Sightseeing around Esbjerg

The last 5 days we have been spending with Annemette parents right outside Esbjerg. Besides from relaxing big time we have been taking a few trips around the area. We have been to Esbjerg city and to Blåvand (a really nice beach by the westcoast). Then we have been seeing a lot of people and celebrating Lisbeths (Annemettes mom) birthday. I have had the chance to go to the gym with Hans and Lisbeth including a few squash games with some of the guys over here (no comments on the result)
Today we are invited to afternoon drinks at Ivan and Ulla. I call him ’Ivan den grusomme’ as he handed me a ’Thy Porsebryg’ (STRONG beer) before even presenting his name, the first time I saw him. Well he really is a nice guy and I brought a few singlemalts that I know he will like to taste.













We have had a really nice week at Annemettes parents…and I think they have to. Thanks a lot for your hospitality Hans and Lisbeth.
Tomorrow we will continue to a summerhouse at ’Lendrup Strand’ by Løgstør (thats were my parents live). As an extra service I will just put in the website for Annemettes apartment at Home. I think the photographer did quite a lot better than I did….well judge for yourselfes. http://www.home.dk/sag/126E4090













OBS: The picture with the 4 white staues shows Esbjergs city mark. This artwork were originally bought by the city of Skagen - but when they saw it they didn't wan't it anyway - so it ended up in Esbjerg.

Annemettes apartment

Juts before we left for Hjerting I took a few pictures of the apartment on Østerbro. Just thought you should have an impression – as this apartment hopefully soon will be exchanged for the new and bigger one....coming to think of it we haven’t heard a word from the guy who was going to handle the contract. Probably dosn’t mean anything....no reason to panic. Perhaps I should just give him a call!

Holiday continues in Hjerting

Yesterday we packed and drove over to Annemette’s parents in Hjerting. Hjerting is in the outskirt of Esbjerg and is approx. a 3 hours drive from Copenhagen.













We had to leave the apartment totally tight and shinny cause the real estate agency’s photographer is coming today – and also we expect a number of showings while we’re gone.The first half of the day was quite boring for the kids – cleaning the apartment and a long drive. But it went ok! When we came to Esbjerg they played in the garden and we played some games with them (result will not be commented here). Before dinner Annemettes dad – Hans – the kids and I went for a walk to the beach, which is only a few hundred meters away. We had a lot of fun – Marie found a small crab that we brought home. We put the crab in a jar with water and some salt – but still this morning it was dead. After dinner we saw some pictures from The Sørensens family album – it was quite amusing and what a beautiful girl Annemette was…and still is. I’m just a lucky guy!

2nd Copenhagen Home Barista Jam

On Friday the 21st of july the 2nd Copenhagen Home Barista Jam were held at ‘Risteriets’ roasting and storage location on Islands brygge in Copenhagen. A barista jam is basically just a get together – on this occasion 16 guys – with a strong passion leading to obsession towards espresso. On the 2nd barista jam we had a lot equipment present 4 espresso machines e.g. the ECM Giotto, the Vibienne Domobar super, 3 grinders e.g. the Rancillio Rocky, 3 roasters e.g. the I-roast 2 and the Hottop and then a lot of accessories tampers, portafilter holders. We started out with some group sessions – doing a few roasts, tried out the different machines and actually had a chance to see Rune do a roast on the 14 Kg Oscafe roaster.
After a few hours we went to the main event of the evening – a signature drink competition. A signature drink is just a drink that needs to include coffee somehow and besides that only your imagination sets the limits. 7 guys joined the competition including yours truly. The competition took about 3 hours and took us through a number of great drinks e.g. an Ice coffee with homemade hyldeblomst syrup, a coffee-coconut drink, a coffee sorbet with hazelnut cream, a pineapple-bisquit drink and mine which was a base of cognac with a small scoop of vanilla icecream, a shoot of espresso and a orange-chili syrup to top it of.
I ended up 4 – which was ok with limited preparation and no test-runs on the drink. Teeme (the finnish guy I have been written of earlier) won the competition with a great drink made of homemade blueberry syrup with finninsh vodka, a shoot of espresso and some vanilla cream. This was a really a perfect balanced and creative drink – and all respect to Teeme for his great work. It seemed that preparation paid of after all.
It was a perfect evening that ended up with all of us going into Copenhagen and had some beers. Thanks to Risteriet for hosting this event.While I was at the Barista Jam – Annemette and the kids went to the Zoo for something called Zoo by night, where you have the chance to see the animals before the go to sleep. Everybody had a good night – so let that be the end of another perfect day. LIFE IS GOOD!!!

