Thanksgiving, 2005

While I'm writing about cool restaurants, I figured I would go ahead and blog about the coolest one I've ever been to. For Thanksgiving this past year, my best friend, Steph, came to visit me in Copenhagen. Her birthday was near Thanksgiving, so as a gift to her, I surprised her with a trip to Berlin, Germany (which is a 35 minute plane ride from Copenhagen)! We were there for Thanksgiving and we had our traditional dinner at a not so traditional place. The restaurant was called Nocti Vagus. The theme is that all the wait staff are blind or severely visually impaired. The dining room where we ate our dinner was pitch black. We litterally could not see our hand in front of our face, let alone the food on the table in front of us. When we arrived, we were greeted in the lounge (which was lit with candles). There we spoke with the hostess who explained to us what we were about to experience once we were taken into the dining room. We looked at a menu in the lounge so that we could decide what we wanted to order. Steph got the vegetarian menu, and I got the surprise menu. That meant, I had no idea what I was going to be served, and I couldn't see it once it was served to me. So we had a drink in the lounge before we were taken to meet our waiter at the door leading into the dining room. His name was Wolfgang (pronounced Volfgang, German). He met us in the pitch black room and led the two of us to our table. We couldn't see a thing, we just depended on Wolfgang to seat us safely. He did. He then helped us to find our silverware, and our glasses for our beverages. We were instructed to not get up on our own if we had to go to the bathroom. After a few drinks, of course I had to go. We called "Volfgang" and he came to us straight away. He led the two of us to the door and waited for us to return. The bathroom was lit, so we didn't have to do that in the dark. When we returned, Steph and I were, accidentally, in different positions than we were when we left. He seated us in each others seats because that was his way of remembering. We apologized and corrected him, and he switched us back to our own seats. For our Thanksgiving toast, we had to first feel for each others hands to make sure we didn't crash the glasses into each other and shatter them. We had to carefully pour the wine and stick our fingers in the glass to see how full they were. It was amazing. Then, the food. Remember, I had no idea what I was being served. I had to smell, feel, and taste to figure it out. The whole time, I was guessing what I was eating, but never was I sure. It was all delicious. Steph enjoyed her meal as well. While we were eating, there was entertainment. It was all in German, but it was still enjoyable to hear the sound of the mans voice and the laughter around us. Apparently, he was doing a naughty interpretive reading! We could tell by the way people were laughing around us. Mind you, we couldn't see anyone or anything, we could only hear. There were also such wonderful, calming, relaxing smells around us. All of our senses were stimulated to make up for the lack of vision. So, what an amazing way to spend a Thanksgiving Dinner! We truely witnessed first hand that we have a lot to be thankful for. Our vision is so valuable and something we all too often take for granted. It was awesome to spend an evening experiencing what it's like to walk in another's shoes. Oh and the menu I had, I'm sure you are wondering. Well, it wasn't your traditional Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, with sweet potato pie for dessert. It was more like a lobster bisque for a starter, beef, crocodile, and rabbit with root vegetables that I've never tasted before for a main course, and a whole peach, fuzz and all, in a sorbet for dessert. The textures and aromas were excellent. It all tasted really good too, even the crocodile! So I was so anxious to share with Jamey my "unusual" Thanksgiving meal of crocodile and rabbit. He countered my meal and topped me with his Thanksgiving meal of Kangaroo in Latvia (which he also enjoyed). It is so much fun when people ask us what we ate for Thanksgiving in Europe and we get to tell them: Rabbit, Crocodile and Kangaroo. The expressions are priceless! ~Jac

Valentine's Day, 2006

It was my first Valentine's day in Europe. Now, I've had great Valentine's Days in the past, but this one takes the cake. Jamey sent me an email invite for an evening out on Valentine's Day. We both got all dressed up and away we went, I had no idea where we were going. We ended up at this amzing restaurant in Copenhagen that is an old Monastery. We walk in and are greeted by the host, who takes our coats for us and leads us into the lounge for our welcome sparkling wine. The lounge was so amazing. It was decorated like an old study/library, with red leather sofas, surrounded by bookshelves filled with books that were published in the 1800's! We sat there and enjoyed our bubbly while we listened to tunes by old blue eyes (Frank Sinatra) playing in the background. Jamey pulled a book off the shelf to have a look, and it just so happened to be Shakespere! So it was pretty amazing to have my date for Valentines day sit beside me on the red leather sofa, read Shakespere poetry to me from a book published in the 1800's, while listening to Sinatra and sipping champagne. I was litterally living out a fantasy! We were later seated in a room that was lit only by candlelight. Our dinner was preordered so we didn't have to worry about choosing our menu for the evening. We just relaxed and enjoyed each other's company. The food was as amazing as the atmosphere. It was probably the best Valentine's Day yet! ~Jac

Going back to England!

