Wilting pepper

We went to Chicago for the weekend, and I guess it was too hot for my pepper plant. The one in the foreground was quite wilted. I watered the plants last night, and the big guy in the background is doing well, but the little guy in the foreground is not perking up. Maybe tomorrow, I hope.

Trip to Cali for Work, that = baseball game

This post should actually go along with the wine party shown previously, but I forgot. Just before Memorial day, on May 27th, I went to a Giants game with Anthony and Maria. Here they are enjoying some nachos and beer before the game.

Randy Johnson was warming up in the bullpen before the game. We had nice seats, 6th row by the bullpen. Randy went on to win his 299th game. Dang, we missed number 300 by one game.

Camping in New Hampshire's White Mountains

Soon after Memorial Day, we too a camping trip to New Hampshire with our friends Andy and Laura. On Saturday, we went for a little hike in the White Mountains, up to Mt. Eisenhower. It was a steep hike, as all of them in New Hampshire seem to be, but we all made it up to a 4000' mountain. It was the anniversary of D-Day on the day we hiked it, very fitting.

This nice stream was located just behind our campsite. That's Elizabeth and me.

Here is Andy, Elizabeth, and Laura having lunch on top of Mt. Eisenhower. In the background over Laura's head is Mt. Washington, the location of the highest wind speeds recorded in the US. I wanted to run up and bag that peak too, but there wasn't enough time.

San Jose Wine Tasting Party

Back to San Jose for work, this time I stayed over until Saturday because Elizabeth was on call on Friday night. Might as well have some fun in Cali! My friends Jason and Bryan have a friend Denise, who was having a Pinot Noir tasting party with her sister Andrea at their house in San Jose. Here are some picture from the night.

Here's Jason, I think this picture is awesome because there's something behind him that makes his bangs look really curly. How's the Pinot, Jason?

Here's Bryan, Jason's husband moving across the room. Bryan is a conductor at the East Bay Symphony. He's really good, too, I know, I've seen him. Bryan was hittin' the vodka this night instead of wine, which is odd for Bryan. Jason and Bryan did NOT drive home this evening, they stayed at the girls' house. A good time was had by all, including me.

Time to go home, boo.

Sadly, our 9 days in Denmark were coming to an end. Here are Tore and Gitte's daughters Gunild and Siri with Elizabeth. They were really great hosts, letting us stay at their house on our trip. Rune, their brother showed us around Christiania and the city. He's got his own pad now, soon after we left, and Siri got his old room, so she's really happy now.


I told you they had some crazy signs over there. This one is a warning sign pointing at me. Ask Elizabeth, it's accurate.
Almost home, what a great trip. We can't wait to go back. We got to see 4 countries, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in 9 days. We stayed with our gracious friends, brought home a bike and a new camera, ate like kings on Tore's awesome grill, and drove around in his BMW collection. Thank you!

Louisiana and Shakespear

Hey Elizabeth, what does Rick say we should see today? "How about Louisana and Shakespear?" WTF? That Rick Steves must be crazy, we are in Denmark, not the USA or England!
But he was correct. Louisiana is the modern art museum just north of Copenhagen. Look at Elizabeth touching boobs. Oops, the sign said no touching! Sorry! Luckily, no one came to yell at us. They are so polite in Denmark.
And here is Hamlet's castle, well at least where William set the story . The Danish tourist industry sort of pumps this fact up. This castle is Kronborg Castle, aka Elsinore or Helsingor. Sweden is just across the sea about 3 miles behind this castle. Of course, that part of Sweden used to be part of Denmark, ask a Danish person about the history of that.

Summer Light

This was taken about 11:30PM from my friend Tore's house this May. Imagine what it looked like a month later at the summer solstice!

New Bike

One of the goals of our trip was to see about getting a nice bike for Elizabeth. She had several requirements. A chain guard, basket, fenders, a skirt guard (not shown in this picture) an upright riding position, and the ability to freewheel (pedal backwards, not coaster brakes). Of course the Danes had such a bike, and here it is. She got a great deal on it, about $700, and we had it boxed up for the airplane ride home. It was only about $50 on IcelandAir for the bike to travel home with us.
Here's Elizabeth in the bike shop with her new bike. Lots of people in Boston stop her and ask her where she got it. She smiles and says, "Copenhagen." They are always bummed to hear that they aren't for sale in Boston. Maybe we should open an import/export shop.

Copenhagen Royalty

Ok, first off, sorry about the formatting on this blog so far. I've been having trouble with the left/right/center justification. I think I have it figured out now. As always, you can click on these photos for a larger version.


Time for a bike ride to downtown Kobenhavn. That's Copenhagen. Copenhagen has a Queen, she's very nice, from what I've been told by the Danes. She's so nice, she let us ride around in front of her house! Try that on the driveway of the White House, and the guys who live in there aren't even royalty, even though sometimes they think they are.

