Lille Jule Aften

Yesterday was Lille Jule Aften. We went to Connie and Daniel's place to eat, play games and sing. We had a great time!!! Here are some funny pictures:)







It began with æbleskiver and gløg *yum* We sung songs and then Peter played Julemanden and handed us gifts from under the tree:)











Here's a picture of Connie with the new cups that we gave her and Daniel. They really wanted tea cups without white inside of them (or coffee cups...which wasn't made clear at first....so we thought TEA cups....it's next to impossible to find tea cups without white....know where we found them? IKEA)








I was really excited cause I got GummiBoots!!! It can get quite wet and mucky here. And working with kids, we often go outside anyways. I just couldn't find boots that I liked (cause they can have CRAZY patterns here). But the ones that they got me are beautiful:)








Afterwards we spent time chatting, looking at what we got, drinking gløg. Here's a picture of Dave, Peter, and Mormor (with my hand in the bottom), comparing thumbs. Yes, cause that's what we do in this family...compare thumbs.





Then, of course, we ate a delicious Christmas dinner*yum yum* Here are Connie, Mormor, Peter, and Daniel at the table.










Finally, we played a raffle game where we role the dice and, if we role a six, we get a pick a gift from the pile on the table. When all of the gifts have been taken by those who roled six, a timer is put on for about 5-10min. During that time we take turns rolling the dice. If you role a six, you get to steal a gift from someone else. When the timer, what you have is what you get and you unwrap it. Of course, in the end, after we unwrapped the gifts, we traded:) I got the marcipan pig:):) I looooove marcipan.....so do Danes. They also love pigs. So for Christmas they have marcipan pigs.










Neways, I hope that your Christmases are filled with songs, laughter, friends, and family. We'll chat with you in the new year:)

Heather:)

Merry Christmas!!!

Several weeks ago, we were invited by our præst to a jule dinner at the church. She really tries hard to get us involved, or to introduce us to people, which we really appreciate:) Here are some photos from the dinner.






The first is of Pia, the præst, her husband Josef, and their daughter Elvira. This is the præst who got me my job at the daycare. Her daughter goes to the daycare also, so I see her almost every day. Here she is a little sheep in a short in promptu skit of the Christmas story. Elvira was very focused in this photo, looking for her mom.



They also had a clown, who was actually pretty good. And, of course, they had Santa. They did the whole, "He might be sick. He called and said he's got a cold." thing. And then, when he came, he gave candy to all of the kids. They got really hyper!!














Now, everyone complains that I don't put enough pictures up on the blog of us. Well, on this evening, we thought, "we're dressed up nice. Why not take a nice picture and send it to people!" Well, since none of you can attest to receiving pictures of us in the mail, you'll see NOW why that is:

First Dave sat down on the couch to see if that was a good place for the photo. But he didn't smile, so we tried agian.



Then we switched places and added a light. He got me while I cleaned my glasses.





So here we are together, with the candles lit...but look at those shadows! That won't do...



David tried to change the lighting and we tried again....



and again.....












and again.....*yawn*


And finally...yet it seemed too dark....so we quit.











Well, in the end, I thought THIS was the best picture:)









Luv ya all,
Heather:)

Ah, little Christmas elves...

Merry Christmas everyone!!!! I've decided to post up one of my favourite Jule songs that the kids sing every day. It's probably the most popular kids christmas song here. What I like is there is no Santa to be found in this song:) Santa comes on the 24th, of course, but nisse seem to dominate the rest of the season. Here it is, in Danish and English:

På Loftet Sidder Nissen
(In The Attic Sits The Nisse)



På loftet sidder nissen med sin julegrød,
(In the attic sits the nisse with his Christmas pudding)
sin julegrød, så god og sød,
(his Christmas pudding, so good and sweet,)
han nikker, og han spiser, og han er så glad
(he hods, and he eats, and he is so glad)
for julegrød er hans bedste mad.
(for Christmas pudding is his favourite food.)


Men rundt omkring står alle de små rotter,
(But all the little rats stand around,)
og de skotter, og de skotter:
(and they peak, and they peak:)
"Vi vil så gerne ha' lidt julegodter,"
("We want to have some Christmas goodies,")
og de danser, danser rundt i ring.
(And they are dancing, dancing around in a ring.)



Men nissefar han truer med sin store ske:
(But Nissefar, he threatens with his big spoon:)
"Vil I nu se at kom' af sted,
("Will you go away now,)
for jeg vil ha' min julegrød i ro og fred,
(for I want to have my Christmas pudding in peace and quiet,)
og ingen, ingen vil jeg dele med."
(And none, none will I share.")
Men rotterne de hopper, og de danser,
(But the rats, they are hopping, and they are dancing,)
og de svinser, og de svanser,
(and they are swinging, and they are swinging,)
de kikker efter grøden, og de standser,
(they are peeking after the pudding, and they are swinging,)
og de står om nissen tæt i ring.
(and they stand around the nisse close in a ring.)




