Sleepin in and goin out

Due to the fact that I was dreaming that I was on an intensive search for Ron Weasley's night-time broomstick, I slept in.

I woke up at 9:08 and class starts at 9. JOYOUS morn.

I shot out of bed in an absolute panic - like literally, BOLTED out of my room. The half hour bus ride from Skjoldhoj to school plus the half hour to shower and eat breakfast meant I would be an hour late for school.

It all worked out rather perfectly, however. I got to class just as everyone was breaking off into groups to do the stand-up assigment, AND I missed the lecture part of the morning :D...I mean, darnit all, I missed the lecture part of the morning.

Ahem.

BUT THIS IS ALL BESIDES THE POINT OF THIS POST, PEOPLE.

About 2 weeks ago, Kate, our TV professor, proposed an international dinner party on this day, February 22, 2011, at her own house. It was actually quite comical. The first day of class went something like this:

"Welcome to the international TV program at the Danish School of Journalism! First thing's first, we must plan a dinner party."

And then we all agreed that today would be the day, and proceeded to dot-jotting on the blackboard what dishes we were all bringing...HAHA!! Although this may seem like a typical day in second grade, I am indeed studying in Denmark with adults.

Hugo and I are the Canadians in our international class mix, so we decided to make poutine and "poor man's pudding" - a sweet-tasting pancake-ish thing which we discovered takes a lot less time to make than beaver tails, so we opted for that.

But let me tell you, Canadian ingredients are sparce in Daneland.

For the pudding, the story goes that the poor folk back in the olden days could only afford simple ingredients to make their desserts, such as maple syrup. (Honestly, this recipe calls for about 8 tubs of the stuff.)

However, I think the 2011 version of this dish should be called "poor students in Denmark pudding." We couldn't find unbleached flour, we substituted corn syrup with honey, and there was no electric mixture or measuring cups of any kind in Hugo's kitchen.

So while Hugo went to work chopping up potaters, I started guesstimating how much flour, baking powder and salt the recipe needed before desperately trying to gain the speed of an electric mixture with pure muscle and a wooden spoon.

Big. Fail. The butter and salt mixture was a lumpy mess, and I added way too much milk. And can honey even be used as a substitute for corn syrup???

As you can probably imagine, this is what the pudding looked like before going into the oven:


Now, I've created some great-tasting baked goods in the past, but I was sure these pudgy balls of grainy dough would flop...which they did, when I tried to place them into the syrup pool in the the pan, but I didn't want to be the bearer of a disgusting dessert.

After 40 minutes, there was some hope. This is what they looked like when I took them out of the oven:


They didn't look like an award-winning masterpiece, but they did SMELL amazing. Hugo refused to let me try it for quality assurance though until dessert time at Kate's. Ohhhh there was pressure. Would I wow the tastebuds of my classmates, or simply put Canadian cuisine to shame? Pssh. Obviously, the latter.

Well. After a FEAST of foreign deliciousness consisting of fish, fries, meatballs and mussels, it was dessert time.

And this is what the pudding looked like at the end of the night:


That my friends, is the taste of SUCCESS!!! :D

In hindsight, I guess you can't go wrong when you're mixing butter, sugar and maple syrup together.

Besides my sugary Canadian treat, the night itself was so sweet.

We drank wine, provided by Kate, while waiting for everyone to arrive. We all gave a little speech about the dish we brought, followed by a "Cheers!" every time someone knew spoke. We ate together, in a HOUSE - an actual house that was so homey and inviting. We took a ridiculous amount of pictures. We danced in Kate's living room when she put on some salsa music.

The whole event had such a strangely zen atmosphere...I left Toronto a month ago today. I've known these people for such a short time, but there we were, dancing away in our prof's house like we've known each other forever.

It's like I have another family here!! Which is so cheesy, much like our make-shift poutine, but I think that might be the best way to describe it.












And as the cherry on top of this delectable eve, if I happen to dream about another quest at Hogwarts, Kate declared that school starts tomorrow at 10 a.m. instead of 9.

Doncha just love it all?!

Goodnight for now, but come back tomorrow! I owe you Berlin tales!!!