Spring!

I should have written this earlier this week, when I was biking for 2 hours around the nature preserve.  I had to push my sleeves up and roll up my pant legs to cool off.  It was wonderful.  Really different than the post-biking photo 6 weeks ago.  Now early spring is truly back though the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, a lot!   We are still biking, pumping hard against that "modvind" and our bike legs are coming back.

Spring is here though.  The day is 13 hours long today.   Quite a change from the 7 hours of daylight we had in December and headed for 17 and a half hours at the June solstice.  What a heady difference.  Spring and thoughts turn to cleaning and tidying up, at least with us Scandinavian types.   Two weekends ago the neighborhood had a tree pruning Sat.  Everyone turned out with clippers and ladders and pruned the old chestnut trees of their bushy crowns, filling 2 dumpsters with branches.

It was a friendly group and they finished with the pølse wagon driving up and everyone eating their fill of Danish hot dogs. 

 I took to the windows afterwards as all this sunshine made their sorry state more obvious.




















We weren't the only ones who were cleaning up.  The municipal workers were out for several days cleaning the canals and harbor of a winter's worth of detritus, mostly in the form of bikes.  They had a diver crawling the bottom and then they would haul up the old bikes, shopping carts, tires and in one case a seaweed encrusted statue of a man in 18th century clothes, looking pretty sorry lying there on the barge.

Here are other signs of spring:  the wildflowers, the crocus bed in the Kings Garden and Challa and his friends bringing out the trampoline for the season in the yard below our deck.

                                                                  
So begins spring and then summer.  The visiting season has arrived.  We just said good-bye to Debbie Ward after a great week of walking, eating and talking. It was such nice weather that after we dropped her at the airport (from our #5 bus line) that we walked home.  I love an airport one can walk or bike to.  It took us about 1 1/2 hours similar to our usual 5 mile walk around our neighborhood on Bainbridge. Now the rest of the visitors will come so expect more tourist photos, pictures of folks you might recognize (esp our grandkids) and of course more biking experiences.

Quick Trip to Oslo

So this week's outing was a "mini-cruise" to Oslo thanks to an unexpected Groupon deal for $50.  We biked up to the ship harbored just down the street from Nhat's museum after work on Monday.  It was a glorious spring day and we loved motoring out of the harbor with it's brilliant white windmills and snapping flags on board.

 We sailed through the night.  Although there were two discos with a live, cover band and kids and some pretty intoxicated dancers living it up, we hunkered down in the throbbing bowels of the ship and read our books.  It was perfectly calm sailing and we were quite content in our pulldown bunks.

Next morning we sailed the long fjord into the Oslo harbor.  We noticed how much the shoreline resembled Lake Superior and how much topography there was.  There were hills!!!!  Just like home!  (The next morning we really noticed it as we sailed into the perfectly flat, not a hill on the horizon, Denmark).









We had 7 hours to see the town.  We started with their Resistance Museum.  Tons of information to wade through though the exhibit is a bit dated and down at the heels.  We realized it hadn't changed a bit since we saw it 22 years ago when we did this same trip with the kids and Anne's parents.  We then made our way to the Museum for Contemporary Art for a private tour with Kari Skytt-Andersen who is a conservator there.  Great exhibits of drawings.  She told us the inside stories on the art, artists and their foibles. Her role and duties as conservator of modern art were quite fascinating.

After we stopped by the museum cafe where the beer we enjoyed in the sunshine was $11 (for a rather small beer) and we passed on the $30 Caeser salad-  they say that Oslo is the most expensive city in the world--we had a take out falafel pita
and ate it on the plaza in front of Oslo's new Opera house on the harbor.  Stunning building with a huge, crowd-friendly plaza leading up to the roof which gave wonderful views of the city.

So it was time to get on board again, eat our cheese sandwiches and sail home.  We landed at 9:30 am on a sunny, spring day.  Our bikes were waiting for us and we strapped our duffel bag on the baggage carrier and cycled off to work and school.  It would be nice to explore Norway some time.  It has a totally different feel than Denmark and Copenhagen and Oslo felt like very different cities.  A 36 hour dip into another part of the world.  Oh yeah,  had to get a photo of this statue by the old castle.  Says something about the Scandinavian view of woman and how they put those little guys on a pedestal!!!  Poor things.

A trip home

It has been awhile since I posted on the blog.  It is not because I am not doing anything.  Au contraire, I just returned to DK after a 2 week visit back to Seattle, Bellingham and Bainbridge to get a grandkid fix, see Meredith's baby bump and go maternity clothes shopping with her and have my mom (almost 90) visit the West Coast family.  It was a busy time!!!!   Clementine and Cooper are fantastic.  And always busy.  Both are big talkers.  Clementine is full of questions and observations.  "What happens to the food after it goes into your stomach?"  That engenders the mention of poop which is a preschooler's favorite topic because it gets so much attention which is exactly the point.  Cooper talks all the time though what he is saying remains a mystery but he so happily carries on.  His most delightful words are "Thank you" said in the sweetest singsong way.  They get along very well and have some favorite games like pushing each other across the room in the little wagon.

My mom made the trip for 4 days and she and especially Clementine hit it off.  They "read" which was a little tricky because Clementine doesn't read and my mom with her macular degeneration has a hard time reading so they improvised.   She taught Clementine how to play the card game "war" and they had a great time together.  

Meredith is now 20 weeks pregnant and it was fun to see her and get excited about the baby coming in July.  She and Ky are over the moon with excitement and anticipation and with the experience of being Auntie and Uncle to C. and C., they are ready to be parents.  And they will be terrific parents. 

The big event of the trip was Clementine's 4th birthday which was actually her first as she was born on Feb. 29th.  She took off on her new bike and loved her new outfits, most of which were ballerina inspired.   Won't be long before she could be biking in Denmark like all the little kids here.

It was great to see everyone, including friends on Bainbridge, have my hair cut by my regular hairdresser after a disastrous haircut by the Iranian/Danish hairdresser at the corner shop, and go to the dentist because dentistry is outrageously expensive here.  The downside was getting back in the car and driving, driving, driving.  Second time I have driven in 5 1/2 months.  I missed my bike, though in the downpours we experienced in Seattle I was glad I wasn't on my bike.  I came home to sunshine and quite a warm day as you can see.  Very different than the last photo I posted of myself.  Exhausted and jet lagged,  I took a nap on the deck, just like the babies in Denmark  who nap outside in their baby buggies, even on the coldest days under their dynes.  Glad to be back and I realize that I only have 4 more months here.  Time to really appreciate the gift of a year away from work, many responsibilities, yardwork, etc.  We are ready for the many visitors coming in April, May and June.  And July and our return home to greet a new grandchild will be here before we know it.