Bored

Ole: Cologne, Germany - furniture fair
Me: Karup, DK - bored

Yep, he did it again, he went away on business. It doesn't happen that often, but it still stinks. Oh sure, I do it to him too, but it's no fun to be the one left at home.

Strange really. I lived alone for a very, very long time. Enjoyed it too. I'll give you one little tidbit about our relationship. People sometimes ask me how I knew he was 'the one'. It was easy. He was visiting me for a week, when we still just 'friends' and when he left, I missed him. That sealed the deal. My apartment felt empty after he'd gone back home. It was the most bizarre thing ever for me. Why? Well, typically, even if I had a date and really liked the guy, I still wanted him out of my apartment after just a bit of time. It was MY space - I like you, now get out. So yeah, having the place suddenly feel empty after this one got out made me realize that this was different - I didn't want him to get out - I wanted him to stay forever. So it sealed the deal in my mind and there you have it.

Back to now, present tense, deadly quiet, bored. Wish I could be at the furniture fair wandering the convention center looking at all the cool stuff I could maybe, someday, put in my house. Sigh.

Guess I'll go to bed.

Visa Waiver Program

So, the US Department of Homeland Security issued this press release today.

All in all, it sounds like a great idea, especially if it means eliminating the stupid paper forms that have to be handed out to all visitors on the plane to be filled out, with a pen you don't have, on a postage size tray table, prior to landing.

My husband completed the online authorization form back in August, the moment it became available. And, he received the proper authorization. Fast forward to December, when we traveled to the states. He took the printed confirmation from Homeland Security with him, just to see what happened. Dying of curiousity?

Well, we landed at Newark, one of the largest airports for incoming flights from abroad and guess what - the immigration officer we spoke to said the green form was still needed as they didn't know what that electronic system was all about yet. He said he knew it was coming, but had no information on it yet. That was less than one month ago. The program has supposedly been in place on a voluntary basis since August. And yet, it was nearing the end of December and they couldn't accept that clearance?

Should be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Fish out of water?

I have spent the last several hours thoroughly immersed in expat blog world. It's a strange thing really. Before I moved here, I did try to find some blogs of Americans who had journeyed to Denmark so I could hopefully gain a bit of insight into what I was getting into. Either I was a terrible googler back then, or the blog world has grown by leaps and bounds, or a bit of both.

My google reader is beginning to explode with unread entries for blogs not only in Denmark, but in Germany, Sweden, Norway and around the world. I am addicted. I think the Scandinavian nations are closest to my heart, most likely because I can relate; I think many of the customs of Norway and Sweden are the same that are observed in Denmark, and I love reading them all.

I would list my favorites, but I fear I would leave someone out and then I'd have that overwhelming guilt!

My latest reading marathon began when another expat blogger, LadyFi, posted something about Strange Shores, and I felt myself yearning to participate.

I sent off an Email early this morning without even thinking about the date. Then I checked our host's blog, PaddyK, this evening and voila, there I was - how exciting!! And then, as is usually the case, one referenced post led to another, and another, and before I knew it, hours had gone by!

So, if you dropped by to read about chimney sweeps, hopefully you'll pull up a chair and stay awhile and enjoy all my other adventures.

And the chimney guy? There's a follow-up to be found here.

Feel free to drop by any time, and thanks for visiting!

Happy New Year!

Let me tell you, the 4th of July has nothing on the Danish New Year's Eve.

We did what we always do on New Year's Eve, stayed in with the dogs and relaxed. Unlike apparently everyone else, we did not see the Queen's speech. At least not that night. I did finally see it last week at Sprogskole - my teacher used it as a teaching tool so we could learn some of the expressions used, so it was pretty cool, but let's get back to the subject at hand - crazy Danes!

What we did do was watch a movie, and hang out in the house, waiting for the magic moment to begin. Some don't officially wait until midnight by most do, at least for the 'good' stuff, and at the stroke of midnight, the sky is ablaze with fireworks. These are not the little piddly stuff either, these are huge, and there are many of them.

Being a house on a corner has it's advantages and disadvantages. The advantage here is that we are totally surrounded by neighbors who probably spent at least one paycheck, if not two, on their New Year's Eve arsenal.

The disadvantage is that it means we get to scour the yard on New Year's Day for assorted debris from said fireworks, madly attempting to pick everything up before the dogs find the trash and decide it's new toys for puppies!

Zoe LOVES fireworks, and just like last year, she stood in the middle of the yard staring up at the sky. She is completely unaffected by the noise, and loves the show. Lexi on the other hand, umm, not so much. She tried to be brave, she didn't hide under a bed or in a closet, she stood with her paws on the window sill looking out at the magic. She bravely tried to come out to the yard, but each time she did, she was, of course, greeted with huge crashes of noise, which would immediately send her running back into the house. The only time she managed to stay outside for more than 5 minutes was when the neighbors wanted to say hello to her and pet her - she overcame her fear in exchange for some good luvin!

This is just over a minute, filmed just as it all began. I am standing in my driveway slowly walking in a circle. The film doesn't do the madness justice!

On the 5th Day of Christmas...

Okay, okay, it's my last Christmas post, I promise!

And really, this has nothing to do with Christmas. This is more about one of those things that I miss from the US.