Men nissefar han er en lille hidsigprop,
(But Nissefar, he is a little hot-headed,)
og med sin krop han gør et hop:
(and with his body he does a hop:)
"Jeg henter katten, hvis I ikke holder op,
("I'll fetch the cat, if you don't stop,)
når katten kommer, skal det nok bli' stop."
(when the cat comes, it will certainly become stopped.")
Så bliver alle rotterne så bange,
(Then all of the rats become so afraid,)
åh, så bange, åh, så bange,
(Oh, so scared, oh, so afraid,)
de vender sig og danser et par gange,
(they turn and dance a couple of times,)
og en, to, tre, så er de væk!
(and one, two, three, then are they gone!)

Cute eh?

David is currently making æbleskiver and handing them out to our neighbours. I didn't know that that was his plan, but now that I've found out, I better go help him out. They are so surprised:) Isn't David so sweet?

Merry Christmas!!

Heather and David:)

Julefest at work

Yesterday we celebrated Jule with the children and their parents. We wore nissehuer (santa hats), we played christmas music, ate æbleskiver and småkager (christmas cookies, which were made by the kids), and in the end we danced around the christmas tree and sang songs together in the warm glow of the christmas tree lights.

My story begins and ends before the celebrations. We had eaten our freshly made, warm lunch. We have a køkkendame (a cooking lady) come in and make warm food every day for this season. Normally the children bring lunches with them from home. The lunch, yesterday, was so tastey and just like the food that Grandma (my mom's mom) used to make for Christmas or Thanksgiving. The smell and taste of the food brought back memories from long ago of eating at Grandma and Grandpa's house in the winter: Grandpa with his dentures popping out to gross us out, Grandma with her apron on, Jonathan and I running upstairs to pull the games (pick-up-stix, Mother Maid, Chinese checkers) out of the attic, the warmth of the wood stove in the kitchen. As I began to clean up after the children and put the dishes in the vaskemaskine, I was smacked in the face with homesickness. I missed Grandma and Mom. It amazes me how homesickness can drop like a bomb out of nowhere! Well, I held back the tears and thought about the food. It had been beef. It is really hard to get beef here that is affordable (this meat had been organic and for 28children) and cookable. I couldn't believe how tender this meat was! I wanted to ask the køkkendame what kind of cut it was so I could buy some and make some for David.

I saw her down the hall getting ready to leave (putting her shoes on). I ran down the hall to her and said, "The food today was amazing! Just like my Grandma's back in Canada! What kind of meat did you use? What kind of cut?" She smiled at me but looked a little bewildered. "I was tastey eh?" she said. She started to say something else, but then my colleague, Lone, came running down the hall after me, "Heather!" she said, "That's not the køkkendame! That's Carla's mom!"

I went a little red in the face.

"OH," I said, "You look so much like our køkkendame! I didn't realize! I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry about it." she said. "I know a lot about food anyways. If you ever have questions, just ask!"

I sped back to finish cleaning, a little humbled that I couldn't tell the difference between a parent and the køkkendame.

Here's the kicker. Carla had become sick that day. Carla's mom had, in fact, just arrived to pick up her sick little girl. She was probably a little worried, wondering how her daughter was doing and what was wrong with her. Then I came running down the hall a little teary eyed, wearing my nissehue, to say quite quickly in stuttered Danish, "The food today was delicious. Just like my Grandma's back in Canada! What kind of cut was it?" ...the poor woman!

Well, at least it made for a good story at work today. We laughed...together... over my little mistake:)

Julehygge

The word for Christmas in Danish is Jul (pronounced 'yool'). To "Julehygge" is to spend time together with friends, family, coworkers, etc, during the season: eating foods spiced with christmas spices, drinking gløg and other Christmas drinks, singing together, lighting candles together, going to church for advent (which we have yet to do). As December came, David and I began to decorate our apartment and prepare to julehygge with our friends, family and colleagues.

Decorations have gone up all around the city. Here are some from the windows of stores on Strøget.













Recently they also had an international festival on Strøget. Here is an English confectionry (look at all that candy!!! My teeth starting aching at the smell of the place!) and a South African stand with Beef, Venison, Ostrich, Bison, and Wild Boar burgers. David had the wild boar. It was really neat to be at an international festival. We miss having variety. "Ethnic" food here is shawarmas and pizza. Yep, we got shawarmas, pizza, or falafals on most corners. It was actually mostly french, british, italian, icelandic, and south african.










