kefaloukos.comThe Balić Kefaloukos family blog

As I’m writing this, Morgan and Marusa are baking Dalmatian Honey Cookies

They are not done yet, but they look taste so far. And the smell from the oven is nice!

While Marusa and the kids were in Bagsværd, I went solo on the town. First I went to Parken for FCK – Brøndby, together with colleagues from the university (Fritz, Fritz’ friend from germany, Marcos, Marcos dad, Stephen). FCK won 3-1, and we had a great time.

After the game, everyone went home, so I hooked up with Felix and his friend Andrew. We started out with kebabs in Nørrebro and then a beer at Funke. After funke we went to a cocktail bar in Sankt Hans Gade. The service there is always great, and exceptional by Copenhagen standards. The bartenders greet you went you step in the door (!) and the drinks are good. We had a few, and talked to some of the people (or rather had a heated political debate, in which Andrew and I did not partake).

After the cocktail bar, we went to Culture Box, which had a drum ‘n’ bass night. We had great fun there, and I ran into part of the Amager hip hop crowd there.

Today was a crisp cold day, with a beautiful blue sky over Copenhagen.

We went by car to the institute (DIKU), and Morgan and Pi had fun in the university park park in the early hours of the day. Made a little video of Morgan playing the dog (which I’ll upload later).

Later we dropped off Morgan at Dora and Tonci, and on the way back to Amager we stopped for food in København NV. We had something new, a kind of Lebanese (correct term is Levantine I believe) pizza called “Manakish”. One with Chili, one with Meat and one “Mix”. Not bad and fun to try it, but would still prefer Turkish Kebabs at nearby Kösk. Manakish looks like this:

We bought some baklava at a nearby “baklavaci” (shop that sells baklava), on the corner of Frederiksundsvej and Frederiksborggade. We took those home at had them with coffee. Very nice.

We had a nice walk around Volden and Christiania. Morgan played for a while in the Christiania playground, and then we had a nice veggie meal at Morgenstedet. The menu of the day was beetroot dish, but we’re all tired of beetroot, because we get it all the time in the veggie bag from KBHFF. So we had lentil stuffed Burritos, with hommus, carrot salad and chaï instead. Very tasty.

Morgan also liked it.

For my birthday I got the Steve Jobs biography twice (from Marusa and Tonci). We went to Magasin to change it into another book, and I had decided on one of the following: Race Against the Machine or København Con Amor. But unfortunately neither was in stock.

Because the weather was nice, we went for a walk to near by Nyhavn. Morgan walked the pier with total disregard for the dangers of falling into the water, requiring some intense “baby shepherding”. Marusa posed for a photo at the entrance.

In Nyhavn we had Hotdogs and Ice cream.

Had Crumpets at the Crumpet Shop near Pike Market, where we also had a pleasant conversation with Debbie Paul and her husband. Debbie told us about www.morphbank.net, a project to collect biological data online, and we discussed many interesting subjects. That’s what I love about America. You can always strike up a good conversation with perfect strangers.

Later we went to the aquarium, where we saw sea otters, a huge octopus, seals and of course plenty of local fish.

After that we went on the one hour Argosy harbour cruise of Seattle Harbour. The weather was sunny, and it was a beautiful tour. The narrator, Cloe, told us alot about the harbour and its history, and it was very worthwhile.

Today I moved back into our appartment after the redecoration was finished by Tata and Mama. I was very happy to be home again even though it doesn’t look like itself anymore. Tata even agreed to take me to the playground, even though the car was full of stuff to take upstairs. Pappous was also there. I had great fun and a little boy let me use his toy lawnmover. It made a huge noise, it was awesome.

Mama and me had stayed with Baka and Dida for a little while, and while I was there earlier today I made a couple of very interesting movies with my iPhone (which Mama falsely assumes is hers). I enclose the best take and hope you will enjoy the bold composition of colour and texture.

Today, in Seattle, I was wearing my blue New York Yankees t-shirt. What a good way to start a conversation in Seattle.

Deceptive

I was sized up by An elderly couple at the busstop. The woman eyed me suspiciously before asking politely where we were from. “We’re from Copenhagen, Denmark” we said. “You wearing a Yankees t-shirt is quite deceptive”, she said with a smile. Very friendly people by the way who had come up from California to visiti family in Washington. They were going to east WA which she described as high desert. They were also going to see “the locks”, which are in operation and connect the sound to the other side. They had also been to the Museum of Flight which they liked. I told them that Morgan loves airplanes, and greets them in the sky.

“I don’t like your t-shirt at all”

At the Whole Food Market, the clerk said: “I must say, I don’t like your t-shirt at all” albeit with a smile. I told him that I’d chosen the t-shirt primarily for the blue color, but that I found out that it’s a good way to start a converation in Seattle. Turned out he had friend who studied Urban Planning in Copenhagen. He told me that the Yankees had recently beat the Mariners badly, and on the way back I thought that people on the street must think I’m some sort of provocateur!

Today we went to the Woodland Park Zoo north of Seattle down town. Riding the number 5 bus was really easy and quite cheap, $2.25 per adult.

Hummingbird in the wild

Going into the zoo, we saw a hummingbird outside the gate (propably Anna’s Hummingbird), which caught us by surprise. It was foraging on a cluster of flowers, and didn’t mind us at all.

Inside the zoo

At the zoo Morgan liked the Ocelot most, saying “pa pa mačka” when we left. He also like one of the monkeys, don’t remember the species, but it was a black one (not the colobus) and not so big. The zoos paths are covered by a canope of different trees and bamboos, so despite the sun beating down it was nice and cool. You have the feel of walking through a real forrest at times. We saw a snow leopard up close, a guy talking about his horned owl, but many of the animals were resting out of sight.

We had looked forward to seeing the African Wild Dog, but it too was resting. All we saw were the ears. At the shop I bought a toy ocelot for Morgan, and we were on our way back to down town with bus number 5.