Into Denmark

Home Again!

2008-07-04T13:37:50Z

We're home again. Home to where the sky stretches wide from horizon to horizon pulling the blue down closer. Home to where fields have been shaken out onto the landscape like tablecloths for a Parthenopian feast. Home to streets wide enough enoug...

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Ornament of the World

2008-06-23T06:35:23Z

A 12th Century Byzantine writer, away from his beloved Constantinople, wrote in a fit of homesickness, “Oh, land of Byzantium, oh thrice-happy city, eye of the universe, ornament of the world, star shining afar, beacon of this lower world, would ...

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Wine, Women, & Song

2008-06-12T13:21:34Z

As the Danish king Christian IV lay dying in Rosenborg castle, he looked up at a topless Hera surrounded by cherubs. Hera looks more like a voluptuous Renaissance Italian woman than like the haughty goddess of mythology—a delightful last vision f...

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How to Be Private in Public

2008-06-05T07:56:48Z

One thing that distinguishes the Danish character from the American character is attitudes toward privacy. In the United States we value our right to privacy and plenty of air time is devoted to protecting it. But we Americans are a very public p...

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New YouTube Family Page

2008-05-31T08:20:14Z

Here's a link to the Kildegaard family YouTube page, created by our very own techno whiz, Otto. Here you can see a tour of our house in Himmelev, a walk to the nearby kæmpehøj (prehistoric burial mound), Otto's bike trip in our neighborhood, ...

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Living Small

2008-05-25T09:45:56Z

Yesterday we traveled to Lund, Sweden, to spend time with a friend from Arne's childhood, Simon, and his family. They live in a neighborhood on the edge of Lund that was built in the 1970s, but it might as well have been erected in the Middle Age...

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Bicycle Culture

2008-05-20T09:01:24Z

It's been interesting to read stories in the American press lately about the spike in public transit ridership—attributed to higher gas prices. Here in Denmark we're paying just over $8 a gallon, double what folks are paying stateside, and though...

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On the Kattegat

2008-05-15T08:55:04Z

The past two Sundays we've driven due north to Tisvildeleje, a charming town right on the coast of the Kattegat. The day of our first trip was sunny and clear but cool, a good day for a hike, not good for swimming. Last Sunday, on the other hand,...

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Story for the Day

2008-05-09T06:30:47Z

In a story today posted at CommonDreams about Dahr Jamail, the author of a new book Beyond the Green Zone, comes this paragraph: In the introduction to his book, he quotes the story of an indigenous Canadian hunter who was called to give evidence...

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Luminous Virtuosity

2008-04-23T08:59:41Z

Last night Arne and I rode the train into Copenhagen to attend a free concert--unheard of!--at the Black Diamond, the new addition to the Royal Library. The Black Diamond, which opened in 1999, is covered in glass and Absolute Black granite, sto...

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