And so passes my first white juledag and my first one away from home too. I must admit I did miss the copious amounts of food that come with having Xmas day at home, but I think me and the boys managed to cook up a pretty good feast here to celebrate the season.As I look longingly out of the window of my soon to be departed apartment towards the meter long icicles hanging from the building next door the snow begins to fall again.
It’s actually been a number of days now since the last snowfall and for a few brief seconds of madness I thought that maybe we might get a respite from the winter and the snow would melt. That doesn’t look to be happening though but I don’t mind it much now. I’ve learnt how to cycle through the clumps of snow on the roads, I have the gear to keep me warm and dry and it’s still quicker to get places on a bike in the snow than it is in a car! My ski goggles have finally been donned when cycling to keep the snow out of the eyes, and they have the added bonus of being able to spot reflections on ice when cycling so I know what to watch out for. With the winter though comes the inevitable lack of exercise, which I’m ashamed to say has hit. Sure you could go running (and many Dane’s still do) but the running that I see them doing turns out to be more like slow jogging due to the snow and risk of slipping in the ice. That really defeats the purpose for me, there’s no point getting all wrapp
ed up, then going out and jogging through snow…so instead I have had to journey to the depths of the basement at work and challenge the gym. For those who know me the gym was never my first choice of place to do fitness but beggars can’t be choosers in these winter months. I’ve decided to run a marathon in May so I can’t afford to not do at least something once a week.
December kick started what was hoped to be a number of months of travel in my new role, something that is now looking to be a bit of an anti climax as the travel is petering out (for at least the time being). It’s not entirely bad though as we are running on some tight schedules now and travelling lots in the coming months will probably just result in a stressed team tasked with producing results but without enough time. Something’s need to be sacrificed by I don’t mind as I’m currently working on building the new products for the project which keeps me more entertained that market research tasks. Come pilot time and eventual roll out of the products there should hopefully be ample opportunities to go gallivanting around the world again.
Early December saw a quick trip to 4 countries all within a week, all pretty rushed but I managed to fit a lot of things in in each place so can’t complain. The first began on Saturday with Sweden where myself and 2 friends bussed up to Gothenburg to go to a concert put on by a band I’d never heard of – Foals. They weren’t too bad actually though and it turned out to be a really good night. There was definitely a different feeling in Gothenburg than in Copenhagen even though they are pretty much just across the water from each other. The people there were incredibly friendly and polite, I even had a man let me in front of him in a line because I had fewer things than him to purchase, who does that! They also have wide streets and restaurants, cafés and bars with big windows out front so that you can see what’s inside, something that Copenhagen really just doesn’t have at all. It was quite a novelty to be able to see inside a bar before going in, in Copenhagen you could walk down a cafe street during the winter and not even know there were places there. Gothenburg is a great city and one that I think I’d definitely head back to if I get the chance again.
I had to fly out to Hamburg that Sunday night which meant a very rushed bus journey back to Copenhagen, some quick packing/throwing stuff in a suitcase and a mad rush to the airport to try and make the Hamburg flight. Managed to do it all no problem but I think I should have taken that experience as a warning that I shouldn’t push time to the limits in future (more to come). I only stayed in Hamburg 2 days so didn’t get to see much, but we did manage to head down to the famous German Xmas market that evening to try the delicious gluhwein on offer. That stuff is fantastic on a cold winter night but watch out if you get the one with the shot of rum in it as that will put you on your face pretty quickly if you have too many. Thankfully the German’s probably know this and so the market shuts down at 9pm, enough time to have 3 gluhweins and head back to the hotel feeling rather tipsy. Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend much time in Hamburg so will just have to head there again another time next year.
