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:)