Out and About II

It has been a busy few weeks. Anya's weekly routine, along with any other appointments, includes "baby singing" and mothers' group meetings. Baby singing is held at our local church and is led by a violist from the national symphony who happens to be from Wisconsin, though she has lived her for 30+ years (I guess she likes it). The class is all in Danish and includes 10 children and lots of fun activities accompanied by singing or viola. The mothers' group is the second in which Alexa has participated. The first dissolved after several mothers moved away. Being English-speaking groups, the mothers are all from somewhere else and move on for various (generally work-related) reasons.

Late September saw our first dinner out with Anya staying with a babysitter. We were invited to join some people from work for a dinner at a nice restaurant north of Copenhagen. We dropped Anya off with the babysitter (at a friend's/coworker's house) and we were off for a nice night with adults. We missed Anya, of course, but she slept peacefully and was happy to see us when we picked her up. This was followed the next day by a "team-building" event that Andy had at work. It involved sailing out of the Copenhagen harbor and back (about 4 hours total) followed by dinner at another fancy restaurant, this one run by a famous (in Denmark) chef named Bo Bech. The restaurant won a Michelin Star and featured all kinds of interesting creations on the menu, the highlight being deep-frozen almond milk, cooled in liquid nitrogen, whichs sublimated immediately in our mouths. The dishes were interesting for their creativity, but also for the absurdly small portions.

The last week of September took me on a field trip to northern Spain. There was beautiful countryside, good food, nice people, and of course - rocks. This picture may appear to be from a fancy hotel bathroom, but it was part of a new ampitheatre carved out of a mountainside where there used to be a quarry. The rocks reflect several episodes of alteration which give the interesting patterns. Earlier in the week, we were in the Sierra del Cuerra montains from which we could see the Atlantic coast when the clouds lifted. Although it was fun, it was difficult to be away from Alexa and Anya. I'm glad I don't have to travel more than I do.

In the past weeks we began working our way through Matador. This a famous (again, in Denmark) Danish television series. It has nothing to do with Spain or bullfighting, Matador translates as "kingpin" or "Monopoly" (according to my handy Dansk-Engelsk dictionary). It is 24 episodes set in the years 1929-1947, of which we have the first eight. We're already hooked, and fortunately the DVD's have English subtitles, though we could get by with the danish subtitles (for the hearing impaired) as we sometimes do.

On a final note, I include a picture of our orchid which unlike other plants we have had in the past, thrives on benign neglect.

"Vores vaskemaskin er gået i stykker"

The last weeks have us back in the routine after our vacation. Anya has started a baby singing class that meets on Fridays through November. She enjoys it very much. I ran in the DHL relay on September 4th. Teams of 5 run a total distance of 25km through a park near our apartment. This was my second time participating in the race which was followed by a good barbecue which negated any health benefits gained from running the 5km distance.

We spent the last week of August on Sjællands Odde, a cape located a 1½ hour drive NW of Copenhagen. We had some good weather, some bad. The area is very nice with water close by in all directions and beautiful farmland for long walks. Brombær were ripe for picking and the house we stayed in had all the comforts of home. Anya did not know that she was free to sleep late, since we were on vacation, but it was a nice change all the same.

The weather was beautiful this past weekend, making us feel a little guilty thinking of our friends in Houston who suffered through hurricane Ike. We're glad we weren't there, but we've been thinking of those who were. Fortunately it wasn't a worst case scenario. Saturday we took advantage of a large street "loppemarked" (flea market) nearby our apartment. We mostly purchased baby clothes and other accessories. There was a very good turnout due to the good weather and the number of sellers. Given the high prices here and the rate that Anya is growing, we'll be keeping our eyes open for others as a good way to keep her in clothes.

Today I got to practice the phrase :"Vores vaskemaskin er gået i stykker" which means our washing machine is broken (literally has gone to pieces). It has periodically (and with greater frequency) been failing to pump the water out after washing. For the unsuspecting victim, this condition can lead to a flood of water across the bathroom floor followed by a few choice expletives uttered when soaking up the consequences with any available towels. We put up with this for a while because we could see when it didn't drain then change the settings or run it through another cycle to get it to pump out. When that approach stopped working, the plumber came to look at it and called in a technician who "fixed" it in less than 15 minutes. It took three loads of laundry to learn it wasn't fixed. So, our patience is running out along with our previously large supply of Danish coins (thanks to the møntvask, i.e. coin wash laundry down the street). Along those lines, I direct you to this link provided by my dad. Here's hoping my next post will herald the arrival of our new washing machine...