Michael Carøe Andersen

Tag: friends

  • Christmas Markets in Dresden

    Booth decoration

    Saturday morning early we started out in Prague. 5 people in a car and 4 on the train. The destination was the city of Dresden in Germany.

    With Christmas fast approaching a trip was organized (Thanks to Sarah and Michael etc.) to check out the city and its legendary Christmas Market. The Christmas market in Dresden has existed since 1434 so its one of the oldest around. On every corner throughout the city booths offers Christmas decorations and other knick knack but more importantly glühwein and all sorts of delicious foods.

    Loads of people at the market

    After the Christmas market we continued on through the city. First through the Altstadt which is dominated by the newly restored Frauenkirche. The church was bombed during World War II and wasnt resurrected until 2005.Very beautiful both inside and out.

    Dresden Frauenkirche

    Later in the day we went to Neustadt on the other side of the River Elbe where a whole different revitalization is taking place. What used to be a run down area is now a busteling neighbourhood with loads of kneipen (pubs), cafes and cozy shops. A really cool place with a nice atmosphere, interesting people and buildings and businesses. Here is a picture from the Kunsthof Passage which is 5 backyards connected filled with shops and creative architecture. Have a look at these pictures to see what Im talking about. Here we are at a glühwein booth at one of the backyards under the stars and red laterns:

    Kunsthofpassage

    Neustadt was also where our hostel was so we checked out the shopping, dinning and a drinking here before calling it a day. We had a really nice dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. Here is the whole table (sans me).

    Happy, hungry people

    The next day we walked some more in the town, did some Christmas shopping, saw the church from inside and headed back to Prague.

    Thanks guys for a nice weekend!

  • A weekend in London

    Us at Portobello market

    Last weekend I went to visit Ann in London. It’s really nice to have her closer so we get to see each other more often. It does mean that I dont get the boost of sun a trip to Malta would give to a pale guy like me :P Hopefully we’ll manage to make a trip to Malta for Easter. 

    In the meantime we enjoyed the sprawl of London. The picture above and below is from the Portobello Market in Notting Hill. As you can see it was a great day for strolling and the market was bustling with people along the almost two miles the road stretches.

    Portobello market

    London is getting into gear for the Christmas shopping and and there where lights up a lot of places. Here we make our way down Oxford Street, the big shopping street, in a painfully slow tempo. Looking at the city as it slowly sail by makes up for it.

    IMG_5672

    Saturday night we went to Camden Town to meet up with Jamie and Becky who used to live in Prague. They went back to London. (It was Jamie who had advised me on my Scotland itinerary and his parent’s house I stayed at in Glasgow).
    Jamie is a folk musician so we went out to hear him jam at a very local bar called The Golden Lion. It was good to see Jamie and Becky again and to hear their take on London. Jamie is at the back of this picture in stripes – this night he was playing violin, flute and guitar.

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    While I was there I borrowed cousin Martin’s flat which was very appreciated. Ann has a lot more details about the weekend at her blog. The weekend was over fast and I’m now back in Prague.


  • Trip to the Vietnamese market

    Saturday we were a group of about 20 people from MeetInPrague who went to Sapa a Vietnamese village/market on the outskirts of Prague. The week before a huge fire had ravished one of the buildings in Sapa but still there was a lot of other places to see out there. The highlight was the lunch at a local restaurant.

    Most of the table

    Dominic who organized the event had with the help of his Vietnamese friend Mickey found this delicious drink. It is snakes and some other unidentifiable animals soaked in vodka – yummy! Some of the others tried it out. I was a chicken but tried a sip of one of the others when they didnt colapse after trying it.

    Dominic with the dead snake vodka

    One of the new faces at the trip was Karen the blogger from Empty Nest Expat. It was really cool to meet her as I have been following her blog over the last six months. She had never been to Prague until 10 days ago but since she saw pictures from the Velvet Revolution 19 years ago she knew she wanted to go here. So she waited until her daughters went to college, sold her house and all her stuff and moved here to become a language teacher. Way to go!


