Jillian Als

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Wednesday

Jul212010

summer on sjælland continues...

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 3:00AM

Another great summer weekend in here in Sjælland (the big island we live on).

Friday I traveled out to western Sjælland with Christian’s mom, a friend and Christian’s siblings Emilie and Magnus. We stayed at a “summer house” on the peninsula called Røsnæs just outside the city of Kaldunborg.

We took a boat trip out into the bay to look for some dolphin like fish, the closest English translation I could find was “porpoise” but I think they’re still a little different. I don’t know, we didn’t see any in the end. Which I’m sure you can guess, was fine by me the fish hater. ;)

We left late Saturday afternoon and I headed into Copenhagen to meet up with Jeanette for dinner, a movie and drinks. Sounds like a romantic date, haha. We ate at ChilliMilli and saw Shrek (the 4^th?) which was fine, definitely not as funny as the first two but anyone could have predicted that.

We were going to get a beer at a bar or something of the sort but decided to buy a few beers at the grocery store and sit in Nyhavn and people watch instead. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s my favorite thing to do on a nice day in Copenhagen.

I like to watch all the people walking by and guess where they’re from. Come join me sometime and I will share with you my skills on guessing.

I took a train home around 11:30 and missed a connection by 4 minutes and ended up with a 200kr ($35) taxi ride home from the station. Oh well, it was a really nice night and worth it!

Yesterday I relaxed for most of the day and then joined Christian’s uncle’s family and Farmor to Gillileje for dinner in the harbor. I found the one bit of chicken on the menu (I’m pretty good at that) and we ate outside and enjoyed the evening sun.

We took a walk on the rocky/sandy beach there after dinner. We looked for amber and special rocks that had what looked like petrified starfishes on them. I found a piece of amber, not sure if that’s special or not, though. The kids took a swim and then we started out to go home.

On the road out of the town there was a circus setting up. They literally had just arrived and the animals were out getting some fresh air. We stopped and got to be pretty close (without anything than a mere rope between us) to elephants, zebras, camels and horses. Pretty cool.

In other news, most of you probably read on Facebook that I got a job here, finally! I am absolutely over the moon about it. I definitely need structure and routine back in my life, not to mention a Danish income!!

I’m working remotely until the end of the month for my old job still and then supposedly I start my new job the first of August. So I never really was unemployed, kind of nice. I’ll know more details this week when I go in to sign some paperwork. :D

Thanks for all your love and support, as always.

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Tuesday

Jul132010

i love IKEA, don't judge me

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 7:09AM

This one is for you Kate, finally.

I’ve wanted to post about our bedroom makeover as I was very proud of how cute we made it in so little time. However, that said, I am (of course) not completely satisfied with it and (of course) there is a lot of work left to be done.

My initial excitement was so big because the room is already 100x better than it was before I moved in. I wish we had before pictures but sadly we do not.

Highlights so far…

New headboard – thanks hubby! This was my surprise when I moved in – he chose the fabric for my love of butterflies (I think, I hope). Fabric is from Ikea (surprise, surprise).

We’ve kept our bedspread (dyne) plain white, but I like it this way. It’s a small space with a lot going on so keeping white space is important to me. I like light and airy spaces!

Our major construction project was hiding our rather haphazard closet/clothes storage functions. Here is our make shift IKEA storage system… haha. Whatever, it looks fine when the curtains are closed!

We added the shelves above the hanger rack to alleviate some of the overstuffed cubby holes in the unit on the far left. What would that unit even be called? Not sure. We also bought the giant curtain rod and two packs of curtains from Ikea to hide all the ugliness.

I like the curtain fabric a lot – which is a good thing because it covers an entire side of the room, pfft.

Here is my work-from-home spot. Yes there are 2 laptops and an additional monitor. What’s missing is Christian’s laptop! It’s absurd, I realize. Not much I can do about it, though.

I want to paint the shelves white but that’s on Christian’s longer term ‘honey-do’ list. I also want to replace the little table between the desk and the bed with something that has drawers. Storage, storage, storage people!

Across from the bed is a small dresser and my big princess mirror that I absolutely adore.

I have most of my hair, makeup and jewelry in those black baskets on top the dresser. You’d think there would be space in the bathroom for such things but I won’t even go there.

Then we have the rug from IKEA. A big gray accent to match the curtains and some future pillows I think. Breaks up the wood floors nicely but it attracts every speck of anything. But, it’s easy to vacuum!

What you’re not seeing is the wall with our windows – three big panes that look out over the garden. Underneath is a hideous radiator painted seafoam green, NOT OK. Again on Christian’s ‘honey-do’ list.

Also not featured is the back of the door which has some seafoam green panels on it – ugh. That is next on Christian’s list, followed by the shelves I think.

On my list? The bare wall above the bed. I want to hang a bunch of frames of different sizes above it. I want to incorporate some general photography (Grandpa have any good B&Ws to donate?) and B&W wedding photos. Of course Ikea knows what i'm talking about (always):

(Ikea.dk)

If we didn’t have the desk shelves right next to the bed I really like the idea of a long shelf with a big frame leaning from it against the wall – but it wouldn’t work in here.

I also need to figure out some window treatment. We have wooden blinds at the moment which are a little dark for my preference but at the same time – we won’t be here forever so I have to pick and choose upgrades wisely!

I want something for above the dresser next to the mirror as well. It might be some kind of unit to store jewelry. I’ve always been jealous of this piece my friend Deanna has:

($119.99 from Target.com)

But this piece and a lot of similar pieces have a mirror on the front so I'd have to do some hunting or cover it with a big photo maybe.

