Opened my inbox over the weekend to find a very very nice surprise! My parents have decided to buy our plane tickets so that we can spend Christmas in the states - woohoo!
We spent some time making all kinds of fun arrangements and I am very excited to say that Ole and I will be spending 2 days in NYC and then 5 days with friends and family in upstate New York. Time to load up those extra empty suitcases so we can fill them up for the return trip !!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Chimneys - part II
For those who may have missed it, I refer back to the original post, Chimneys.
I am pleased to say that my belt-buckle yielding friend returned to my home again to inspect my chimney and make sure we are ready for yet another year of keeping the home fires burning.
I am even more pleased to say that, for the most part, I managed to speak Danish with him this time around! Poor guy had two pups jumping all over him this time, but he didn't seem to mind. I missed a few sentences here and there, hopefully not anything of vital importance, but I managed to communicate with him, and that, my friends, was pretty exciting.
I am pleased to say that my belt-buckle yielding friend returned to my home again to inspect my chimney and make sure we are ready for yet another year of keeping the home fires burning.
I am even more pleased to say that, for the most part, I managed to speak Danish with him this time around! Poor guy had two pups jumping all over him this time, but he didn't seem to mind. I missed a few sentences here and there, hopefully not anything of vital importance, but I managed to communicate with him, and that, my friends, was pretty exciting.
Can't they at least TRY??
At the end of last week I had to send a payment off to the IRS, in the IRS' own envelope. I dutifully put the payment voucher and the payment into the envelope, wrote my return address in the upper left hand corner on the 3 little lines the IRS' envelope provided for that purpose, put some Danish stamps on it and sent it off.
Saturday we opened our mailbox only to find that same envelope had arrived here. How nice of the Danish postal service!
Many complain about the US postal service but honestly, I believe, the USPS does it's job. The mail gets where it's supposed to go - they figure it out. The same cannot be said for the danish equivalent. The envelope was, or course, a little window envelope. If you've ever used them, and I'm sure you have, the little papers inside the envelope can tend to shift around and maybe the address isn't fully readable instantly. You do the shake down to the inside pieces of paper and the address magically reveals itself, etc. Apparently this is too difficult for the danish postal service.
Postal employee A.. "I cannot see the address"
Postal employee B.. "There's an address, there, in the upper left hand corner - send it there"
Postal employee A.. "Ahh yes, perfect!"
Morons - the upper left hand corner is called a "return address" - you don't just send the mail there thinking that's where it's supposed to go! Had they done that with something written on the original such as "Unable to deliver, return to sender" then I would have been slightly less annoyed. At least then I would KNOW why it showed up in my mailbox. But there was nothing - they sent it to the return address apparently because it's an address they found, and that somehow equaled where it was supposed to go.
I was going to take a picture of the envelope for this post, but Ole has now taken the envelope off with him this morning to resend the whole thing in a proper Danish envelope, or something.
p.s. It can't be easy to be married to me. I, of course, in my ranting, took out my frustration for the Danish postal service on my dear hubby - as a Dane, he inevitably gets the blame for any frustration I feel at anything that goes wrong in HIS country. Ooops.
Saturday we opened our mailbox only to find that same envelope had arrived here. How nice of the Danish postal service!
Many complain about the US postal service but honestly, I believe, the USPS does it's job. The mail gets where it's supposed to go - they figure it out. The same cannot be said for the danish equivalent. The envelope was, or course, a little window envelope. If you've ever used them, and I'm sure you have, the little papers inside the envelope can tend to shift around and maybe the address isn't fully readable instantly. You do the shake down to the inside pieces of paper and the address magically reveals itself, etc. Apparently this is too difficult for the danish postal service.
Postal employee A.. "I cannot see the address"
Postal employee B.. "There's an address, there, in the upper left hand corner - send it there"
Postal employee A.. "Ahh yes, perfect!"
Morons - the upper left hand corner is called a "return address" - you don't just send the mail there thinking that's where it's supposed to go! Had they done that with something written on the original such as "Unable to deliver, return to sender" then I would have been slightly less annoyed. At least then I would KNOW why it showed up in my mailbox. But there was nothing - they sent it to the return address apparently because it's an address they found, and that somehow equaled where it was supposed to go.
I was going to take a picture of the envelope for this post, but Ole has now taken the envelope off with him this morning to resend the whole thing in a proper Danish envelope, or something.
p.s. It can't be easy to be married to me. I, of course, in my ranting, took out my frustration for the Danish postal service on my dear hubby - as a Dane, he inevitably gets the blame for any frustration I feel at anything that goes wrong in HIS country. Ooops.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
My head hurts
This evening was the first day 'back to school' for me and after 2.5 hours of danish class, my head hurts.
