House names

I thought house names were exclusive to the UK, with a few exceptions.  Several houses near the fjord and scattered around Roskilde have names and I wonder if it is a more common tradition than I realized.

Strandlyst (click to enlarge)

Lindely

Fjordvang

Dally

Any suggestions for a name for this house?

Not a sign of spring

I think it is spring now, but I get a little nervous each time I see yet another house with a newly delivered load of firewood.  Maybe it is on sale in April and they are planning ahead?

We learn what we see

Today we saw another child with a doll-sized seat on the back of her bicycle, probably a lot like the one she rode on the back of her mom's and/or dad's bike.

We also see kids between the parent and the handlebars, like I remember doing with my dad on the way to nursery school (but without a special seat or helmet).  We see more Christiana Bikes with the kids in front, as described by David , than we see bicycle trailers.  We don't see many of the third wheel/trail-a-bikes that attach to a parent's seat post.  We do see a lot of bikes with no pedals, which is what A. used.

What a great country!

Calendar

Many of you know that not all countries use the date format used in the U.S. (mm-dd-yyyy).  Today is April 8, 2011, which could also be 2011-4-8 or 8 April 2011, but here I usually see it written as 8/4-11.

This idea was not new to me but what I had not experienced was living with a system that numbers the weeks.  The first Monday of the year is the beginning of week one and each Monday a new week begins.  I came across the system when I wanted to make a reservation and the site listed prices for high season and instead of having to list the specific dates for each year it simply listed the week numbers (e.g., Our price is xxx, except during weeks 26 and 27 when it is xxx+10).  Our Danish class eats lunch together every Tuesday of the even weeks, which is easy to figure out.  Fall break is always week 41, regardless of the date.

Some calendars sold here have the same layout as in the U.S., but many look different from the typical grid of large rectangles.  In most homes I see a calendar with columns, one for each family member

This is German (Danish months are not capitalized), but you can see the number of the week on the right (very small on this calendar) and a family member's name at the top of each column.

Yet more about the library

The library had e-readers to try.  Notice the free coffee in the background.

Yesterday I was looking for a magazine and noticed a pop-up tent and sign about e-books.  I headed over there and found one person from the Apple store and a library employee, both demonstrating different e-readers.  I was amazed to learn you can borrow three types from the library the way you would borrow a book, meaning no deposit or credit card was needed.  How un-American.

locked magazines

On the other hand, in the children's room the current magazines are locked into special holders.

Also in the children's room are two cd players on a high shelf.  The parents can load it and the children can sit at a table with many listening sticks? vertical earphones? and enjoy the book or music.

a nicely set table promoting cookbooks

Recently a popular cooking show was coming to town so the library promoted its cookbooks.

Downstairs is an enormous music library and the local history collection, which often have displays.  This weekend I hope we'll make a tupilak (carved creatrue) as part of month-long cultural event focusing on Greenland this year.  What's not to love?

Missing items

Perseverance can be a good thing, but I would have thought after eight months I would learn to give up.  I keep thinking if I just look hard enough that I will find grape juice.  Kvickly, the store I shop in most often, remodeled and I found myself in the juice aisle (an aside - it is isn't really the juice aisle because juice is not from concentrate and is in the refrigerated section - I was in the saftvand aisle, which is a whole section of fascinating concentrates, like hyldeblomst and solbær).  I saw several concentrates I had not seen before and thought undoubtedly there would be grape juice.  Imagine my excitement to see the English word grape.  Before I grabbed it off the shelf I took a closer look and thought they were the strangest grapes I had ever seen.  How disappointing to realize they were grapefruits!

This week I also spent too much time looking for kale or Swiss chard and butternut squash.  I have given up on tofu that is not in a jar.  There has to be something to look forward to in the U.S.

Hans Christian Andersen

Yesterday a group of about 60 ex-pats rode together on a double-decker bus to Odense (Odin's Shrine), the place of Hans Christian Andersen's birth exactly 206 years ago.  In Denmark Hans Christian Andersen is usually referred to as H.C., pronounced almost like Jose, but more like Ho Say with the emphasis on the first syllable.

quaint street (flag in background)

The town relies heavily on tourism and has done a nice job of keeping the downtown area pedestrian friendly and filled with older-style buildings.  Of course there are bicycles, too.

stone cycling symbol

Our first stop was the HC Andersen Museum, which was modern except for the part that may or may not be the remains of HC's birthplace.  There were an amazing number of artifacts left from his life, including many of his beautiful paper cuttings.

the last paper cutting HC made

Before lunch we stopped by Møntergården, a museum of the local history through the 17th century, which is when Copenhagen asserted itself as the capital, the royalty left, and the town lost about half its population.

In the courtyard of Møntergården

We were lucky to have fantastic spring weather, which made our walking tour even better.  We walked through Eventyrhaven (Fairy Tale Garden), peeked in the cathedral where HC was confirmed (and wore his first new shoes, even though his father was a cobbler), and stopped in his childhood home, where his family lived and worked in one room.

One of my favorite parts of the visit was noticing the public art.

sewer maintenance cover

outside an office

symbol of the HC museum, based on his paper cuttings

a different story was on each bench, this is The Darning Needle

fountain in the town square

on the bus shelter

not art, but cute

Odense is the third largest city in Denmark, but still felt like a small town.  It whet our appetite to see more of the country before we head back to the U.S.