  • Thanksgiving in Prague

    Turkey!
    Last post was about Halloween, this post is about Thanksgiving and I should have made a post a week ago about the people of USA electing Barack Obama – what a historical moment! A lot of America going on I guess :)

    Kathleen’s parents from Long Island, New York were travelling Europe and stopped in Prague for a weeks time. Kathleen and her parents decided to throw us an early Thanksgiving Dinner (although it should have been the last thursday of November). We were very thankful anyways and had a great evening with amazing food. So as the tradition goes the dinner is a true palette of flavours. There were turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, beans, sweet potatoes, cauliflower with cheese and apple something. (Click the image below to see what is what) 

    Digging in

    After eating too much of the very well prepared meal the Renehan’s dished out with pumpkin pie and apple crust pie – more yummy stuff.

    Pumpkin pie

    I think I counted 18 people in the small flat with people sitting on cusions all over the flat. The limited space just made it that much cozier and I think everyone had a great night.

    People hardly had time to look up
    Hermann cracking jokes
    Let me tell you something funny

    Many thanks to Kathleen, Dan and Ann for their friendliness, delicious cooking and sharing this great American tradition with us.

    See the rest of the photos from Renehan’s Thanksgiving in Prague.

     

    Lat time I had Thanksgiving was three years ago when Femi, Chris and I went on the road from Michigan to North Carolina. Back then I was blogging in Danish but google does a decent job at translating it to English:

    • Thanksgiving Road Trip part I: read in Danish or English
    • Thanksgiving Road Trip part II: read in Danish or English


  • Ann in Prague

    Ann stayed with me in Prague for a week and it was great having her back here in Prague where it all started exactly a year ago.

    One of the first days here we went on a hiking trip with a bunch of people from MeetInPrague (an online event group for people in Prague). We took the train to a station in the middle of nowhere and walked to the ruins of Okor – a medieval castle and later on to the Rotunda in Budec where the Czech national figure Wenceslaus is suppose to have grown up.

    IMG_5153

    We went to Prague Zoo with Michael and Sarah some German friends of mine. We spend about two hours there but only covered about half of the huge park. We will just have to come back another time.

    Ann and the giraffes

    Afterwards we went out and met up with Christoph and Sue who recently went to Malta.

    IMG_5234

    For Anns birthday we went out to meet Jakub and Martina, some of her colleagues from her work in Prague.

    Dinner with Jakub and Martina

    For the cooking of the day I had consulted Mikkel The Happy Cook and made pancakes for breakfast and pork tenderloin for dinner.

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    Dead early the next day we took the flight to London. Ann is going to do a PhD within the Centre for Sustainable Heritage at UCL.


  • Wedding in Scotland

    Its been quite quiet on this blog lately – I will try and see if I can catch up with the things Ive been up to.
    Peter, Helena, Femi and Graham in front of Edinburgh Castle

    Pete, Helena, Femi and Graham in front of Edinburgh Castle

    Two weeks ago I went up to Scotland for my first time. Femis brother Pete was getting married with Vicky and I was invited along. I flew up to Edinburgh were I stayed with Femi, Helena and Graham for a couple of days before the wedding. Pete took us around Edinburgh and the picture above shows the guys in front of Edinburgh Castle.
    The wedding was held at a nice hotel in Dunfermeline not to far from where Pete and Vicky lives north of Edinburgh. Here is a couple of pictures:
    Peter and Vicky

    Peter and Vicky as they thank the guests for coming

    The couple and their families

    The couple and their families

    Big hats and kilts

    Big hats and kilts

    It was a really great day with a relaxed atmosphere and good spirit. I thought It was really impressive to see guys in kilts, ladies in big hats or hair ornaments and for the dance after the reception Femi and Petes parents came in original dresses from Nigeria.

    Mr. and Mrs. Oshagbemi and me

    Mr. and Mrs. Oshagbemi and me

    As the evening progressed the band arrived and kicked up some dirt and played indie rock music. The young ones danced a lot but I think Pete and Vicky were the ones to dance the most.

    Pete and Vicky shaking it

    Pete and Vicky shaking it

    All in all a fantastic day with great people, great food and great fun. I am really glad I got invited.

    See the rest of my pictures from the wedding at flickr.