On Friday I went to a Christmas dinner at my colleagues apartment. Almost all of us from work were there and we had a great time! We ate amazing food and I made mom's apple crisp for dessert. I didn't realize that the dessert that I made WAS dessert. There was no other dessert. They loved it!!! I presented it with Canadian flags:) After eating, we also played a gift game. We had all brought a small wrapped gift (work $5). There was one dice, which each person rolls, one after another. If you role a 6, you get to pick a gift from the table. After all of the gifts are picked, then the game changes. The timer is set for 5 or 10min. Each person roles, one after another. If you role a 1, you pick someone else's gift to give to another person. If you role a 6, you get to steal someone else's gift for yourself. After the time is up, you unwrap. After playing the game, I got a little stuffed frog:) This game seems to be very common amidst Danes.














Yesterday, our friends, Kasper and Camille, came to visit. Here's a picture to prove that we do indeed have Danish friends:) We made some traditional Danish food for them cause they'd been in Argentina for a month eating nothing but steak and veggies (which, of course, being in Denmark and having no good steaks around, we were very jealous of). We had a great time catching up and seeing pictures of Argentina.























Finally, I wanted to put up a cute (tho a little fuzzy) picture of Lærke (the baby) and Line. I made the hat that Lærke is wearing. She is such an adorable and sweet little baby:) I also made some little booties for her.






Neways, I gotta get ready for bed. It's been a relaxing weekend, but it's time to prepare for a week of work. OH, I didn't tell you. This month, at work, we have food catered. Every day we get warm food for the kids. It's so delicious every day *yum* I can't wait to see what we'll have this week:)

Heather:)

It's SNOWING!!!

Well, I never thought I'd see it here, cause people tell me it's so awful in the winter and there's never any snow. On friday, we had our first snowfall of the year! Ok, it was actually like pellets...not flakes. But alas, it fell. At Dave's work, kids ran around at recess with arms raised towards the sky yelling, "I LOVE SNOWWWWW!". Of course, many of these children are from places like India, South Africa, where snow is far more rare than here in Denmark. It was their first time seeing it.

On Sunday, we went for a walk to Valbyparken. Here's a picture of the pond frozen over. And here's a picture of David tempting fate: "Will the ice break?"











It was quite funny to see all the children with sleds walking up and sledding down the mucky hills (we had had not even an inch of snow yet!). But they were so happy to see the snow. It did, as it always does, make the city a little brighter and cleaner. We had snow for the whole weekend.

I can't fully express how glad I was to see the white stuff falling. It makes coldness cozy and bearable. Argue with me if you like, but my opinion won't change. Of course, I don't have to ride a bike in it!

:)

Solen skinner!

We've been pleasantly busy over the past few weeks. David is going through the learning curve for being a teacher. It's been quite the challenge for him, but also a lot of fun! He spends a lot of time in the evenings working on his lesson plans, marking papers, etc. I'm not sure if I mentioned, that he was hired because the previous teacher was fired. David found out that the man was fired because he didn't have the children up to par. In fact, it turns out that over a period of 2 months, he only brought the children through 6 pages of math. David brought them through three pages in one class. Think about it.... David really likes the kids and sees a lot of potential in them. He's constantly thinking about how to make the information interesting. At the least, he cracks some of his jokes which makes them role their eyes *hehe* Needless to say, he's become one of their favourite teachers.

We've been able to change our Danish classes so that we now have them on the same night. We're in different classes at different times, but at least we can see each other Tues and Thurs nights.

Here are a few miscellaneous pictures that I wanted to put up. The first is a picture of the sun at high noon. Solen skinner (the sun is shining) but it is really low for high noon. Being further north here, the sun does not climb up into the sky. It kind of creeps across instead. It is nighttime now by 4pm. This sun is not actually as big as it looks, but the colour, the brightness, the whiteness of the sun is indeed how it appears! The shadows are as if one was standing in front of a spotlight or car lights or something.....very white. It's really neat!




You gotta click on this next one and make it big. It's the little mermaid....ok, I kid you. This is a modern recreation of the mermaid. I think she's melting...or something. Perhaps the pressure of being "under the sea" was too much for her:)





Finally, a picture of a package of sticky putty...you know, the stuff used to put pictures on walls? It's often blue. This stuff is white. In "Tiger", our cheap-everything-is-made-in-china store, it's called Elefantsnot:) So, now I use elephant snot to put pictures on the wall *teehee*





Well, Christmas is coming. Dave wanted me to say that he will have 3 weeks off from the 22nd of Dec to the 11th of Jan. If ANYONE is interested in coming, you'd be welcome. We have room in our place for 2 adults (if you're willing to sleep in the same bed as whomever you come with). I'm free from the 22nd of Dec to the 5th of Jan, also.

