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fun team outing last night to see The Incredibles + sushi afterwards.
both were brilliant, and we hooked up with some coworkers at an Irish pub after that, so of course I drank too much (again) and stayed out too late (again)... back on that treadmill, you!
I finally started Danish language lessons (at StudieSkolen in Copenhagen) last week. It feels good to get started, but I have a long, long way to go! The teacher converses only in Danish (unless I get really stuck) which is hard at first, and the textbooks are Danish-only, but this is probably a good thing in the long run! I have some homework to do this weekend, and lots of vocabulary practicing to do!
The funny thing is, I'm a pretty good mimic, and can mimic sounds and words well, but sometimes people take that to mean that I actually understand what they're saying and I get in deep water pretty fast :). Oh welll, grammar will eventually catch up with pronunciation!
A side-effect of studying Danish here is very good sushi on the same street just a few meters from the school, so I can reward myself when things are progressing well!
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. The election in the US really knocked the wind out of me. Suffice to say that I'm very glad my taxes for the next 3 years are going to Denmark where the benefits are tangible such as great public transportation and cradle-to-grave health care for all. Compare this to my country where the push has begun to privatize social security, tens of millions have no health insurance at all, public transit is cursory at best and a great slice of my taxes will be spent on weapons such as laser-guided anti-missile systems that didn't even make sense 25 years ago when they dreamed it up. All this plus an incredible, growing mountain of debt... doesn't paint a very attractive picture for my two-year old son, does it? Time to think hard about the future.
*Anyhow* - on a happier note, I did find a nice place for us to live in Birkerød. It's about .5 km from the train station (and 23 mins to CPH, 10 mins to Lyngby) and an easy walk to the shops. Also it's an 8-9 km bicycle ride to my work through a nice wooded area, and 40 min train + bus to take public transit to work on days when I don't want to ride... quite manageable, I'd say :).
Birkerød isn't the most exciting place. It's a pretty sleepy (albeit very pretty and somewhat historic) town. "Birkerød" literally means "Birch Clearing"; "rød" in old Danish means 'clearing' not 'red' as I originally guessed. We had hoped to be closer in to central Copenhagen. But it is a nice, quiet place with green space for Malcolm and Charlie, and the price was reasonable, which is good as we didn't come to Denmark to live in a posh place but to really travel and see Europe for the next three years.
Here is a photo album of the place where we'll live for the next 3 or so years:
