Monday Monday

It’s Monday again….blech!  We are puppy-sitting for some friends of ours this week.  I took both dogs out this morning after the baby was asleep and it’s funny how our friend’s dog makes ours look like a total dummy!  Our dog just doesn’t listen and pulls on the leash on walks while theirs is a dream.  Anyway, we were outside and after the dogs did their business, I was picking it up (which is honestly one of the grossest things….I can change a diaper any day but picking up poo….ew!) and realized that I had picked up the wrong pile.  I had let the dogs off their leashes and they went opposite directions.  I got one pile and then went for the second one.  I thought I had it and it was cold….ew again.  So I found the other one’s pile and turned around to see my dog pooing AGAIN in the middle of the field.  That one got left there, sorry to the people walking through the field.  It’s not like they pick their dog poo up anyway.  It’s kind of gross in the city here because many people just leave it on the sidewalks, curbs, etc.  Then you walk in it or run the stroller wheels through it, which drags it into my house where my baby is crawling, and it’s just gross.  So I try to be a responsible dog owner.  I picked up 3 piles and the dogs made 3 piles so it all works out, right? 
 

OK, enough about poo.  On to laundry…  you know it’s laundry day when you have run out of sweatpants to wear around the house.  I am that girl that wears sweatpants as often as I can.  If you ever randomly stop by, you’ll probably catch me in sweats, but I honestly don’t care J  If you do, that’s your problem!  So now I’m working on the large pile of laundry that has accumulated over the weekend and last week.  This past weekend we went to IKEA which is usually quite an ordeal because it’s so busy.  Thankfully we went early enough to beat the crowds.  The IKEA we go to has a McDonalds next door and we don’t ever leave there without eating some McDonalds.  It’s mostly the same (except it has Coke Light, not Diet Coke, which is quite different) as the ones in the US so we sometimes need a taste of home. 

When we got home I made up some White Chicken Chili from this link: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/white-chili/42460865-4378-4d2d-970b-fae7dd085666 .  It was really good!  I added some pureed canned tomatoes, some pureed beans (I couldn’t find canned white beans here so I had to soak a bunch of dried beans and cook them….I accidentally made too many so I pureed about a cup extra), 2 bay leaves, and forgot the cilantro (hate it).  I also wouldn’t add the ground cloves if I were to make it again.  It’s really quite delicious…you must have tortilla chips with it too.  They say leftovers are better than when you make it – we’ll see about that today! 

Today I am listening to country music.  For some reason it is really making me homesick.  You can’t find country music here, just mostly pop and techno.  Usually that’s good for me but some days I just need my good old down home country music.  Other things I miss are full-size vehicles (such as a Ford Edge, lol!), pickup trucks, driving, and the quiet peacefulness of the farm.  Oh, and our fire pit back home.  S’mores….aw man, now I’m hungry J

Hope you are all well and have a great week!

Ohhh baby!

Today baby and I went to playgroup.  It was lots of fun!  While there, the moms were discussing having babies in Europe.  It seems that pregnancy and delivery are quite different here than in the US.  The women were swapping stories and most of what I heard surprised me.  Instead of epidurals for pain control, they tend to use nitrous oxide (laughing gas) during the labor process.  You can get an epidural if you specifically ask for one, but they aren’t handed out like candy here.  Apparently this isn’t just in Denmark but also in the UK and other countries.  The nitrous oxide doesn’t kill the pain but calms the mother down during contractions.  They also said that usually you don’t stay overnight in the hospital unless there are complications with the delivery.  The one mom was told she could go home 6 hours after the baby was born and the other mom went home 2 hours after birth.  Pretty sure I couldn’t really walk that soon after birth but I also had an epidural, not the laughing gas.  If you do end up staying overnight at the hospital, you are in a room with many women (unless you pay to stay at the “hospital hotel”).  I think they were talking about 4-6 women in a room, not quite sure on that number though.  Sometimes you don’t even get a curtain around your bed!  You are on your own to take care of the new baby, too.  No nurses to do the dirty work for you!  So to summarize this, there are 4-6 new moms in a room with 4-6 new babies….sounds really restful to me (dripping with sarcasm). 

So say you have a baby and then are released from the hospital some hours later.  Most people here do not have cars.  So how do you get home??  You can’t ride a bike (obviously) so I suppose they take a taxi.  I was reading on the internet about this subject and someone said that the ambulance will actually take you home if you need a ride.  That website also said that women are known to ride their bikes to the hospital while in labor (yikes).  You can also call an ambulance when you’re having contractions, too.  Now say you get home and you live on the 3^rd floor of the building and there’s no elevator.  I’d hope that my husband loved me enough to carry my happy butt up the stairs.  Of course with a baby and a stroller, we picked a building that conveniently had an elevator.  We had specifically asked for buildings with elevators or an apartment on the first floor for that reason.  I followed the guy showing us apartments while house hunting up 4 flights of stairs carrying the baby and promptly told him no as soon as I hit the door of the apartment (huffing and puffing…trying not to die lol).  Gorgeous place but there’s a reason it wasn’t rented out.  So after this discussion of having children in Europe, I have decided that we won’t be having babies anytime soon and if we do, I’m going to the US to do it J

What a day.....

