First Reading Completed

I couldn't say "first book completed" lest it sound like I'm writing a book here! (though, that's maybe not a bad idea...) But there are several books I brought with me to read, and the friendly librarian showed me where the English section is at the bibliotek the other day, and since Svea still naps quite a bit in the mornings, I believe I will have a fair bit of time for catching up.

This seemed like a good place to start. Jens and Signe actually sent this book to Jeff and I before we left, but I didn't have time to finish it. Here, though, while we are trying to "live Danishly" I have a lot more time to read! I finished the book yesterday. It's about a British couple who do something similar to us, and, in a somewhat random opportunity, pick up and move their lives to Denmark for a year. The author writes about her experiences trying to uncover the secrets of why the Danes are so happy. Seemed like a good introduction.

We are doing our best (I think) at trying to live Danishly while we are here as well...to the chagrin of Anders who really wishes we would drive the car places! We can pretty much walk to everything we need here in town. It takes less than 15 minutes to walk to the Friskole, the Højskole, and the ABC grocery store. Therefore, we walk. Also, Jeff has not yet mastered the manual transmission car to his satisfaction and a feeling of wanting to drive with all of us in it.

Our life here so far seems simple. That's not quite the right word, because it could appear to have negative connotations, and I do not mean that at all. It's just, tranquil. And unfettered. And uncluttered. The flowers we received when we arrived had reached the end of their life, and as I was getting around to throwing them out, I noticed how serene the window looks with even just the pitchers left over from the flowers! This is what I mean by simple. There is a certain beauty in simplicity, and this kitchen view is so calming.

When I picked up the boys from school yesterday, I was a bit sad to see Torben standing by himself next to a riding toy in the middle of the field, staring at the ground. I thought he looked dejected and that is heartbreaking to a mother! Then I saw him move slowly, and I realized he was just standing still watching a bee (he's quite afraid of them, for some reason) and waiting for it to move out of his way. Whew. No crisis of loneliness! Svea saw him and called out to him (she really is a bossy one, even though she doesn't have many words yet!) and he immediately turned and ran to us. When I asked what he did all day, he said "play, play and play. That's pretty much what my answer will always be." Ah! The unfettered joy. (have I really used the word "unfettered" twice today? My goodness. I don't think I've used that word ever before...I think that says something about the life we have here)

All of this play has the children very hungry -pretty much all the time. We have been eating a lot of delicious fruit mostly. And bread. The kids mostly eat the white bread typically reserved for toast -but, I say, they are eating bread! They never eat bread at home. So, one step at a time. We even got Anders to branch out and eat strawberry jam for his sandwich, so, his horizons are broadening. There has been a good sale this week on honey melon (a close relative of honeydew), for 4.95 Kroner, which translates to just under $1 US, so we have been eating a lot of it. This is a typical site for our counter:

It feels so rustic. Or calming. Or, something. Like being transported to another place -a place with delicious honey melons from Spain. I did discover I have to cut the rind off, or else the children leave about half of the melon behind. It is common for us to eat one of these after school. Plus they will have crackers and whatever other food they can get their little hands on. Apparently all that playing makes you very hungry! Dinner is at 6pm, and we get home about 3:30, so there is a lot of time for snacking in between. I love that the snacks are good for us, though! The only "good for us" thing we're still having a challenge with the kids is that the primary drink is water. Anders doesn't want to drink water. And, like me, he's not a huge fan of milk as a beverage either. So it's common to hear "I don't want anything healthy to drink! I want some sprite!" They are doing well drinking water with meals, but in between times it's still a bit of a challenge. We happened to have some crystal light packets with us, so they occasionally have lemonade or pomegranate-cherry water instead. And since I am on the subject of food, I thought this was a fun photo of Svea munching on grilled corn. 

 Oh yes, and the popsicles! Ice-Stick (I know there is an actual way to spell that in Danish, but it's pronounced like "eece-stick" so I'll go with this for now. The boys were very excited for these! Also the ice cream and gelato -which is very expensive so reserved for special occasions. It sure is delicious though!

This is the song we sing each day at lunch time. I can almost pronounce most of the words. I'm not sure what it means yet, but I've got the words and melody. 

In this home, there is a very fancy coffee / espresso machine and I have not yet figured out how to make it work. 

It looks very cool, though! And There actually aren't too many levers -looks like maybe just three. So I can probably figure it out. But I'm a bit scared of it. Thankfully I found a French Press, and I do know how those work! 

Summer was a great time to arrive in Denmark. It's sunny and gorgeous, and the plants are blooming. While reading the book on living Danishly, she talks a lot about how cold, dark, and wet the winters are. I think it might be difficult if we were to arrive then. That's another reason for all of the pictures of flowers and nature -to help us remember when it's dark and cold and wet that sometimes it is bright and colorful. 

We have discovered that this town is very close to an air force base where they practice flights for fighter jets. I was glad to learn this, as it was a bit disconcerting to sit here each morning and hear -then see- the fighter jets flying overhead. 

This town is small, and we are not far from the farms. I forget this sometimes, until I leave the windows open for a while and come into a room wondering what the horrible smell is. Did the baby fill her diaper in her sleep? Did we forget to take the trash outside? Why does the whole room smell of poop? Ah, yes. Because the windows are open and there are cows. Not very far away are the cows. Ok then. Again, knowledge of what is, makes things less disconcerting! Also there is a rooster not far away -I haven't seen him yet, but we hear him often. I kind of like that, too. It feels...pastoral. The only part of things that doesn't feel so calming is how fast the cars go down the road outside! 

It turns out that Thursdays the shops are open later, and it seemed they opened earlier as well. When we took the kids to school, I saw more people out and about than I'd seen any other day, and when we came home from the grocery store in the late afternoon, there were still a lot of people out and about. We even know enough people now that we run into people we know while walking, and they wave "Hej!" as we pass.  

Salmon for lunch (I had some...) and very delicious tomato sauce over rotini. Dinner was hot wings! Anders was so excited about them. He said "mom, these are even better than the spaghetti chicken!" And that is hard to beat! Torben had several of them also, and also some of the leftover breaded whitefish from the day before, which Svea also had. Hard tack with brie is also very good...one of my favourite additions to the evening meal. 

And speaking of food, it's just about time to get ready for lunch. There is something comforting and reliable about routine. And I love that I have time each day to write, and read. Soon we will start up with a gymnastics class or something for Svea -to get us out and meeting some more people. But I think we'll keep the quiet mornings of play, reading, and writing. I have grown accustomed to it already. And the fighter jets. There they go again. 

More Gardens

Wednesday's school day included a trip to the movies! They took all of the kids in the "blue" group (older kids) to the cinema where they saw a series of three cartoons on the big screen. The boys were quite excited about this, and told us all about the cartoons even though they didn't understand the words. Then in the afternoon they had a bonfire at school, and they cooked eggs and marshmallows (separately) as a snack. Torben loved the eggs, and ate Anders' portion along with his own. What a fun place for them to be! Earlier this week each of the children painted a rock to look like a lady bug. They are going to have them on display at the kindergarten for a while before bringing them home.

Torben is having a hard time with not getting "any time to play" at home. Clearly he understands "play" differently from me, as what I see him doing at all times other than sleeping, is playing. At school, they play much of the day -and right now it is predominantly outside play. He wants to play with toys. When they get home from school, they want to spend a bit of time relaxing and playing a quick game on their kindle, and often forget to "play" in his sense of the word, so by bedtime he is sad that he didn't get any play time during the day, and please can we have a stay-home-day so he can play. This being the land of origin of Lego, there are plenty of opportunities for creative building here. The home we're in has both small-size Lego and Duplo sets, the latter including pieces for building castles with towers and spires and the like. He asked me to remind him to play with the toys when he gets home from school so he doesn't reach the end of the day and feel disappointed.

Jeff's courses are underway now, and he taught bits of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Also up on the list is Streetcar Named Desire, and today he brought home a dvd of this one, which I may watch later. He also had individual meetings with the students he is assigned to "oversee" -each of the teachers is assigned a small group of students to talk with about their experiences, etc. during the time here. Then all of the teachers have weekly meetings where they discuss each of the students and how they are doing, and what challenges or opportunities there might be. It really seems focused on well-being and making sure that it is a good learning experience for each person. This being the first week, there have been many activities for team building. At the trip to the lake earlier this week, they were put into teams and had a "birthday party" theme and were to make up song lyrics to a popular tune and sing it to the group, and then have some sort of present for the next group. Yesterday there was a city-wide scavenger hunt! When I left the house to go to lunch, I noticed a plastic bag filled with paper numbers tied to our mailbox. This seemed rather strange to me, and I asked Jeff about it when we got to lunch. He was just as perplexed, until the end of the meal when another teacher explained that the afternoon's activity was a landmark scavenger hunt, for points. Ah. When the students found our house, they were to take one of the paper numbers, and that was the number of points they would receive for that landmark. Glad I didn't take it down!

It was quite a sunny day again yesterday, so I took the opportunity to photograph some more of the beautiful flowers in the gardens while the kids were out playing.

 The roses after the rain were quite stunning -my camera did not do them justice.

 I love the small potted trees that are on either side of the steps leading up to the main building.

 I loved all the variations of purple in this hydrangea, and when the sunlight hit it seemed to be lit from within.

 Again seeming to be almost electrified, this white morning glory reflected the sun back.

 The children are all very excited for when these apples will be ready to eat. There is also a pear tree that will be ready about a month after the apples.

Almost always there is a bowl of fruit and a bowl of carrots out for anyone to enjoy. The boys love this. Even Svea has taken to eating as many apples as she can get her hands on -we try to stop her before she eats the core, but sometimes she is fast! She looks so much older than 17 months here!

Oops! On my phone, I managed to edit out my shoe from the picture, but alas, here it is. Isn't it a beautiful shoe? I love the contrast between the pink flower, the greenery, and the blue footwear.

 The yard also hosts a blackberry bush, which is all sorts of colours at this point in the growing season. I loved seeing all the stages of ripening of the berries.

 What a perfect yard for children to play in! The small playhouse, swingset, in-ground trampoline, and lots of open space for running.

The three of them have a great time together on the trampoline, though we have to remind the boys to jump slowly sometimes when she is on it with them. It's fun that they play together so well and there is so much laughing! 

Often in the mornings while Svea naps, I take the time to write about our days, and also to sit in the sunlit window and read a book. This is the view from my spot on the couch, and it transports you to another place! Well, I guess, I am in another place, so that makes sense. But it just seems very vacation-esque to have this as a view for reading. 

These last two are some more of the gardens we have seen on our daily walks. There seems to be a lot of attention paid to cultivating the plants in your yard and creating a beautiful environment. I look forward to seeing what it looks like as the seasons change and we get into a long, dark, wet winter. 

We arrived at lunch to find roasted pork and carmelized potatoes, with a cucumber salad of yogurt and garlic to eat on the potatoes. Amazing. There was also a shredded beet salad -I don't know as I've had beets before, but it was quite good also.

Tonight fish was on the menu for dinner, and everyone tried the breaded whitefish fillets. Jeff was surprised to find he liked it, and actually went back for more. Anders and Torben ate some, but it wasn't their favourite dinner (Anders asked when we will have the chicken spaghetti again!) and Svea ate two pieces. There was also tomato-and-cheese lasagna -the third kind of lasagna we have had here! I don't know exactly what I was expecting as far as food goes, but I was not expecting so much lasagna! The first had beef and bacon in a cream sauce and tasted similar to a stronganoff (Torben keeps asking when we will have this again), the second was squash and chickpeas in a tomato-based sauce, and the third was just tomatoes -and the cheese and noodles of course. They are all amazing. Svea loves all of them as well. Each dinner has some variations of cheese and bread or crackers, so we are sampling them. Some of the more stinky cheese aren't quite as popular, but many of them are wonderful. I have to watch my plate carefully or little hands snatch the cheese when I'm not looking! Anders is still thrilled about the amazing homemade raspberry jam that he gets to have on his sandwich each day -on the way to school he was telling me he couldn't wait to eat it all up at lunchtime.

The Højskole

After breakfast on Monday, we walked past the house to pick up one of the papers we needed to get our bank account opened, and were excited to see that we received our official "yellow cards" in the mail. That meant we didn't need the papers :) We can now go to the library, the doctor (hopefully not necessary), and anywhere else we need to go. Jeff, Svea and I took a walk up to the bibiotek so he could check on inter-library loan for the texts for some of his courses this semester, and the kind librarian showed us where the children's section is (complete with videos and cartoons that will help the kids learn Danish) as well as where the English section is for me. Then she showed us how to check out books ourselves. We were amazed that with the yellow card, you can access the library during off-hours, when it is not staffed! Starting at 6am, you can go to the library, open the door with your card and passcode, and check out books, or read, or whatever you need to do. Amazing! The library is staffed starting at around 10am.

I also received my letter from SURS about retirement, which I need to respond to within 30 days of starting this leave. I was surprised and impressed that it arrived here at our temporary home in a reasonable amount of time -the person I had talked to at SURS said he could enter the Danish address as a temporary one for me, and I was glad to see that it worked out just as it should have.

The boys are having a terrific time at school here! They come home exhausted each afternoon and just bursting with excitement to tell us all they did and learned. On the walk home, I asked what they had learned. Anders said "we don't learn here, we just play. We only learn on Mondays" :) That is the day they have their extra Danish language session. While I don't think it's true that they only learn on Mondays, it was fun to hear that they are having so much fun.

Svea likes the mommy-and-me time she is getting here. Each morning she plays for a bit, then seeks out her milk, her dolly, and sits in my lap until it is time for a nap. At nap time, she walks up the stairs and just goes to sleep. Then we go to lunch with Jeff.

I still haven't figured out the fancy coffee pot / espresso machine here at the house, but today I was able to use the French press and made some decent coffee :)

I realized I haven't yet posted any photos of the Højskole. Here are some of them: I love all the flowers everywhere, especially the roses growing up all of the columns.

.

 This building below posts the 1863 date. It's very neat to see all of the very old buildings around here.

Svea thought she should go for a walk around the grounds. Someone had just gone inside that building, and she thought maybe she should as well.

 Below is the dining hall. What an ingenious way to store the chairs! There is a wire piece attached to the table, and you slide the chair onto it when you are finished eating, so they are all off the floor for easy cleaning. The tables in the middle are where the food is placed before people are dismissed to fill their plates.

 This is the new arts building. I haven't yet been inside, but hope to see more of the neat things they create in here.

This is one courtyard in the middle of the grounds. Just to the right of the photo is the residence hall, and the building behind the bench houses some rooms as well. It is very quiet and peaceful here.

 This also is a courtyard -Jeff said it's fairly new and they are trying to decide on the best ways to get people to use it. I believe the intent is for the students here to brainstorm ways to get good use of it.

 At the street corner, you see signs with an arrow pointing in the direction of whatever the sign indicates. Here, you see you will turn down this street to get to the Højskole.

Field Trip to the Lake

Sunday evening after dinner, we went for another long walk exploring the city. As I mentioned before, there are beautiful gardens everywhere, and some of the paths feel like they are right out of a storybook.

We have also seen that there are two different types of Danish flag that people fly outside of their homes. The smaller, skinnier one is for everyday and the larger more traditional shape is used for special occasions.

Monday was a delightful day! We spent the morning in our usual pattern of walking everyone to where they needed to be, and relaxing when school and work were finished. Svea and I went to the  Højskole for lunch with Jeff and had some amazing African-inspired curry over rice. I believe it had beef and venison in it, judging from the pictures nearby. She kept asking for more! 

Anders and Torben had a great day at school again. Their teacher told me they had about an hour of extra language lessons during the day with a couple of other kids. Anders was so excited when I went to pick him up -Mom! I learned Danish today!- They will have this extra class once per week, which will really be helpful for them. They have been having a great time in school so far, and the teachers are wonderful. 

I can tell the boys are picking up some of the words and phrases. Yesterday Jeff asked the boys to do something, in Danish, and they responded in English, but clearly understood what he had said to them. We were both sort of taken aback at that, but in a good way. And I have discovered that I can figure out written words on a lot of things, which is handy.  

In the afternoon, Jeff had to go again to the neighboring city to work on some of our documents, so Svea and I picked up the boys at school and we relaxed at home before heading to dinner. Anders brought home a snail shell he found on the playground...

...when we later saw it in the middle of the kitchen floor, we realized it was not a snail shell, but was indeed a living snail. Torben carefully placed it back outside. :)

While waiting for dinner, we took advantage of the ping pong tables in the Højskole, and even Svea thought to join in the fun. Here she is practicing her backhand.

Dinner was sandwich-type food, with some of the leftover spaghetti with chicken and vegetables, so Anders was thrilled (and not once has he said "I don't.like.leftovers." so there is progress as well!). Torben loved the bread, eggs, and salad. The typical bread here is a very dark, almost black, rye bread with all sorts of nuts, seeds, and grains in it. It is very dense, and good with a bit of butter and some sort of meat or eggs. Svea ate all the cheeses (that's my girl!), even the blue cheese! I didn't give her much of that, just a taste, but she loved it just as much as any of the others. The cod-caviar, which was sliced and resembled liversausage in appearance, wasn't quite our cup of tea, but we tried it on crackers. 

After dinner was a field trip with all the students to the lake nearby. We all boarded a coach bus and headed over. There is a great little swimming area surrounded by a dock that's built into the water, so the water flows all around it, but the swimming area is protected.

 This made for a perfect place for our children to play in the (not so warm!) water. We brought our swimming clothes, but apparently they were confused by the term, so they instead chose to go swimming IN their clothes.

I wish this wasn't blurry...she was DELIGHTED at being able to play in the water!

And, since Svea cannot swim, I got to go in too. She wasn't too interested in having help, however! She thought she should be able to roam free in the water just like her brothers were. It was a very fun time. Then they were soaked, so we changed into their dry swimming clothes (glad to have brought along the swim suits that have a coordinating shirt to go with them!) And we went for a walk in the woods around the lake while the students played some outdoor games. It was already past bedtime at this point but the bus wasn't coming back for a bit, so we decided to entertain the kids with nature.

The sun was starting to think of beginning to set, so the colours were beautiful. The lake is very long and skinny, so it was easy to see both shores.

Here, Anders is pointing out another abandoned rowboat and an old dock.

 These photos are the view of Jels from the park.

It was beautiful and serene, and such a nice time to be together out in nature. Our kids are still learning to speak a little more quietly (not be silent -that's too much to ask!- but at least speak in conversation tones rather than screaming tones) so this was good practice. We kept reminding them that people come to nature to relax and unwind, so they need to respect the peacefulness.

It was well past bedtime when we boarded the bus to return home, so we were trying to entertain Svea on the trip. Thank goodness for camera phones! 

All in all, a very fun day was had by all. And everyone slept fast!