Copenaghen Tivoli

It is quite incredible that in 10 years that I have been living here, we have never gone to the Tivoli in Copenaghen, considering that it is one of the "major attractions" of the town.
Actually, I remember trying to squeeze ourselves in during Christmas time, many years ago. The queue was so long that we resigned and decided to walk around, instead. In another occasion, we were all ready to go in, however it was closed for the season... This time, we checked that it was opened and being a Friday, we were sure there would have not been any queue.
Unfortunately, though, we got all possible rain and once back home we noticed that no rain had touched Lund ground. Always lucky, uh?

Nevertheless, we had a good afternoon. The only attractions we enjoyed had been the culinary ones and the acquarium.
The first impact constituted by an italian pizza (very nice indeed)alla Vecchia Signora. Here we had the luck to observe and study young vikings attempting to explore foreign food (spaghetti dying to have some tomato sauce on top) with their hands in a very elegant manner (lovely).

Isabella was not very convinced in letting us go up in the Demon, even though Mattias' chinese sweet tooth was ringing a bell (and we all know how much Mattias love all these reckless attractions). She was almost pushing us to try Vertigo, though, but we decided that we preferred to keep her company looking at the people climbing up on the Golden Tower. We decided to take just a stroll around, leaving the arabic thematic area behind us, when we met a couple of ducks, who wanted to show us a bit of the lake around.

They guided us towards Petzi's world (leaving the Pirate ship on the horizon), where we entertained Isabella and other kids playing enormous instruments, like a gigantic xylophone.
Pity that it started to pour rain just then and we walked then very fast reaching Woodhouse. That was a very tempting place, with nice pastries and nice menus (Isa preferred to eat those). A little shop, within the building, was selling something very delicious...dipped in chocolate and whatever else. Pity (again!!!) we stuffed ourselves with the cakes and never reached that part...

At that point, we decided to actually do something and we saw that there was an acquarium. We went there and Isabella was fascinated by the enormous fish that could be seen, like the rajiformes and was calling them all "uaua" (cat). Here we managed to assist (almost) to some octopus show (it was trying to open some jar). While waiting for mr octopus to get its food, we noticed that the clock was ticking and we had to run home. Maybe next time there will be no rain and we will actually try something more advance like the classic carousell?

Birthday cheesecake

And one year has gone since Isabella has put her charm on us.
We are possibly very unconventional parents and decided to not care about birthday party and other fancy things that most parents would probably do. We simply have a different belief over this :-)
We celebrated her very properly having a very nice day with her and preparing a cake, that she could eat.
I am not a very talented dessert-maker so I was afraid of the result, but it turned out to be a simple and fast cake, very tasty and appreciated by both kids and adults.

Ingredients:

• 250 gr of digestive cookies
• 80 gr of melted butter
• 300 gr of philadelphia cheese
• 200 gr of yogurt (or cream)
• 5 tablespoons of sugar (or less if you are planning this for a bunch of 1 year old kids)
• jam or fresh fruit as guarnish

In a bowl, whip the cream (yogurt). Add the cheese with the sugar and keep whipping. I took then a spoon and mixed with it until the mix became a nice thick cream.

Crumble the cookies in a blender/whatever device of your choice until they have a very granular consistency.

Mix them with the melted butter.

Prepare the cake baking tin and put the mix of cookies and butter, making sure that it becomes very compact (you can use your fingers ;-)) and level it.

Put on top the cream and flatten it as much as you can.

Decorate the cake as you wish (if you use fruit it is better to do so after you take the cake out of the fridge) and put it to cool in the fridge for at least 4 hours. 

Happy Birthday, Isabella ;-) (it was yesterday, of course...)

The Sword of Avalon

Sword of Avalon by Diana L. Paxson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It is always an illusion to believe that the book is written by Marion Zimmer Bradley, but her name is just in the idea behind the book. It is obvious when reading it that the author can't be her: Diana Paxson, for how good is she and how honorable work she is doing is not able to catch the atmosphere that the Bradley was able to recreate.
This book presents the background story behind the "legendary sword of Avalon", that is, Excalibur.
It is interesting that the origin is connected to ancient Greece and it is a very interesting historical moment, between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, that is taken as reference point for the sword's history.
The characters lack the depth, the interior development and the charm of the Bradley's characters, although they are the typical Avalon's inhabitants. The Priestess of Avalon with her powers, fighting between visions, duty and wishes, the rebel girl, the hero and the villain.
It is a pity that the book gets a bit trivial, but it is always nice to drown in the Avalon world, afterall.



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