Mystified

Around here, a person answers the door with some trepidation...for good reason. This morning while John was in the shower, there was a tap on the front door. I sort of wondered what the mailman had that he had to hand it to me in person. With my new found comfort in this house, I assumed that the shadow that had passed by the dining room window was him. It wasn't. It was Lars' brother (I'll call him Claus, which in Danish, rhymes with 'house') and his girl friend, also Thai (like Lars girl/wife?). I guess the brothers got a package deal.

He wanted to come in and look around because they were interested in renting it when we moved out. I curbed the "Huh???" at the back of my throat and formulated a "What???"

However, I dare say the look on my face was 100% "Huh???" So....we have 13 moths left on the lease. What the hell??

If only we had gotten out of the house on time....we were on our way out for groceries...we could have avoided this little encounter. I sent them away, telling them John was in the shower, and they couldn't come in until he was out....and we were back from groceries....if ever at all. Claus asked me to call him when we got home. I said "no" you can come by at 5 o'clock....BUT.....being as you're Lars' brother haven't you been in here before? Shouldn't you already know what the house is like? Don't you know we have until next year on the lease? He seemed to understand all of this but... who knows?

I guess he wants to show it to his girlfriend. I wonder if she'll think the furniture is staying....it isn't. I wonder if they're thinking of setting up business again. Lars has been crying poor mouth a lot lately and I don't think moving out of this house has really done much to alleviate the financial difficulties caused by the loss of a certain income. John's theory is that Lars would like to move back into the house, with his brother and his girlfriend, to restart the business, and this little expedition was to plant the seed of us thinking we've got a way out of the lease. I don't know about that but it sure seems odd that someone would come for a look see more than a year out, and that person happens to be the landlord's brother.

Very curious. Maybe Lars thinks he can't afford to fix the pool, and he was really worried that the company was going to after him for the excess on the water bill. I don't know, but this might all have to come up when I see him next week. I assume he didn't call to ask me in advance because he knew I'd tell him to get stuffed (in a nice Canadian kind of way).

This warrants some definite feelers, though. I could move out of here if I found the right place. Moving is a hassle but we don't have that much stuff.....errr....maybe we do. And getting everything hooked up again.....there are charges for all those new hook-ups. But, it would be nice to be withing walking distance of a market and a few shops. Something to mull over, just in case. Claus kept saying they wanted to move in when we moved out and even when I said "If we moved now, you want to move in?" he agreed.....but often the finer details get lost in translation (or lack thereof).

***A little bit later (6:55 to be exact)...***

I must have done a great job of scaring them off because they didn't come back at five. Maybe "Fuzzy" the dog frightened them half to death with his barking and hairy fierceness. I'm still going to Scandia Housing's website tonight to look at what's available. Maybe Claus is anxious and we CAN get a new place before next year.

I bet if the neighbors saw them coming up the drive, they were freaking out.

Back in Business

I just paid a $2,000 water bill. That's our estimate of usage for the next six months....because the pool continued to dribble water back into the ecosystem all summer long and we kept dangling the hose in it to keep the water level up to the skimmers so as not to burn out the pump. Lars, the landlord/pool & house boy is a little worried because I told him that the company's accountant (who is kindly reimbursing our outrageous utility bills) might go into shock when he notices that the water bill has doubled since the last time we sent one. If we don't get our money back, I told him..."I'm coming after you. Since you let it go on all summer and didn't get anyone in to fix it."

I was a little nervous when the notice came to read the meter....being that we had been feeding the pool all summer. It turns out we doubled consumption. All summer long Lars babbled about why it might be happening but he always came back to evaporation. Okay, fella...let me go get the "Pictou County Water Resources Evaluation Study"....I know it's over 30 years old, and I know it's out of print (though you can get it still online)...BUT!! That's my name on there! Right below the title. So, I do know a little bit about evaporation, or did.....so don't give me any chatter about the sun stealing my H2O.

At least the evaporation idea was less wearing on John's nerves than the "John must have vacuumed the drain plug out" theory.

We will know in a few weeks because he has consulted the pool guy who will come in "April or May" to investigate the problem. Luckily the rate of water loss increased sufficiently that we recognized the futility of keeping up. We turned off the pump in early October and let the thing drain. It reached a level of about 2 feet from bottom and stopped. Apparently is drains out into the ground and not into a pipe because Lars thinks that it met the level of the water table and stopped.

That pool was a beautiful thing last summer. Very relaxing.


It might be a big concrete hole this year. I suppose we could store things in it or make it into a vegetable garden.

