Cream cakes, blood jelly and footy.

The weekend was, as usual, a busy one. The highlight was Liselotte's 29th birthday party. Liselotte is one of Dorthe's best friends and she decided that she wasn't going to have a 30th birthday party, so instead she threw a huge 29th birthday instead. And talk about HUUUUUUGE, trev.

She had about 25 guests, and cooked an epic five course meal for us. The food was, in true danish style, outstanding (they are very much into their food over here) but the highlight was the desert: it was this cream cake that she brought from the konditor (a professional cake maker, as distinct from a baker) next to her apartment. She had to order it a week before, because they needed to let the cream settle for four days beforehand, or something crazy like that. Anyway, this thing was basically pure whipped cream, on a biscuity sort of base, with a layer of marzipan in between the two, and fruit on top. Not exactly great training food I know, but I had two pieces anyway. Oh, and talk about good trev. I've not had cream that good for a very very long time - it was so thick and heavy, you could feel your arteries clogging just looking at it. Also in true danish style, the meal was an epic affair - we started at 7pm, and didn't stop eating until well after midnight, followed by much talking of the traditional rubbish and drinking. This was followed by a rather brutal encounter with another danish tradition at 4am - they suddenly broke out the liver pate, some strange pressed meat that I couldn't identify, and this jelly made from animal blood, or something like that, all on top of a thick, heavy piece of ryebread. And I have to tell ya, it was rough! After that cream cake, I simply could not stomach it - just the smell of it made me turn green: Dorthe, super trooper that she is, had two huge slices.

We didn't get home until 5am that morning and were both rather hungover the next day (second day in Danish classes, I learnt the word for hangover - "jeg har tømmermænd" - literally, "I have hammer-men" (hammering inside my head). How cool is my danish teacher?). Dorthe had a girls day with some of her friends on sunday, and I went to the football with Morten, her brother ('pose I should stop calling it soccer, because that sounds silly here). This time it was bottom of the table Randers (from central jutland) at top of the table Brøndby. It wasn't such a great game, Brøndby couldn't conver the wealth of possesion that they had, but even for such a seemingly unimportant and predictable match, the Brøndby boys were out in full force, singing away with deafening volume. I swear my left ear was sore at the end of the game. They really are into their footy over here, it has to be said.