Today is one of THOSE DAYS!  It all started out with the baby taking an earlier nap than usual.  I took the dog out thinking I’d get to enjoy the sunshiney day and it was cold and windy out.  I grew up in a very cold place (comparable to Siberia, seriously) but something about the humidity here makes it feel really cold when the wind blows.  It doesn’t take much wind for me to decide it’s too cold to be outside.  I came inside and started to work on hemming some curtains we bought this weekend.  The baby’s room gets really bright during the day and we need to darken it so she can sleep.  I mean, she can sleep in our bed when it’s bright outside but her room needs to be dark, go figure!  We bought some cheap curtains at IKEA to put behind the ones we currently have so they needed to be hemmed.  The former tenants were kind enough to leave the curtains (and lights, wardrobes, etc.) for us but they had not hemmed them.  I think I had to take them up 9 inches….they were just laying on the floor (this is really one of my pet peeves).  So off I go to hem these curtains.  I measured them, pinned them, and had just put the foot down on my sewing machine when the baby woke up.  And she woke up grumpy (oh joy!) because she hadn’t napped long enough.  But there was no getting her back down for a nap.  Later on in the day I found myself measuring the next curtain to be hemmed on the kitchen table.  The baby was rolling around in her walker (best invention ever…until they figure out they can really go exploring and get into everything) and rolled over my toes a few times in the process.  As I went to sew the curtains, she kept trying to pull my chair out from under me.  We should’ve bought the chair without wheels.  Later on in the day, the baby decided to spit up/throw up in our bed so I had to change the sheets.  After changing sheets, we had to change diapers.  In the process of checking if she was wet (with cloth diapers, you have to stick a finger in to check), I got a fantastic surprise on my finger.  Shouldn’t have fed baby a prune.  I mean, it takes one stupid prune and it looks like a war zone in her diaper!  So there I was rinsing the diaper in the toilet, gagging a little (which is bad if you’re mommy and gagging), and I hear a noise in the shower.  I turn around and find the dog was sleeping in the shower on the tile floor.  Apparently he got sick of the baby chasing him around the house so he found the only quiet place in the house. 

For dinner we had homemade buttermilk pancakes and bacon.  Ohhhh bacon….and it’s so good here!  At least the day ended on a good note J

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!


I had to go to the post office today to pick up a package.  I wasn’t home yesterday when they tried to deliver it so I had to go get it (bummer).  I took the bus because I was feeling lazy.  It’s not that far but some days you just need to take the bus, ya know?  So I get to the post office and there’s about 10 stairs to the door.  It proved to be very hard to maneuver with a stroller.  There is a wheel chair lift next to the stairs so I tried that but it was full of snow and looked unused.  I found myself picking up the whole stupid stroller and carrying it up the stairs.  I am not a very strong woman I found out, but determination can work wonders!  Thankfully some really kind gentleman helped me lift the stroller when he saw me try to lift it down the stairs.  I am finding that many Danes are very kind people.  If you smile at them, they will smile back and even say hi.  They just don’t offer the fake niceties that American society does.  I am told they find us Americans to be very fake.  How many times when you ask a stranger “How are you?” do you really care what the answer is?  I know, very blunt (and some of you are thinking that you do really care, which is great), but it’s just something our society does.  I hadn’t really thought about this until I lived elsewhere.  The Danes are helpful and warm, but it just takes a bit to get used to them and break through their cold outer shells.  Anyway, I got home and tucked the little one in for a nap as she had fallen asleep in her stroller on the way home.  I took the dog out for a short walk (and I had a baby monitor on….I promise I do listen to my kid!).  It’s hard to walk the dog with the stroller so I don’t do it very often.  Our dog was raised with a big yard and had no leash training until we moved him here to the big city.  He’s a big guy and really likes to pull.  We’re working on it, one day at a time.  I walked the dog around our place along the ocean.  The wind was calm and there was a bit of snow on the ground.  It’s just a gorgeous day out.  I stood and looked out to the ocean and realized how very calming the ocean is.  Just standing there taking it all in I felt a sense of peace, which is something that I hadn’t felt in a while.  Moving across the ocean has really made our lives chaotic.  We are finally settling in and getting back to life as usual.  Sometimes you just need to stop and smell the ocean!  I grew up in the middle of the US and had never seen the ocean until I was 18.  I love it out on the farm where I grew up in the middle of nowhere where the air is fresh, too.  But when the ocean is calm, it is very peaceful. 

