Danish Holidays: Fastelavn and Valentine's Day

As it seems to have been two weeks since I last posted, I have some catching up to do.

Class work is (finally) starting to pick up. Maybe it's a Danish thing, but there is no busy work assigned in any of my classes. I have been in class for about five weeks now, and all I have had to do is light reading, one power point presentation, and one paper. I am so used to being swamped with papers and exams at Gettysburg, so this all seems a bit surreal. As much as I like the light work-load, all my exams and papers count more towards my grade (since there are less of them). For example, my Environmental Economics exam on Monday is going to count for 25% of my total grade. . better get studying!

Last week Denmark celebrated two holidays in a row: Fastelavn (2/10/13) and Valentine's Day. 

Fastelavn is a day of celebration in Denmark equivalent to the US Mardi Gras. It is roughly translated as "celebration," and the festivities resemble something like a cross between Halloween and a Mexican birthday party, with a signatory touch of Danish hygge (coziness).  The festivities proceed as such:

1. Dress up in a disguise. In our case, we were lazy and just put on  colorful masks.  Other  disguises at the  party were pirates, cowboy, exotic bird, Harry Potter, etc. 

2. Everyone is given a very long string of liquorice to eat with their hands behind their backs. Whoever is first to succeed, gets to hit the barrel first. I failed miserably at this task and ended up at the back of the line. 

3. This is the traditional Fastelavn barrel. Everyone take a turn at hitting the barrel with a stick until the bottom breaks through and all the candy falls out (same concept as a pinata). The person who succeeds at doing this becomes the kattedronning ("queen of cats").  Once all the candy is collected, the game continues until somebody finally manages to knock off the last piece of the barrel from the rope. This person becomes kattekonge ("king of cats"). So why cats? Legend has it that cats used to be put in the barrels instead of candy, which was superstitiously done to combat "evil" associated with cats. Poor kitties =(

Me, Molly, and Ca taking a swing at the barrel! 

 4. Afterwards we all go inside the house for some hygge time with fastelavnsbolle, a sweet pastry filled with cream and topped with icing, and coffee. 

Homemade fastelavnsbolle and coffee! =)

Lots of hygge! 

You can read more about Fastelavn here.

Valentine's Day was a few days later, and everyone was pretty tired out by Fastelavn activities at this point, if not still celebrating it (it sometimes spans throughout the entire week, even though it is only one day . . .kind of like Christmas).  Valentine's Day is celebrated in Denmark, but is not as big as it is in the US. It only came to Denmark about 5 years ago, and is mainly celebrated by younger people. Molly and I celebrated Valentine's with a girls night in at home (the day after since it fell on a weekday), and we indulged in a bottle of red wine and chocolate, while watching A Royal Affair (a great movie!!!).