A pastry that I always thought looked like a homemade Pop Tart and in fact, was basically a homemade Pop Tart.
A walk in the snow.
Dori, Angela, and I went to a flea market at Bella Center Saturday afternoon. Bella Center is a convention center five minutes from our kollegium. Some of the Climate 15 conference was held there.
This flea market is apparently the largest in Scandinavia. None of us really knew what to expect, but we thought it would be an experience. You had to pay 30kr (about $6) to get in, which is a little ironic – you’re paying to buy things – but it was definitely worth it just for the experience. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been to a flea market, and certainly never one to this scale. It was enormous. The building looked like a gigantic warehouse with table after table. However, we all thought for being a flea market, a lot seemed rather pricey. We found a poster of the kings and queens of Denmark that both Dori and I really want, but they were asking 350kr for it, which is ludicrous. We never figured out why it cost that much. Not everything was expensive, though, and we did find some bargains. There was a section of used books that were all in English, and they were cheap even by American standards, let alone Danish standards – I got two books for $3, which I would say is a clear success. While searching for birthday presents, I also became very good at saying “Hvad koster?” which is “What does this cost?” (well, really, that would be “Hvad koster det?” but the Danes are often as lazy in speech and grammar as Americans and shorten or combine many things). And I was able to practice my numbers with the responses.
That night was Russian dinner. It was a whole production put on by Daria and the large group of Russians she somehow managed to find. (In January she was always very sad about how she couldn’t find any Russians and had no one to speak Russian with…now she has managed to find 8 or 9 of them). Again, most of us didn’t know what to expect, but it was very good, except for the vodka shot, which, if anything tastes like battery acid, it was that. The Russians taught us that a typical dinner would have two toasts – one for the meeting, and one for the beautiful ladies – throughout, and you take the shot and then have a pickle slice.
Appetizer and salad. I didn't LOVE the salad, but I thought "Hmm, I could get used to this", and I asked Daria what was in it. Crab and mayonnaise. Two things that I dislike. Who'da thunk?
How they can do this normally I have no idea. They must have strong stomachs in Russia.
Meat rolled in cabbage.
The guys standing up to toast to the girls.
Entertainment! Singing Russian songs.
Russian pancakes, eaten with condensed milk - delicious!
Yum! A homemade pop tart! (Not really relevant but I was going to make soft baked pretzels the other day and found my bread flour had gone moldy. Oregon is not nice to flour. Or salt. Or walls near the river or facing the outside. Or anything wooden. But it is nice to skin and keeps my hair from going flat.)
ReplyDeleteThis almost, ALMOST makes me miss snow.
Did you turn right to the gods? Because that would've been interesting... I LOVE flea markets! But when they're ACTUALLY priced like flea markets SHOULD be. (They don't do that very well here.) I'm glad you found some deals, though!
(You'd love that book sale the library puts on here--$1 for hardback (whether vintage or "new") and either $.25 or .50 (I can't remember) for paperback and I'm not lying when I say probably more than a thousand books!)
Um. I'm a real light-weight so two shots of vodka would have me a bit... you know... :P That's interesting about the pickle bit. Do you know why?