Richelle and I got back last night from my niece and her family's home. Those kids are vastly entertaining!
I read in "Bells on Their Toes" (sequel to "Cheaper by the Dozen") how a person cannot stay with a large family for very long without having something snap unless they themselves are from a large family or they have grown with one. I wouldn't say that five children is a large family, really, but I can see the truth in that statement.
I'm glad I have eleven siblings and four children. If I hadn't, the several conversations at mealtimes (each usually conducted at a higher decibel level than the conversation next-door, so to speak) might have gotten to me. Or dealing with one child crying because he thumped his head following older brother under the bed when another child suddenly becomes lost and frightened under the same bed - having followed older brother...
It was an enjoyable time. Precious snapshots:
~ The three-year-old emphatically declaring she "didn't like spinach!"
"You don't?" her father asked mildly.
"No. I don't like spinach."
"How about trying just a little?" her dad suggested, "Okay?"
"Okay." she agreed happily.
She asked for seconds, then thirds, and became heartbroken when her mom took the last of it.
~ I didn't know it at the time, but the seven-year-old son has some trouble reading. He read the word 'Luke' as 'luck' and I gave a quick lesson on how the 'e' can reach over one letter and thump the vowel on the head to make it say its long name but it can't reach over two letters. A couple of days later, he thanked me for the lesson, saying it helped his reading a lot.
~ The nine-year-old rolling her eyes when I tried to sweet-talk her into setting the table early by calling her "my favorite oldest niece there". She set the table with a smile - seeing through my ploy.
~ The 22-month-old flomping himself to the floor from ill-use and mis-treatment because I dared to offer him a piece of my (large) cookie instead giving him one of his own....but chirking right up when offered half a cookie from the bag.
~ The newborn being her sweet and adorable baby girl self.
Ahh...memories.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Children Are Adorable
I have the privilege this week of spending a few days at the home of my niece and her family to help out after the birth of their fifth child. It's been ten years since I had a toddler and I'd forgotten how entertaining they are.
This morning, the almost-two-year-old toddled over to where I was standing and took my hand in his. As I looked down to see what he wanted, he circled around until he had his mouth against my palm. Then he coughed. After which he nonchalantly walked away.
Later this afternoon, I was playing a 22-month-old version of "pillow fight" with him; he'd bring me the soft couch pillow and back away about six feet, I'd toss the pillow into his tummy, he'd pick it up, and it'd start all over. Well, I got distracted once and caught him off-balance, knocking him over and sending his head against the wall with a solid "thud". I leaped off the couch with comfort in mind but when I picked him up...he giggled.
Another time, the three-and-a-half-year-old came running to her mom in tears and highly indignant because her seven-year-old brother had pushed her. My niece asked several reasons why he might have pushed her but all were hotly denied. She finally asked, "Why would he do that?"
"Because I shut the door on his head," was the honest answer.
This same inquisitive girl "helped" me make supper.
"You are making supper today?" she asked.
"Yep," I answered.
"Why are you making supper?"
"Because your mom and dad are busy."
Her head jerked up, eyes wide, "They are?"
This morning, the almost-two-year-old toddled over to where I was standing and took my hand in his. As I looked down to see what he wanted, he circled around until he had his mouth against my palm. Then he coughed. After which he nonchalantly walked away.
Later this afternoon, I was playing a 22-month-old version of "pillow fight" with him; he'd bring me the soft couch pillow and back away about six feet, I'd toss the pillow into his tummy, he'd pick it up, and it'd start all over. Well, I got distracted once and caught him off-balance, knocking him over and sending his head against the wall with a solid "thud". I leaped off the couch with comfort in mind but when I picked him up...he giggled.
Another time, the three-and-a-half-year-old came running to her mom in tears and highly indignant because her seven-year-old brother had pushed her. My niece asked several reasons why he might have pushed her but all were hotly denied. She finally asked, "Why would he do that?"
"Because I shut the door on his head," was the honest answer.
This same inquisitive girl "helped" me make supper.
"You are making supper today?" she asked.
"Yep," I answered.
"Why are you making supper?"
"Because your mom and dad are busy."
Her head jerked up, eyes wide, "They are?"
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
New Refrigerator
One thing led to another and the result is that we have a brand-new side-by-side refrigerator. This is the second new fridge of our marriage, the previous one having been purchased in early 1984. It was rated pretty high on the efficiency scale but with the passing of twenty-five years, that efficiency dropped from "wonderful" to "mediocre" all the way down to "deplorable".
Mike, bless his sweet heart, plumbed it for the water dispenser and ice-maker features even though he hates plumbing. I've learned to remove the children from the room so their hearing isn't damaged from the muttering that rumbles from him while he's working. It took four bath towels, two hand towels and a washcloth, but he successfully plumbed the fridge. He's now like a child on Christmas morning in regards to the ice dispenser.
It was plumbed and in place and we were adjusting the shelves when we hit a snag. The factory puts in little clips to keep the shelves from coming loose during shipping and I couldn't figure out how to remove them. Mike asked to give it a try so I moved out of the way. He fiddled with them for a minute, mentioned that he needed a pair of pliers, and stepped out to get them. As he stepped out, Richelle stepped in. She's accustomed to me asking for her little fingers or skinny arms to reach something or wiggle something loose.
"Richelle," Mike said irritably, reaching for the pliers, "if I can't get it," turning back to the fridge, "You can't get it!"
Pause
"How did you get it?"
Mike, bless his sweet heart, plumbed it for the water dispenser and ice-maker features even though he hates plumbing. I've learned to remove the children from the room so their hearing isn't damaged from the muttering that rumbles from him while he's working. It took four bath towels, two hand towels and a washcloth, but he successfully plumbed the fridge. He's now like a child on Christmas morning in regards to the ice dispenser.
It was plumbed and in place and we were adjusting the shelves when we hit a snag. The factory puts in little clips to keep the shelves from coming loose during shipping and I couldn't figure out how to remove them. Mike asked to give it a try so I moved out of the way. He fiddled with them for a minute, mentioned that he needed a pair of pliers, and stepped out to get them. As he stepped out, Richelle stepped in. She's accustomed to me asking for her little fingers or skinny arms to reach something or wiggle something loose.
"Richelle," Mike said irritably, reaching for the pliers, "if I can't get it," turning back to the fridge, "You can't get it!"
Pause
"How did you get it?"
Been a while...
November and December are the busiest months of the year for Scouting and Lego Robotics. For example, last week the Lego team met on Monday and Tuesday evenings and then competed most of Saturday; Thursday and Friday evening along with Sunday afternoon were spent doing Girl Scout things. When you toss in Sunday morning worship and Wednesday evening Bible study, you have one very full week!
My Girl Scout co-leader offered to go to the monthly leader's meeting last night that I usually attend. She's now my husband's second favorite person.
Richelle's Lego Robotics team didn't do as well this year as last year. They got high marks in the teamwork and project areas and moderate scores on the competition table but their robot design scored quite low. They used a basic robot design and modified it only slightly. The judges like to see personally designed robots because is shows ingenuity and a good grasp of mechanics.
All in all, they did about what I expected in the robot design area and competition table, a bit better than I expected in the project area, and a lot better in the teamwork area. I'm pleased with their performance and disappointed they aren't advancing to State Competition.
