the inevitable peanut butter post

a sunday that involved little more for me than taking a long nap with henry, eating lunch outside and enjoying the weather the wind ushered in, starting a new bedtime book with william and having a little ice cream treat with peanut butter.

we shared peanut butter with some of our neighbors today.  or tried to.  it turns out that peanut butter is to a dane what danish cheese is to an american.

a skeptical sniff.  
you really want me to try this?  
really, you eat it with apples/crêpes/ice cream (or) mushroom-beef gelatin/raw onions/lard??? 
ofh! okay, there.  i did it.  where is my chaser?  


only i'm getting the feeling that danes are more protective of their cheese than we are of our peanut butter.  somehow i know not to say those things out loud, because i sense from my few lighthearted remarks on the strength of its scent that you can only mess with a dane's cheese so much before it's not funny anymore; and somehow they know they can laugh out loud at our peanut butter because you can mess with peanut butter all you want and it's still just peanut butter.

despite its station in this land as an object of ridicule, i have gained a newfound respect for peanut butter since moving here.  there is no such thing as "other nut butters" in denmark (that i've found), so my beloved almond butter will have to stay a wisconsin memory; and nuts, themselves, are so expensive they are not good candidates for snacking on or adding to your oats in the morning or your lentils and rice at dinner.  and i'm not very keen on the idea of deli meat or pâté spread on sandwiches (though i will eat mild, very mild, danish cheese on a rice cake most days).  for these reasons though, peanut butter consumption is up in this household.  let the jokes begin!  at least it's not jif.


were we on the topic of skeptics?

william at the birthday party

happy mother's day mothers.  turns out they do celebrate it here in denmark.  even in this household.

light

it's after nine p.m. here. the sky is an even pale blue out one window.  from the windows of the back door, it is pale pink.  outside, the flag i often consult with to tell me how the wind is behaving, is telling me now that it is not ready to calm down.  

all day long the wind has been busy, moving clouds through, and the leaves, which suddenly cover most of the trees and hedges.

that is what three warm, sunny days will do.  like the danes i noticed, choosing not to sit under the awning on the sunniest of days for their outdoor lunches, the plant life here must know that you simply do not take such warmth and light for granted.  weather moves fast here and you might just find yourself back to a day (or days) where the clouds cover the sun, and the wind just won't sit still.  and yet, even though we are nearing the middle of may and have had only a handful of truly beautiful, warm, sunny days, having those three or four days last week, all in a row, made today's menu of strong winds and spitting rain palatable.  at least i know it's possible to have spring-, even summer-like, weather here, that isn't just accidental, but stays around long enough to have you believing that these seasons are not just myths.  but more than that... it just felt okay today, to be riding through this weather, keeping our bikes upright in the gusts.  maybe it was the extra vitamin d.  

tonight we finished 'island of the blue dolphins' with william.  a really fine book for anyone with kids, if you are looking for suggestions.  inspired by the true story of the 'Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island,' who, according to author, Scott O'Dell, jumped off the schooner brought to 'rescue' the people who lived on the island, after most of them had been killed by Aleutian hunters, and swam back.  maybe to retrieve her little brother who hadn't made it onto the boat.  her brother may have been killed by wild dogs.  in the book, he is, and this part you may want to edit for william-sized listeners.  she was found and brought to california 18 years later and died after just 7 weeks from whatever western illness her body couldn't fend off.  (as did most or all of the others brought back 18 years previous.)  the green cormorant feather skirt she wore was sent to the vatican, but apparently has been lost (!).  everything else she owned was destroyed in the 1906 san francisco earthquake and fire.  i'm not sure what happened to her dog.  in those 7 weeks they could find no one who could speak her language so very little is known about her life.  even her name.  

tomorrow-- william goes to a birthday party for a boy in his class.  getting his present was what sent us out in the wind today.  and tomorrow is mother's day.  happy mother's day to any mothers reading this.  particularly all of my mothers of various relation.  we won't be celebrating here.  when i mentioned to greg that tomorrow is mother's day, he referred to the calendar and said, "only in the u.s. and canada."  

i have a feeling some sort of exception will be made. 

friday

if the visit with greg's parents was like christmas, then saying goodbye was like being a kid and realizing you'd just opened your last present.  put me in a room with a big group of people and at some point i'm ready to retreat, recharge.  but send a couple of relatives my way and i think, 'why should this end? there's no good reason.' i don't know what it is about family.  but i like you all folks.  

it was a windy day today, ushering us to the bus stop... 

last photo op 

greg and i said goodbye there and after watching the bus leave, walked back toward home, reflecting on the flip side to this great adventure: the distance and time away from our families.  because ultimately that is what could send us back if we had the choice to stay.  but that's a decision to be made another day, if it's a decision to be made at all.