So that’s it. This is where I spend most of my day when I work from home so it’s not so bad to look at!

The living room – I can’t begin to tackle until we make a plan for how long we plan on living here because it involves furniture overhaul.

The kitchen is a crawl space (so it feels like) and we’re working on some better storage options there. But really, I’m pretty happy with our quirky little railcar style house!

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Saturday

Jul102010

summer has arrived

Saturday, July 10, 2010 at 11:46AM

My friends and family love us so much they sent us their east-coast heat wave. :P Only problem is that we don’t have those fancy, new-fangled things called air conditioners here! Or outdoor public pools. Plenty of beach, though! Danish summer is here!

Christian and I went to the beach last week and it was awesome. There weren’t waves but the water was not atrociously cold and I could see through it (and we know this is important) so I had a blast just slashing around so to speak.

Before it gets too far gone I should talk about last weekend. There was a lot going on!

Friday we helped Christian’s uncle with some floral arrangement delivery and decorations for a horse show in Sweden. The customer was a bit off her rocker and we moved everything like 400x for her but I think it turned out well!

(yes, that is in a horse stable)

Saturday we went back to Sweden for Christian’s grandma’s sister’s 75^th birthday. Did you follow that? Christian’s grandma (Farmor – the little one who lives across the terrace) is Swedish and is one of something like 7 or 8 children, no one can really answer that question for me. So there is a lot of Swedish family.

Lots of Swedish family that no one really knows through whom they’re related. I thought I was struggling to understand Danish… you should hear Swedish – it makes me laugh mostly. It’s definitely a whole different intonation than Danish, yauh.

Apparently birthdays aren’t a big gift giving ordeal but everyone comes and brings maybe a small gift and sits down for coffee and 3 courses of cakes, cookies and other delicious desserts (see picture of dessert table below). I see where Christian developed his sweet tooth!

Sunday we had the brunch for Emilie’s graduation and it was also the 4^th of July and so obviously we had to celebrate! We hosted a barbeque at our house in the garden (ok backyard ugh where is this proper English coming from already?!) and invited friends and family.

Apparently evite is not commonly used in Denmark and hit half of our friends spam folders instead of inboxes. Whoops! So our brave and handicapped friend, Sillas, made the trip out to grannytown from Copenhagen to spend the 4^th with us and Christian’s family.

We made so much food. I made Kayte’s guacamole recipe and some fresh pico de gallo and served with tortilla chips as an appetizer. Ok so not American but hello, every American loves Mexican food. Or it’s just me. Either way YUM.

We grilled all kinds of meats and corn on the cob. I made potatoes and a salad to serve as side dishes. I was particularly proud of my salad – mixed leafy greens, cucumbers, red onion, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts and feta cheese with homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Delicious! I also made the cake shown above. Cake mix from a box does exist here but it's just not the same! ;)

We drank a few cocktails and played a Danish yard game. It’s called I forget… Købclub or something. Haha I totally forget what it’s called but it was super fun. I played on the winning team the whole day until the very last round.

It would take me forever to explain the game so maybe you should just come over and play it with us sometime instead!

It’s been sunny and warm, if not hot, every day for a long time, I almost don’t want to jinx it! I am loving it! Hope all is well with my loyal readers!

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danish 'high school' graduation

Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 5:23PM

I thought moving to Denmark and working from home would mean that I’d have all the time in the world to do things like blog and be lazy. Errrrt.

One thing we’ve been celebrating for a little over a week now is Christian’s little sister’s graduation from Gymnasium (Danish High School). The high schools here are notorious for gruesome exams and it’s not an easy school to get through so we are very proud of her.

Danish tradition lesson time! Remember when we were trying to steal booze from our high school graduation parties? And how alcohol on school premises was pretty much forbidden in an amendment to the constitution somewhere? Well we greeted Emilie in the hallway immediately after her last exam and popped champagne!

It was pretty emotional for Emilie…. and obviously for me. I’m practically walking Hallmark these days, so touched by everything. I cried, eh god. No I think it was a very proud moment for everyone there (mom, grandma, brothers etc).

The following day we held a 10 minute party for Emilie’s entire class (~30 ppl). Huh? Well tradition here is that once all the students in a class finish exams, they take a ‘party bus’ around to everyone’s house.

Ok what? So high schools here are small classes that ‘specialize’ / ‘major in’ specific academic areas. Christian’s class was Math & Science and Emilie’s was Language and Social Studies (I think that would be the translation anyway). So they’re taking all the same courses together for three years.

The party bus is a Danish long-time tradition. The class one year behind them decorates the truck with laurels during a small ceremony held in the morning after exams. Then comes party party party. The first house usually serves some breakfast but then on out it’s mostly a liquid diet and they leave as quickly as they arrive. 25+ houses in one day is a tough feat!!

We served champagne, fruit and softice for Emilie’s class at Christian’s mom’s house. They were at the house for literally 10 minutes.

These trucks are found all over on the Friday after exams – and everyone honks at them. You can hear them a mile away. Emilie’s truck had its own DJ, I was so jealous. I so wanted to get on and pretend I was just finishing high school again! ;)

Another tradition are the hats/caps that the graduates wear. They don’t do typical graduation ceremonies with caps and gowns like we do in the States but their hats are cooler and have more meaning anyway! All your classmates/friends/family sign the inside of the cap and some bite on the rim for good luck (something like that anyway.)

We culminated the celebrations yesterday with a brunch to celebrate with family and some of Emilie’s closest friends. We love you Emilie and are so proud of you! xo

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