Okay, I'll be a little more truthful...I'm disappointed they aren't going to State Competition but I (and the team parents) are thrilled that the season is over! Had they gone to state, we'd have had six more weeks of meetings.
So I get my Tuesday evenings back; Thursday is the final event for GS for the year; 4-H meetings are two per month again until next September....
Dear Husband is on day shift for six months or so and is happy to be together in the evenings again.
My Girl Scout co-leader offered to go to the monthly leader's meeting last night that I usually attend. She's now my husband's second favorite person.
Richelle's Lego Robotics team didn't do as well this year as last year. They got high marks in the teamwork and project areas and moderate scores on the competition table but their robot design scored quite low. They used a basic robot design and modified it only slightly. The judges like to see personally designed robots because is shows ingenuity and a good grasp of mechanics.
All in all, they did about what I expected in the robot design area and competition table, a bit better than I expected in the project area, and a lot better in the teamwork area. I'm pleased with their performance and disappointed they aren't advancing to State Competition.
Okay, I'll be a little more truthful...I'm disappointed they aren't going to State Competition but I (and the team parents) are thrilled that the season is over! Had they gone to state, we'd have had six more weeks of meetings.
So I get my Tuesday evenings back; Thursday is the final event for GS for the year; 4-H meetings are two per month again until next September....
Dear Husband is on day shift for six months or so and is happy to be together in the evenings again.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Sweden
1-3 October 2009
~Thursday - Saturday~
First, I need to correct Patti's husband's name. His full name is Oddbjorn (Ode-byorn), a common Norwegian name but his nickname is Obbe (Oh-buh). He's a really neat guy and happily took us through the greenhouses of his family's business. He's half Norwegian, half Swedish, and all fun.
Second, I need to correct a description I made back when we were in Switzerland and I described Heidi as native American. I meant that Heidi was a native-born American, not that she was Native American.
Now, on to our adventures....
Rhonda and I stayed up fairly late Wednesday, working on emails and such, so we got up late on Thursday. Mom and Adri had called twice before we were even dressed to see what our plans were for the day.
Our plans were to go to the original part of Stockholm, and to check out the shopping. They have really nice dress boots in Scandinavia and we wanted to look in the stores.
Old town was amazing; narrow, winding street like all the other old towns -I saw a few here where only two people could walk side-by-side comfortably; cobblestoned streets; tall, towering buildings; lots of shops....much the same as any of the other cities yet somehow different.
It could have been the weather and the latitude; Stockholm is on the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. The morning was overcast and it sprinkled on us a little. We were smart -it started to sprinkle so we ducked into a handy shop and browsed around. When we came out, the rain had pretty much stopped. The chill wind was blowing, but at least the rain had let up. Mom and Rhonda huddled inside their coats and I even felt a little cool. We'd walk a little ways, step into a shop and browse around until we'd warmed up a little, then go on further. Eventually, the sun came out. As long as we were right in it, it felt warm-ish but the shade was cold and the wind was always blowing. The wind was the worst.
We were about to cross the street going out of the old town area when a motorcycle cop went by, lights flashing, no siren, and stopped at the intersection to our right. We crossed the street, saw/heard more motorcycles coming, and stopped to watch. The first cop waved to half a dozen others and they raced up to and past him. Behind them came a black, smallish but very nice car with a small, pale blue flag fluttering from the right front fender. it wasn't the Swedish flag and I didn't recognize it. There was a cop car next, another black car or two with tinted windows, and then a black stretch limo, also black with darkly tinted windows. A few more cop cars and a motorcycle or two and the entourage was past.
Did we see the royal family? Only the king and queen? The kids? Some visiting dignitary? We don't know. That was not the Swedish flag off the front of that car but they were headed to the castle just a few blocks further on. And the castle had the Swedish flag flying, indicating the king was in residence. This castle in Old Stockholm isn't where the king lives -that's in Drottninghom- but is where they hold receptions and receive visiting dignitaries.
When I asked Pattie about it later, she said to go ahead and tell everyone that we saw the royal family. "It could have been them," she said, "and no one would know the difference." So I saw the royal family entourage. Maybe.
After all that excitement, we walked to the shopping district. Yes there was a wide selection of boots....for a lot of money. Many of them are Italian and commanded a stiff price. The most expensive ones I saw were 1,999 SEK (Swedish Kroner) or about $285. The least expensive ones were 385 SEK or about $55 but they didn't feel like they were real leather.
We rested our weary feet at a coffee house with a cup of tea and a pastry and then caught the train back to Spånga (Spone-ga) and supper.
Obbe made supper. I don't know the name for what he made because they said they call them "hot sandwiches". Obbe made two kinds: mushroom and ham-n-pear. He started out with buttered slices of bread, added a slice of ham and a canned pear half, sprinkled a bit of cayenne pepper over it and topped it all with several slices of a mild cheese. Then he either baked it or broiled it (I didn't see and forgot to ask) until the cheese was melted and turned a golden brown.
The mushroom sandwiches took a little more preparation. He sautéed sliced fresh mushrooms in plenty of butter, salt and peppered them, and added flour and milk to make a white sauce. He spooned a good helping of that onto slices of buttered and mustard-ed bread and topped it all with thin-sliced bacon. Those also went into the oven until the bacon was done.
They were delicious! I especially like the mushroom variety. He said they were what his Swedish mother made when he was growing up and he came up with the recipe for the pear ones himself. You can't get any more authentically Swedish than that! We ended the meal with a Swedish tort.
It's a good thing we do all that walking and that I usually stand in the trams, buses, and metros.....
Mom and Adri were there for supper as well as a young couple with a small child and the conversation was lively and varied.
We sang a few hymns after supper and then Adri and Mom went back to Adri's place. We stayed up a while longer showing off pictures of our families and talking about them. Robert, 16, was fascinated with Cameron's Eagle project and asked a million questions about it and about Scouting in general. I happily answered them all.
I witnessed again the ease of children -or in this case young adults- slipping between two languages with no hesitation. In the Scandinavian countries, English is started in third or fourth grade and continues through high school. We had no problem button-holing someone on the streets and asking directions; they always spoke nearly perfect English.
I have cleared up two things that have bugged me for a few years:
1) "uff da" is not a swear word as someone tried to convince me. Our Swedish friends said it translates to something like 'oh, no', 'oh, wow', 'oops' or something like that. One of our ministers uttered it when we told him where we'd been in two and a half weeks.
2) "æbleskiver" is from Denmark, not Sweden, and is pronounced 'eh-bleh-skiv-egh' with a bit of a gargle for the "r" (remember the language lesson Vibeka gave us).
Friday, Patti took us to Drottningholm; the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish royal family. There was no fee to wander the estate but there were guards posted to keep the riff-raff out of the living area and we weren't able to go through the palace itself. I don't know if it's off limits period or that we just didn't try but Patti said that of her family, only Robert's been past the sentries and that was only because he was delivering plants.
The king is only a figure-head in Sweden. He has no say in the running of the country; his value is in public relations. He has vast holdings across the country and I got the impression that the bulk of his income comes from there. Patti also mentioned trust funds.
The palace wasn't elaborate with pinnacles, spires, and ginger-breading. Instead, it was built for northern climates and was more blocky and solid. There weren't a lot of flowers, either. Most of what we saw were in planters and along one long wall of the formal garden.