today, we return to our little family of four, back to the old school, which is ours until july, past the church, with the flag of denmark showing prominently against the blue sky.

a thursday

copenhagen.  we mapped out our tour last night, but ultimately, turns out, you need more than half a day to see some of the main attractions.  who ever would have thought?  in the end, we scrapped about three of our six destinations.  

we went first to the rosenborg castle.  it was built in the 17th century by what seems to be one of denmark's most revered kings-- christian iv.  he was the sort of guy who lived large-- he himself was a large man.  he drank a lot, he fought (and lost an eye during a battle with sweden, at the age of 67. jumped up, had the shrapnel removed and eventually turned into a pair of earrings for one of his mistresses).  fathered 25 children with two wives and three mistresses.  died at 70.  

rosenborg was built as his summer castle.  

christian IV...

he is also the guy in the painting from the cathedral in roskilde... here it is again:

note the wounded eye. not the wounded spirit.

as a little guy...

he spoke danish, german, latin, french, and italian.

what made this such a good tour was rick steves.  i think i'm a rick steves convert.  kathy brought the rick steves' 'scandinavia' 13th edition tour book with her.  we used it while touring through the castle and it would say things like, "walk through the door on your left and look up.  do you see this thing that you never would have noticed had i not pointed it out to you?" thank you rick steves, i see it now.

some castle fineries...

propaganda tapestries... denmark will beat sweden in this picture.

vegetable porcelains... 

he must have told all of those children not to sit on the couch...

guards...

thousand-liter barrels...

coronation crown.  7 pounds.

okay!

that's enough wealth for all of us for one day, wouldn't you agree?


so... by the time we left the castle we were all hungry enough to skip castle #2-- the current queen's palace-- and find lunch down by the harbor.

you can see from our walk there that the sun is anticipating the departure of our guests and returning to  the familiar habit of disappearing...

tables and chairs, waiting patiently for rain to stop...

a cheap lunch on the way to the harbor, for someone...

we don't stop until we reach the harbor.  we are told you go to the harbor and get "a cheap beer" but as we are also hungry we find a restaurant and do both food and drink.  we eat outside, under an awning, blankets over our shoulders-- well-- my shoulders, and kathy's shoulders.  all of the outdoor cafes seem to put blankets out on cold days.

here is our restaurant...

our danish lunch: pickled herring, remoulade, dark rye bread, roast beef with horseradish, whitefish, chicken salad with bacon, cheese, pickles, salad...  and cheap beer.

the rainy day harbor... 

at this point... after lunch... there is time left for only one more stop before we must get back on the train and retrieve the littlest ones.  la glace. known to be the oldest and best cake shop in copenhagen.

of course, it is not just cake they do...

we sit down to four different slices, warm up to coffee, and consider our route back.

a very fine way to spend four hours.

fussing, mussing, sheep, and goats

this was a good day.  a day after a vacation.  of course you are tired.  of course you are wary about how reality is going to hit your child who doesn't want to go to school, who just doesn't. want. to go. to. school.  and it did hit.  and he did hide under his covers.  but then you talked about it. and you tried out some new talking points and he went. willingly. without crying and fussing and mussing, as he called it.  and he got home and you asked him how it went and he said, "it was so good, mama." just like he'd said in the beginning, and you feel like there is progress.  or at least, today was a good day.

this makes me happy. but also being back on my bike. and riding with greg to danish lessons.  and back home.  on the way, we see that they have put sheep (and 2 goats) in the field overlooked by the pedestrian path which separates the east part of our street from the west.

and they have put cows in a field which runs along the fjord.

so these things make me happy too.  and knowing we will explore a bit of copenhagen tomorrow.  i have been looking forward to this and trying to convince greg that it is a worthwhile use of our time on his parents' last full day with us.  you cannot come back from a 10 day trip to denmark with people asking if you saw copenhagen and say "no. but i saw legoland."  we can't let that happen. we would be errant hosts if we did.  so tomorrow we will go.  you will probably see us in our windbreakers, with our jeans on (not skinny jeans mind you), looking every bit the american tourists, but this time, without the children strapped to a back or up on shoulders, as they will be attending school, looking somewhat the part of well-behaved danish children.

goodnight

another day in legoland.  part of our legoland hotel special package.  also includes breakfast.  and then a late night getting home...  a short walk to a bus.  another quick walk around vejle-- the church was closed however.  a train ride with space to stretch out this time.  another bus. and a short walk home.  children mostly put to bed.  clothes to unpack.  a backlog of danish homework.  sleep to catch up on-- not really in the cards tonight, or most nights of the past four years. it's not nearly as devastating as it once was to get less than a full-night's sleep, but terribly common; and it's terribly thrilling to get everything you want to do, done, and still get a full night's sleep, but devastatingly rare.  you can function on tired, but you start to wonder what it might be like if you earned back a couple of hours each night.  

