Posts Tagged ‘trip’

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London, Denmark and things in between

In Living in London, Trips in Denmark on December 15, 2009 by Michael Tagged: , , ,

A blog post from me has been long overdue, I know. It’s been a month and a half so I’ll give you a quick rundown of the highlights. (For more reliable updates check my twitter or Ann’s blog)

In London
5th of November the Brits celebrate the Guy Fawkes failed attempt to blow up Parliament. We went to the local Roundwood Park to see a the fireworks. Before the show we grabbed some hotdogs and looked at all the kids fighting with light swords.

Circles

Trips to Denmark
In November I went on a round trip in Denmark partly for business but also to see friends and family. In Copenhagen I stayed with Mikkel who loves to cook (and I love to eat his food).

Mikkel working on the crab cakes and sauce

In Aalborg I visited Peter, Maria and little Oscar and met Martin for a beer or two at my favorite classy and trashy bars.

Porter @ Victoria

In Odder I had a playdate with my nephew and ended up at my parents place for a couple of days.

This Denmark trip ended with a big Christmas celebration in the barn of my aunt Solveig where the three cousins were celebrating Christmas big style. Always a big, fun party and this year cousin Rasmus was home on leave from his soldier duties in Afghanistan. Here are the three brothers Rasmus, Mogens and Christian.

Brødrene Thygesen

Three weeks later I was back in Denmark again – this time with Ann. Since Ann and I are spending Christmas in Malta we went to exchange gifts and celebrate a mini-Christmas with my family with a nice dinner, gifts unwrapping, Lego building with Magnus and cookie making with my dad.

Men at work

After the family stuff we went for a trip to Århus to see Christian, his wife and 6 month old son. Before that we went to The Old Town an open air museum where they have old buildings from all over Denmark that has been disassembled in their original spot and rebuilt in the museum.

Colourful houses
Ann on the square

Visits in London
Ann’s mum and sister came to visit us in London at the end of November. With them we went to see the musical Blood Brother with Melanie C. One of the other days we walked along Regent’s Canal to Camden Market.

Regents Canal

My cousin Rasmus the soldier and his friend Daniel was passing through London so I spend a day walking around London with them and catching up.

A friend from high school Jan and his girlfriend Kristi came to London this weekend and I had a great time playing guide/discovering London with them as we walked through town on a nice winter Sunday.

St Pauls

With Jan and Kristi we made it to an evensong at Westminister Abbey. For the first Sunday of Advent, Ann and I had gone to St. Paul Cathedral (pictured above).

Getting out of London
We went to Canterbury in Kent for a Sunday to meet a friend of Ann. The weather was not the best but we got to see the medieval town and huge cathedral where the Archbishop of Canterbury resides.

Canterbury Cathedral

With Ann’s family in London we took a trip to Oxford where we did Ashmolean Museum, Museum of Natural History, Museum of History of Science and Pitt Rivers Museum.

Pitt Rivers Museum

That was it for the highlights. As mentioned Malta is coming up for Christmas and I’m really looking forward to that :) Hopefully I’ll get around to writing another update or two before – if not – Merry Christmas!

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Mushrooms, sushi and vikings

In Trips in Czech Republic on July 21, 2009 by Michael Tagged: , , , ,

Leigh negotiating with the weather gods

The title refers to the activities in my last weekend :) Don’t say I’m not trying to diversifying. But more on that later, first let me catch up.

Since I got back from Denmark I’ve been quite busy with work but have also had time for some other activities.

Mikkel and Prague

First Mikkel, one of my thesis buddies from Aalborg, came to visit. It was a long time since I had had time to catch up with Mikkel so it was great to have him in Prague. Mikkel is an avid cook and took over the kitchen a number of times to great delight for me and some friends.

While Mikkel was here I finally got around to go on a city tour of Prague with Helge who I have know for most of my time here. I should have done it a long time ago because the tour covers a lot of Prague history and the central areas and buildings. I’d recommend it for any Dane going to Prague and for English speaking people they do private tours.

In front of the Prague castle

After Mikkel left I took it easy for a weekend and only got out to go to Bohemian Jazz Festival on Old Town Square. To my surprise the first band playing was Magnus fra Gaarden, a danish band dressed in cow and 80s costumes playing jazz mixed with electric guitar. Interesting combination. The next act, Josefine Lindstrand was also really cool.

Josefine Lindstrand in Prague

on to the last weekend which started out Friday night at a friends place. He had just gotten back from a visit to his native Hungary and had brought some homemade wine and grappa, which kept us entertained for the night.

Saturday I went to another friends place were we had a sushi party spending all night rolling and eating sushi till we were rolling ourselves.

Ready to try our creations

Sunday I tried to combat the overeating from the night before by watching other people sweet it out as they were engaged in real combat.

Camp

An hours drive south of Prague a 9th century festival called Rogar – Blood of the North was taking place. They had set up camp and was living in tents making food over open fire and creating weapons and jewelery in the styles and methods of the era.

Face off
Approaching

The highlight of the festival was the battle. Around 40 guys were suited out in body armor, helmets and weaponry and went at it in full force for about an hour. They fought until everyone was “killed”, then got up again and started over. (here’s a short video)

Spear vs sword

After the battling we went on a hike by the nearby Slapy Reservoir. The picture at the top of this post is Leigh holding up some of the mushrooms we found. Simona is Czech and she knew what was edible and here is some of the stuff we found.

Simona and Leigh with mushrooms

I have never seen mushrooms as big as a plate before and I would have never dared to touch them if it hadn’t been for Simona. It seems to be a national sport in Czech Republic to go mushroom hunting. Yesterday Simona cooked they ones we found and I must say it was very delicious and I see why its fun collecting mushrooms.

That was sort of a brief overview of what I’ve been up to.

I haven’t mentioned it on my blog before but I will be leaving Prague in mid-September to move to London. And last week Ann and I signed the contract for a place near Willesden Green where we are going to live :D So with less than two months to go I will enjoy Prague and surroundings as much as I can.

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Spring is here!

In Trips in Czech Republic on April 1, 2009 by Michael Tagged: , , , , ,

Flowers in boots

Saturday 9 of us started out at 8am from the bus station in Prague. Our goal was a small town called Mseno where the hike would begin. Throughout the week leading up to the trip we had watch the forecast go from good to decent to sketchy. But most people were still psyched for a hike so we set out anyways. 

As we got in the bus and set out for the hour and a half bus ride it started to rain. It hadn’t stopped when we got out of the bus and as we started out for the walk everyone was in an overly cheerful mood as if the sun would come out if we just kept smiling.

Follow the red arrow

We started out down the path through a small alley in Mseno and soon we found ourselves walking in splashing mud across fields. Luckily we later got on to paved road for parts of the trip.

The hikers

The rain finally stopped as we made it to the first lookout point on our route. Further along we came to a part leading through something out of Lord Of The Rings with narrow passageways through the sandstones covered in bright green moss. 

Narrow passway

Staying in fairytale world we later came to the castle of the day Kokorin Castle where we took a break.

Hrad Kokorinsky
Spring

After a late lunch we realized we still had 10km to go before we would get to Melnik so we tried to pick up the pace. At the same time the sun came out and we were walking along a beautiful path up and down hills past lakes on a river.

Walking along a lake
Cozy lake

Leigh Anthony Dehaney one of the other guys on trip (and an artist and wizard with film) made two really cool films of our trip. The creepy flick below and the one with people here (you need a facebook login).

 

We made it to Melnik at the other end of our route in time to catch the 18.40 bus back to Prague. It ended up being a trip of somewhere around 20km and the first time this year I experienced two digit temperatures, saw flowers, deers and heard bird song :) Finally spring is here.

Thanks a bunch to Grace for organizing.