Just so I can feel famous...all of the flowering plants are purchased from Skalleberg Handelsträgågard, Obbe's family's company. How many people can say they know the people who supply the flowering plants to the Swedish royal family estates?
Obbe and Patti took us to a food court in a mall for supper. That sounds sort of odd but they were trying to give us as full a flavor of Sweden as they could and this food court is hugely popular with the Swedes in Stockholm. There was a vast selection of ethnic foods including Persian, Turkish, Thai, Swedish, American (I got tired of seeing Burger King and McDonalds all over Europe), Indian, and Mexican.
Our ministers in Sweden came to the house after we got back from supper. Eldon and Stephan had just gotten in from Finland and came by to visit with us for a small while. They'd been up since about 1:30am that morning to make the drive to catch the boat to Stockholm, and since we had to get up at 4am the next morning to catch our plane to Amsterdam, they didn't stay long and we went to bed shortly afterwards.
I wanted to get this finished and posted Friday night but decided to sleep instead. 4am comes mighty early!
It was -2°C at 4am Saturday morning in Stockholm. That's even cold for me! Patti apologized for not having the car warm for us. Rhonda had purchased a really nice pair of lined knit gloves at the mall the night before and was delighted to have warm fingers on the drive to the airport.
Patti hugged us goodbye at the front entrance and we walked for probably five minutes to get to the security gate. I had been randomly chosen for a quick pat-down in Portland when we left, and, after I set the alarm off in Stockholm that morning, was treated to another episode there. Note to self: Take off your watch, stupid!
I think they saw the watch and knew what set off the alarm, sot he pat-down was done pretty quickly. It didn't take too long to get to our gate and because we got to the airport only an hour before the scheduled take-off time, our wait at the gate wasn't very long. We didn't have to get there any earlier because we'd checked in online the night before and had our boarding passes in hand.
We were seated directly in front of a three-year-old girl and her mother and grandmother on the plane. This girl is evidently seldom made to do what she felt was uncomfortable. She objected to sitting in the seat with the seatbelt on and, when the stewardesses insisted she do so, screamed. The mom explained that the girl didn't like it and the stewardess told her, "You're the mom - tell her you don't care." She allowed the mom to buckle her in in such a way that the girl only fussed loudly.
That was bearable for take-off but the stewardess insisted the girl be properly buckled in for landing in Amsterdam. That child screamed bloody murder from the time they buckled her in to the time they unbuckled her when we landed. And when I say 'landed' I mean as soon as we had finished the landing roll and were taxiing to the terminal....long before they were supposed to.
I glanced over to Rhonda during the screaming session...she had her fingers stuck in her ears. She leaned over and asked, "Do you have a few choice words you could say?"
The girl kept crying something like "I gotta baby!" They spoke Spanish and, since she was using baby-talk Spanish and crying to boot, I couldn't understand what she meant. After a few minutes of this -a long few minutes- Rhonda leaned over again and said, "She's got a baby!" and we both cracked up.
We had a two-hour layover in Amsterdam. It took us about ten minutes to get from our arrival gate to the general area where we looked up the gate number for our flight to Portland; another fifteen minutes to get to passport control; maybe another ten minutes waiting in line to get exit stamps on our passports, and another five minutes or so to get to our gate. And the whole time, the little girl with her mom and grandma were walking the same direction as us and went through passport control not far from us. We were in dread that we'd have her on our plane to Portland. Thankfully, they were nowhere to be found at the gate.
There were lots of babies and a few young children from Amsterdam to Portland but the most we heard was a bit of fussing on take-off and landing. Rhonda wonders what kind of luck we have when half of our flights contained screaming children one row away from us.
We were 45 minutes late taking off. I don't know why. Ten hours and thirty minutes after wheels up, we were landing in Portland. Somehow, the pilot made up fifteen minutes and we were only half an hour late. Long flight.
I wasn't particularly excited to get home until we were on approach to the Portland airport and I could see the ground. Until then, I was still in 'Europe Adventure' mode. Oh, I was eager to see Mike and the kids, don't get me wrong! It just didn't seem quite real that I was home until I saw the Columbia River out the right side of the plane and we were quickly getting closer.
We went through customs rather quickly since we didn't have any checked baggage. Rhonda had a connecting flight so we had to say goodbye there. A bus took us to the waiting area of the airport and we saw Richelle and Dianne waiting. Richelle was dancing around eagerly as we came close and as soon as I'd crossed the 'do not enter' line, I was enveloped in a very tight, very long hug. You can believe I hugged her back as tightly and as long.
Mike met us at the front entrance and we went to Mom's to get the things I'd needed to bring but didn't need in Europe (phone, purse, etc.)
We stopped at Denny's for supper on the way home. Three men were seated at a table behind us, speaking in Spanish. "Now THAT sounds familiar," I said. "A language other than English."
It was all I could do to stay awake until a reasonable hour to go to bed but I did it. It meant staying up for twenty-four hours but I did it.
Ahhhh.......home........
~Thursday - Saturday~
First, I need to correct Patti's husband's name. His full name is Oddbjorn (Ode-byorn), a common Norwegian name but his nickname is Obbe (Oh-buh). He's a really neat guy and happily took us through the greenhouses of his family's business. He's half Norwegian, half Swedish, and all fun.
Second, I need to correct a description I made back when we were in Switzerland and I described Heidi as native American. I meant that Heidi was a native-born American, not that she was Native American.
Now, on to our adventures....
Rhonda and I stayed up fairly late Wednesday, working on emails and such, so we got up late on Thursday. Mom and Adri had called twice before we were even dressed to see what our plans were for the day.
Our plans were to go to the original part of Stockholm, and to check out the shopping. They have really nice dress boots in Scandinavia and we wanted to look in the stores.
Old town was amazing; narrow, winding street like all the other old towns -I saw a few here where only two people could walk side-by-side comfortably; cobblestoned streets; tall, towering buildings; lots of shops....much the same as any of the other cities yet somehow different.
It could have been the weather and the latitude; Stockholm is on the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. The morning was overcast and it sprinkled on us a little. We were smart -it started to sprinkle so we ducked into a handy shop and browsed around. When we came out, the rain had pretty much stopped. The chill wind was blowing, but at least the rain had let up. Mom and Rhonda huddled inside their coats and I even felt a little cool. We'd walk a little ways, step into a shop and browse around until we'd warmed up a little, then go on further. Eventually, the sun came out. As long as we were right in it, it felt warm-ish but the shade was cold and the wind was always blowing. The wind was the worst.
We were about to cross the street going out of the old town area when a motorcycle cop went by, lights flashing, no siren, and stopped at the intersection to our right. We crossed the street, saw/heard more motorcycles coming, and stopped to watch. The first cop waved to half a dozen others and they raced up to and past him. Behind them came a black, smallish but very nice car with a small, pale blue flag fluttering from the right front fender. it wasn't the Swedish flag and I didn't recognize it. There was a cop car next, another black car or two with tinted windows, and then a black stretch limo, also black with darkly tinted windows. A few more cop cars and a motorcycle or two and the entourage was past.
Did we see the royal family? Only the king and queen? The kids? Some visiting dignitary? We don't know. That was not the Swedish flag off the front of that car but they were headed to the castle just a few blocks further on. And the castle had the Swedish flag flying, indicating the king was in residence. This castle in Old Stockholm isn't where the king lives -that's in Drottninghom- but is where they hold receptions and receive visiting dignitaries.