I have found a cross stitching project that I’m working on.  It was something I had started back home but took along to keep me busy.  Who needs stuff to keep you busy when you have a little one??  I use naptime as efficiently as possible and sew like a mad woman.  I could be cleaning or cooking but some days I just need to sit down with my cup of coffee and get in some good “mental health time”.  I will try to post pictures of it when I get it done. 

Hope you are all well out in Internet Land.  Feel free to email or comment if you have anything to say at all.  I would love to hear from you!

You all must think I ramble a lot J  But you are still reading, aren’t you? 

More Tales From a Faraway Place

I suppose it has been awhile since my last post so I shall post some more information for all of my readers out there J 

As far as food goes, I have decided the Danes enjoy anything that is gross to us Americans.  I have added a link below that shows pictures and gives descriptions of some of the food they eat.  Yes, they do have some good things but many are strange.  I haven’t had the pleasure of eating many of these things yet but my husband does get to try a lot of things in the cafeteria at work.  He says some days are good, some are not, and mostly he has no clue what he is eating.  We’ve noticed that many businesses/offices have their own cafeterias if they employee enough people.  The Danes believe in working hard during working hours so they can go home on time.  My husband usually works 9am to 5pm with a half hour lunch break.  No one shows up before 8am, and by 5:30 everyone has left (very different from the US where he last worked).  It’s very convenient for him to pay the $40 a month for breakfast and lunch every day.  He said they get fresh bread and fruit every morning for breakfast as well as a warm lunch each day.  Wednesdays are “Cake Day” (just at his company, I think).  I stopped in to meet everyone with Emily one day and was treated to some cake.  Danes love their cakes and boy are they delicious!
http://www.copenhagenet.dk/CPH-Eating.htm

We haven’t eaten out much here because it is rather expensive.  To get a hamburger and fries here costs around $25-30.  Waiters and waitresses are paid a salary so you don’t need to tip here.  The service is really poor because they don’t have to work for their tips (and remember the Law of Jante too).  We tend to get takeout because it’s faster and easier to eat at home with a little one.  I did have one of the best hamburgers I’ve ever eaten at a restaurant with a friend recently (yes, in Copenhagen!).  It is considered rude to pick up a hamburger and eat it here, so I have had to try to master the art of eating a burger with the fixings on it with a fork and knife.  Even after all the work of eating it, it was a delicious burger.  The other night we got burgers to go from a place down the street.  We took them home and picked them up to eat them….we haven’t had the guts to do it in public yet though J

My husband and I have been walking and exploring a lot during the weekends and I have been taking the baby and the dog for a walk during the week too.  We explored the neighborhoods right next to the ocean and was able to find a really nice park to let our dog play in.  The houses next to the ocean are gorgeous and have been around for a long time.  They are old stone houses and have beautiful architecture, stained glass windows, and tall fences to keep snoopy people like myself out J  They have private beaches so you can’t walk right next to the ocean through that neighborhood.  I can’t wait for the weather to warm up a bit.  It’ll make walking and exploring so much more fun.  The weather here can change very rapidly.  The sun shines so brightly one minute, followed by a snow or rain shower the next.  I find myself taking advantage of the sunny and nice (aka, no wind) days when we get them.  I like to take my walks right around naptime so the little one can sleep in her stroller as I walk and enjoy the weather.  While out walking, people tend to smile and say “Hej!” which sounds just like “Hi” in English and means the same thing.  To say goodbye, you say “Hej hej”, or “Hi Hi”.  I can say thank you in Danish as well (“Tak”) and that is the extent of my Danish.  I find myself being able to read and understand more Danish than when it is spoken to me.  Words look very different written compared to when someone speaks them.  The grocery store ads have been the most helpful to me.  It’s nice to have a picture and a word next to it to help you learn Danish.  Slowly but surely, a step at a time….

Life is starting to become a routine here.  It feels a bit like home.  Soon I hope to find a few friends to make it a little more fun.  We watch the ships come and go and we see the cruise ship come and leave each day at the same time.  There is a cruise ship that goes to Oslo, Norway and back every day.  We hope to take it one day to go visit a friend.  It leaves in the evening and comes back in the morning. 

Hopefully you are all able to following my meandering tales of life here.  If not, please let me know!  I would love to hear back from you if you have questions or comments about anything. 

Funny Things

I found some funny words and phrases that have totally different meanings in Danish and English.  I will continue to add more to this post as I find them, here's just a few to start with.

Slutspurt means big sale, kind of like a big blowout sale.  You see this in HUGE letters in store windows...still makes me chuckle :)

Pick up your poo!!

Cowboy and Indian Marshmallows....'Nuff Said!

Peanut butter in Denmark is a bit different but it's really good.  This one amuses me because of the name as well as the American football players on the label :)

Yes!!  This one makes me giggle every time!  It means "in service" and this one is by an elevator.  The other button brings the elevator to you.