Local Eyjafjallajokulls

This weekend was the Danish Queen's birthday. Queen Margrethe II turned 70 on April 16th, and it was a big to do throughout the city. Everyone put up a Danish flag on their house or lawn and all the trains and buses had Danish flags on them.

A lot of the kindergarden classes in Copenhagen plan school trips to the palace to see the Queen on her birthday. Every year at noon on April 16th she walks out on the balcony and waves to the children and her people. When I first got to Denmark my co-worker mentioned she would take me to the palace to wave to the Queen. I sort of thought she was joking, but sort of hoped she was serious. She was joking. Her birthday ended up landing on a Friday and we all had to work. No lunch break to see the Queen. Oh well.

Every TV channel on Friday night was covering the Queen's birthday festivities. She was throwing a big party at her summer castle and all the photogs were lined up taking pictures of the guests arriving. It was a red carpet affair, like the academy awards. Guests were arriving in fancy Rolls-Royces, Mercedes, airport shuttle-style vans, and big luxury buses with "VIP" plastered on them. The ladies wore really fancy gowns and crowns and the guys were all in tuxedos. I would say the average age of the guests was 70+. Lots of canes and slow, shaky walkers. Looks like everyone was having a good time though.

Today I had plans to go for another ambitious bike ride around the city. I made it as far as the park across the street before I turned around and high tailed it for home. It is ridiculously windy out. I nearly fell off my bike at one point and was nearly blinded the entire time by all the sand, dust, and debris in the air. I got back home and huddled up. At one point I thought my windows might blow open. Not sure what was going on with the wind patterns but it's settled down now.

Hopefully that Icelandic volcano settles down soon too. Today is the third day in a row that the airport has been completely shut down. Last time this particular volcano went off, it continued errupting for 2 years! Let's just hope I don't get stuck in Denmark that long...

Oh and well, I couldn't think of a title for this post...Any suggestions?