Real Danish Wedding

The highlight of our trip to Denmark was the wedding of our friends Keith and Dorthe. They live in New York and already had a civil service but this was a traditional wedding for Dorthe's family and everyone else who could make the trip. It's great to have a wedding with such a small crowd- you actually get to talk to everyone and it makes the whole thing more intimate. The church service was partly in English and partly in Danish. What was really interesting for us was all the different customs. The service was at three o'clock so we took James to the church though I held him in the outer aisle for fear of interrupting, he never made any outcries. The church building itself was beautiful and of course, very old, begun in the 1100's and 'remodeled' in the 1700's. After coffee and cake following the ceremony, we headed to the coast where the reception was held at a beautiful spot overlooking the bay. Danish tradition includes a lot of food, songs, dancing, and very long toasts (the longer the better they say). Dorthe picked the menu and even helped prepare some of the excellent food for about 70 guests. We actually went around the room and introduced ourselves after everyone sat down initially. I felt like we were at camp or something but it was very interesting and entertaining. The directions were to tell your name and how you knew the couple, which every Dane did almost without exception- every American on the other hand had some funny story to tell and made a big show of the whole thing which was hilarious. Most of the relatives and a lot of Dorthe's friends had prepared a speech, a game, or a song (lyrics were handed out to everyone and included an original by Dorthe's mom that had at least a dozen verses sung to 'Clementine'- luckily the guitarist stopped every couple of verses for a toast of 'Skole!'). We sang 'When I'm sixty-four' which we think should be done at every wedding. One of the best traditions that we should also import is that when the bride goes to the bathroom, all the women in the room line up and kiss the groom (and vice-versa) in a long conga line- very fun. Then of course there is the cutting of the socks; everyone picks up the groom after he dances the first dance with his wife and pulls off his shoes and cuts his socks in half. I thought they were making that one up but they did it anyway.
James spent the night with a nice neighbour of Dorthe's mom (I have to say many, many Danes look like supermodels and this family- we met them all the day before- was no exception) where he played with his first Legos. We were the first people to leave at about midnight because we had to pick him up and go let the dogs out, but the dj was just starting up at that point; apparently 12 hours of reception is pretty normal in Denmark. They even have a second round of food for the late night. Interesting cultural differences aside, it was an AWESOME wedding, one of those you don't forget and was enjoyable from the first toast. Cheers to the couple and their families!

Fun in Finland

Beyond the very cool dry toilet conference, we did make an effort to turn this trip into a sort of vacation by staying in a cabin on a lake for the week and seeing a little bit of Tampere and Helsinki. People were really friendly in general and it was relaxing to see some nature and do a bit of hiking. We only went out to eat twice, but it is always fun to check out the local grocery store to see what you can find and what the weird differences are. Turns out Finns, or those around Tampere anyway, are master pickle makers. Must be the long winters suitable for canning, but we had some really high quality examples. The exotic local dish was a kind of blood sausage and other than that it was northern europe potatoes and swine. Apart from the excellent pub in Tampere, we ended up at a Nepalese (mostly Indian menu) place in Helsinki after the sushi place we were looking for was closed. James even tried some tandoori and liked it! Helsinki also had a very cool antique/second hand market; we arrived just as people were setting up their stalls outside and the early birds were digging through boxes as people unloaded their cars. The lake was beautiful and peaceful even on the weekends; though we checked most nights we didn't see the Northern Lights this trip.

The parting shot

more from the dry toilet village

(see post below). Blogger is only letting a few photos go in at a time.

where to begin

We are now slowly recovering from our busy two weeks of travel. If it is any indicator, James had two SOLID 2 hour naps today. Maybe he is growing, or maybe he is recovering from the excitement. We have many posts that relate to our time away, so we will begin at the beginning: the dry toilet conference.
Let me say-- it was AMAZING! People just do not show up to the dry toilet conference unless they are pretty interested in the idea. There were probably about 200 attendees, and all were gung ho for the toilet technology. My talk was in the "big" auditorium, and it was in front of about 100 people. Whoa! My last conference presentation was the last session, on the last day, in the room across the street from the main venue (so about 20 people, okay-- really 10-- were there). It was crazy and I was nervous, but it went really well and the audience had some positive things to say about my presentation.
My presentation was about waterless urinals that were installed as a part of the "Green Building renovation project" at the College of Charleston. In a nutshell, we had a $10,000 grant to make a 200-year-old Charleston single house on campus as "green" or sustainable as possible. Part of this project included installation of waterless urinals. My presentation was about how the waterless urinals, a highlight of the sustainable technologies in the building-- were kind of a disaster. First they were installed incorrectly by campus facilities staff, and then (maybe still), campus staff clean them improperly, ruining the odor-barrier cartridge that is integral to their success.
Well, waterless urinals are just the tip of the iceberg. Waterless urinals are all about saving water-- but composting toilets are a lot more. The idea is to envision waste not as "waste" but as compost. Though I think this is applicable worldwide, it is really being promoted in developing country situations, where all of the compost produced by a family can be used to grow vegetables and so forth.
Part of the conference included a tour to the "village of the dry toilets"-- I have to be honest-- I expected this to be a hippie village featuring a few shacks. It was nothing of the kind. There were eight beautiful homes (very Scandinavian, with a lot of windows and light-colored wood in the interiors). The families had varied ideas about sustainability-- some had gotten all of the sinks and windows for their houses second-hand. They all had composting toilets (and beautiful gardens). They also had a communal heating system where wood chips (this is Finland, where wood is plentiful) were slowly fed into this massive furnace that was hooked up to all eight homes. Some even had solar panels on their roofs. It was cool to say the least.
So, to begin our blog report of our wonderful journey to Scandinavia, first we feature the dry toilet conference. Here are a few actions shots. Me in the BIOLAN demo set up at the conference (Mike made me sit on it-- please note this is not a working model).
And some photos of the dry toilet village in Kangasala. First a photo of one house's sunroom

Kiitos

We are doing a drive-by of Enschede. We woke up at 3:30AM (finland time, aka GMT+2) to get ready, get to the airport, and take a flight to Amsterdam at 6:15. We were in the rental car by 9:20, Amsterdam time, or GMT+1 for the time buffs out there (Mike wisely suggested asking for a "real" wagon after the pseudo station wagon [what we call a hatchback] first offered by Hertz, and we suceeded).
Then we made our way to Enschede with the intention of picking up the pups and driving straight on to Haderslev DK. Fortunately our houseguests offered to vacate the premises for 24 hours, while we realized that it would be wiser to get all our gear in order before setting off again.
Without further ado here are a few images from Tampere. The conference ROCKED! Even Mike is now convinced of the merits of the way of the composting toilet.
Some images to hold you over:
The mustard gnome at the Plevna Brewery in Tampere
Tampere clouds
Little guy taking a rest on the hike to Kauppi


PS- Steph, now I do know what an incinerating toilet is... but more on that later...
PPS- Kiitos means thank you in Finnish, and is about all we managed