New apartment needed and found

In may 2006 Annemette and I had to move out of my 125m2 apartment by the lakes in the centre of Copenhagen. It was a really nice apartment perfectly located – but due to a fixed duration contract there where nothing else to do but to move into Annemette 55 m2 apartment on Østerbro. It really is a nice little apartment – but it is just to little for 2 persons – and with Marie and Frederik staying for weekends and holidays and ‘lille pjevsen’ joining in November, this apartment is simply not big enough. Well getting to the point – within the last 2 weeks we have put Annemettes apartment up for sale and started looking for a new one. Anyone knows how hard rental apartments in Copenhagen are to come by – but by accident we just past a great apartment on the way home from the beach the other day, and it had a ‘for rent’ sign in the window. A few day later we got in contact with the owner and yesterday we closed the deal. It is a 150 m2 apartment on Amager Strandvej a few kilometres south of Copenhagen centre. It is brand new, is located 300m from the beach and both Karen (Annemettes really good friend) and Søren my younger brother lives within 1 Km.We’re moving in august – that’s 2 times within 4 month – but anyway we are very excited about it and everything will be in place well before Lille pjevsen arrives. This apartment felt like a really good win - and all credits for this goes to my beatiful girlfriend.

A nice surprise visit

The last day of our camping trip, we had decided to go to the circus. Circus Arena was in Hornbæk on the 19th – and we went there early to get 3 good tickets for the show. Then later that afternoon Annemette came by. This was really a surprise, but still we had to go get a 4th ticket in a hurry – fortunately we got one and all of us spent a fun night at the circus with popcorn, elephants and of course some really dangerous stunts.
The next day me and the kids packed all our stuff – and Annemette came to pick us up at around 12. We had a game of minigolf and a swim in the ocean before we went home to the apartment.When we got home the kids were allowed to see some tv for the first time in 4 days – and dad took a good long nap in his nice, comfy bed….hmm!

The yearly camping trip

After a couple of relaxing days at home, I had promised the kids that we would go camping for a few days. Last year we took my little 3 person mountain tent and went for ‘Dronningmølle Strandcamping’ at the northern coast of Sjælland. When I asked them what we should do this year, they wanted just the same. So on the 17th we started to pack the tent, the sleeping bags, the flashlights and all the other stuff needed. I called the camping site and asked if they had any vacancies – and to my surprise they said that they expected everything to be full within a few hours. We packed the car and hurried up there – well we found time to pass by Annemette who was at work (pour her) for a quick kiss goodbye.
We were lucky and got a small spot for the tent – and 1 hour later they had put up a sign at the entrance stating ‘Full up’.
Then for the next few days we just enjoyed life – the kids played on the playgrounds, we played some games, read a few stories and once in a while I had a chance to look through the newspaper or catch a glimse of one of the exciting moment of the mountain stages of Tour de France.The northern coast of Sjælland has beautiful beaches – and right across the camping site there is a fantastic beach. Unfortunately I’ve been struggling with a little summer-flu for the last couple of days so we didn’t swim as much as the kids would like. Then we went fishing on evening at a small lake nearby. We were there for one hour and didn’t catch anything. Frederik thought it was a problem that we didn’t bring any fish home. I explained him about the pleasure of nature and trying to focus on the process and not the result. Didn’t help much – anyway I would really have liked to catch some fishes as well. That night we went to Hornbæk Havn for fish’n chips – so we ended up with a fish dinner anyway.