When I asked Pattie about it later, she said to go ahead and tell everyone that we saw the royal family. "It could have been them," she said, "and no one would know the difference." So I saw the royal family entourage. Maybe.
After all that excitement, we walked to the shopping district. Yes there was a wide selection of boots....for a lot of money. Many of them are Italian and commanded a stiff price. The most expensive ones I saw were 1,999 SEK (Swedish Kroner) or about $285. The least expensive ones were 385 SEK or about $55 but they didn't feel like they were real leather.
We rested our weary feet at a coffee house with a cup of tea and a pastry and then caught the train back to Spånga (Spone-ga) and supper.
Obbe made supper. I don't know the name for what he made because they said they call them "hot sandwiches". Obbe made two kinds: mushroom and ham-n-pear. He started out with buttered slices of bread, added a slice of ham and a canned pear half, sprinkled a bit of cayenne pepper over it and topped it all with several slices of a mild cheese. Then he either baked it or broiled it (I didn't see and forgot to ask) until the cheese was melted and turned a golden brown.
The mushroom sandwiches took a little more preparation. He sautéed sliced fresh mushrooms in plenty of butter, salt and peppered them, and added flour and milk to make a white sauce. He spooned a good helping of that onto slices of buttered and mustard-ed bread and topped it all with thin-sliced bacon. Those also went into the oven until the bacon was done.
They were delicious! I especially like the mushroom variety. He said they were what his Swedish mother made when he was growing up and he came up with the recipe for the pear ones himself. You can't get any more authentically Swedish than that! We ended the meal with a Swedish tort.
It's a good thing we do all that walking and that I usually stand in the trams, buses, and metros.....
Mom and Adri were there for supper as well as a young couple with a small child and the conversation was lively and varied.
We sang a few hymns after supper and then Adri and Mom went back to Adri's place. We stayed up a while longer showing off pictures of our families and talking about them. Robert, 16, was fascinated with Cameron's Eagle project and asked a million questions about it and about Scouting in general. I happily answered them all.
I witnessed again the ease of children -or in this case young adults- slipping between two languages with no hesitation. In the Scandinavian countries, English is started in third or fourth grade and continues through high school. We had no problem button-holing someone on the streets and asking directions; they always spoke nearly perfect English.
I have cleared up two things that have bugged me for a few years:
1) "uff da" is not a swear word as someone tried to convince me. Our Swedish friends said it translates to something like 'oh, no', 'oh, wow', 'oops' or something like that. One of our ministers uttered it when we told him where we'd been in two and a half weeks.
2) "æbleskiver" is from Denmark, not Sweden, and is pronounced 'eh-bleh-skiv-egh' with a bit of a gargle for the "r" (remember the language lesson Vibeka gave us).
Friday, Patti took us to Drottningholm; the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish royal family. There was no fee to wander the estate but there were guards posted to keep the riff-raff out of the living area and we weren't able to go through the palace itself. I don't know if it's off limits period or that we just didn't try but Patti said that of her family, only Robert's been past the sentries and that was only because he was delivering plants.
The king is only a figure-head in Sweden. He has no say in the running of the country; his value is in public relations. He has vast holdings across the country and I got the impression that the bulk of his income comes from there. Patti also mentioned trust funds.
The palace wasn't elaborate with pinnacles, spires, and ginger-breading. Instead, it was built for northern climates and was more blocky and solid. There weren't a lot of flowers, either. Most of what we saw were in planters and along one long wall of the formal garden.
Just so I can feel famous...all of the flowering plants are purchased from Skalleberg Handelsträgågard, Obbe's family's company. How many people can say they know the people who supply the flowering plants to the Swedish royal family estates?
Obbe and Patti took us to a food court in a mall for supper. That sounds sort of odd but they were trying to give us as full a flavor of Sweden as they could and this food court is hugely popular with the Swedes in Stockholm. There was a vast selection of ethnic foods including Persian, Turkish, Thai, Swedish, American (I got tired of seeing Burger King and McDonalds all over Europe), Indian, and Mexican.
Our ministers in Sweden came to the house after we got back from supper. Eldon and Stephan had just gotten in from Finland and came by to visit with us for a small while. They'd been up since about 1:30am that morning to make the drive to catch the boat to Stockholm, and since we had to get up at 4am the next morning to catch our plane to Amsterdam, they didn't stay long and we went to bed shortly afterwards.
I wanted to get this finished and posted Friday night but decided to sleep instead. 4am comes mighty early!
It was -2°C at 4am Saturday morning in Stockholm. That's even cold for me! Patti apologized for not having the car warm for us. Rhonda had purchased a really nice pair of lined knit gloves at the mall the night before and was delighted to have warm fingers on the drive to the airport.
Patti hugged us goodbye at the front entrance and we walked for probably five minutes to get to the security gate. I had been randomly chosen for a quick pat-down in Portland when we left, and, after I set the alarm off in Stockholm that morning, was treated to another episode there. Note to self: Take off your watch, stupid!
I think they saw the watch and knew what set off the alarm, sot he pat-down was done pretty quickly. It didn't take too long to get to our gate and because we got to the airport only an hour before the scheduled take-off time, our wait at the gate wasn't very long. We didn't have to get there any earlier because we'd checked in online the night before and had our boarding passes in hand.
We were seated directly in front of a three-year-old girl and her mother and grandmother on the plane. This girl is evidently seldom made to do what she felt was uncomfortable. She objected to sitting in the seat with the seatbelt on and, when the stewardesses insisted she do so, screamed. The mom explained that the girl didn't like it and the stewardess told her, "You're the mom - tell her you don't care." She allowed the mom to buckle her in in such a way that the girl only fussed loudly.
That was bearable for take-off but the stewardess insisted the girl be properly buckled in for landing in Amsterdam. That child screamed bloody murder from the time they buckled her in to the time they unbuckled her when we landed. And when I say 'landed' I mean as soon as we had finished the landing roll and were taxiing to the terminal....long before they were supposed to.
I glanced over to Rhonda during the screaming session...she had her fingers stuck in her ears. She leaned over and asked, "Do you have a few choice words you could say?"
The girl kept crying something like "I gotta baby!" They spoke Spanish and, since she was using baby-talk Spanish and crying to boot, I couldn't understand what she meant. After a few minutes of this -a long few minutes- Rhonda leaned over again and said, "She's got a baby!" and we both cracked up.
We had a two-hour layover in Amsterdam. It took us about ten minutes to get from our arrival gate to the general area where we looked up the gate number for our flight to Portland; another fifteen minutes to get to passport control; maybe another ten minutes waiting in line to get exit stamps on our passports, and another five minutes or so to get to our gate. And the whole time, the little girl with her mom and grandma were walking the same direction as us and went through passport control not far from us. We were in dread that we'd have her on our plane to Portland. Thankfully, they were nowhere to be found at the gate.
There were lots of babies and a few young children from Amsterdam to Portland but the most we heard was a bit of fussing on take-off and landing. Rhonda wonders what kind of luck we have when half of our flights contained screaming children one row away from us.
We were 45 minutes late taking off. I don't know why. Ten hours and thirty minutes after wheels up, we were landing in Portland. Somehow, the pilot made up fifteen minutes and we were only half an hour late. Long flight.
