely tiled hallway and Jens Olsen's World Clock - a detailed set of mechanical clocks which can track the monitoring of time by the location and movement of the sun and planets. back in the short lived sunlight, we ambled along with thousands of others, in and out of stores, windowshopping, and stopping for coffee along the way. gary was starting to take a liking to the "irish coffee to go" concept. i was just in shop-a-rama mode.

we battled our way to a department store and sat down to a lovely lunch buffet, gearing up for the mission at hand. you know when you're looking for something specific, it becomes pretty elusive. all i wanted was a long tailored black coat. it seemed every other woman was wearing exactly that but it was not that easy to come upon. too short, too expensive, too baggy, wrong collar, nice style-wrong color; the search went on for awhile. by the way, we saw more women wearing fur coats in that city and at one point gary was seriously eyeing them in the store. fortunately, for his wallet, they're aren't my style. although quite warm, i bet. at last we found a store that had good possibilites and with someone willing to help us. that isn't an option when trying to buy anything in amsterdam, just for the record. we found the style but i really needed the size in between. we said we would think it over and maybe come back. we kept wandering as the sun was beginning to go down at about 3:30 in the afternoon and stopped to watch the myriad of skaters at the huge rink situated in the heart of a public square. we considered it briefly but.....too cold as you might imagine. as for the outcome of the long, black coat, we went back to that store to try one on again and miraculously there was another one that had appeared in our absence that was a perfect fit. SOLD! with that goal accomplished, i was toasty and we were free of obligation and most of the stores were closing anyhow. we did however squeeze into a shop selling royal copenhagen dishes and glassware, which were quite exquisite. i would never want to own anything that dear because i wouldn't use it for fear of breaking it. it would be more like an art object, but it certainly was fun to admire the pieces in the store. back at our new and better hotel, we enjoyed some quiet time, a little reading, a nice drink and then a very nice dinner at the brassiere. lately, we've become lazy, not even seeking out concerts or nightime events. i know "the nutcracker" was playing but i didn't even try to convince gary, he's made it clear that he's seen that ballet enough times. i wouldn't have minded seeing the danish national. maybe next time if there's something else on the program.

after a brief brunch on sunday {at a normal hour}, we shot over to an area of town called "christiania". it was even colder than the previous day, with no sun, so we took a taxi and got a short history of the city by the driver, who spoke english very well. it continually impresses me how many people speak our language and how i am still limping along in dutch after two years. but more about our trek. christiania is a wild place, definitely from some other time in history. that would be the 60’s; it's actually a real, intact hippie community! it was started by a group of squatters who just decided to park themselves there and live as they pleased, making their own rules and governed by their own set of laws. to this day, they pay no rent or taxes. it is like walking into another zone. there were makeshift stalls of wood and aluminum everywhere, people selling mostly hashish! and we thought we knew all about it here in amsterdam. on this day, an indoor christmas market was in full swing with stalls of locals selling goods of other kinds; real handicrafts. it was inundated with sunday strollers but well worth pushing and shoving our way through. we almost bought a really interesting candleabra made of pewter, intricately handcrafted and most unique. but it was too heavy to cart around for the rest of the day so we left empy handed. before braving the temperature, we did see a sign for chai tea, another of our boulder favorites that we've missed. gary ordered one and the hippieish woman said, it's putt tea and we didn't understand. after several more attempts to saoutdoory that, she informed us it was laced with marijuana. oh, we get it, POT CHAI! she directed us over to where the regular stuff was being sold and i must say, that was great chai, without sugar. those flower children know how to make the real stuff, obviously. we very much enjoyed that litte stint into yesteryear but weren't allowed to take any pictures {no photo signs everywhere} so it won't be documented in our album.

