Saturday and my project

This was the view off the deck on Sat. am (you can't see the hospital about 50 yds away) so Nhat and I decided to stay in and work at home.  He read about the German occupation and I continued my work transcribing Nhat's mom's journal from their year in Copenhagen in 1938-39.  Howard got a grant to study here and they hitchhiked to NYC, took a boat to Norway, traveled to Copenhagen and rented a room.  They began to learn Danish and study Søren Kierkegaard at the Royal Library.  

Her journal is full of her impressions of life in this city.  Often she writes about bikes.  The men who bike past with a long ladder in one hand and a pail in the other or the "flock" of bicyclists in the country.  They took weekend outings to Roskilde and the Fredericksborg Castle and described them as we have.  It is fun to hear her voice describing a castle and the ornate chapel which we just saw last weekend.  In fact, her voice is so strong with its rich descriptions, the bursts of enthusiasms, the sharp observations, that I really miss her all over again.  They lived at first with a woman of indeterminate age and had to live under her critical eye.  The first weeks Edna lived there:

Wash day at Fru Pederson's. She gets me up and attempts to get Howie out of bed–by bumping his feet which stick out of the feather bed-patting him–but he keeps his eyes shut. Laundry room–a cement hole with the tub built over a fire hearth hole and a huge chewed up wooden tank. We scrub and scrub–she seizing clothes from me to show how–long sweeps of the hand. Try to save silks, but they are dumped in, smeared with jellied consommé, but I will not rub. Boiled–rubbed again–rinsed–rinsed–tank emptied many times. 

They lived under her watch for 4 months but then moved to a room with a widow with 3 children going to the University. 

The new place warm–a monstrous bed, but oh, so feathery are the 2 eiderdowns–and so white!  Big solid table–bookcase with Ruskin, Shakespeare, Galsworthy, etc.  Det glœde mig meget. ... Dinner at 4 o'clock, with the 3 charming children and the quiet queenly long-black-frocked mother. They are severe about our restrictions and speak Danish–even when we are helpless.

There the widow insisted they only speak Danish but it was a warm apt, with clean sheets (despite the trips to the basement, Fru Pedersen had dingy sheets) and young people with friends and activities.  They lived on very little money and so began Howard's lifelong habit of an on-going pot of soup.

Howie–awfully hungry. Make soup in big black kettle. Throw big bunches of celery–I wash–Howie cuts and throws all in, except the really bad–though I'm afraid his standards are lower as far as bad celery goes. Dump in everything–carrots, potatoes–until the stuff floats boiling on the very edge of the pot. Eat out of one bowl and  Oh, So good!  

Four days later: The soup still is–the celery leaves look like soggy weeds in a sluggish stream–covered with frogs eggs etc. The bone is chewed off quite–

There is much about the rise of Hilter and Nazi Germany.

Geisman tells of a theology professor in Berlin who occasionally addresses audiences in Berlin. Knowing two spies were in the audience one evening he asked them to come up and sit in the two chairs he had placed under the altar–they would hear better. Again he addressed an audience with “Dearly beloved…. and Mr. Police Sargent.” Again he gave a sermon in Copenhagen at the German Lutheran Church. Knowing the violently Nazi embassy would not come, he invited the king and queen and thereby forced them to come and delivered his anti-Nazi speech.

They hear a lot about the Jews being forced out of Germany, not getting work or support, the imprisoned Czechs, Spain falling to the Fascists, etc.  Virulent anti-Semitism.

I have just begun the part where they get on their tandem bike and begin their bike trip from Copenhagen to Rome and back. Through Nazi Germany where they encounter big military parades and Nazi stormtroopers.  Through the Alps where they pedaled up mountains and roared down, once burning out their brakes.  Sleeping in the open, in barns, or at youth hostels.  Cooking potatoes and soup on their camp stove in parks.  More later as I transcribe it.

 I am using a voice recognition software called Dragon Dictation. It is pretty impressive, that it can spit out what I am reading, quite quickly.  Its limitations are quite evident as I go through this for the second time.  Eyed is written "I'd,"  "I 8 breakfast."  Just came across "ProTech Tourettes" for protectorates.  I guess that is a word not much in use anymore.  The funniest one is "We sat eating our lunch by the Windows. We had an Apple for lunch."  Product placement.  It's everywhere.

But after 2-3 hours of reading and pondering over Edna's scrawl and finding the weirdest mistakes in the voice recognition, it was time to brave the elements and get on our bikes.  You didn't think we would pass up the chance to show you more bike pictures?  We biked for 2 hours in the nature preserve.  The fog was delightful.  It made the hi-rise hotel disappear.  Big apt buildings no longer existed.  Just us, a very few other bicyclists and some cows and sheep.  Great day.