I wasn't particularly excited to get home until we were on approach to the Portland airport and I could see the ground. Until then, I was still in 'Europe Adventure' mode. Oh, I was eager to see Mike and the kids, don't get me wrong! It just didn't seem quite real that I was home until I saw the Columbia River out the right side of the plane and we were quickly getting closer.
We went through customs rather quickly since we didn't have any checked baggage. Rhonda had a connecting flight so we had to say goodbye there. A bus took us to the waiting area of the airport and we saw Richelle and Dianne waiting. Richelle was dancing around eagerly as we came close and as soon as I'd crossed the 'do not enter' line, I was enveloped in a very tight, very long hug. You can believe I hugged her back as tightly and as long.
Mike met us at the front entrance and we went to Mom's to get the things I'd needed to bring but didn't need in Europe (phone, purse, etc.)
We stopped at Denny's for supper on the way home. Three men were seated at a table behind us, speaking in Spanish. "Now THAT sounds familiar," I said. "A language other than English."
It was all I could do to stay awake until a reasonable hour to go to bed but I did it. It meant staying up for twenty-four hours but I did it.
Ahhhh.......home........
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Pictures
I've been trying to upload pictures of Hanover and Denmark but there's a glitch on Snapfish. I'll get them posted as soon as they fix things.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Hanover and Denmark
27 - 30 September 2009
Sunday - Wednesday~
Heiko (Mom’s foreign exchange student that she had 17 years ago) met us in Hanover almost as soon as we stepped foot onto the train platform. I’d gotten off first, took three large steps straight forward so as to get out of the way of others coming off, set the bags down, turned around to see where Mom and Rhonda were, and saw Heiko giving Mom a big hug. Very nice. He took Mom’s bag and led us out to where he’d parked his van and then drove us to his apartment. It wasn’t far but we appreciated him meeting us and giving us a lift so we didn’t have to drag our bags while trying to find the way to his place.
He also went with us to the ticket office to make reservations for the next day’s train to Denmark. He did all the talking and interpreted for us. Very nice.
We met his girlfriend Hang, a very beautiful Vietnamese girl who emigrated to Czech before the wall fell and then to Germany afterwards. Heiko said there are a lot of Vietnamese in Czech Republic and I recall a lot of Asians there. Hang has a nine-year-old daughter named Josan (Joe-sahn) from a previous marriage and a five-year-old daughter with Heiko named Marlene (Mar-lay-nuh). Only Heiko speaks English with any fluency but cute little girls are cute little girls in any language.
Hang prepared a wonderful Vietnamese meal of a soup followed by rice and stir-fry with shrimp and other goodness. We were offered our choice of fork or chopsticks. Mom went with the safe fork but Rhonda and I tried the chopsticks. We finished with chopsticks, too, but it was hard because we spooned juice with the stir-fry and that made the rice not sticky anymore. We learned that after we were chasing rice around our plates and Heiko explained things to us. So we got more rice to try to sop up the wet rice. I think we only left a dozen grains of rice on our plates. Heiko said bowls are better because there’s something to push the rice against and make it stick together better.
Heiko offered to give us a tour of Hanover by night after supper. We take every chance of a walk we can manage and a guided one tops the list. It was too late in the evening for the girls to joins us so Hang stayed home to put them to bed.
We walked the downtown area first and saw something we hadn’t seen before. Heiko pointed to a building and said it was built 300 years ago. Then he pointed to one right next to it and, indeed, attached to it and said it was built in 1945.
“Bombing,” I said softly.
“Yes,” he replied. “A bomb fell there and not here. Then whht up went a new building. Anytime you see an old building and then concrete, it was a bomb.”
The Germans live every day with the reminders of war visible in front of them. Our reminders are in our memories.
We were at a square that had, among other things, an old church and what Heiko called the Old Mayor’s House. I think he meant city hall but I’m not sure. Anyway, I told Rhonda to look up at the fancy work on the roof.
“That’s how we tell tourists,” Heiko said smugly.
We got him back later. We had our heads craned to better see what looked like twenty small weather vanes peaking every spire along the front of an elaborate building. We wondered aloud if they were, in fact, weathervanes. I noted that they weren’t all facing precisely the same direction. Heiko had his head as far back as the rest of us. He finally said, gently sarcastic, that he’d check their positions over a few days and email the findings to us.
Most of the cafés in Europe (at least the cities we’ve been in) have chairs and tables on the sidewalk. The sidewalks are wide so pedestrians sort of flow around them. We were walking past a pub and saw, on a table of three or four people, a very interesting sort of a pitcher of beer. It was a tall cylinder, maybe two and a half to three feet tall - the top was maybe a little higher than my head as it sat on the table - and four to six inches in diameter. A spigot was positioned on the side just high enough to get a stein under it and there was a filter just above that. Heiko gawked with the rest of us. We got past, Heiko turning for a last look, and Rhonda asked him if that was common in Germany. He said he’d never seen one before. He sounded impressed.
He told us that four years ago, he and Hani moved from where they’d been living in an area of young single people to where they live now. He asked us if we remember about the Stradivari and silver worth around 3 million dollars that had been stolen from a family. I only remember vaguely hearing something about that. He said the police recovered both the violin and the silver. The thief? One of the guys who had lived next door to them at the old apartment complex. He was glad he was raising the girls in a better neighborhood.
My feelings of Hanover were varied. A line of English kings came from this town; the house of Hanover. This was also a country that caused two wars which involved every major and not-so-major country in the world. But those wars were of the government and a minority of the average people; not all the citizens were in agreement with Kaiser Wilhelm and certainly not of Adolf Hitler. These were people who had suffered much but picked up and continued on instead of waiting for others to bail them out. Hard workers.
It was also the only country that had a rather abrupt ticket person. She told Rhonda to keep her shoes off the seats. Later, when she came round again, Mom had her shoes on the seats. Rhonda and I saw that at the same time but weren’t fast enough to warn Mom. The lady was somewhat short with Mom about shoes on the seats.
Hang served us a wonderful breakfast spread. There were two kinds of cold cuts, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, four kinds of breads (Hang works in a bakery), six kinds of spreads including some sort of herbed cheese thing Hang makes fresh. I had an open-faced sandwich of the cold cuts and lettuce, then tried the herbed cheese spread since Heiko and Hani were piling it on their bread rather thickly. It was spectacularly delicious. I don’t know what went into it or what kind of cheese she used and didn’t even try to find out because of the language barrier. But I made sure she knew how much I liked it.
The girls were in school and Hang had errands to run when it came time to make our way to the train. We walked there, Heiko pulling Mom’s bag, and were in good time for the train. Heiko hung around with us until the train came and then waved us on our way. He’d taken the morning off just to be with us and see us off. What a guy!
And so, on to Denmark.
We’d gotten off to such a good start but, unfortunately, it didn’t end so great. We enjoyed the country-side as it changed from German to Danish and we saw the sea after about three hours. The entire train drove onto the ferry that would carry us across to Denmark and we all had to leave and go up. We went all the way top-side in the brisk wind and spattering of rain. I loved it but Rhonda got pretty chilled after about fifteen minutes and we went inside.
The difference between walking on a moving train and a moving boat is that on a train, you nearly end up in someone’s lap and on a boat, everyone lurches when you lurch and staggers when you stagger so you don’t even bump into anyone.
We saw little reddish-orange jellyfish not far below the surface but no other water life.