When I last wrote anything significant, I was just starting to get unpacked and settled....the movers never did come that day. We had to wait another few weeks before our things were released...because the company paid the Baku office of the movers, but no one communicated this to the Danish branch....who just didn't believe anyone had been paid. It seems like a long time ago now. Despite a less than confident beginning, not one thing was broken or missing from the move. That was a first! I can only conclude that the roads are very smooth in Belarus and Ukraine. We did get settled, bought some more stuff at IKEA and now we're all nice and cozy in the little Danish whorehouse.

We had a few more visitors, the last one about six months ago at 2:30 in the morning. I was still up when I heard a soft tapping at the front door....so soft I had to point at the dog and tell him to bark. I got John out of bed. He went to the door and spoke with a gentleman who appeared to be drinking, but well dressed in a nice suit and tie. John said he looked like he was in his thirties.....never got one dirty old man, ever. Knock on wood, but it seems like the word of our closure has filtered through the ranks, and folks are going elsewhere for their fun.

Getting Kenai into the country was easy in the end. I did all of the things I was supposed to do to make him legal and EU ready, and when the big moment of truth came at Danish Customs, there was no one to be found. There was supposed to be a vet there to check his papers and his microchip....but no...they were renovating the customs area and one of the carpenters had to search for a border agent. It all sounded so serious on the web site. It just didn't seem right that we went through this long separation for nothing.....to think that I could just follow the green arrow on the baggage hall floor, and be out into the fresh air and freedom.

No way! I wanted something official. When a customs guy finally showed up he asked where we were traveling from, he handed me the microchip reader, I scanned Kenai's chip, and handed it back to him. He said okay.....I backed up two paces, turned right and that was it. Welcome to Denmark, Lassie!


I got him some insurance. I didn't know that one must have insurance for one's pooch in case he damages somebody's property or chews their leg off. It's compulsory here. This information came from the lady at the boarding kennel where Kenai stayed for the Christmas holidays...."Bring with you when you come: blanket, contact information, proof of shots and insurance." I wonder if we can get him replaced if he runs away or gets stolen. Today I was trying to get an appointment for him at the groomer and made several calls. The first place said it would be June before they could take him, and another said a month. The third and the fourth places hung up because I couldn't speak Danish.....or they couldn't speak English...whichever is more important. I will try again tomorrow.

So far, and this is likely to remain the case, there have been no Danish lessons. The Danes take this "Danish" thing way too seriously. And not just the language. Being Danish is a "thing" not just a language. I've absorbed enough to get by so I think I'll leave it at that and the book learning to the people who are going to be here permanently. Officially, thirteen months to go for me. It seems whenever I attempt to say something in Danish, I'm immediately recognized as non-Danish and the speaker reverts to English anyway. And most infuriating is the fact that most people will pretend they haven't got a freaking clue what you're trying to say even though you "know" you're saying it right. I "know" because when they repeat it back to me, it sounds just the same! Honest!!

Over the course of the year I've found places to shop for groceries that don't close at six. It isn't that big a deal to drive 40 kilometers to get there when you really have to have some yogurt at 7PM. If only John was home from work with the car by then. Now that the time's changed, his biological clock or whatever it is that regulates these things, hasn't twigged to the fact that he has to come home in the daylight. He might be catching on a little bit now that we're in the second week of daylight savings time. He turned up last night at dusk.

I meant to post this picture a very long time ago. I stealthily captured this image during the busy Saturday afternoon shopping crush at Fotex, one of our grocery stores. I really hoped no one saw me do this because acting weird and unusual is very un-Danish. But I had to get this one....I wasn't sure how much pork a cute little boy holding his 4-H project in his arms would sell back in Canada....


I translated the caption. It says....."Happy pigs have curly tails." Doesn't particularly make me want to by any sausages.

I'm Not Dead Yet

Where does the time go? Almost 2 months have gone by...but one more day and this class will be over! **Insert Happy Dance Music Here** In the meantime, I have to get back to work on this project that's due tomorrow night. Then it's sun and sand and setting up a new computer...not all in that order...but I'm chomping at the bit to write about what I did with my summer vacation. How's that for a build up?

Sad really, I haven't done diddly but sit at this computer and make web pages. Addictive, yes, but interesting to others, no.

Learning The Ropes....Part One

Since multilingual doesn't mean being able to carry on several conversations at once, I've started to look into Danish lessons. How will this look on my curriculum vitae? Speaks a smattering of Azeri, Knows how to pronounce the Cyrillic alphabet, Can recognize the many different "o" sounds in Danish. Impressive, no?

