It’s amazing, really, to think how well things have gone. We worried a lot about getting all that luggage to the airport: two bicycle carrying cases, two LARGE suitcases, and four carry-on bags. But it worked! We pulled up to the terminal in Phoenix; I flagged down a helpful porter and he took over. It was easy! We did spend an extra two hours in Chicago because our flight was delayed, so July 3/July 4 was a long day’s journey from Phoenix to Copenhagen. When we arrived, our rental car for the year was a brand-new (40 km on the speedometer) Renault hatchback and, wonder of all wonders, all our luggage fit!

We arrived in Holte to find Bente and Ole (the wonderful DDC-I secretary and her husband who have set everything up for us) waiting on one of our balconies. They had cake, coffee, and tea waiting. We invited our neighbors, the owners, who live below us, up for a party! We sat on another of our balconies and looked at the ducks on the small lake behind the house. There was some kind of heron who sat in a tree looking for fish in the lake. It was a beautiful day!

The next day I left for Munich and EuroPLoP (a patterns conference). It’s held every year at a restored Benedictine monastery, now conference center, called Kloster Irsee. The conference was great; the people were great; and this year, on the little hike up the hill near the town, I was able to see the Alps!

By the time I got home the following Sunday, Karl had picked up the 25 boxes we shipped from Phoenix and had unpacked nearly all of them. That left minimal organizing of stuff for me. My real task is shopping! I can’t read the labels on anything, so if there isn’t a clear picture or I can’t tell from context (what else is around this item in the store) then I’m lost. Our “flat” is completely furnished but we still need food! The grocery stores in Holte are: Netto (known far and wide as the cheapest – a little like some of the discount groceries in the states, stuff stacked in boxes, no frills—although at all stores you pay extra for bags and most people bring their own and you do your own bagging), Kvickley (kind of a low-end department store + groceries), Irma (a bit nicer with more variety but also more expensive).

Danish food is good and not so good. They have superb bread and wonderful cheese, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables but a limited supply of frozen items – no Healthy Choice!  Danes eat a lot of ham and some beef, little chicken and hardly any turkey. There’s lots of fish, of course, but salmon, my favorite, is very expensive. The fish is “fishier” but I like fish, so that’s OK. Karl had prepared me for unusual combinations but I am still amazed. My first night home from Germany, we went to a local fast food place and I had a baked potato topped with tuna (out of a can) and lemon. They put a thin sour cream on baked potatoes (I’ve had this twice now) that’s very good. I keep looking for it in stores but even if I could read the labels—I don’t know what I’m looking for!

Karl has found a substitute for Grape-Nuts. For breakfast every morning we have muesili with a thin yogurt, usually fruit-flavored. Top with bananas (very expensive here) or other fruit and voila! I thought I would miss iced drinks but, first of all, it’s cold here, and second, I feel more European somehow. I tried to use my fork in the left hand and use the knife in the right to move food on the back of it but I kept dropping food, so I gave up.

The house is interesting. It’s an old house (circa 1920) and the wires come out of the walls all over the place. Every lamp and appliance has a switch associated with it. To turn a light on, flip the switch down. One light in the kitchen is under the cabinet and is so difficult to identify and reach (I kept turning off the microwave by mistake) that I switch it on in the morning and leave it on all day. Yes, we have a microwave—bought especially for us. We can’t read the instructions but we can figure out most of the interface. The stove has a gas range top and an electric oven. I miss my toaster oven and hope to find one. As most of you know, I’m not much of a cook and over here we will need to entertain people and cook special dinners. We have a very small dishwasher. It seems to work well but I had to ask for help with the use of “salt” which goes in a dispenser in the side of the machine. This is in addition to the dishwashing detergent and helps treat the hard water here.

There are several residents in the house. On the ground floor are the owners, Penny Weekes and Mogens Agathon. Penny is a social worker and Mogens is a lawyer. They have a black lab named Simba who likes people and carries a bone around with her. Nils is the resident handyman and lives in what used to be the carriage house. Nils has one of the largest cats I’ve ever seen. He’s a tabby with white paws, very friendly; his name is Magnus. Penny and Mogens have a son, Rassmussen, who lives in a small apartment just off the main basement. Then, of course, the visiting Americans—live on the 1^st and 2^nd floors (I would call them the 2^nd and 3^rd floors.)

The house is full of knick-knacks and plants (let’s have a few moments of silence for these plants—I know my limits). The first few days I kept stubbing my toe on the raised thresholds between rooms. That seems to be European because I had the same trouble in Germany. When we get home, we’ll probably still be in the habit of stepping over the entrances! The bathroom has a shower and a European toilet (hard to explain unless you’ve been here) and is very tiny. The toilet is right next to the shower, which is close enough to the lavatory that they share the same soap. My first night here I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and misjudged the location of everything. I leaned away from the wall and fell into the shower, hitting my head on the faucet. I’m sore and bruised along my right side and have a bump (bimp to those of you who are Clouseau fans!) on the side of my head—but I’m OK! If I needed medical care—too bad, because we have to wait 6 weeks to get into the Danish health care system.

