Christmas Forest & co.

I-am-sooo-much-in-the-Christmas-mood-this-year!

This is the first year after three-year period when I am really enjoying all the Christmas preparation including making paper cards, baking Christmas sweets etc.

I didn't celebrate Christmas three years ago. I was in India. After attending a splendid wedding of my Indian friend's sister, other five Europeans and I travelled the country. I completely forgot about Christmas and the winter in the Czech republic. The only thing that reminded me of it was a Christmas tree in the middle of a forth in Jaipur. Too ridiculous to take it seriously.

Two years ago in Denmark, I celebrated first Christmas together with my boyfriend. I was working a lot not having time for any Christmas preparation and my boyfriend was deeply sad because we couldn't cook the traditional Czech Christmas potato salad and we had only little Christmas sweets.

Next Christmas was more successful. We were better prepared. We brought some pickled vegetable from the Czech republic and our mums sent us plenty of their delicious sweets.

And this year:


[Handmade Christmas cards ready to be sent]




[Fresh advent wreath]


[Advent surprise for my boyfriend]


[And of course plenty of Christmas sweets]

How do you prepare for Christmas season?

Cake'n'Surprise

Few days ago, I FINALLY finished my 'Czech cake recipe project'.

The idea of the project first came to me last summer during my Danish course. Our class had one of those few fantastic relaxing lessons. Drinking coffee and eating home-made cakes and muffins, we shared our funny stories about Danes and life in Denmark.

I brought my favourite Czech chocolate cake that I baked. One of my classmades asked me for its recipe after the lessons and I promised her to send it via e-mal. Than I forgot (you know, we didn't go to the same class any more, new tasks appeared etc.). And then I suddenly remembered and felt very ashamed.

So I decided to send the recipe in a special way.



I draw it, prepared a few package with a secret magical ingredient that is essential for the whole recipe, packed it nicely and sent it. And because I love surprise as much as I love baking, I sent two more letters with the recipe. One went to France and the second one flew to Asia to cheer my friends living there.

Invitation to the [Nordisk Lyd og Poesifestival]

Don't have any planes for Wednesday evening? Let's challenge your Danish!

I've got a lovely e-mail with an invitation from my friend Mia, a Swedish-Danish musician living in Berlin now. Although she explores intensively artists' life there, she is back in Denmark for a while and is going to perform together with the drummer Morten Skøtt and the storyteller Amalie Laulund Trudsø at the Nordisk Lyd og Poesifestival at the Jazzhouse in Cph.


[Mia Dyberg with Morten Skøtt]

The festival takes place on Wednesday 20th Nov at 20:00 in the Jazzhouse. There will be around nine musicians, writers, and poets. You can expect both sounds and different music styles such a jazz, folk, and electro-music blended with various poems and stories. And I can guarantee that some of the performances will be absolutely improvised.

When I went out to practise the Danish language last time, it was really 'spændende'*). One of my friends and I joined and enjoyed the 25th Copenhagen Pecha Kucha Nigt at Huset. And I was proud of myself that I could understand the most of the presentations. The only one I didn't get was a presentation of some photographer. She was so cute and brave while she was talking about her work, however her language was too sophisticated for my Danish basics. Well... We'll see, how it goes on Wednesday with poems...
*) exciting

You can find more information about the 'Nordic sound and poetry' festival HERE. But be careful it's in Danish. :)

Update: The festival is on Wed 20th and on Thu 21st. So that means almost twenty artists and two times more music and words.

Laugenes Opvisning 2013

It has been a long time, since the last Copenhagen Fashion Week took place. But luckily, there is one more event for fashion enthusiasts in November - Laugenes Opvisning.



Laugenes Opvisning is an annual presentation of Danish contemporary fashion, unique jewellery, and trendy hairstyles held under the auspices of Her Royal Highness Princess Benedikte of Denmark, a sister of the Danish Queen.


[The Princess is the lady in grey.]

Actually, I am not a fashionst and have never been to a fashion show before. Of course, I love to put on chick and smart clothes. But I take it much easier, since I moved to Denmark, started to bike daily and to wear windproof and waterproof outfits. The main reason, why I went there, was my German friend Clarissa (and the princess).


[Clarissa with her model.]

Clarissa aka Frau Schwarz is a hairdresser. An amazing one! She studied a hairdresser school in Germany, had worked in a hairdressing saloon for a few years, moved to Denmark, and now is in the final year of a hairdresser school in Copenhagen. And it was her new school that challenged her to create a stunning hairstyle for the show.


[Clarissa's hair design on the stage.]

The fashion show itself was nice. Beautiful models, elegant dresses, tempting music... My favourite items are folded 'origami' dresses,





the green hat,



and the ultralong necklaces. I'm going to write them on my Christmas wish list. Let's hope my boyfriend surprises me. :)



Some more pictures:









I also enjoyed the last part of the show where daring hairdos were presented. And I love the idea to dress the models into colourful theatre costumes.















After the official programme...









More photos from the fashion show can be find on my Flickr.

A pipe

Perfect camouflage.

Autumnal

Mood of today.

Festival in the middle of a Bridge

Images Festival 2013 | Occupy Utopia| A festival presenting contemporary art from developing countries.



I enjoyed sun, a bit of music, a bit of exciting documentary movies, many great photos and provocative pictures, fresh book art, and colourful food and excellent mint tea.










My nicely folded participation.


An organic book.






My favourite peace of art - Yang Yongliang's Chinese landscape collage

Urban Abstraction #2 [Touch of Red]

Do you know, where in Copenhagen it is?

Twelve Mysterious Locks

Which one is your favourite?

PhotoTalks: David Noel Bourke [Filmmaker]

Summer calls for a new interview! I met David Noel Bourke and I had a really nice chat with him about a life and film culture in Denmark. And I decided to introduce him to you.



David is an independent filmmaker from Ireland who moved to Denmark twelve years ago. He has been living with his Danish wife in Valby. He has written and directed the two feature films Last Exit (2003) and No Right Turn (2009).

David, what are you currently working on?
I'm excited to be working on a new Nordic Noir feature film called WHITE PIG. It's a thriller, the story is a metaphor about Danes and their foreign friends, sometimes not so nice and how all of us can learn from this!

'White pig' is going to be a very first crowd funded film produced in Denmark. Why do you decided to finance it this way?
I have been writing for a few years since the launch of my previous film "No Right Turn", so I needed to start shooting something. Crowdfunding seemed like a perfect opportunity to share the film with the public and gather some funding support to help us get started.
Help us make it happen HERE, 7 days to go :-)



What motivates and inspires you?
Open minded people. Folk who dare to be different. Of course good movies, good books and travel!

Thank you for the interview!