The ferry ride took 45 minutes. We all boarded the train and rolled back onto land. Everything was going splendidly and we were counting the hours left before we got to Stockholm (just over two) when the train came to a halt on a siding. After a few moments, we were told that there was a bomb scare at the next station and we were ordered to halt until the police cleared us to go. We waited for about half an hour and were then told to move closer three kilometers and wait. After another half hour, the engineer came out of the cockpit or whatever it’s called on a train….control room? I looked at him; he shook his head resignedly and walked out of the car. A minute later, he got back on the intercom and said that the police had the situation under control but were questioning people and we were ordered back to our last stop.
I was trying to remember where the last stop was all the way back to it. It was where we got off the ferry boat. Two hours and nothing to show for it. They got us buses and drove us to a place called Voldingborg but sounded like the English pronunciation of volleyball, where we boarded a train again. We were two hours late getting into Copenhagen (which they pronounce Co-ben-hah-ven, by the way).
We had told two of our ministers what day and time we were coming and expected them to be there. We just hoped they decided to meet with us the next day instead of having to hang out at the station for us.
They weren’t there and we heaved a sigh of relief. We phoned the hotel and asked for directions. They told us it wasn’t easy to give directions to where they were but could ask anyone to point the way. So we asked a nice-looking young man…who turned out to be a visitor to Copenhagen himself. But he pointed in the direction of a hostel he knew of. So we took off again.
At the next big intersection, Rhonda buttonholed a young lady for directions. She became excited and said that’s where some other girls were headed and to follow them. So we did. For a long way. And found out at check-in that we were at the wrong hostel. There are three Dan Hostels in downtown Denmark and those girls went to one that wasn’t ours.
Not to worry. It’s only five minutes to the other hostel. Go here, turn there, hang a left and then a right but look sharp because the place isn’t well-marked. And was our train delayed, by any chance? Did we expect two ladies to meet us here? One fairly elderly? Oh, yes, they came to the wrong one, also, but we directed them to the right one. So our journey for the day wasn’t over, yet. We went there, turned here, hung a left and then a right, looked sharp and found it. Priscilla and Vibeke were waiting for us in the breakfast room by day/bar by night/reception at all times. Ever meet your ministers in a bar? Where could you find more needy souls?!
We checked in, got our key cards, and tried to open the door to the dorms. Finally, Rhonda saw directions to use the card. Mom observed that when all else fails, reading directions helps.
“Don’t read directions first,” Vibeke advised. “It makes life so boring.”
We got into the dorms and went up to our room. It was a very small elevator so Mom, Rhonda, and I went up first and Priscilla and Vibeka came after. We got out and Rhonda noticed a button next to the elevator that was lit up and said “I fart”. We giggled all the way to our room.
We had a short but very nice visit with the ministers. At one point, they were asking what town we rode the bus to and I told them “Volleyball” because that’s how I could remember it. They cracked up. Then Vibeke (pronounced Vih-bih-kuh), a Dane, gave us a short lesson on pronouncing the Danish words.
“The ‘r’ is silent, you see, but it is still heard,” she said helpfully. “’vorg’ is pronounced ‘voe’ because it has an ‘r’. If it didn’t have an ‘r’, it would be ‘voo’. But it does have an ‘r’ so it’s ‘voe’. Clear as crystal, is it not?”
Uh, yeah. Clear as crystal. Right.
I said that I hoped things didn’t sound quite like I thought they should because we saw a light by the elevator that said ‘I fart’.
“Yes, well, that happens sometimes.” Vibeke said solemnly.
“It said what?” asked Priscilla.
“I fart,” I repeated
“Oh, my! I never thought of it like that!” Priscilla exclaimed and shrieked with laughter. We were all pretty much howling at that point.
“We pronounce it ‘ee fart’,” Vibeka explained. “’I’ means ‘in’ and ‘fart’ means way or movement.”
Glad to know what that meant.
They finally had to leave and we reluctantly said good-byes. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture.
We turned in for the night, one or another of us exploding with giggles every now and then, setting the others off.
We woke up and got around just a little too late for the breakfast in the hostel so we set off in search of adventure without it. We headed for the canal and the tour boats there and, in spite of having a map, still managed to get off track by a few blocks. We eventually found it, purchased tickets, and found a little place that had sandwiches. We got back to the boat just as it was loading and hopped aboard.
Fun trip. We had a guide that enjoyed doing her job. Either that or she faked it really, really well. We went under some very low bridges and had to duck; we saw the Little Mermaid; their opera house; the Queen’s residence in Copenhagen; Hans Christian Anderson’s places of residence, and a lot of other great stuff. The guide was incredible. She said everything in Danish, Swedish, English, and German.
From there, we walked to the train station to make reservations for the train to Stockholm. We stopped at a little pastry shop there and had a cup of tea and a…..ahem…..Danish Pastry. Had to have one of those! We walked back to the hostel and, after an authentic supper at a Danish restaurant across the way, had a quiet evening. I taught Rhonda to play Chaos and Gin. Maybe “quiet” isn’t the right word….
Everyone we met in Denmark spoke English, most of them quite well. But it’s the Queen’s English, not the American variety. We heard people using English as the language in common. I mean, when a group of people are visiting and don’t know the other’s language, English is what’s spoken. We heard that several times.
I learned that Denmark is of more temperate climate. They don’t get a lot of snow. In fact, things tend to shut down when there’s an inch of snow. Sort of like the west part of Oregon. It gets cold, but not a whole lot of snow. So I have to change my mental picture of Danes and snow in winter.
We walked to the train station this morning. It isn’t too far if you go the right way. Our train is direct from Copenhagen to Stockholm and we won’t have to change in between. It’s a very nice train with big, plush, seats. Maybe to accommodate some of these very tall Swedes. My goodness, are some of them tall!!
I saw one young man walk down the train towards us who was so tall he had to duck quite a bit to get through the door. The overhead shelves for luggage came to between his chin and shoulders. Rhonda watched my eyes widen and jaw drop as he came closer and started laughing.
Things were a bit of a disaster when we arrived because we needed directions to Audrey’s place but didn’t have much in the way of coins for the phone. We dumped in what we had and Mom got at least the suburb we needed to get to before the phone cut us off. So we rode the commuter train to the community, got some more coins and were at the phone when a very nice young man offered us his cell to use.
Such kind people you meet when traveling!
Audrey is a retired minister that Mom has known for most of their lives. She went on a mission to Sweden 50 years ago and eventually got Swedish citizenship. Mom had been looking forward to this visit very much.
Mom got good directions to her bus stop but we took the wrong bus, anyway and had a nice tour of the area but no stops to match what we were told. We even got off at one that sounded similar and had to catch another back to the station. That time we found the right bus and the right stop and got off just as Audrey was giving up on us coming.
The poor dear had been waiting at the bus stop for nearly an hour for us in 47 -degree Fahrenheit weather. She had a good supper for us but we took so long getting things together that we decided to have a simple Bible study together at her house instead of going to the one down the street a ways.
Maddie and her husband Simon picked us up after their study was over and took us to Maddie’s parents Patti and….is it Olba or Olva? Patti’s parents live in Boise, Idaho, and Rhonda knows them quite well. She’s met Patti and Olba a few times, also, and Maddie spent a summer there with her grandparents.