Holiday at last

I have been looking forward to the summer holiday this year as never before – and then on Friday the 14th of July it finally started. 3 weeks of pure recreation with the kids and Annemette.
We picked up Marie and Frederik Friday afternoon – it was great to see them again. We went back to Annemettes apartment – the kids had never seen it before, and though it was nice but small.
Over the weekend we did nothing much – just enjoyed the beautiful Danish summer weather. We took a trip to the beach, fixed the bikes, made some ice-cream, read a few chapters in our ‘good night reading book’ – at the moment we’re reading the 3rd book of the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis.Marie is a little princess and likes to have her hair done real pretty. But hair-styling and dads doesn’t go very well together. So far my biggest accomplishment is an ordinary ponytail. Anyway I decided to learn how to do what we in Danish calls ‘Franske fletninger’ – and after a few practices I think the result started to look quite decent.

Passion#1 Espresso

12 month ago I bought my first espresso machine - a beatiful Pavoni with a manual piston. Shortly after I realized that a real high quality coffe grinder was necessary to get closer to the perfect espresso. I added a Rancillio Rocky grinder and was quite happy with the results. I found a great micro roastery Risteriet that supplies the greatest fresh roasted espresso blends. I started having a really good relation to the guys in the shops....and I tell you these guys are coffee geeks if any. At risteriet I tasted some really great espresso, and realized that I was still at the very bottom of the learning curve with my performance on the Pavoni. But as most people that have tasted a really good espresso I was hooked. A perfect espresso tastes like the smell of fresh grinded coffee, and has nothing to do with the sour, bitter substance that one gets at most café's.
So one day I went for 500g of coffee and came back with a 25Kg full blown italian espresso machine - La Valentina. This started a new era for my espresso shot performance and also a new era of heavy coffee equipment investments.
My current setup consists of the La Valentina Espresso machine, A Mazzer Mini E grinder and finally a I-roast2 (yes I did end up roasting my own coffee from green coffee beans).
Well to finish this short posting on my #1 passion I suggest that you stop by either of the following websites

http://www.risteriet.dk/ (the micro roastery in Copenhagen)
http://www.e61hx.com/ (A great finnish guy that has a really good webpage on espresso)

And for me...I'll just continue my pursue of excellence in coffee making and await that perfect shot of espresso.

Adventure trip to Bisserup

Annemette comes from a small...very small village named Bisserup in southern Sjælland. After a 2 hour dias show at Annemettes parents I just had to go see for myself. So on sunday the 9th of July we went for an 'adventure trip' to Bisserup. This was really the highlight of the weekend - after a 1 hour drive I got to experience the beatiful beach, the local super market and having a picnic at the peer while the rain was pouring down. Actually we had a great day - completed with a long swim in the ocean. Just another perfect day!

…and ‘Lille pjevs’

Annemette is 4,5 month pregnant and are due November 25th. We are very excited, as are Marie and Frederik. We went for an ultra-sonic scanning this Monday – and everything looked just perfect. We decide not to know about the sex of the baby - in this age of instant information, we decided that this should be the last 'sacred' secret. We are just looking forward to a beatiful healthy baby - whether it turns out to be a boy or a girl. At the moment we are calling the baby 'Lille pjevsen'.

Introducing the kids…

I have 2 fantastic kids Marie aged 7 and Frederik aged 4. They both live with their mother in Ålborg, 450 Km away from Copenhagen. I see them every 2 weeks and we have a fantastic time toghether. Thanks to technology we have a lot of good interaction almost daily e.g. reading books, chatting and so on over the phone or video-chat.

My first Blog....

Ok i'm on the air! I'm not even sure why I have started this blog - but anyway I figure that will emerge as time goes by.
For a starter I'll introduce myself.
My name is René Balle, i'm 34 years old and lives in Copenhagen, Denmark with my beatiful girlfriend Annemette.
I have an engineering background supplemented with an MBA - at the moment I work for a large Danish medico technology company as R&D manager.
I'm looking forward to having a baby toghether with Annemette in November - and my main areas of interest at the moment is photography, espresso, movies, single-malt whisky and squash.