What?

Squirrels!!

I grew up surrounded by squirrels. The street where I lived had these huge maple trees up and down both sides and it was so much fun to watch the squirrels run up one tree, jump over to another, run down, run up another, etc. It was like having your own little circus show.

In New York, we had grey squirrels. When I attended college in Michigan, the squirrels were black (very cute little buggers if I do say).

I'm told there are squirrels in Denmark, and I did see one.. one! I was always used to squirrels just being everywhere. Yes, they can be a royal pain as they can be quite destructive and they're a bit mischievious, but you have to admit - highly entertaining.

While visiting my parents, we grabbed the camcorder and filmed the squirrels swarming the bird feeder in the neighbor's yard. This video is a wee bit shaky - hard to hold it steady when you're on the super zoom! And, we didn't catch the best moments as there were several times when they were multiple squirrels on said bird feeder, but this little guy is too cute....

On the 4th Day of Christmas..

Okay, it actually happened before the 4th day of Christmas, but I'm trying to stick to bit of a theme here!

Anyone remember those old Folger's Crystals commercials where they would sneak into some high class restaurant and switch the fancy coffee for the Folger's and all the customers would then ooh and aah about how wonderful the coffee was?

Well, mystery switches when it comes to coffee don't always turn out so well, particular when they aren't actually a planned event. Allow me to explain...

After being in upstate NY for just over a day, I had a pounding headache. With the dry winter air, I blamed the lack of humidity; seemed a valid enough reason at the time. Add this to the fact that a few hours later, Ole also was reporting a headache. We were both feeling quite dried out in this mountain air and we had the chapped lips as proof, so of course that must be the cause!

The next day, we were out doing some shopping, and the headaches started to come back again. ARGH! After a stroll through Target, I then decided that perhaps the headache was because I had had only one cup of coffee that morning instead of my usual 2-3 cups and perhaps that was to blame. We made the immediate decision to make a fresh pot of coffee as soon as we got back to my parent's house.

So in the door we went, and Ole immediately went to work on the task at hand - making some coffee. He got the water into the machine, put the filter in place, saw a can of Decaf coffee sitting on the counter (see where I'm going with this?) and asked my mother where the regular, caffeinated coffee might be. My Mother, without missing a beat replied, "It's right there on the counter." Ummm.. NOPE!

As it turns out, my Mother had been brewing up the decaf each morning, thinking she was brewing regular coffee. Since she normally drinks decaf, she didn't notice. On the other hand, being a certified resident of a country where coffee is served at every meeting, function, school event, and fest, and a country that has no translation for the word "decaffeinated", we definitely DID notice - however, we noticed about 2 days too late to prevent the monstrous headaches we were now experiencing.

Needless to say, we immediately made a trip to the local Walmart and purchased a can of coffee, with the caffeine fully intact. Headache issue solved.

Yep, we're addicts.

On the 3rd day of Christmas...

Yeah, so I'm a bit behind, but whatever!

On the 26th, chaos errupted as the remainder of my immediate family with spouses and children in tow, arrived at my parent's home. Well, they didn't actually arrive as scheduled! Everyone was supposed to arrive at some point around noon or so. But my oldest brother, who lives in Manhattan, went over to the car rental agency to get a car for the trip and despite having one already reserved, they had nothing. All that he could do was wait for the first incoming return. So wait he did, and ended up getting a big huge, very nice, SUV. My brother is not an SUV fan, but he feared waiting for another would take a few hours, so he took what he could get!

My other brother called, and little Rebecca had decided that she couldn't go potty, so rather than pack her in the car and worry that there could really be something wrong, they called the doc and headed off to the doctor's office.

Both brothers and their respective families did finally arrive upstate around 2-3 in the afternoon. My mother had been brewing our traditional Christmas dinner, turkey with all the trimmings, but there was no way in the world the kids were going to sit peacefully and eat when there were bundles of shiny packages tied up with bows awaiting them. So, the packages came first!

For me, it was cashmere heaven as I acquired 2 new cashmere sweaters. I also received some beautiful jewelry, a big basket of yummy smelling lotions and potions and assorted other wonderful things. Opening gifts with 4 children under the age of 12 is always fun, and always a bit nuts, but all in all a wonderful day.

Ole and I decided to share a Danish tradition with my family so the night before, Ole had made a HUGE pot of the rice pudding, and on the 26th we added the whipped cream and almonds to officially turn it into ris a la mande. Since there are almond allergies in part of the family, we had to divide the whole pot into two halves and only add the crushed almonds to one. This also meant we could only 'hide' the almond in one of the bowls. So rather than let them in on the secret, we told the kids, who were having the almond free variety, that there was a surprise hidden in the bowl and that they would need to eat some to get the special prize. I was worried they would think it was strange-tasting, but they absolutely loved it and kept running in to get more. What we didn't tell them, until they had finished almost the whole portion, was that instead of the traditional almond, we had put a sticker on one of their bowls. Joey (the oldest) then found the sticker and received the special gift. My brother Tim (Joey's dad) found the actual almond in the traditional bowl and got a special gift as well. It was great fun for us to be able to share a Danish Christmas tradition with my American family and to be able to bring something new to the table that everyone enjoyed.

A few pics from the days festivities: