Family, tailspin and a musical city

Meeting my visiting family on Sunday was such a wonderful experience. I meet Inge and John, the parents (the girls are 24,23, 21&18 and mostly out of the house) and Lisa, the 18year old, (but she was only home for about 15 minutes). Inge's niece Astrid picked me up outside my apartment at 845am and gave me a lift out to Birkerod where the Harris's (my visiting family) live.

I live in Norrebro ( a village in the city of Copenhagen) down in the lower right corner of the map, and their town is Brikerod, a little right and north of the center of the picture.

The car ride was about 25 minutes and she was a great person to talk to. She has lived many different places around the world including the states for a few years and Africa for three. Her three year old daughter spend the night at Inge and Johns the night before and her 3 month old son was in the car with us. Interesting fact: maternity leave is for a whole year over here!!! Inge and John had put together a lovely breakfast for us outside on their back patio.

Bread and jam and cheese and juice and yogurt and eggs and berries.

Simple food but beautiful and a great meal.

Funny culture shock moment: they eat SOFT boiled eggs here. not hard boiled.

Luckily I didn't try to break the shell on the table! I was trying to open it in my hand and it pretty much came apart and yoke went all over my hand and plate. it was really unexpected  but funny. as soon as it happened Inge said, "Oh! you thought it was hard boiled! I forgot to tell you, we only eat soft boiled eggs here." With the help of a towel the mess was an easy clean up. I find it funny little things that seem so a like  between here and home (like boiled eggs) can become culture lessons over here.

Since they do not know very much about California, they really enjoyed the book of postcards and pictures my family and I put together while I was still at home. So we spent most of breakfast trading stories and information about our homes. The walk we went on after lunch was exactly what I would have imagined the Danish countryside to look like. Green, meadows, lakes, big trees, little lodges, and bike paths... i cant wait to go back there.

On the walk, we passed a tree full of baby pacifiers tied up in the branches. Apparently, when the kids grow out of their pacifiers they tie them up and leave them in the trees so they don't go back to them again.

 

Inge drove me back into town a little after noon. Going to their house made me realize how different a place feels when it is a home verses just a house or an apartment where people live. Walking in, I realized that I hadn't really felt AT HOME since I came to Copenhagen. (Which, hey I haven't even been here two weeks of course it doesn't feel like home yet) But it was amazing that I could just walk in their front door and feel the difference. I fell like that speaks highly of the kind of family that has lived there  and I'm very excited to get to know them better this years :)

After burying  my head in books for a few hours i had had ENOUGH and really needed to get out. So Margaret, Claire and I went exploring around our neighborhood.

We found a swing by the back corner of our building.

and a candy store!

that had chocolate frogs...

and skull candy that made me think of KAYLA :)

The cemetery is supposedly a popular place to walk and spend time in, so we figured we'd check it out.

I've never seen a cemetery like this before. It was HUGE! The plots went from extravagant to nice and simple but what really made it cool were all the plants and trees.

some were giant!

we found Hans Christian Anderson's grave

and some great bumper stickers on the walk back home

My Monday ended up being a tailspin of lots of things going wrong one right after the other after the other.....

in a nutshell-  "it was a terrible horrible no good very bad day".

By the time I got home around 530 the last thing I wanted to do was go the the Cafe night with my Language class that started at 7.  But at 630 I founf myself on the bus off to search fo rthis random cafe my teacher had chosen for us.

The food was BEAUTIFUL and the place was darling but par to course for the day, I forgot my camera. yep. so sadly no pictures of that. Just know that a club sandwhich in the Copenhagen is SO MUCH BETTER than a club sandwhich from California. At least in my experience. :) Everthing is super fresh, the chicken is a full chicken breast ,and they use this special sweet mayo/mustard mix that I still don't fully know what it is but I'm coming to love it!

Sooooo I'd meant to include my adventures from today.....but that's gona have to wait til another day, 

Søde drømme!

(sweet dreams)

:)