Everything in Denmark is based on their version of a SSN. It provides health care and other benefits. I’m really interested to see how this works and to see what other things they provide. It was necessary for our bank account, which we have opened and used for transferring funds. Our daughter, Amy, who lives in Nashville, is handling our US business and Karl’s checks are automatically deposited, so when we need money over here, we wire it from our account in Phoenix. Having a bank account means we have a Dankort (debit card). All local grocery stores take the Dankort, so it’s easier than carrying cash.

Right now 8 Kroner = 1 $US. Some things seem very expensive, others cheap. I bought a 2.5-liter plastic canister yesterday for about $0.50 but I spent $6.00 for a can opener. However, it is an excellent Danish can opener and I plan to bring it home.

Today is my day to do laundry. There’s a small front-loading machine in the basement. A load takes 1.5 hours and means carrying laundry down from the 2^nd floor to the basement, stuffing as much as I can into the machine, going back when it’s finished and hanging everything in the basement. There is no dryer but the final phase of the washer spins the clothes at 1500 rpm (it says so on the front of the washer!) The clothes will probably be dry tomorrow, so I can go down to the basement, and haul everything back to the 2^nd floor. Towels don’t do well with this but we’ll survive!

We really don’t use the 3^rd floor except to store stuff. There’s a sitting room and a small bedroom with two single beds. We could conceivably sleep four guests (two in the single beds, one on the couch on the 3^rd floor and one on the couch on the 2^nd). There’s only one small bathroom but we could manage. So, let me repeat my invitation—come on over! I learn more about labels every day!

This weekend we’ll take our first bike excursion. Karl has put our bikes together and he’s been riding to Lyngby to work every day. It’s not as far as the trip in Phoenix but there are a few hills so he gets some exercise. We’re also close to a very large woods and Sunday we walked a short way into them. We also drove up to the coast a bit and walked around one of the harbors. There’s lots of water here!

I’m working at home. For those who remember the pictures of the house, I have a desk in front of windows that look out on one of the balconies. I’m working on the 2^nd edition of the almanac, finishing the communications patterns book, and doing editing on two other books for Addison-Wesley and Prentice-Hall. I still have the Hillside job. It’s great to be able to work anywhere in the world! We bought a laptop, a Sony Vaio; we have a modem and a zip drive. Our house has an ISDN line that allows me to talk on the phone while I’m on-line (something I couldn’t get in Phoenix).

I think the sun is coming out—hallelujah! Except for that nice first day, we’ve had overcast skies and a lot of rain. I typically wear jeans, a t-shirt and a sweatshirt. When I go out, I take my new Gore-tex jacket. I keep remembering how we debated spending the money for the Gore-tex! I’m sure they’ll see a lot more wear before we bring them home to put away in the back of the closet in Phoenix!

Nearly everyone speaks English. I was at the grocery store yesterday, watching people put plastic bottles in a return machine. I asked a youngster if the caps had to be on the bottles (I’d been tossing them) and he just shrugged. Trash is separated here. “Green” garbage and compostables go in one bin and “black” trash goes in another. Newspaper and glass bottles are recycled and plastic bottles are returned to the grocery store for a refund. I got a receipt for 20 Kroner from the bottles I took back yesterday. You take the receipt from the machine and use it just like cash at the grocery store. I have one large wastebasket in the kitchen and a very small one in the bathroom. The owners say to save clean paper to burn in the fireplace but I can’t find a wastebasket in the stores anywhere to use near the desk for clean paper.

People in Denmark are friendly and helpful. At the grocery store yesterday, an elderly man in line behind me started talking to me in Danish. I had to apologize and say I was from the US and couldn’t speak Danish—yet—but hoped to learn! He started speaking English and said he had been to the US and Canada several times to visit relatives. He then told me his wife had died 5 years ago and he was buying roses to take to her grave. He said he still missed her and loved her—how sweet and touching! The Danish are big on flowers and candles. This house is full of both. I feel out of place here, since I’m a no-upkeep, no-dust kind of person but it’s charming in its own way.

I rode to work with Karl this morning. It was good to be back on my bike! It’s only 6 km from Holte to Lyngby but there are a couple of nice hills, so I did it twice! I’m looking forward to some real touring!

Oh, oh, there goes the sun. We’re back to gray skies. Oh, well, maybe it’ll be nice this weekend!

Linda was the author for Part 1, so Karl will be in charge of this one!

Since text files don't seem to do well with the Danish o with a / through it, we will use the @ symbol.

We're starting to get settled in. We've found a place for almost everything in our house. We've found a hardware store in Berkerød that's pretty good—though it's not Home Depot. We found a few important items there, like the replacement faucet that Linda has been complaining about!