After Hamburg it was back to Denmark for a night and then straight off to Liverpool. Now this flight was a close call! I thought I’d leave work with around 2 hours to spare before take-off and this should have been fine, however things didn’t quite work out that way. Firstly the taxi I’d ordered turned up straight away and I wasn’t ready so it drove off, then I had to get another one who proceeded to take me to Norreport instead of Airport. After we got back in the right direction we ran into extreme traffic and ended up sitting in that moving about 10 meters every 5 minutes. Buy now the check in time had come and gone and I was quickly beginning to realize that I might just have pushed this one to the limit. A colleague was waiting for me at the departure gate and he was relaying back to me that people were now entering the plane! I was still stuck in traffic and the taxi driver decided to take the alternative route to see if it was any better so we backtracked and went round the outside of the city. By now all the passengers had entered the plane & I was still in the taxi! We made it to the airport 10 minutes before departure, everyone was on board, gates were closing and I was in a mad rush to check in. The check in people rang through to the plane and let them know I had arrived, another rush to the oversize baggage area to check in my suitcase (speedy baggage boarding) and then a sprint to security. Thank god for gold status but even with that there was a few (what some may call rude) elbows heading various people’s way as I pushed through to the front of the line. No time for apologies as the plane was due to take off! I raced through to the gate as my name was read over the loud speaker for the final time. All the gates were closed by then so after checking through I had to open the doors to the walkway myself and race down to the plane. A couple of smart remarks from the air hostess and I was on; time before take-off – 3 minutes!
So after all that, I was on the way to Liverpool and London for some local office and customer visits. Not really much exciting happening on that trip but it was great to be able to spend some time catching up with Steve, Rochelle, Mike and Tom in London and then spend the night with the family in Liverpool on the way back. Jack was kind enough to drive me back to Manchester as his knee is now much better than it was last time I visited.
ed up, then going out and jogging through snow…so instead I have had to journey to the depths of the basement at work and challenge the gym. For those who know me the gym was never my first choice of place to do fitness but beggars can’t be choosers in these winter months. I’ve decided to run a marathon in May so I can’t afford to not do at least something once a week.December kick started what was hoped to be a number of months of travel in my new role, something that is now looking to be a bit of an anti climax as the travel is petering out (for at least the time being). It’s not entirely bad though as we are running on some tight schedules now and travelling lots in the coming months will probably just result in a stressed team tasked with producing results but without enough time. Something’s need to be sacrificed by I don’t mind as I’m currently working on building the new products for the project which keeps me more entertained that market research tasks. Come pilot time and eventual roll out of the products there should hopefully be ample opportunities to go gallivanting around the world again.
Early December saw a quick trip to 4 countries all within a week, all pretty rushed but I managed to fit a lot of things in in each place so can’t complain. The first began on Saturday with Sweden where myself and 2 friends bussed up to Gothenburg to go to a concert put on by a band I’d never heard of – Foals. They weren’t too bad actually though and it turned out to be a really good night. There was definitely a different feeling in Gothenburg than in Copenhagen even though they are pretty much just across the water from each other. The people there were incredibly friendly and polite, I even had a man let me in front of him in a line because I had fewer things than him to purchase, who does that! They also have wide streets and restaurants, cafés and bars with big windows out front so that you can see what’s inside, something that Copenhagen really just doesn’t have at all. It was quite a novelty to be able to see inside a bar before going in, in Copenhagen you could walk down a cafe street during the winter and not even know there were places there. Gothenburg is a great city and one that I think I’d definitely head back to if I get the chance again.
I had to fly out to Hamburg that Sunday night which meant a very rushed bus journey back to Copenhagen, some quick packing/throwing stuff in a suitcase and a mad rush to the airport to try and make the Hamburg flight. Managed to do it all no problem but I think I should have taken that experience as a warning that I shouldn’t push time to the limits in future (more to come). I only stayed in Hamburg 2 days so didn’t get to see much, but we did manage to head down to the famous German Xmas market that evening to try the delicious gluhwein on offer. That stuff is fantastic on a cold winter night but watch out if you get the one with the shot of rum in it as that will put you on your face pretty quickly if you have too many. Thankfully the German’s probably know this and so the market shuts down at 9pm, enough time to have 3 gluhweins and head back to the hotel feeling rather tipsy. Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend much time in Hamburg so will just have to head there again another time next year.