They have three boys besides their daughter Maddie (Andreus, Robert, and Sven) and run a large greenhouse nursery. The convention in Stockholm is located here. I’ve not gotten to see the place yet but that’s in the plans.
Copenhagen is a great place. Public transportation is widely available as it is in other countries but here they even have a bike lanes about as wide as a car lane. The city is busy but not so busy that you can’t stop someone and ask directions. Nearly everyone knows English (we didn’t meet any who couldn’t speak it) which makes one very confident in getting around. I got a sense of looking forward….meeting the challenges of tomorrow….holding the past precious but not letting it hinder progress. Maybe that was because we stayed in a large hostel with herds of teen-age and older youth.
Sunday - Wednesday~
Heiko (Mom’s foreign exchange student that she had 17 years ago) met us in Hanover almost as soon as we stepped foot onto the train platform. I’d gotten off first, took three large steps straight forward so as to get out of the way of others coming off, set the bags down, turned around to see where Mom and Rhonda were, and saw Heiko giving Mom a big hug. Very nice. He took Mom’s bag and led us out to where he’d parked his van and then drove us to his apartment. It wasn’t far but we appreciated him meeting us and giving us a lift so we didn’t have to drag our bags while trying to find the way to his place.
He also went with us to the ticket office to make reservations for the next day’s train to Denmark. He did all the talking and interpreted for us. Very nice.
We met his girlfriend Hang, a very beautiful Vietnamese girl who emigrated to Czech before the wall fell and then to Germany afterwards. Heiko said there are a lot of Vietnamese in Czech Republic and I recall a lot of Asians there. Hang has a nine-year-old daughter named Josan (Joe-sahn) from a previous marriage and a five-year-old daughter with Heiko named Marlene (Mar-lay-nuh). Only Heiko speaks English with any fluency but cute little girls are cute little girls in any language.
Hang prepared a wonderful Vietnamese meal of a soup followed by rice and stir-fry with shrimp and other goodness. We were offered our choice of fork or chopsticks. Mom went with the safe fork but Rhonda and I tried the chopsticks. We finished with chopsticks, too, but it was hard because we spooned juice with the stir-fry and that made the rice not sticky anymore. We learned that after we were chasing rice around our plates and Heiko explained things to us. So we got more rice to try to sop up the wet rice. I think we only left a dozen grains of rice on our plates. Heiko said bowls are better because there’s something to push the rice against and make it stick together better.
Heiko offered to give us a tour of Hanover by night after supper. We take every chance of a walk we can manage and a guided one tops the list. It was too late in the evening for the girls to joins us so Hang stayed home to put them to bed.
We walked the downtown area first and saw something we hadn’t seen before. Heiko pointed to a building and said it was built 300 years ago. Then he pointed to one right next to it and, indeed, attached to it and said it was built in 1945.
“Bombing,” I said softly.
“Yes,” he replied. “A bomb fell there and not here. Then whht up went a new building. Anytime you see an old building and then concrete, it was a bomb.”
The Germans live every day with the reminders of war visible in front of them. Our reminders are in our memories.
We were at a square that had, among other things, an old church and what Heiko called the Old Mayor’s House. I think he meant city hall but I’m not sure. Anyway, I told Rhonda to look up at the fancy work on the roof.
“That’s how we tell tourists,” Heiko said smugly.
We got him back later. We had our heads craned to better see what looked like twenty small weather vanes peaking every spire along the front of an elaborate building. We wondered aloud if they were, in fact, weathervanes. I noted that they weren’t all facing precisely the same direction. Heiko had his head as far back as the rest of us. He finally said, gently sarcastic, that he’d check their positions over a few days and email the findings to us.
Most of the cafés in Europe (at least the cities we’ve been in) have chairs and tables on the sidewalk. The sidewalks are wide so pedestrians sort of flow around them. We were walking past a pub and saw, on a table of three or four people, a very interesting sort of a pitcher of beer. It was a tall cylinder, maybe two and a half to three feet tall - the top was maybe a little higher than my head as it sat on the table - and four to six inches in diameter. A spigot was positioned on the side just high enough to get a stein under it and there was a filter just above that. Heiko gawked with the rest of us. We got past, Heiko turning for a last look, and Rhonda asked him if that was common in Germany. He said he’d never seen one before. He sounded impressed.
He told us that four years ago, he and Hani moved from where they’d been living in an area of young single people to where they live now. He asked us if we remember about the Stradivari and silver worth around 3 million dollars that had been stolen from a family. I only remember vaguely hearing something about that. He said the police recovered both the violin and the silver. The thief? One of the guys who had lived next door to them at the old apartment complex. He was glad he was raising the girls in a better neighborhood.
My feelings of Hanover were varied. A line of English kings came from this town; the house of Hanover. This was also a country that caused two wars which involved every major and not-so-major country in the world. But those wars were of the government and a minority of the average people; not all the citizens were in agreement with Kaiser Wilhelm and certainly not of Adolf Hitler. These were people who had suffered much but picked up and continued on instead of waiting for others to bail them out. Hard workers.
It was also the only country that had a rather abrupt ticket person. She told Rhonda to keep her shoes off the seats. Later, when she came round again, Mom had her shoes on the seats. Rhonda and I saw that at the same time but weren’t fast enough to warn Mom. The lady was somewhat short with Mom about shoes on the seats.
Hang served us a wonderful breakfast spread. There were two kinds of cold cuts, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, four kinds of breads (Hang works in a bakery), six kinds of spreads including some sort of herbed cheese thing Hang makes fresh. I had an open-faced sandwich of the cold cuts and lettuce, then tried the herbed cheese spread since Heiko and Hani were piling it on their bread rather thickly. It was spectacularly delicious. I don’t know what went into it or what kind of cheese she used and didn’t even try to find out because of the language barrier. But I made sure she knew how much I liked it.
The girls were in school and Hang had errands to run when it came time to make our way to the train. We walked there, Heiko pulling Mom’s bag, and were in good time for the train. Heiko hung around with us until the train came and then waved us on our way. He’d taken the morning off just to be with us and see us off. What a guy!
And so, on to Denmark.
We’d gotten off to such a good start but, unfortunately, it didn’t end so great. We enjoyed the country-side as it changed from German to Danish and we saw the sea after about three hours. The entire train drove onto the ferry that would carry us across to Denmark and we all had to leave and go up. We went all the way top-side in the brisk wind and spattering of rain. I loved it but Rhonda got pretty chilled after about fifteen minutes and we went inside.
The difference between walking on a moving train and a moving boat is that on a train, you nearly end up in someone’s lap and on a boat, everyone lurches when you lurch and staggers when you stagger so you don’t even bump into anyone.
We saw little reddish-orange jellyfish not far below the surface but no other water life.
The ferry ride took 45 minutes. We all boarded the train and rolled back onto land. Everything was going splendidly and we were counting the hours left before we got to Stockholm (just over two) when the train came to a halt on a siding. After a few moments, we were told that there was a bomb scare at the next station and we were ordered to halt until the police cleared us to go. We waited for about half an hour and were then told to move closer three kilometers and wait. After another half hour, the engineer came out of the cockpit or whatever it’s called on a train….control room? I looked at him; he shook his head resignedly and walked out of the car. A minute later, he got back on the intercom and said that the police had the situation under control but were questioning people and we were ordered back to our last stop.