since copenhagen is the home of hans christian andersen, we thought we'd pay homage by visiting the statue of "the little mermaid". she sits against a backdrop of industrial buildings at the water's edge. apparently she has quite a history, having had one of her arms sawed off and her head twice over the years. she was whole the day we saw her and we did get a photo of her petite bronze form. it wasn't getting any warmer and soon we would lose the light, but we were brave enough to walk. that long coat makes a difference, i tell you. we happened by a lovely romanesque church, bedecked with polished wood rails around the altar and gilded swans on the front of the organ. there were actually two organs, the other being more of a danish modern style, which blended nicely with the mosaic tiles and carved wood. gary had done some research and steered us to a charming street ­ Nyhavn - opposite a canal. he's great at scoping out destinations and we've come to call his services "gary tours". lucky me. it started to grow dark as we arrived and there was a row of trees with small white lights wrapped around the trunks, twinkling in the approaching dusk. a parade was passing by and beyond them was another christmas market, with sellers of fruits, trinkets, and seasonal goodies. we bought a pillow filled with wheat that you can heat up in the microwave and some hand made sunflower body cream. yummy. at various points along that pictuesque street, were free standing pits heated with coals. we took full advantage and those flickering fires added to the atmosphere of that scene. for a mid afternoon light lunch, we chose a cozy italian restaurant and were able to look out onto the street while eating. we're suckers for those charming, romantic settings; isn't everyone? good thing we had the experience at lunch because dinner was less than impressive. we went to the restaurant next to the planetarium. we should have just gone to the planetarium; i'm sure it was a better show. the nice thing was that we had a view of the lake but the decor of this restaurant was puzzling. they sat us in a far away corner for some reason, next to some very drab concrete columns. the placemats were paper and the food was nothing to write home about so i won't. we did have some laughs though and so ended a happy weekend in copenhagen. i left the next morning, gary is there until friday.

i should mention a few words about our freiburg frolic a few weeks ago. it is also a charming city, seven hours by train, a lively university town at the foot of the black forest in southern germany. we did the usual amount of walking, shopping and eating. our intention was to explore the black forest a bit so we took the train to a smaller town only to find it was a little higher in altitude and it was snowing! not great weather for hiking and it's not like we had the right shoes or anything. the town was fairly deserted so we hopped back on the train and went back to freiburg. as expected there was an expansive outdoor christmas market, serving everything from sushi to schnitzel and of course beer and hot wine. i made the mistake of having a few sips of the red stuff and was pretty foggy for the rest of the night. my allergy to mold doesn't tolerate red wine, only vodka. the sidewalks of freiburg are really neat with an image of a mosaic tile in front of a store indicating what type of service you might find there. for instance, the optician had a pair of glasses tile, the shoe store a boot. there are also many troughs that run through the city so you have to pay attention not to fall in while crossing the street. throughout the city you can see many beautiful clocks and archways. an enormous cathedral stands right near where the christmas market is and has a very warm feel inside, which i find unusual for those types of churches. we saw a beautiful sculptured work of the "last supper" and a memorial to the victims of september 11. gary promised to buy me a dirndl skirt with an apron {as our female hotel staff were clad} but i guess we got sidetracked with other shopping.

the gyrotonic training was in a town close to freiburg called bad krozingen. it's a rehabilitaion locale and in that town, gyrotonic is very much used for that purpose. the pension that we stayed at turned out to be a pleasant surprise; we weren't sure what to expect by the term "pension". it was quite comfortable with a bathroom en suite, A MUST FOR DEB. apparently, i'm not the only one because my two colleagues who arrived later that day had the same fear. the training was stressful enough so we were glad for the small luxuries. there isn't a whole lot happening in bad krozingen. one of the main features is the spa so gary and i went to check it out. it's a real spa, not the kind that offers beauty services of any sort.. no pedicure on this trip. but the facility is extensive, with indoor and outdoor pools with jets and a variety of saunas to choose from, all requiring naked only entry. coed. we're not in kansas anymore. the only thing to do is to get over it and try to keep the roving eyes to a minimum. we must have been quite relaxed because we spent the entire day there. we then met up with beth and christiane, my colleagues, and had some laughs and a not so great dinner. gary and the girls. he left the next day and we focused on the three day training. it was a fine learning experience but overcrowded and tense in atmsophere. but we got through it and are now certified. we celebrated by going to freiburg and having ourselves a tasty italian meal, where we flirted a lot with our waiter from kosovo. you can't get decent food in bad krozingen so this was a welcome feast. we felt a sense of relief and accomplishment as we headed back on the train.

today is our two year anniversary of living in amsterdam. i honestly don't know where the time has gone, it's christmas again, and the year is coming to an end. we didn't know where our journey would take us when we left boulder but i've been thankful for the chance to live in another culture and to have the experience of seeing so many different places. we will stay a bit longer since we are buying a flat but we won't stay forever. i've had lots of feelings of homesickness lately and i still value my friendships from home. nothing really replaces that. we've had happy times this year and some very sad ones, too but life goes on and i feel like we must take these opportunities while they present themselves. we don't have any definite plans to travel over this holiday, believe it or not. gary has been gone so much and we are looking forward to some time at home. we may still do something but it won't be a major excursion and will be pretty spontaneous. we have serious planning to do on our house and will try to use our time wisely. i wish everyone health and joy in the new year and would love to see some of your cute faces over here sometime in 2002!

with love as always,

deb