We pedaled our way over to Rosenborg Castle. This joint is where they keep the crown jewels. It's also where Denmarks most kick-ass king lived most of the time. His name was Christian IV, and he was THE LADIES' MAN! He had around 26 kids or so. He wore a pony-tail, had an earring, and loved practical jokes. There's a chair inside the castle that locks your wrists down when you sit in it. Then, someone sneaks up behind you and pours some water down a funnel, and it soaks out on the cushion making it look like you pissed your pants. ROTFL! Genius! He also had a mirror on the floor of one room for checking out the knickers of the ladies! This would have been one fun guy to have a beer or 15 with.
Christian IV, read more about him here.

Sights of Oslo

Oslo's a quiet little town, compared to Copenhagen. We loved it! We toured the Norwegian Heritage Museum. There were a lot of old buildings from all the areas of Norway. Here's an old stave church. It's several hundred years old.





















They have funny signs in the Nordic countries. Lots of farting going on, I guess.


















There's a giant park in the center of Oslo with a sculpture garden. The sculptor spent his whole life creating these sculpures for Oslo in exchange for being allowed to live in the park and get a stipend. Oh my god, those socialists! Why would anyone want to do that for some stupid artist? What a waste of money! That's what the idiots at town hall meetings in the US would say. The Norweigans simply smile and say, enjoy the park and the artwork! The sculptor is Vigeland, and you can read more about him here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigeland_Sculpture_Park This fellow had his hands full with all his kids.


After Tore finished up his work, he picked us up at Viegland's park, and we headed south. On the way, we crossed yet another international bridge, this time between Sweden and Norway. Here's Elizabeth with one foot in each country. That's yet another fjord in the background that this bridge straddles. Bye, bye, Norway, thanks for a great day!

Trip to Norway, the ferry boat.

Let's go to Norway! We are taking an overnight Ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo. Here's our cabin. Tore has the BMW Alpina secured on the lower deck for our drive home tomorrow. Tonight, we'll sleep and awake to a fjord in Norway on our way into Oslo.

How about some beer tasting on the ferry? Why not. It was great, we loved it.

In the morning, well more like the middle of the night because the sun rose around 3:30AM, we were in a beautiful fjord. Here's a little village about 2 hours south of Oslo. I could easily spend a few days cruising around the fjords in Norway. Next time.

Here's the ferry boat. It was pretty big, but there weren't many people onboard. There were even a few semi-trucks in the cargo hold along with Tore's BMW. We got a sweet parking spot and were the first ones off in the morning.

Tivoli and Beer

After visiting Sweden, we met Gitte and Siri at Tivoli. Tivoli is one of the world's oldest amusement parks. This ride kicked ass. It shot you to the top of a tower, then let you free fall! That's Tore on the left, Siri next to him, and me. I don't know who that other guy is, but he liked it too.

Here's the group just before dinner at Tivoli. I'm striking the Japanese/Korean/Chinese girl peace sign for picture taking.

The next day, it was time to tour the Carlsberg brewery. Here's an old beer delivery wagon that was used for Tuborg. Carlsberg purchased Tuborg a few years ago. They don't make beer at this factory (except for some specialty brews), that's all taken care of in the western part of Denmark, Jutland.

Here's Elizabeth petting the Jutland draft horses. They look like miniature Clydsdales that Budweiser has. Their stable is almost as nice as the ones at St. Louis, but no marble floors. Granite cobblestones are nice enough for the Danish draft horses.

Day trip to Malmo, Sweden.

We took a day trip over the straight from Denmark to Sweden. The city of Malmo (pronounced Mal-Muu), is a bedroom community for Copenhagen now, with the construction of the bridge between the 2 countries. We took the train on over in the morning, it was about a 45 minute drive from the northern Suburbs of Copenhagen where we were staying. Here's Elizabeth in the central square. This was some of the first sun of the trip, funny how we had to go to Sweden to see some sun!


The Swedes also ride their bikes like mad. This is the bike parking lot at the train station. These folks probably ride to the station, and hop the train for work over in Copenhagen. Must be 1000 bikes in there!







What's more European than sitting on the plaza enjoying a beer in the afternoon. What fun!





















Here's Elizabeth roaming through some of the old buildings off the central square. Later in the day, my friend Tore swung through town to pick us up and take us back to Copenhagen. What a nice way to spend a Monday afternoon!

Copenhagen!

Ahh, Copenhagen. We finally made it to Denmark. We took a canal boat tour of the harbor with Rune and Gunild as our tour guides. It was a cold blustery day, but we had a great time. This is the harbor area where the tour starts and ends, there are lots of cool restaurants and bars here now. We brought a yummy pizza on the tour with us, it kept us warm.