Full Skies & Smørrebrød

Home Sweet Home. As soon as I got word that the airports were opening up again I took an early morning train to Nice to try to get on stand-by. The gods were smiling on me when an hour before the flight, they issued me a boarding pass. It is really nice to be home. Not to say that my trip was not SUPER FANTASTIC! Southern France is a dream. But when earlier in the week people began to panic about the volcano eruption and lack of mobility around the continent, the mood was quite somber. I was so lucky to be living with the most wonderful host mother who was kind, helpful, comforting and truly a friend. She took me in as her own. She drove me to magical places like Eze and St. Paul to keep my mind off the situation. She spoiled me rotten with her fabulous cooking (crepes, calamari, etc.) and taught me so much about her relaxed approach to life.

Highlights? Being by the ocean, hearing the signing accent of souther french people saying "Au revoir" and living out my dream of studying French in France.

Cannes and Nice are wonderful cities full of life, culture and beauty. But the true gems are the little towns that are scattered on the site of mountains. St. Paul is an artists paradise. Dozens of art galleries filled with the most amazing work - all very accessible to us common people.

Eze is a medieval town on the peak of a mountain. The views from up top are incredible!

On the flight home yesterday I noticed a heck of a lot of air traffic. It seems that the airlines are working double time to get everyone home as quickly as possible. My hats are off to all the ground people working double time to get stranded passengers on flights - the ladies I dealt with at the airport in Nice were working as a team, keeping long lists of people and working creatively to find a solution for everyone. All while providing service with a smile.

On the lunch menu today: smørrebrød and danish pastries. Being in Denmark never felt so good.

Trains, planes & automobiles...

Another week in Antibes! Never in my life have I been around such displacement. It's crazy to hear how many people are stranded. Spend the afternoon running around getting things sorted for myself. The French trains are starting to run (thank goodness!) so I now have a back up plan to get home by the weekend if the airports are not open yet. I have no choice but to sign up for another week of class to stay busy and profiter un petit peu.

Will try to get some more pics up later in the week.

Pray for strong winds to get these ashes to go away!!!

What a view!

Just some snippets of my first few days here... I called Chris yesterday to confirm my return to this beautiful part of France. Sooner rather than later! Aside from the challenging never ending strikes of train personnel and the lack of 'accueil' of the tourism office (when you walk in they look at you like you are disturbing their well being!) This place is magnificent. Yesterday, I went to Cannes - the energy that city brews is incredible. It may be by the large amount of wealth and wanna-be's that frequent the area but it still did not deter me from loving it. Ici on trouve vraiment la joie de vivre!

La belle ville d'Antibes

It is now my fourth day in France and the French is flowing. They say you loose 20% of the language for each year that you don't use it... that means that since I graduated in 2002 my french technically should have disappeared! Glad to report it has not. Antibes is spectacular... the views of the ocean are amazing, the old city centre full of history, the Picasso museum outstanding and it goes on and on. Funny to notice the differences between Denmark and the south of France. For example, it is next to impossible to ride a bike in Antibes, cars drive way too fast for my comfort and the sidewalks are about two feet wide.... they also stop suddenly. I rented a bike for a few days but basically carried it around with me all day so it proved to be quite inefficient... à pied it will be.

Stay tunned for photos to come...

APRIL 8th - not today's date, but Chris' Birthday!!!

We had a very relaxing and long Easter weekend. Almost a little too long... everything was closed for many days but we managed to keep entertained with the simple things... nice bike rides, cooking nice meals, having the company of new friends. I think we clocked at least 8 hours of cooking time one day... that's a lot of time in our cozy little kitchen. Chris wanted to make his own easter chocolates this year, like in true Danish fashion:

The weather is now beginning to change... although we get teased when the sun is out because it is comfortable & warm but as soon as the sun sets it feels like winter again. I have also decided to retire my monthly train pass in hopes for getting in shape for the summer. It's only a 10 km bike ride into the city... EACH WAY! And it's only been a few days since I started this little test and I am utterly wiped out after all the exercise.