Denmark offers free language lessons to foreigners who hold a CPR number. A CPR number is the be all and the end all here. You can't blow your nose without one. It functions the same as our Social Security numbers but there isn't any reticence about flashing your number all over the place. Nobody much cares what your name is but they are damn well interested in that number. I had to give one to the guy at the cell phone store when I bought a SIM card in order to get a special offer that was only available once. They were keeping track of who had taken advantage of it by their CPR numbers.

Maybe that's why the bank is super security conscious with their e-banking and debit cards. We got our dance cards last week. A few days ago the pin codes showed up for them. When I opened the envelope (one of those perforated on 3 sides thingies), I couldn't find the number. It turned out to be hiding under a large sticker that looks like what we stick on our windows for car registration. There were a ton of instructions (all in Danish)...so I Google translated and got a bunch of nonsense about masking the code in the window by filling out numbers from 0 to 9 in rows and columns in the grid of colored squares before I threw the envelope away. I also got something about monsters, too. Not sure where they fit into the PIN code picture but it showed me the limits of Google Translate.

Then on top of the PIN code monsters, there is the issue of menus...not the restaurant kind, the telephone kind. Denmark, being a modern technological country, has embraced the automated menu system that North America has. I don't think I've made one phone call to a business, yet, where I didn't have to fumble through several levels of menus....most often to eventually hit the one that accidentally " ends this call". Yesterday, I called Dong Energy (I love these names) and reported a power outage when I really just had a question about my bill. Those crafty Danes (who love queues so much they make you take a number to blow your nose), have foiled me every time I've tried to bail on the options by hitting zero.

I persevered with getting through to the cable company (to find out how come the "fuld pakken" is only 15 channels...which it isn't....I've got a technician coming...a major break through), the electric company (to find out why my bill is so high), and the Kommune (just because I was on a roll). I also needed to find out where to pay the bills, since we don't have e-banking yet.

I paid the bills at the bank, for the princely sum of 20kr a piece. And decided to that it was time to learn to speak some Danish.

They call them "crash courses" but I think boot camp is a more apt description. These people (or the government who is paying for it) REALLY want you to learn the language when you sign up for one of these things. I checked out the web sites for several schools, looking for the one that wasn't on the government program. I didn't find it.

There are 8 modules. Each module is 6 to 8 weeks long. You attend classes for a minimum of 3 days per week, 3.5 hours a day. If you miss 2 classes you are dumped and have to start over. They group you by your level of education, so college grads study with college grads and so forth. There are state exams you have to pass in order to move on. Some of them have an entry interview. Okay, then...

One of the schools is offering a concentrated summer school class beginning and ending before I go home on holidays. It runs from June 27th to July 17th and you have to go 5 mornings a week. There are tests, exams, homework, and the thing I hated most in the high school....the language lab. My Dreamweaver class is blowing my mind, since my head is just not on school stuff right now, so if I decide to drop it, maybe I'll do this. I think I'm nuts.

Our stuff is finally being delivered this afternoon between twelve and two. John has been so involved in this, he says he might actually come home. Since he's paying through the nose to have someone bring it "in" the house, I think he wants to get his money's worth and make them move furniture and lay out the carpets. That's probably a good idea since I think there is a 200 pound piece of glass on this table and the same for the pillars it sits on. Also, for some reason he's expecting a lot of damage (he's such an optimist), so maybe that's bringing him home....or else he thinks I won't open the door to a group of strange men.

Unpacking and setting up is going to keep my busy for a while. I can't wait to use my good china again....I think blue is a great color for the kitchen, is it not?


I've got more of Lars' things to pile on the spare room bed for him to take out of here. I think I'll go and do that right now since he'll be by this afternoon. I found this huge blow torch in the shed the other day, and finally figured out why one would have such a thing. They use them to incinerate the weeds and grass that grow up between the patio stones. I think I'll ask him to torch some greenery and stay out of the pool today. I'm all out of clean towels and the driveway is beginning to look like no one lives here.

In the meantime, we've had one more "visitor". This one was on Monday night around ten o'clock. So maybe this wasn't a daytime while hubby's at work kind of operation after all. I'm thinking a gate at the end of the driveway might be in order. I don't think I need to see them walk all the way up to the house. Might as well turn them around before they get too excited, and in the winter it will give them a shorter walk back to their cars. I'm sure that kindness would be appreciated.

Pool Boy

Even though we hired the landlord (who I'm going to call "Lars" from now on) to do the yard work once a week, he's been dropping by every other day. He comes to look after the pool...which he's trying to revive after going to Thailand last summer, turning off the pumps and the skimmers, and otherwise letting it go. We've sort of been suggesting that maybe he needed to get the "real" pool guy back with some sort of vacuum, since it doesn't seem to be responding to the constant dump of chemicals he's throwing into it anymore. But he says that would cost "many money".