After Hamburg it was back to Denmark for a night and then straight off to Liverpool. Now this flight was a close call! I thought I’d leave work with around 2 hours to spare before take-off and this should have been fine, however things didn’t quite work out that way. Firstly the taxi I’d ordered turned up straight away and I wasn’t ready so it drove off, then I had to get another one who proceeded to take me to Norreport instead of Airport. After we got back in the right direction we ran into extreme traffic and ended up sitting in that moving about 10 meters every 5 minutes. Buy now the check in time had come and gone and I was quickly beginning to realize that I might just have pushed this one to the limit. A colleague was waiting for me at the departure gate and he was relaying back to me that people were now entering the plane! I was still stuck in traffic and the taxi driver decided to take the alternative route to see if it was any better so we backtracked and went round the outside of the city. By now all the passengers had entered the plane & I was still in the taxi! We made it to the airport 10 minutes before departure, everyone was on board, gates were closing and I was in a mad rush to check in. The check in people rang through to the plane and let them know I had arrived, another rush to the oversize baggage area to check in my suitcase (speedy baggage boarding) and then a sprint to security. Thank god for gold status but even with that there was a few (what some may call rude) elbows heading various people’s way as I pushed through to the front of the line. No time for apologies as the plane was due to take off! I raced through to the gate as my name was read over the loud speaker for the final time. All the gates were closed by then so after checking through I had to open the doors to the walkway myself and race down to the plane. A couple of smart remarks from the air hostess and I was on; time before take-off – 3 minutes!
So after all that, I was on the way to Liverpool and London for some local office and customer visits. Not really much exciting happening on that trip but it was great to be able to spend some time catching up with Steve, Rochelle, Mike and Tom in London and then spend the night with the family in Liverpool on the way back. Jack was kind enough to drive me back to Manchester as his knee is now much better than it was last time I visited.
Last weekend was another trip away, this time to Switzerland for skiing. Can’t complain with the fact that you can get on a plane Friday, be in Switzerland that evening and skiing in the Alps the next morning. I couldn’t have asked for a better day either as Saturday really turned it on for us, crystal clear blue skies, and hardly any wind. Only problem was the -15 degree’s on the mountain! It was really nice to be out in the mountains again, something entirely different from the flatness of Denmark and something I definitely prefer. We had a bit of an entertaining trip up and down the mountain in the car though, Wiebke’s car seemed to have a broken window washing liquid spray thing so the road spray/salt mix kept freezing on the window and we had nothing to wipe it off with. This made for some rather dodgy driving but thankfully I was in good hands as she’s travelled the roads many times before and knew them like the back of her hand. A good weekend all in all and I’ll definitely be trying to return for some more weekends in the New Year if I get the chance. I never took my camera with me so unfortunately have no pics from all these short trips...
Well that then leads up to this weekend just gone and the Xmas festivities.
Craig, Josh and I had Xmas dinner at my apartment followed by many beers and the eventual snow fight in the back yard. Dinner turned out to be quite a treat actually with all 3 of us chipping in with some tasty foods. We even had the traditional kiwi Pavalova with kiwifruit for dessert, delish! After dinner and probably a few too many Xmas beers we journeyed out to the snow and messed up the back yard a bit with an attempted snowman. Funnily enough though even with half a meter of snow, we couldn’t build one. For some reason the snow was just like flour and wouldn’t stick together at all, yo
u couldn’t even build a snowball and throw it without it breaking up in midflight. So after that manic failure we headed out of the lakes to do some attempted skating. This pretty much involved walking to the middle of the frozen lake, shifting some snow aside and then running and sliding across the hardened ice – sounds simple but it was hell of a lot of fun!I hope everyone reading managed to make it this far, and if you have then well done and a merry Christmas and happy New Year whatever and where ever you may be. Enjoy the summer back home and the winter if you’re up my way. Bring on 2011 and whatever journey’s that may come with it!