OH YEAH! I am so excited, Jamey and I are moving back to England! Copenhagen has been great, but I just really loved England. I believe I will be able to get a job there, and I am going to go back to school in the Fall. We will be busy the next few weeks packing and getting ready for the move. Moving is no fun, but it will be great once it's all said and done. The weather here in Copenhagen is nice today. Sunny and almost above freezing! ~Jac

Bicycling

Today's subject is bicycling because I felt like I needed to blog about that bit of Danish culture. Tonight, Jamey and I rode our bikes to the gym. It was funny because as we were returning home and putting our bikes away in the shed, Jamey asked me "If someone had asked you, when you were 23 years old, what you would be doing five years from then, would you have ever thought that it would be riding your bike home from the gym, in the snow, in Denmark?". So I stopped to think about it, and , no, I would have never guessed that. It is really amazing how things turn out. The bicycle thing is really awesome here. Neither Jamey, nor I have a car. We rely on the train/bus, our bikes, or good ol' pat and charlie to get us everywhere we need to go. It's really neat, because sometimes we will have a "date" where we ride our bikes about 5 minutes into town to have a hotdog and see a movie. It's sort of one of "our little things we do". So there's no more opening the car door for me. It's now more like him locking my bicycle wheel for me. Just as sweet, yet, different. Life in Denmark, gotta love it!

LOST

I have to write a blog about the TV show LOST. For Christmas, Jamey bought me a video iPod. I treated myself to downloading the entire first season of LOST. It's great because Jamey and I have been watching it from the beginning, on the iPod. We watched the first episode, on a plane, on the way to Scotland. Pretty crazy isn't it? For those who don't know, the show is about a plane crash, so it was ironic that we watched the first episode on a plane. So, now we watch about 2 episodes a week, at home. The neat thing is, we continue to watch the show on the handheld video iPod. It's like our little "thing" that we do that's ours. We are into season 2 now, and it gets better and better every week. I think that we like it so much because of the way we are viewing it, on the iPod. What a great invention, and an awesome gift! ~Jac

Our trip to Sweden

Yesterday, Jamey and I got up early and took the train to Helsingor, Denmark to visit Hamlet's Castle. We were both pretty impressed. The decorations were immaculate and all the things found inside were very interesting. There was one section called the casemates, which was like a dungeon. The only light down there was oil lamps. It was pretty spooky. I believe that the casemates served as the storage area back when the castle was being used for living. After we saw the castle, we took the ferry over to Helsingborg, SWEDEN. Yep, that means I can add another country to my list of those I've visited. This makes 15 for me! We walked to the castle in Sweden, but did not go in as it was already closed for the day. We did take some pictures there. After walking around town for a bit, we stopped into a local coffee shop and had a mid afternoon treat. We walked around some more, then stopped into a pub to have a couple of pints. We then went on to find a place to have dinner. We ate on a boat restaurant. It was really neat and the food was great. For an appetizer, we had a trio sample platter of fish and snapps. This is a very popular dish for the Scandinavians. The snapps are what several of my friends/family would call the "Danish Moonshine". It is pretty potent, but it's actually quite good with the fish. For our main course, we had more seafood. It was all really good. The atmosphere was nice, and the company of Jamey was great as always! We left, and took the ferry/train back home. It's pretty cool to wake up in one country, travel to another, and then return to sleep in my own bed, all in the same day. The perks of living in Europe I guess! We had a great time, and Sweden was awesome.

Today we have had a relaxing day at home. It has snowed even more. It's very cold outside, but the sun did shine for the most part of the day. I watched American Idol this morning on TV. We are about 2 weeks behind the US. My favorite is Taylor (the grey headed guy). He makes me laugh, so he's my favorite. I'm off for now. Write more later ~Jac

Happy Birthday Brooke!

Today is Brooke's, one of my best friends, birthday. Happy Birthday to ya if you are reading this. That's one of the really hard things about living in Europe, the fact that I miss out on special occasions of my friends and family from back home. But then I think about it, and even if I were in NC right now, would I see Brooke and celebrate her birthday with her today, a Thursday? Probably not. She would be in class, 3 hours away from me, and I would be busy working. So it seems like it sucks to be away, but it's really not as bad as it seems. It will just make the future birthdays that we celebrate together even more special!

The weather here today has been weird. When I woke up this morning, it was snowing. Now, the sun is shining bright. Hope it stays this way.

I had to go to the US Embassy today to have more pages added to my passport. Yep, I have so many stamps in there that I was running out of pages! Pretty impressive, isn't it?

Yesterday was the first day of Lent. Now, I'm not Catholic, or any of the denominations that practice Lent, but I've decided I'm going to give it a go. From yesterday until Easter Sunday, I have given up CHOCOLATE! I'll definately enjoy my Cadbury Easter Eggs this year, won't I? I'll try to keep you posted on how I'm doing along the way. For now, I think I'll go and have some nice grapes for a snack.