It was an intense week at work, but at the end of the week I flew to Billund to start a brief break in my beloved Denmark, including a reunion with some of my classmates from primary school in the mid-1970s.
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The work week started very nicely, with a lunch with my team at Hostal Maruja:
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Marie-Hélène is a full-time teleworker, so she came directly from her home rather than from the office like the rest of us. And she brought her little dog whom we have seen many times during online meetings:
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My trainee Romy:
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The star of the show, pulpo a la gallega:
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From Tuesday to Thursday we hosted the twice-yearly meetings of our Working Groups, consisting of public and private stakeholders from around the EU. I have an active role in those meetings but that does not keep me from taking pictures–and everyone knows and expects it by now. Here is the head table with out director Patricia:
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Claire having fun, Paloma serious:
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Eri with one of the stakeholders:
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Tuesday evening, I had dinner with my collaborator Michał, and two economists from the OECD, Piotr and Jarosław. We jokingly refer to ourselves as the “Polish economist mafia”:
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We continued the business the next day:
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Paloma whispers something to Blanca:
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Paloma laughs:
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Blanca laughs:
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Just to prove I do not just pick on the women, here is my French colleague Antoine with a funny face:
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Stephanie and Paloma:
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Carolina in action:
The meetings ended on Thursday afternoon, and on Friday I flew to Denmark on a brutal Ryanair flight departing at 6:10 a.m.
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I flew to Billund, the main airport in Jutland (thanks to the Lego company having its headquarter in the town), and my friend Lats picked me up for the 80 km drive to Aarhus. Along the way, we stopped at a pretty spot:
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On Friday, as we always do, Lars and I walked to the ARoS art museum. I never get tired of this beautiful building with Olafur Eliasson’s Your Rainbow Panorama on top:
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The art at ARoS is always interesting, but the building itself is a work of art:
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I also like looking out at my hometown from inside ARoS:
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In the evening, Lars treated us to his homemade pizza, better than anything I ever get from a commercial pizzeria:
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On Saturday morning, I walked to a nearby bakery to buy bread for breakfast. As always, I was touched by seeing my name on Lars’s mailbox (alongside the name of his nephew who uses his address as his postal address). This is truly my second home:
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Some of Lars’s neighbours have a humorous nameplate outside their door:
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Later on Saturday morning, we went for a drive south of the city, to a pretty place called Ajstrup Strand. It was cool but people were out enjoying the secluded beach:
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Lars is currently into pinhole photography, meaning long exposures on tripod:
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On Saturday evening, I met with my classmates from Skt. Knuds Skole, the primary school I attended from 1972 to 1976. Some of them I see every year, but others I had not seen since our last reunion 17 years ago. There were about 10 of us. We first met at a bar in the centre and then walked to a restaurant for dinner:
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Lone was the pretty girl of the class when we were 13 years old. She is one of the people with whom I have regular contact:
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Lone with Claus Jørgen. When I was in 6th grade, I delivered newspapers in my neighbourhood, and his mother was the local coordinator–the papers were delivered in bulk to their house, and we would pick them up from there to distribute along our newspaper routes:
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The guy on the left, Henrik, was my very first Danish friend after we arrived in Aarhus in 1972:
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On Sunday morning I walked to the train station to take the train to Copenhagen where I was going to spend one night before flying home Tuesday evening. While walking to the train, I stopped to have a look at this installation advertising a radio programme aimed at young people, seemingly a serious affair dealing with issues faced by today’s teens:
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Just before reaching the train station I passed the school I attended back in the 1970s, Skt. Knuds Skole. It looks more or less the same as back then. Nothing spectacular but it was (and is) a good school, and I had four good years there:
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Finally, Aarhus Central Station, which also looks the same as back when I was a teenager, except that the exterior has been cleaned:
More photos from Aarhus, including the art I saw at ARoS, can be seen here.