I have school every Tuesday and Thursday evening for what feels like now to eternity. While I do get encourages every now and then and feel like maybe I'm actually getting somewhere with all of this, I still, for the life of me, cannot understand my own husband when he speaks Danish. One of my teachers says that it's probably Ole's accent that is the issue - I don't know, but I know I can't understand him :(
School isn't horrible, but it definitely takes a strain on my brain! It's the constant concentration that gets me. If I let my mind wander for even a moment, I have missed something that my teacher said and at that point, my brain sort of switches over to that 'huh???' setting.
I'm sure going to miss my free evenings!
I have school every Tuesday and Thursday evening for what feels like now to eternity. While I do get encourages every now and then and feel like maybe I'm actually getting somewhere with all of this, I still, for the life of me, cannot understand my own husband when he speaks Danish. One of my teachers says that it's probably Ole's accent that is the issue - I don't know, but I know I can't understand him :(
School isn't horrible, but it definitely takes a strain on my brain! It's the constant concentration that gets me. If I let my mind wander for even a moment, I have missed something that my teacher said and at that point, my brain sort of switches over to that 'huh???' setting.
I'm sure going to miss my free evenings!
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Don't Get Up
Ahh the life of luxury...
Don't overwhelm yourself and waste energy standing up to eat!
Don't overwhelm yourself and waste energy standing up to eat!
Olympic Coverage
Last night was the opening ceremonies and I guess, for the most part, it doesn't really matter which language it is. Not really sure that I liked the early afternoon start time though! When you grow up in the US, the Olympic coverage you see isn't typically live coverage, depending, of course, on which time zone the games are being held. The US caters their coverage to the advertisers - the network has to cover all the costs of actually covering the games! What this means is that, although we like to pretend things are happening as we see them, more often than not, it happened hours ago and is being broadcast for the US market in primetime.
There are some that do believe everything should be shown live, but now that I am actually having to watch events live, I must say that I prefer the USA's nicely packaged version of the games. Had I been working yesterday, rather than enjoying a week off, I would have missed the opening ceremonies, because they began at 2:08 pm in Denmark.
I like gymnastics. But, of course, the US men's team was in the first rotation for the qualification round. What this meant for me was that if I wanted to see the US in the qualification round, I had to get my butt in front of the TV at 6 AM. Ewwww.
Getting up early isn't really a problem for me most of the time. The problem comes in getting up early and then plopping down in front of the TV. My normal routine means I plop in front of the internet, which is interactive, and therefore, assists me in waking up and starting my day as I suck down my coffee. The TV on the other hand, is passive. Had the commentary been in English, it would have been a bit easier for me, but in Danish, at 6 AM, wooowee that was tough.
It is events like these that make me miss American TV. I like getting the full explanations of why a particular gymnastics move was good or bad. I want to see the little computer animations of the 'perfect' double-twisting, triple-flip, Russian-dude named move. I want to see the interview and clips of the gymnastic phenom training back home. I want all that! It's quite difficult at 6 AM to attempt to comprehend 2 Danes talking about what's going on - thank goodness the scores themselves were posted on screen!
Well, the good news is that the American men did win their qualifying round. I think it's the top 8 teams that move on to the team event, so I guess we still have to see how the other teams do. If I were watching on NBC, I'm sure Bob Costas would've already explained how it all works, and how the new scoring system works, but since I'm not, I suppose I will spend the next hour doing internet research to figure it all out!
There are some that do believe everything should be shown live, but now that I am actually having to watch events live, I must say that I prefer the USA's nicely packaged version of the games. Had I been working yesterday, rather than enjoying a week off, I would have missed the opening ceremonies, because they began at 2:08 pm in Denmark.
I like gymnastics. But, of course, the US men's team was in the first rotation for the qualification round. What this meant for me was that if I wanted to see the US in the qualification round, I had to get my butt in front of the TV at 6 AM. Ewwww.
Getting up early isn't really a problem for me most of the time. The problem comes in getting up early and then plopping down in front of the TV. My normal routine means I plop in front of the internet, which is interactive, and therefore, assists me in waking up and starting my day as I suck down my coffee. The TV on the other hand, is passive. Had the commentary been in English, it would have been a bit easier for me, but in Danish, at 6 AM, wooowee that was tough.
It is events like these that make me miss American TV. I like getting the full explanations of why a particular gymnastics move was good or bad. I want to see the little computer animations of the 'perfect' double-twisting, triple-flip, Russian-dude named move. I want to see the interview and clips of the gymnastic phenom training back home. I want all that! It's quite difficult at 6 AM to attempt to comprehend 2 Danes talking about what's going on - thank goodness the scores themselves were posted on screen!
Well, the good news is that the American men did win their qualifying round. I think it's the top 8 teams that move on to the team event, so I guess we still have to see how the other teams do. If I were watching on NBC, I'm sure Bob Costas would've already explained how it all works, and how the new scoring system works, but since I'm not, I suppose I will spend the next hour doing internet research to figure it all out!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
