Damn it's cold!

Winter is really here.  It has been down to 4 degrees with strong winds from the East..... the Siberian cold they are calling it.  It is really different experiencing this cold from the icy seat of a bicycle, fumbling to release stiff bike locks, and cheeks piercingly cold as we get buffeted by the gusts.  Oh, I guess we could take the bus, but then we wouldn't be testing our Nordic mettle.  It is not as cold as it was freshman year at St. Olaf where one morning I walked to work at the nursing home, it was -40 degrees but it is the coldest it has been in Denmark for 26 years.  Over 300 in Eastern Europe have already been sent to the eternal deep freeze.  I have so many layers on that if I were a paper doll and had all of this on, I would be an inch thick.

 The Danes have just started talking about windchill temps, but mostly just report the temps  i.e.  -20 centigrade which sounds colder than -4.  Anyway it is cold.  In the apartment too.  These >100 year old windows are not the most energy efficient though they greet us with beautiful patterns every morning.

The salt-water harbor is frozen over, with a trail of ice cubes where boats still ply their routes, but the ice-bound boats look a bit forlorn and defeated.

Nyhavn

The big harbor--ice from one side to the other.

And then this morning, we awoke to 2 inches of snow.  Now real Danes get snow tires for their bikes but we abandoned them today and went walking into town to see the Europe exhibit at the National Museum.  Nhat had copy edited the English text for the exhibit.  It is a pet peeve of ours that exhibits often have awkward translated language and misspellings so the museum director asked Nhat to correct it, so he had to put his figurative correct-o-tape where his mouth is.

  Afterwards, we walked down to a bar that an old Resistance veteran introduced Nhat to in 1991.  It serves slow beer--a draft beer that is tapped over a 15 minute period and it is served with a thick head of foam like whipped cream.  To ease the wait, one buys a "fast beer" and observes the social interactions of the community of regular customers.   The place certainly hasn't changed in 20 years--a nice way to finish the afternoon.