Week 4

Wow, week 4. We've been here nearly a month and are definitely ready to get to our own place! We are all set to receive our shipment next week on Wednesday, June 25th and Heather has officially finished cleaning the apartment in preparation for the move. We also purchased furniture and picked up the car this week. It's finally starting to sink in that we are not just on vacation and that holy cow, we've actually moved to Denmark!    

Week 4 started out with Nick's first work trips since we moved: an overnighter and a day trip. Both Nick and Heather could get used to this type of travel! Tuesday and Wednesday, Nick was out at a test site with several of the members of his Danish team along with one of his good friends and colleagues from the US. Heather spent those two days in forced relaxation, holed up in the hotel still under-the-weather. By Thursday though, she was back to good and ready to see Nick off for his day trip to Sweden. While he was in Sweden conducting an exit interview, Heather was working with the property management company to prepare the Illinois house for renting and getting things finalized at the bank in preparation to pick up the new car the following day.  

Friday was wonderful! We got our car which we LOVE; hung out with friends; and took a nice drive in the new one!!! Bella seems to fit quite comfortably and enjoys looking out the big window in the back almost as much as resting her head on the back seat while checking out the scenery through the windshield.  

Nick picking up the new car!!! 

Drinks with coworkers Friday night in the courtyard at the hotel

Saturday was a FULL day of shopping. After several different stores (some of them twice) and a great deal of deliberation, we picked out a dining room table and chairs! We selected a table with a top crafted from reclaimed barn wood supported by metal legs with a distressed finish. A matching bench that would accommodate 3 easily and 4 if we squished, a matching stool for the kitchen island and three dining chairs. These should all be ready for us to pick up by the first or second week of July. Saturday night, Nick and Heather, along with Vince who was still in town from the US, grilled some food and relaxed on the patio. 

Sunday was much more relaxing than Saturday. We put together an Ikea shelving unit for our entry way to hold our shoes (well, some of our shoes at least), found the dump and drop off a load of boxes from the air shipment, and "blissed out" in our balcony chairs for a bit before returning to Odense. Sunday night, we went into downtown for dinner with Vince and another of Nick's coworkers, Chris, who arrived from the US earlier that afternoon. We had dinner at a little steakhouse in the center of town then got some tasty gelato and walked around an older section of Odense, built between the late 1700 and early 1800 with cobble stone streets and half-timber houses.

Older section of Odense near Hans Christian Andersen's childhood home.

Monday took Nick back to work, while Heather spent the day exploring the nearby walking paths and having yet more ice cream, this time with the wife of one of Nick's colleagues, Michaela. She showed Heather her favorite places to jog and walk, as well as some good ice cream joints! 

Because Monday was Midsummer Eve or "Sankt Hans aftern" (the Danes always celebrate this on the 23rd while other Scandinavian ), the town was getting ready for the festivities. Odense has a festival with music, food, and of course beer (no Danish anything is complete without beer), where they light a huge bonfire that burns for about 2 days. The Midsummer holiday stems from an old pagan celebration honoring the sun god's defeat of darkness. Now however, it is a day where Danes get together to enjoy good food and drink and light a bonfire at dark. One of the traditions of Sankt Hans aftern is to send off a witch to Bloksbjerg, a mountain in Germany where Wicans were rumored to gather on this day. To send the witch off, a wooden figure (which may, but doesn't always, have fireworks in it) is placed onto the bonfire and a song which translates in English to "We Love Our Little Land" is sung. 

Nick, Heather and Chris were lucky enough to be invited to a midsummer eve party. The party, held at the home of one of the boys' coworkers, was located on a penninsula/island (depending on your source) located at the southwest edge of Fyn. His home is located on the coast only 150 meters from the Helnæs lighthouse which was built in 1901. 

Here is a photo of the lighthouse with Anders' house being just left of the lighthouse.
It was quite cool, windy and a bit rainy that so this is a photo courtesy of Wikipedia since we didn't take any.

For dinner we had several types of appetizers, salads, grilled sausages, etc. Smartly, everyone grills their own food on the hosts grill, so it can be done just the way you like AND the host doesn't have to work the entire time!  For dessert, we had homemade ice cream, rhubarb cake, strawberry tart, and fresh strawberries. Delicious.  Because of the rain, the bonfire and the witch send off was postponed until next year. On the 2 hour drive back to the hotel, we could see smoke dotting the horizon from other midsummer eve bonfires. And that was the end of week 4.