We had an adventure with our printer. We thought we'd bring over our Canon BCJ4300 printer (110V-60Hz power) and try to run it through one of the power converters. 15 seconds after we plugged it in, there was a pop and a distinctive smell that told us all was not well. I don't know whether the converter is defective, or what, but the printer's power supply died. Fortunately, low-end printers are cheap here. We were able to get a replacement (Canon BCJ4400) that is actually slightly better for under $100. We can use the same printer cartridges as the ones we hauled over from Phoenix, so that's a plus!

This experience makes me reluctant to plug in our batteries for our bike lights. They have a power supply that takes a 110V input and outputs a 7.5V DC, so perhaps we can find a 220V input that does the same.

Bicycling in Denmark is really nice—at least when the weather is good. There are a lot of bike lanes, lots of signs pointing the way to cities/towns, and the drivers actually look out for bicycles and yield to them. Of course, Danish bicyclists also stop for stop signs, yield to pedestrians, and behave like civilized riders. Linda really likes the "blue strips" that start when the bike lane stops and end when it picks up again.

Last weekend, we took two rides. On Saturday we rode our bikes to Hilerød and Fredericksborg Castle. On Sunday we rode our bikes to Helsingør (Ellsinore for you Hamlet fans) and Kronborg Castle and also saw some of the old city.

http://www.planetware.ca/photos/PHDK.HTM

Fredericksborg Slot (Castle) sits on several islands and is surrounded by water/moats. When you walk through the first entrance gate, you see a courtyard with a beautiful fountain. Then walking through the second entrance gate, you enter another courtyard that is surrounded on three sides by the castle. Straight ahead is the main entrance with three levels of large statues of various (mythological?) figures. It's quite impressive. The castle is very large and everything in it is very ornate. I'm not sure if it is Baroque or Rococo. Part of the castle is a chapel. I don't think there is a square inch that doesn't have some kind of decoration. An interesting feature of the chapel is a very old organ, designed by Michael Praetorius that has wooden pipes. On Sunday, after our bike trip, we went back to the chapel to hear a concert, part of which was played on this organ. The first piece we heard was one we have played in our US recorder group—the King of Denmark's Galliard. Here it was called Christian IV's Galliard. It was moving to think that we were sitting in a chapel built by Christian IV, where he sat, in a castle where he lived, listening to a piece of music written for him. The grounds of Fredericksborg Castle are also very impressive, but we didn't get to see them. We'll go back when it isn't raining!

While Fredericksborg is a very ornate home for kings, Kronborg Castle is much more of a fortress. It still has some impressive living areas where the kings and queens and their relatives stayed, it is generally plainer. It does have the largest "great hall" in Europe. Kronborg is built on the seacoast where Sweden is very close—about 4 km. The Danes and Swedes have fought many battles over territory, and this castle was involved in several. The original castle was built on this spot by Eric of Pomerania, an early Danish king. He didn't like being a king and gave up the life to become a pirate.

One of the things you can do at Kronborg is to tour the "casements," the area below the castle where many of the soldiers lived, and where the dungeons are. In the casements, you come across the statue of Helge Dansk, the legendary sleeping Dane who will wake up and come to Denmark's rescue whenever it is really in trouble. He must have a pretty strict interpretation of trouble since he slept through World War II. There's an impressive sculpture outside the grounds of Fredericksborg Castle. It shows a deer being taken down by several eagles. The title of this piece: To commemorate April 9, 1940. That was the start of the Nazi occupation in World War II.

Kronborg is also the setting that Shakespeare used for the setting of Hamlet, though he called it Ellsinore (Helsinør) castle. Hamlet has been performed at the castle many times.

I don't know if we have really experienced Danish food yet. We haven't had smørbrød, but we have had a lot of Danish fruits, jordber (strawberries) and hindber (raspberries) and vegetables (we bought aerter (peas) on one of our bike rides).

Danes don't eat sandwiches the way we do. Danish bread is coarser and denser than American bread and is quite tasty. Danes use only one slice of bread for a sandwich. Then a spread or meat is carefully (almost artistically) added. This is topped with some carefully sliced and arranged vegetables like tomatoes or cucumbers. Then perhaps an artistically swirled topping of mayonnaise or remoulade is added. We Americans would pick this up in both hands and stuff it into our mouths. Not the Danes. The sandwich is cut up with a knife and eaten with a fork. Of course, there are exceptions. At McDonald’s you can see Big Macs being eaten with both hands.

My work is going well. Things have gotten transferred pretty well from the US and I'm continuing to work on the multi-language debugger for the DDC-I SCORE product line. Currently, this is being ported to NT, and we are working through differences that have come up after the code has been ported.

Linda's multiple jobs are keeping her busy and she struggles with daily living among Danish labels. She was very happy when I spotted the Merry Maid’s office on one of our evening walks. The Danish government finances home cleaning—they pay 50% of the cost. It's still expensive but Linda thinks it's well worth it!

We have plans for more sight seeing this weekend if the weather holds! Here's the latest Danish joke about the weather. In Denmark there are two seasons: the green winter and the white winter. The difference is that in the green winter they don't turn on the heat!