  • Great festival is over

    LOC and friends

    I think this was my 5th or 6th year at Roskilde Festival and this year was definitely one of the better ones. We had awesome weather, there was some great bands and some new discoveries and some well known artists that delivered more than expected.

    My favourite concerts this year was probably Veto a fairly new Danish band (or new to me I should say).

    The old rockn’roller Neil Young was amazing playing both his slow songs like Heart of Gold as well as the more energetic rock songs where the old man was jumping around on the stage. Rapper LOC on the picture above had a great show and loads of great songs.

    Tina Dico and Teitur my two favourite singer/songwriters were both playing on Orange Stage, the biggest stage, which was not really a good choice in my opinion. However I enjoyed both concerts and they are both very skilled performers so they pulled it off in my opinion. Oh, and a reccomendation; Tina Dico has a cool Vlog/Tour Diary on YouTube – honest, funny and down to earth look into the life of an artist, start here.

    Radiohead and Gnarls Barkley also had some enjoyable concerts.

    Quiet Camp

    I was at the festival for 9 days and lived in a tent which is always an interesting experience since the rest of the year I sleep with a roof over my head. Living outside you notice the clouds, winds, stars and birds a lot more. For the first time this year I stayed in the volunteers camping instead of amongst the commoners. Its a world of a difference. In the regular camping areas people live close, they put a lot of effort into their camps with flags, banners and even portable sound systems. However it also gets very dirty and a lot of places the party goes on all the night and I must admit that Ive gotten a bit older since I visited the festival the first time in 96. The coolest camp I came across this year was the cow camp.

    The cow camp

    Thanks to cousin Rikke for getting me the job, thanks to the rest of the people in our camp for good times we had and thanks to the people organizing for a great festival in general :)

    Sunset over Orange Stage


  • Asian weekend

    Nina was doing an internship in Prague over the summer and came back for a visit this weekend. First we went to Sapa a Vietnamese market in the southern part of Prague.

    Lunch at Lotus

    We went there for lunch and to do some food shopping for the nights dinner. I was about the only one you didnt know any Asian. At the table here is from the left; Rie from Japan, Petra a Czech who is on her way to do a PhD in Japanese/Korean collaboration in Tokyo, Dominic a British journalist who has lived in Vietnam, Nina from Germany who is taking Japanese lessons, Christoph a German/American who has lived in Japan and speaks Japanese and finally Sue from Korea.

    Entrance to the Vietnamese market Sapa in Prague

    Sapa is a fascinating place. It started out in some old abandoned warehouses and has grown into a community with kindergarten, hairdressers, travel agencies, insurance companies and of course shops that sells (copies of) clothes, toys and crap.

    Saturday ended with a nice Japanese dinner by Rie and Sue and some beautiful flower tea.
    Flower tea - looks beautiful and smells nice


  • Back in Prague

    After a 6 day trip up north I am now back in Prague. It was my first time home since we moved to Prague 5 months ago and it was great going back. I dont miss Denmark but I really, really enjoy coming back.

    First I got to visit Dennis (my canoe-buddy from this summer) and Jenny in Braunschweig. Very good people and I have to come back some day to explore more of this city.

    Fun in Germany

    After that I hit århus were Christian and I took a ride on his bike and caught up on everything thats been going on since last time we spoke. The day after we continued to Haderslev were Søren and Helene treated us with dinner and another night of catching up.

    Finally I spend a couple of days with my sister, nephew and parents in Toftlund. Tuesday I had Magnus for the day which was so much lot of fun.

    Magnus and the ducks
    magnus10

    As I said it was really good to get back to Denmark – everything is so neat, cozy and familiar. But I also realized that I dont need to live in Denmark right now. A good dose now and then and then Im good for a while.


  • Hitchhiking from Prague to Århus

    I’m back in Denmark for a while. Spent two days hitchhiking the 900 km from Prague, Czech Republic to århus in Denmark. It’s going to be a couple of days hanging out with friends and family back here in the Mothercountry. It was a fun trip home and it’s really nice to be back 🙂 I’ll write more when I got more time. A video should also be coming up.

    Update the video is here: