Monday, September 28, 2009

Hello darkness my old friend...


We had just finished dinner, Ole had left to take the dogs over to the field (the 9pm doggy play date is now the 7pm doggy play date thanks to the sun's rotation), and I was just sitting down at my work PC to call in for our weekly meeting when poof... DARKNESS.

Our power went out - causing several battery backup systems to cry out, as if we didn't know the power was out.

So I did what I tend to do best - I called Ole. Not that he could do anything about it, but hey, it is his country and who knows, maybe there's some magical switch somewhere I can flip. But no, the entire neighborhood was out.

Now one of the great things about this country is that there is no shortage of candles. As a matter of fact, I believe that one of the lines on that immigration form that I signed said something like.. Thou shalt always have tea lights burning... in Danish, of course.

I dutifully wandered throughout the living room and kitchen lighting every candle I could find. As it turns out, we have quite a few! Then I was lost. Candle lighting project complete, but what now? After wandering aimlessly in and out of our computer room, knowing full well that my trusty computer would not suddenly start working on it's own but hoping nonetheless, I finally sat down on the floor, grabbed the cat brush, and started grooming Mr. Pete. Happy cat.

As I sat on the floor I began to notice a procession of cars - one by one my neighbors were piling in and leaving. Then Ole got home and stated that Rema (the local grocery store) was still open for 15 more minutes, so we blew out all the candles and followed the crowd. I do believe all of Karup may have been at Rema as there were at least 30 people in line when we arrived, and on a normal busy day, there's about 10.

We came home to discover that power had been restored. Party!! I fired up the PC while Ole turned on the TV to catch his soccer match. All was right with the world.

But - before I could even get to Facebook, woosh, gone again. So I ran around again lighting all the candles, again, and then I sat down and read my newly purchased Alt magazine, by candlelight. By the time our power was restored again, the soccer match was over (his team won) and I had learned that attempting to access Facebook via the internet connection on my phone took much too long for it to be any fun.

Hopefully our lights are staying on this time!

3 comments:

  1. Power cuts are so rare that we don't know what to do with ourselves...

    And I hear you about the tea lights and candles - we must have hundreds! Only way to survive the winter... ;-)

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  2. We had the same problem in our area in CPH for 2 full hours on saturday.I was ok with it, I am used to powercuts, but the Danes was absolutely at ends. Even the cafe below us had no power so he couldnt kill his time with coffee.

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  3. That's so cute that everyone troops to the store in search of action.

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