with that, i will try not to lose more tonight.  i'm going to try to get some sleep. 

the journey

if you happened to be in roskilde early this morning, in our neighborhood, say around seven a.m., you might have noticed us... the four americans, with two children, one on a back, one up on shoulders, running in our windbreakers and jeans (not skinny jeans mind you... which is why you might have pegged us for americans.  and also the windbreakers).  backpacks on.  willing ourselves to move just a little bit faster, or the 201 bus to move just a little bit slower, so that we might both find ourselves out in front of the super best at exactly 7:03.  and well, if you were there, you might have noticed that we made that bus and that we didn't have to wait more than 30 seconds for its arrival.  

follow us now to the bus station, adjacent to the train station, where we part ways with our early morning bus and greg runs to the station and we run to the track and again with the mental tricks of slowing down a train and speeding up the person who will call greg's number (because there's always a number) so that he might quickly buy the tickets and meet us at the track so that we can catch the 7:26 train rather than wait around for the 7:52, even though it means hopping on two more buses instead of one, but it will get us to our destination nearly an hour earlier, and that is worth the hustle.  hurry up and enjoy yourselves.  

and it works, again.  

so we are on the train.  a full train.  here is the seating arrangement now, but it is a constant game of musical chairs, mainly played by greg's parents and various newcomers who claim the seats they have reserved in advance.  

until finally an entire high school class, or maybe an entire high school boards the train a half hour before we are to disembark, and so we are all up in the aisle now, and henry is back in the ergo on my back and the high school children are cooing at him and one boy says something to me in danish and i say, "jeg kan ikke taler dansk.  kan du taler engelsk?" and he says, "nej." and so i do not know what he has said to me, until later when he taps me on the shoulder and says, "your baby is really cute." and i say to him, "so you can speak english." "yes" he says bashfully.

and then we are off the train in vejle and the students continue on to aarhus.

here we have our longest layover of any leg of any of the journeys we have thus far taken.  about 25 minutes.  we are waiting for our bus, but the bus station is a drab place to wait, even for 25 minutes, so henry and i walk to see what we can find and kathy soon joins us and we get a quick sense of the town and the church.

saint nicolai church.  i read later that it was built in the mid-13th century...

what i also read later is that it houses the haraldskær bog woman-- who had been preserved in a local peat bog from the iron age.  though we went inside briefly, we didn't see her.  we didn't know about her.  and i think that her presence in this church is just as compelling as all of the kings and queens buried in the domkirkke back in roskilde.

it's amazing that you can think you are just pausing at a train stop.  it's just a name really, nothing more to say about this dot on the map between point a and point b.  but if it happens to be in denmark, you might just kill time by walking into a mid-13th century church and unknowingly share a space with a bog woman for a few minutes.  well... that's okay by me!

vejle's pedestrian shopping street with a 'dutch' windmill in the distance...

i apologize for the quality of this photo, but it is the first time i've had my camera at the ready for the many, many fields of mustard we've passed through these past few days... and then it was gone.  but they are amazing.  denmark does yellow so well.

one little boy missed this particular field...

and then... one wrong bus, which was not really a wrong bus... and a concerned random stranger who has me reaffirming the inherent goodness of danes behind their sometimes skeptical glances... and we are in legoland approximately 30 seconds sooner than we would have been had we stayed on the not really wrong bus...

düsseldorf, legoland style

entranced... 

i don't think of myself as an amusement park person, but this was sort of the perfect place for william.  the rides were almost all his size.  the themes-- pirates, star wars, vikings, and um... legos... were just right.  this is a kid's vacation.  

later we are back at the hotel for a not-at-all shabby dinner buffet in the hotel's restaurant.  and, having stuffed ourselves, greg and i go for a walk while william and henry keep their grandparents entertained in the very kid friendly lobby.  

we find a forest path and walk along it, reminded a little of northern michigan... we do not often find familiar landscapes in denmark, but jutland (the peninsula we are on today) is full of them.  to me, the bus ride was all about driving through kentucky on down.  and now northern michigan.  at the start of the walk, a dead end street we were on instantly felt like a street i'd spent so many summers on in a small town of 5,000 in the middle of ohio.  not to mention patronizing probably one of the more americanized tourist destinations in denmark.  nostalgia abounds.  i guess it says something good about my scattered memories.  

on the way out of the forest we find ourselves walking through a sculpture park.

i liked these two the best...

and now i find myself at twenty past midnight, finishing this up.  awake before six, i am dreaming of sleep.