I was trying to remember where the last stop was all the way back to it. It was where we got off the ferry boat. Two hours and nothing to show for it. They got us buses and drove us to a place called Voldingborg but sounded like the English pronunciation of volleyball, where we boarded a train again. We were two hours late getting into Copenhagen (which they pronounce Co-ben-hah-ven, by the way).
We had told two of our ministers what day and time we were coming and expected them to be there. We just hoped they decided to meet with us the next day instead of having to hang out at the station for us.
They weren’t there and we heaved a sigh of relief. We phoned the hotel and asked for directions. They told us it wasn’t easy to give directions to where they were but could ask anyone to point the way. So we asked a nice-looking young man…who turned out to be a visitor to Copenhagen himself. But he pointed in the direction of a hostel he knew of. So we took off again.
At the next big intersection, Rhonda buttonholed a young lady for directions. She became excited and said that’s where some other girls were headed and to follow them. So we did. For a long way. And found out at check-in that we were at the wrong hostel. There are three Dan Hostels in downtown Denmark and those girls went to one that wasn’t ours.
Not to worry. It’s only five minutes to the other hostel. Go here, turn there, hang a left and then a right but look sharp because the place isn’t well-marked. And was our train delayed, by any chance? Did we expect two ladies to meet us here? One fairly elderly? Oh, yes, they came to the wrong one, also, but we directed them to the right one. So our journey for the day wasn’t over, yet. We went there, turned here, hung a left and then a right, looked sharp and found it. Priscilla and Vibeke were waiting for us in the breakfast room by day/bar by night/reception at all times. Ever meet your ministers in a bar? Where could you find more needy souls?!
We checked in, got our key cards, and tried to open the door to the dorms. Finally, Rhonda saw directions to use the card. Mom observed that when all else fails, reading directions helps.
“Don’t read directions first,” Vibeke advised. “It makes life so boring.”
We got into the dorms and went up to our room. It was a very small elevator so Mom, Rhonda, and I went up first and Priscilla and Vibeka came after. We got out and Rhonda noticed a button next to the elevator that was lit up and said “I fart”. We giggled all the way to our room.
We had a short but very nice visit with the ministers. At one point, they were asking what town we rode the bus to and I told them “Volleyball” because that’s how I could remember it. They cracked up. Then Vibeke (pronounced Vih-bih-kuh), a Dane, gave us a short lesson on pronouncing the Danish words.
“The ‘r’ is silent, you see, but it is still heard,” she said helpfully. “’vorg’ is pronounced ‘voe’ because it has an ‘r’. If it didn’t have an ‘r’, it would be ‘voo’. But it does have an ‘r’ so it’s ‘voe’. Clear as crystal, is it not?”
Uh, yeah. Clear as crystal. Right.
I said that I hoped things didn’t sound quite like I thought they should because we saw a light by the elevator that said ‘I fart’.
“Yes, well, that happens sometimes.” Vibeke said solemnly.
“It said what?” asked Priscilla.
“I fart,” I repeated
“Oh, my! I never thought of it like that!” Priscilla exclaimed and shrieked with laughter. We were all pretty much howling at that point.
“We pronounce it ‘ee fart’,” Vibeka explained. “’I’ means ‘in’ and ‘fart’ means way or movement.”
Glad to know what that meant.
They finally had to leave and we reluctantly said good-byes. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture.
We turned in for the night, one or another of us exploding with giggles every now and then, setting the others off.
We woke up and got around just a little too late for the breakfast in the hostel so we set off in search of adventure without it. We headed for the canal and the tour boats there and, in spite of having a map, still managed to get off track by a few blocks. We eventually found it, purchased tickets, and found a little place that had sandwiches. We got back to the boat just as it was loading and hopped aboard.
Fun trip. We had a guide that enjoyed doing her job. Either that or she faked it really, really well. We went under some very low bridges and had to duck; we saw the Little Mermaid; their opera house; the Queen’s residence in Copenhagen; Hans Christian Anderson’s places of residence, and a lot of other great stuff. The guide was incredible. She said everything in Danish, Swedish, English, and German.
From there, we walked to the train station to make reservations for the train to Stockholm. We stopped at a little pastry shop there and had a cup of tea and a…..ahem…..Danish Pastry. Had to have one of those! We walked back to the hostel and, after an authentic supper at a Danish restaurant across the way, had a quiet evening. I taught Rhonda to play Chaos and Gin. Maybe “quiet” isn’t the right word….
Everyone we met in Denmark spoke English, most of them quite well. But it’s the Queen’s English, not the American variety. We heard people using English as the language in common. I mean, when a group of people are visiting and don’t know the other’s language, English is what’s spoken. We heard that several times.
I learned that Denmark is of more temperate climate. They don’t get a lot of snow. In fact, things tend to shut down when there’s an inch of snow. Sort of like the west part of Oregon. It gets cold, but not a whole lot of snow. So I have to change my mental picture of Danes and snow in winter.
We walked to the train station this morning. It isn’t too far if you go the right way. Our train is direct from Copenhagen to Stockholm and we won’t have to change in between. It’s a very nice train with big, plush, seats. Maybe to accommodate some of these very tall Swedes. My goodness, are some of them tall!!
I saw one young man walk down the train towards us who was so tall he had to duck quite a bit to get through the door. The overhead shelves for luggage came to between his chin and shoulders. Rhonda watched my eyes widen and jaw drop as he came closer and started laughing.
Things were a bit of a disaster when we arrived because we needed directions to Audrey’s place but didn’t have much in the way of coins for the phone. We dumped in what we had and Mom got at least the suburb we needed to get to before the phone cut us off. So we rode the commuter train to the community, got some more coins and were at the phone when a very nice young man offered us his cell to use.
Such kind people you meet when traveling!
Audrey is a retired minister that Mom has known for most of their lives. She went on a mission to Sweden 50 years ago and eventually got Swedish citizenship. Mom had been looking forward to this visit very much.
Mom got good directions to her bus stop but we took the wrong bus, anyway and had a nice tour of the area but no stops to match what we were told. We even got off at one that sounded similar and had to catch another back to the station. That time we found the right bus and the right stop and got off just as Audrey was giving up on us coming.
The poor dear had been waiting at the bus stop for nearly an hour for us in 47 -degree Fahrenheit weather. She had a good supper for us but we took so long getting things together that we decided to have a simple Bible study together at her house instead of going to the one down the street a ways.
Maddie and her husband Simon picked us up after their study was over and took us to Maddie’s parents Patti and….is it Olba or Olva? Patti’s parents live in Boise, Idaho, and Rhonda knows them quite well. She’s met Patti and Olba a few times, also, and Maddie spent a summer there with her grandparents.
They have three boys besides their daughter Maddie (Andreus, Robert, and Sven) and run a large greenhouse nursery. The convention in Stockholm is located here. I’ve not gotten to see the place yet but that’s in the plans.
Copenhagen is a great place. Public transportation is widely available as it is in other countries but here they even have a bike lanes about as wide as a car lane. The city is busy but not so busy that you can’t stop someone and ask directions. Nearly everyone knows English (we didn’t meet any who couldn’t speak it) which makes one very confident in getting around. I got a sense of looking forward….meeting the challenges of tomorrow….holding the past precious but not letting it hinder progress. Maybe that was because we stayed in a large hostel with herds of teen-age and older youth.
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