Heather:)

Backbone

We've decided to move into a place that has a better social system than Canada, which we appreciate. Yet it's a also a country that does not welcome newcomers. Denmark is known politically and commonly as being a closed country. It is, in fact, the most closed country in all of europe to immigrants. I'm not an immigrant right now. That is yet to be seen. But having an english accent is enough to deter many people from welcoming me into their circles. I received many replies to my applications which stated that I could not work with them because I was not fluent. I work now in a Danish daycare and it is not simply because I knew a women who's daughter attends the daycare. It is also because my coworkers are fantastically patient! I am so grateful to their willingness to have me a part of their team!

The two biggest challenges that we've faced have been internal struggles that we've had to overcome. We've thought many times that we are in the same situation as when we were in Denmark. But that is no longer the case. In Canada, we depended heavily on our families (WE LOVE YOU!!!). I know that that's fine in many places, but, my god, we're heading towards 30yrs old and Dave was working under the table for his parents and I wasn't getting any work! Even if we weren't planning to move here, we probably still would be living with Mom (which was fun, it's true:). My question, after a while, became: "When are we going to grow up?"

Well, that's what we've been doing....growing our backbones. Here are two tough examples:

We were living out of the city, in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. We were living for free with a wonderful women in a big house filled with smoke. We were hunting for work but NOTHING had come through and we were becoming really desperate. Our moods were dropping day by day until Dave finally cracked. We bickered before he left to go to school. But he didn't go to school. Instead he went to the job centre and printed out resumes, which he took down to the tourist restauran district in the city. His plan was to go door to door to talk with the managers and see if he could find something. He stood on the corner that evening, peering at the people coming and going from the first restaurant that he planned to approach. He thought, "What the hell am I doing here?" He turned tail and ran into the closest dark corner that he could find, and he wept. He pulled out the mobile and began texting a message to me that went something like this: Heather, I tried, but I can't do it. We're going to have to go back because I faile-. Suddenly the phone shut down. When he saw the phone had stopped, he turned on his heels and walked into the restaurant and asked to talk to the manager. That was his first "interview" in Danish.

A month passed and we had found our own place to live, but we still had no work. Dave was going to another inverview. I had been applying online to many daycares, but to no avail. I realized that if I was going to find work, I had to take my resume to daycares, begining in our area and moving out from there. I was nervous but trying to get ready. David was ready and was about to head out the door. I clung to him and cried. I didn't want him to go. I didn't want to be alone. I did NOT want to print out my resume and head to those daycares. We prayed together and then Dave left to do what he had to do. It took me 3 more hours to build up my courage to walk out the door. But I did. I visited 2 daycares that day.

Well, most of you know by now that we both have work in excellent places. I'm in a danish daycare, improving my Danish day by day. David is now a physics, math, and IT teacher at the international school. Be both have fixed hours and in addition we do substitute work. As much as we miss everyone in Canada, we know that this decision was best for us. We're standing on our own and making it work. David is a teacher, which he would never be in Canada (unless he decided years down the road that he wanted to be) and I'm getting an opportunity to do the work that I love so dearly in a new country with different standards and methods.

Here is a word of advice to anyone who may be interested in working here for a while. Meet people who work here. Everyone here says that you just apply online or walk in to apply, but we've learned that it is mostly through networking that work is found.

Growing stronger,
Heather:)

Tivoli at Halloween

This past weekend, Dave and I headed downtown to Tivoli to see their halloween decorations. It was so pretty! Last week was "Efterår's Ferie" (fall break) for students, so Tivoli was packed! It was the last day, (they only have the decorations for fall break) so whenever people left, they could take a pumpkin. So we've got two huge pumpkins that we're gonna cook with soon *yum*



You can see how pretty the colours are right now with the leaves changing. This is a pretty picture of a restaurant in Tivoli. And us, with a dragon. They have a huge section designed from Asian influence.


















They had soooo many pumpkins everywhere in Tivoli. Here are just some of the cool decorations they had:) I apologize for the poor stuffed deer. Danes are very much against our seal hunting (for good reason) but they've got real fur stores everywhere! This was a booth with beautiful wool sweaters and hats, and fur throws for couches or floors (sheep, rabbit, cow, etc). I realized that if I had this deer on my wall, I'd be petting it and apologizing to it for years to come.











There is a pirate ship that is a restaurant. I saw it and said, "That's the coolest thing EVER so we gotta eat there." And we did. Great story eh? Dave's a pirate and I'm the ghost of the ship. OH, and here's a picture of the captain. (Needless to say, this is a family friendly restaurant. They have a box of pirate clothes for kids to wear. A little 2yr old kid dumped it all over the floor. THAT was pretty funny!)
















Next time, I'll post a little more about how we're actually doing. With so many pictures, it makes it look like all is dandy...but not so. More to come...