If it weren't for the grit on the bottom and the nice skim of rusty brown along the sides, it would be perfect. The water itself is crystal clear....makes it so much better to see the bottom and the treasures that lurk therein....like money. There are coins down there.....and bits of left over lilac petals....and the rusty brown grit.

Two days ago it was sunny and gorgeous, and Lars showed up to dump some more chemicals into the water. For some reason, the water level had been dropping, hourly, all day. Lars did his chemical thing and mentioned that he would be back tomorrow to scrub the pool. He said the water temperature, at 18C, was warm enough for him to get in it.....sure buddy, it's positively toasty....especially with the air temperature pushing 14C and all....but.... I wasn't going to argue with him because it's taken him about two weeks to come to the conclusion that the damn thing just needed a little elbow grease. I'm going to say it's a language thing why he didn't get that way back when....but hell, he's buying the chemicals.

Anyway, I went back to Google translating the electric bill and my coffee (the new brew maker is lovely). A few minutes later, Lars knocks on the patio door and tells me, since the water level in the pool is down, he thinks it's a good idea to go into the water and scrub the pool right then. He says it won't be as far over his head in the deep end and did I "have something".....long pause as he searches for the word.....which is "towel".

To which I responded, as I mentally, rifled through John's wardrobe to see what I could give him to change into....."Yes, I have one." Literally, I had one clean towel.

"But you're going to be soaked," I told him.

"No," he shrugged, "I'll go in underwear...same as swimming."

I didn't stick around to see if that meant trunks or Speedo. I went back to Google translating the electric bill and my cooling coffee for which I now need a shot of Bailey's (or two).....wondering how my life got so bizarre all of a sudden. My landlord is out in my swimming pool in his underwear. There has to be enough chlorine in that pool to turn whatever it is he's wearing water-shear white....if it doesn't eat holes in it. What if I run out of bills to translate? What if my husband comes home and finds out I now have a bona fide pool boy?

Will somebody, please, pass me a margarita......and the lotion?

Killing Time

Well I’ve got a regular case of keyboard diarrhea. It must be this limbo thing, waiting for stuff to happen. I suppose the key is to go with the flow because when things start happening, I just know the dam is going to break and everything’s going to come at me at once.

My class begins on Monday. Dreamweaver this time and I’m really looking forward to it. I think I'll make this place all fancy when I learn how. I should be brushing up on my hand coding beforehand but no……I’m twiddling away here and uploading pictures to SmugMug. I think I have one or two more concerts from 2007 left to go.

Yesterday, I drove John to work and kept the car. There were actually lots of cars on the little tiny roads during the morning rush hour. A very different perspective than I normally get. It is a beautiful drive over to his office (about 20 minutes from here) and in the morning light, it’s even more so.

I took the car into Horsholm, went to the bank to transfer the money for the carpet, then I got some groceries, and a coffee maker.


Looks just like the ones back home doesn't it? We can haz coffee now…..well when I buy some that is. I wasn’t buying all that many 220V appliances since we can’t use them back home, but after a year and a half without coffee at home I broke down, and got one.

The carpet guy is here, getting ready to lay out the broadloom on top of those hardwood floors. Kind of a sacrilege in my opinion but it’s too late now to stop it. The reason for my bank trip yesterday was to transfer the money to the carpet store. Since our Danske Korts haven’t come in the mail yet, we are limited to cash only transactions…..or bank transfers….which are pretty common here. The bank account info for the carpet store was right there on the invoice. I wish the carpet guy hadn’t disconnected my internet.

The Danske Kort or Dance Card, as I tend to refer to it, is a debit card. And since foreign credit cards are not widely accepted at most places that Danes shop for everyday Danish stuff, you really need to have one. You have to have it, with a PIN to do anything, including internet banking. I’m told internet banking isn’t the same as at home where you access it through the bank’s website. Here, you have to download something to your computer and it only works on that computer. You can save it on a flash drive and put it on others within a certain period of time. After that you have to start all over again.

I managed to wiggle the camera out of my purse when I was driving too and from the office yesterday. It’s such a pretty drive I wanted to shoot it, so I can remember just how it looked. I still need the GPS to get there and back, though…..so many little twisty country roads along the way. I missed some big things like the horses, the army on a march in camouflage, and a herd of cyclist in red and green spandex right ahead of me for about a quarter of a mile.

Keep in mind I was driving when I took these (and they think I need to be tested! HA!)....so they aren't the greatest but here is the drive to work.


