IAESTE Julefrokost

Another christmas meal, this time only 1 month away from Christmas itself, was held at Kaelderbaren at DTU courtesy of IAESTE. With 5 tables laid out with various christmas beers and far too much snapps, we had a big buffet of traditional danish foods followed yet again by that tasty rice pudding. After stuffing ourselves to the point of feeling sick, we headed down to the city to a club called Vega where we practically spent the night.

- pic - Eloise Eloise wake up fair Eloise
- pic - More hungry julefrokostians
- pic - Mike n Rehan ready for more.
- pic - Beware ze Germans. Zey get drunk and do zilly ztuffeenspiel.

Grease: The Party

MS's Christmas party held at Osterbrohuset last night, the theme of the night was Grease (the movie). I had never actually watched the full movie before so i borrowed the DVD from Erika and watched a few days ago to figure out what to wear. The party was inside a big basketball hall, similar to where the highschool dance was held in the movie, and we had many big round tables laid out with big steaks and potatoes in their jackets, and endless bottles of wine. The entrance to the hall itself was quite impressive, with the red carpet rolled out and old yankee cadillacs and chevy's lined up on the sides, as two high-powered spotlights pointed up to the sky, lighting up the night in a dazzling display of flying snowflakes on shades of blue. We were also given a bottle of budweiser and popcorn upon entering, just to really relive the american 50's and 60's. After dinner we had some standup comedy and a show by some smokin' hot dancers dressed up as cheerleaders, followed by a really funky 50's band dressed up in red suits and caricature elvis wigs. We danced all night, only pausing to take another drink or pose for photos. At midnight, seeing that we were all abit hungry again after all the dancing and drinking, they brought out some great american burgers which went down real nice with some more beer. Oh and best-dressed person of the night was to win a brand new XBOX 360. I spent quite some time perfecting my outfit and took me ages to find those goddamn elvis glasses. My fake sideburns which were roughly the size of africa also had to be taped to my face, and the tightness of my jeans meant i might not be able to have children later on. Despite all my efforts, some other guy won the prize, so in my rage i left the dancefloor in a huff, slammed a few shots of whiskey and went to dance with the Cheerleader girls to cool off...

- pic - Stephen dressed as the uber-nerd
- pic - Finger lickin' good cheerleaders!
- pic - Pink ladies and T-birds
- pic - balloons on the dancefloor
- pic - My crazy outfit

Return of the Gukulari

Just when i thought my gukulari days were over, i got invited to rejoin the traditional music group for one last event. We were to play for the grand opening of the CHOGM (commonwealth) summit, this year held in Malta at the Mediterrannean conference centre: an ancient building from the 1500s built by the Knights of the Order of St. John to be used as a hospital for the wounded in their battles to defend the Islands from the marauding Turks. So lucky me got his flight expenses paid for to stay in Malta for the weekend and play at the event (much to Erika's delight of course). The great hall in which we played in front of the 500 VIPs and dignitaries was impressive with its coats of arms and flame-like lighting. The Flamenco dancers who danced to our music were also pretty good and we gave quite a good performance together.

And no, i didn't get to see the queen.

Ikla ohra mal-Mikiel

My turn to cook so i did an extravagant meal of steak drowned in cream sauce, mushrooms and onions, together with some baked potatoes and boiled peas/carrots (which no one took... issoltu). Some red wine to wash it down, and aebleskiver for dessert. Eeexcellent!

Curly's Housewarming Party

Little Louise (who we used to share the kitchen with) has recently moved into her new flashy apartment in Nordhavn, so last night she threw a housewarming party for all her friends, and of course us crazy neighbours from the kollegium. I was very impressed with the house itself. It was quite cozy and nicely designed despite being small. I guess you wouldn't want anything larger when living on your own. So we had lots of wine and beer and nibbles and stayed chatting all night until it was time to hop into a taxi and head home for the night.

Microsoft's TwC Forum

I went to this big Microsoft annual forum today, which focused on our recent push for Trustworthy Computing (TwC). We had a whole day of seminars on various topics by some big people, mostly from Redmond, as well as the usual free drinks and sandwiches for lunch. The seminars were quite informative despite being at a very high level, but it was great to hear about how Microsoft is pushing the boundaries above and beyond any other company when it comes to security, privacy, reliability and business integrity.

Christmas Lunch @ the Kollegium

Yes, we're officially nuts.

2 months til christmas and its already time to start celebrating. Yesterday we held our Julefrokost (Christmas Lunch) at our kollegium. We did this in the ground floor's common area which we filled with tables for the 60 elegantly-dressed people who were to attend later on in the evening, because the Julefrokost actually starts in the afternoon. Each kitchen was meant to prepare one dish to contribute to the buffet, so we were in charge of the dessert: rice pudding. We cooked up a big pot of rice and milk with vanilla and chopped almonds, and another big pot of whipped cream. Unfortunately, we didn't have a spoon big enough to mix rice pudding for 60 people, so i had to dive in with bare hands to mix it. Its tradition to also hide one whole almond in the rice pudding, and the one who finds it received the grand fabulous prize of a bottle of snapps.

I also helped them set up the bar since we were going to do a disco party after. It was quite funny when i went downstairs to find that Jonas and Allan had connected the wrong beer keg to the tap and had to drink it all to make space for the new keg of christmas beer. They came running up to me to help finish the last few glasses, since they already had drank 3L each in a matter of 30mins!

So the party started around 6 with a few drinks of Tuborg's Julebryg (Christmas beer), and we immediately dived into the main course which consisted of many tradional dishes. These included lots of raw herring in vinegar or creamy mustard/curry sauce which you're meant to eat with some honey snapps - one of the most disgusting drinks i've ever tasted. Apart from the fish, there was also some very tasty pork, potatoes cooked in syrup, leverpostej med bacon (my favourite!), Danish version of Quiche, veggies, meatballs, and pickled red cabbage. We ate so much that we didn't even want to party after, everyone was soooo stuffed!

- pic - We decorated the place with Tuborg adverts
- pic - A drunken idiot at the bar (Jonas)