As a little Christmas present to us both, we visited the main stage at
Copenhagen's Opera House to see the ballet of
Swan Lake.
We were able to get seats on the third balcony which put us high up, almost by the ceiling. The view was great from up here, though the lack of oxygen made it a little tough to be totally focused on the performance before we were able to get coffee during the intermission.
The opening was memorable because a technical error with the stage curtain forced the orchestra to re-start the intro!
While impressed with the entire play Tara preferred the individual dances in Act II while Joakim liked the swan lake scene in Act I the most.
To the left: a view of the interior of the hyper-modern opera house. With a sold out performance, like so many other nights, the atmosphere in the main stage hall gets almost intimate. With that being said, the ambiance of the main stage hall is clearly hyper-modern, although you would hope for just a little bit more leg room up on the steep sloping balconies where tickets go for $150 a piece.
In direct contrast to the newly built main stage is the (old) Royal Opera House at Kongens Nytorv, where we went earlier this year to see a performance of the ballet
Romeo and Juliet. This stage is spectacular in all its gold leaf decorations, with warm velvet tapestry and seatings. If you are a little bit conservative in this area, about how an opera house is supposed to look, it is understandable if you prefer the old stage. (Click to enlarge and get a better view of the stages!)
As we left the opera house that evening, we could see the entrance from the the opposing side of the harbor (by the Royal Palace). Of course, a photo can hardly capture the impression one gets in real life of this remarkable building.
Our very own little Christmas tree, decorated on Christmas Eve! (Joakim made the nativity scene up on the top shelf all by himself, out of things Tara brougt home from school!) On top of the bookcase you can also see Frosty, the singing snowman, which we got from Mommom and Poppop last year.
Tara ready to eat. Our Swedish "julbord" (a Christmas version of the traditional "smörgåsbord") is set with six types of herring, eggs, Janson's temptation, smoked salmon, salmon caviar, Kalles caviar, meatballs, 4 pounds of freshly cooked ham, "small" sausages, caribou sausage, cold smoked sausage, pumpernickel bread, Chrismas cheese, Mimosa sallad, red beat sallad, Christmas pudding, strong Skåne mustard. All this food was appreciated together with German Weissbier and Swedish sweet porter drink "svagdricka", and of course Gammeldansk snaps!
We started off the day by having a smörgåsbord lunch with mostly just herring and other kinds of fish down in Nyhavn's Faergekro.
After this little stop we walked along the boutiques in Magasin du Nord and on Ströget to reach Tivoli where we spent most of the evening in the wonderfully lit-up garden. Although we did not suffer from frost bites it was still pretty 
cold during night time and we thought it best to warm ourselves with some glögg, glühwein and Irish coffee.
As a little Christmas present to us both, we visited the main stage at Copenhagen's Opera House to see the ballet of Swan Lake.
We were able to get seats on the third balcony which put us high up, almost by the ceiling. The view was great from up here, though the lack of oxygen made it a little tough to be totally focused on the performance before we were able to get coffee during the intermission.
Ready to go. Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are sharing the space in one of the cat carrier with eyes that seem to say: "Are we leaving soon?"