It starts off a little flat, passing farms, cows and windmills.




And then it turns into curvy roads with tree tunnels.




Most of the houses have thatched roofs.




This is the major intersection along the way.


And there are these cute little signs that remind us that we are not in Britain and to drive on the right side of the road. Kind of like.."Hey! This side, stupid!"


Those blue arrows are everywhere.

Tomorrow is a half day holiday, so should John come home at a decent time maybe we can get out and do some more wandering. In the meantime, I'll just sit here and type away...or work on some more concert photos. I found another set I haven't worked on yet.

I don't think I'll go knocking on any neighbors doors anytime soon. The Danes aren't known to be all that outgoing to begin with but.... I think I'll let word of our arrival filter through the neighborhood first. When I backed out of the driveway, yesterday, on my way to the office, I noticed there was a neighbor-lady with a cute little Westie on the grassy median across from the house. She certainly wasn't shy about staring, and she screwed up her face like she was trying to place me in the grand scheme of what is probably the most well known house on the cul de sac. She didn't seem to like what she saw because she glared at me as if I had come within inches of her cute little dog....which I didn't. I gave the best smile I could muster in the shadow of her frosty gaze and drove away. She continue to stare at me until I turned the corner of the street. She was giving me such an evil eyeball that I almost lowered the window to ask her if she needed something.

Then I remembered that the landlords's car was parked next to our hedge. It's been here a lot lately with us getting him to come take out his things, but we also hired him to come once a week to look after the pool, do the yard work, and clean the inside of the house. (I know, I know.....but the pool he knows how to do, and John has no time for mowing, and well.....he threw in the housework....how was I going to refuse? We really do think he needs the money. Something must have gone terribly rotten in his little corner of Denmark. I also think he misses his castle and the garden since he takes photos of it almost every time he is here.

Chit Chat

The folks at the Kommune office recommended that I wait until I've got a three or four month stretch of time, here in Denmark, before I embark on the driver's license conversion. They said there is no way with the difficulty of getting appointments and all that there is to learn, that I could do it in less time. I told them that I wasn't going to be here for that long, in one piece, until late January, and that was okay with them. Good! I don't have to think about that until long after we're settled.

The carpets are torn up in the bedrooms and I'm waiting for the installers to show up. They are about an hour late right now, but my carpet store guy tells me they are definitely coming. I hope so.....our bed is in pieces.

John was the brave one and pulled up the master bedroom carpet with his bare hands. I went in to help but I put on a pair of blue vinyl gloves first. If I wouldn't let my feet touch it, there was no way my hands were going anywhere close. When we got the carpet up, I found the source of the perfume-like smell that's been lingering since I got here. The floor was covered with powder. The smell wasn't exactly baby powder but....there it was.....perfumed talc. Lots of it ground right into the floor, which happened to be wood!

Both bedrooms have hardwood floors! And here I paid for wall to wall carpet when a little sanding and refinishing we'd have all hardwood floors. I suppose I should have asked the landlord what was under there. I had assumed it was just cement. Duh!

I think I mentioned in my previous blog that the flip-flop store was closed when we got there on Saturday. I glossed over the image of me, palms pressed to the glass....like Benjamin in The Graduate....silently screaming. So close and yet so far. I'll try again this coming Saturday. Or better yet, maybe, since I have the car.....venture out on my own later this afternoon. If the carpet installers ever show up, that is.

I'd made a hair appointment for this afternoon because I'm afraid some social/work invite is going to come up soon and I'll be caught with the skunk's stripe along the top of my head. Fabulous first impression, eh? I could sort of use a haircut too, but the color is almost in crisis mode.

I would rather visit the dentist than go to a new hair salon. The one I chose (out of the phone book) wasn't actually located where the phone book said it was. John and I did a drive by the other night and it was in some sketchy looking "centre"....as in mall behind a sketchy looking apartment building with no exterior decoration or windows.

Yesterday, I was talking to friend, here, and mentioned my hair appointment. She asked me what the prices were, and when I said "350 kr for a cut and 450 kr for the color", she said that was cheap....re-qualified to very reasonable. Now, I'm not one who thinks almost $200 is cheap or very reasonable for a cut and color, but I learned from my friend that $300+ is more like it, so I figured that a pre-appointment sneak peek was in order.

I did that yesterday and I'll be buying myself a box of dark blond hair color, I'll google translate the directions, and make John apply this weekend. He is a lot more anal about things than I am, so he'll do a much better job. Last time I did my own hair, I missed a temple. Okay....to be honest, the whole left side of my head.

If I'm lucky it will grow out into a style. It can't be in awkward stage forever can it?