We celebrated Chris' birthday yesterday by doing what he does best... drinking beer! Before hand we went to a really cozy café where they serve a traditional Nordisk brunch. Had some nice Icelandic cuisine and enjoyed sitting in a bastion from the 1700's.

Laugh. Dance. Learn Danish.

After much studying, I have officially passed Module 2 at Danish school. I can't confirm if I feel more confident trying to communicate with the Danes, I do however feel less lost when I go about town, especially when I am eavesdropping on conversations. I have actively been playing a little game: while sitting on the train I try to follow the conversations that are happening around me. I love hearing how people express themselves. "Hvad siger du?"(literally 'what are you saying?') seems to be a popular sentence... when I asked a Dane about this he said it's simply because Danes don't even understand each other! It seems to be an ongoing joke that even locals experience some trouble with communication. From what I hear this is not only in speech, but in writing as well. That's why my school has a course called "Danish for Danes".

I am going to miss my current teacher, Trille. I have decided to switch schools simply for logistical purposes - I can ride my bike to this new school! Thank you Trille, for being so fabulously entertaining for the last few months!! Here we are:

If I had 5 million kroner....

What I love most about my morning power walks is looking at all the homes in the neighbourhood. They are all so unique and different, it's also funny because the roads are not at all in a grid so I sometimes end up going in circles! The sun has been shining and it brings a great amount of energy - the sun comes up really early... and soon it will be coming up at 4am!! Long days indeed - in a good way, of course. It's really peaceful living outside of the city, I was reminded of the countryside the other day when I jogged past:

With animals come the smells... I was bike riding the other day and I literally had to hold my breath because of the horse manure! There is a horse race track up the road which should prove to be an interesting summer evening activity! Here are a few more:

Ordrupvej

In response to a few requests... our flat in Denmark.

Fried eel & Veggies

Over the last few months I've often looked out the window and say out loud... "Crap, it's snowing again!". It usually starts snowing just an hour or two before I have to go out - which makes my bike ride to the train station a little tricky. The best part is that it accumulates so freaking quickly! Chris is a trooper - through wind and snow he still commits to his daily bike ride to work. Winter has taken a toll on our poor bikes - everyone should also take note that gears don't change easily (or in my case, at all) when the temperature falls below minus O. Winter has also taken a toll on me. I am ready for some sunshine - I am ready to rise before 8am (in the summer the sun will rise at 4am) and ready to put our balconies to good use and have our meals out there. We went to Ikea yesterday to start picking out our patio furniture!

I am also ready to start speaking Danish. I need to find more opportunities to practice what I am studying... hopefully this practice will come as part of a job. The one language that is coming in handy is Spanish. I've begun teaching private lessons and I love it. It's a great challenge for me; talk about dusting off that good old university degree! I may pursue this new little hobby a bit further, I'm having way too much fun correcting homework and coming up with lesson plans.

At the grocery store the other day, I saw a man buy what looked like a thick black rope. I investigated a little further and confirmed that fried eel is a very popular dish in some parts of Denmark. Yummy?

The one thing we often laugh about is the amount of packaging that we end up with in the kitchen after cooking. It's really because a lot of the produce is sold like this:

I think I prefer Norweigan

It's been four months since I started going to Danish classes - at first the progress was amazing! Every week I'd pick up a few new sentences and often impress Chris with all my new vocabulary... Now I've hit a plateau, and I have realized just how hard this language really is - it's not complicated in terms of grammar but it has no logic or real structure. My Ellen Degeneres look-a-like teacher is great, she tries to correct us as much as possible, but she can only do so much. On another note, the one thing that still gets me here is the TV schedule. Programing begins here at any time - Ellen is on at 12:15, David Letterman is on at 8:45 my new favourite Canadian show Departures is on at 11:50. It's so funny to see the random programing but the best thing is that commercials are removed from the shows so there are no interruptions! There are German channels, Finnish Channels but my favorite is Norweigan! It's a really close language to Danish except it's much easier to understand! Okay, enough ranting... I am totally procrastinating studying for my test tomorrow....