When I returned to my small town on Saturday evening, I left with my family only a half hour later for Køge--a city of about 55,000 that's one of the oldest towns in the country and 10 km south of where I live. Every year, the town holds the Køge Festuge--several days of free music, expensive beer, and carnival stands in the middle of their town square. My host family had already been the night before to see a fairly well-known band called Infernal, and tonight we were returning to see the headliner--Aqua (of "Barbie Girl" fame).
For dinner, we went just down the street from the festival on the square and had a small cook-out on the back patio of my host-dad's sister's house. It was small, but the weather has been cooling--so all of us huddled around the small grill, chatting (mostly in Danish) and drinking some beer (øl) was very hygge (cozy--big Danish word). There wasn't a wide selection of food, but rather, a large quantity of Danish-style hot dogs--extra long franks just piled on top of the grill, with heated buns, Danish remoulade (so much better than ketchup or mustard! although those were also available), homemade cucumbers, and roasted onions (they look like bacon bits, but they're extremely popular).
After dinner, I joined a friend from DIS who's staying in Køge to wait for Aqua to start. We only knew three songs, but that was besides the point. It was just fun to be a part of this solid mass of people in the middle of a city at nearly 11 at night, excited about listening to some music and getting slightly annoyed at the two men behind us who were ecstatically into the show. People around who lived on the square just stuck their heads out the window, and the silhouette of the copper statue was always present in the backlighting of the stage. The one thing we worried about was pushing our way through the crowd to find a spot where we could see decently enough. This ended up not working out anyway, since there were multiple five-year-old girls sitting on their father's shoulders, right in my line of sight for the stage. But nevertheless, I was unsure about how us two English-speaking crowd-pushers would be perceived, and I was not yet comfortable enough with the Danish words to say anything at all except my English conversation.
I had a similar situation this evening at the FCK vs. Brøndby football match I went to for my Danish class. It would have been an incredible opportunity for me to try to use some of the Danish I've learned (especially when ordering my French hot dog), but I forgot to, and the woman behind the counter knew I spoke English just by the way I said "park dog" when I was ordering.
The game itself, however, was pretty incredible. It was between the top two teams in Denmark, so, naturally, each side has a very fervent following. I got there a little later due to transportation confusion, and it was a little disconcerting to see the riot vans lining up outside the stadium as we were going in. Both teams were obviously very good (it ended up being a tie!), and the fans were so loud at some points that it was almost deafening. Poor sportsmanship was abound (the players shoved each other when the ball wasn't in play, and Brøndby supporters through things at the FCK goalie, who later had to be taken out on a stretcher from being hit by another player), but I was still impressed by the fan dedication. And it's nice not to have all the cutesy videos and cheerleaders during time outs: it was all game!
*(side note: Kronburg is completely gorgeous and has some fascinating historical background. It's the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet, and also where Jude Law is currently performing as Hamlet; unfortunately, I didn't see him. More pictures will be on Picasa and Facebook)
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