biking with vikings

gained in translation

OK, so there's lots of crappy Danish pop... and then there's

Trolle og Siebenhaar's ' Sweet Dogs':

http://www.trollesiebenhaar.com/resources/player.php

absolute gem.

as well as Trentemøller 'Last Resort' - esp check out 'Take Me Into Your Skin'

lost in translation

today's (actually yesterday's) Danish-thing-which-I-did-not-understand-at-all:  A song titled Min Pizza Ven (My Pizza Friend):

 

Min Pizza Ven
Min Pizza Ven
Jeg spise dig, igen og igen ("I eat you, again and again)

 

.....O-K....

a week in the life, part 3: music kindergarten

Saturdays (well, 3 per month) are music kindergarden day for Malcolm.  The teacher, Beate Willma, uses the colourstrings method  for children which teaches them simple melodies and rythms which emphasize ear training and beginning sight reading.  She's just finished her PhD and taught at the colourstrings centre in London previously.

The method emphasizes singing which is great for Malcolm.  He loves to sing:  Most days he is singing Danish songs he learned at børnehave in the morning before I drop him off and he is playing/singing when I return home in the evenings.  He really likes the class!

The first day a bunch of people showed up including a few from my work, but after the first information session, only a few families/kids (four) remained.  There's some really nice families and kids in the class:  An Anglo-Filipino couple  who work for UNICEF in Copenhagen with two kids and a couple of Anglo-Danish couples' kids (the class is in English).

I hope that the class will help spark a lifelong interest in music for Malcolm, but I don't see much problem in that:  We've already written our first song together (he did the lyrics) titled Superhero Robots from Mars which I will someday post :).

there and back again, or unlucky->lucky

interesting evening yesterday.  My 'old boys' hockey team got creamed by a better team (that's the unlucky part) and when I got out to my car after the game, it had been vandalized: The windows were down, the front license plate was torn off and some neighboring cars were also mauled a bit.  Worse, I had left my mobile phone in the little dash compartment (i use it as a music player through the cassette player) and it was gone.  Of course I never lock it out w/a PIN code or anything so I assumed someone had unfettered access to all my info including email on the phone.  My heart sank.

As it turns out, the phone was just cast on the floor, and they didn't break any windows or interior fixtures in the car.  As far as I could tell, the only thing they stole was some small change from the ashtray.  So it must've been young kids messing about.

So I consider myself lucky that nothing was stolen even though I did something rather stupid like leaving the phone out in the open in my car, even in a safe, quiet place like suburban Copenhagen.  Whew.

a week in the life, part 2: småbarngymnastik (gymnastics for small children)

This week is efterårsferie or autmn holiday for school kids.  It is also known as 'kartoffel ferie' or 'potato holiday' because this used to be the time of year when kids would go out into the fields with their parents and help bring the potatoes in.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, Malcolm is a tad clumsy.  He was forever banging his head etc. when he was a bit younger -- not so much any more at age 4, but he still manages to conk himself regularly.

I mentioned this once to my neighbor, a fomer professional handball player (and all-around nice guy) who suggested that gymnastics might be a good outlet for Malcolm, so we signed him up for an after-school gymnastics session once per week.

 

Malcolm loves it.  They run around in the gym, learning dances and songs (a parent has to participate, too) and occasionally learning tumbling and climbing things, but mostly it is loosely-directed fun for kids.

It's funny to watch and participate with him in these classes.  He's quite the teacher's pet, always throwing up his hand first when she asks a question and looking for approval, which is cute in some ways, and hopefully won't become insufferable later :).

I -do- think it is good for him:  Between this and ice skating, his coordination has clearly improved, and if it helps instill a love of physical activity in him - great.  We'll keep going as long as he enjoys it.

meridian house

many of our friends already know that, for various reasons, we are returning to Seattle next September.  We like it here in Denmark, but we miss our friends and the Northwest... that's the primary reason we're going back after three years here.  We'll be in Denmark for another 11 months, but we have to start thinking now about where we're going to live on our return.

One thing we were absolutely certain about was returning to Seattle proper and not the suburbs.  We loved living in Capitol Hill, moved to Kirkland/Juanita for a while to make our commute and trip to daycare easier, but that didn't work out at all... so we're not gonna do that again.

Lots of our friends are around the north side - in Fremont, Green Lake, Ballard and thereabouts - and we really like those areas because there are lots of things you'd -want- to walk to within walking distance, so we focused on the north end and found a small "tipover" house a few blocks from Green Lake in the Tangletown neighborhood. It's a great location with an easy walk to Green Lake and the elementary school for Malcolm, an Elysian Pub nearby and good coffee, a few decent restaurants and on the bus line to downtown and the main drag in Wallingford along 45th.  It's also close to the express bus over to Microsoft on the eastside.

So that's the good part.  The hard part is we now have to build a house, something we've never done by ourselves before.  When we were kids we helped my dad build a house over three years or so and learned a thing or two (and forgot a good deal of it), and we've done various projects of various scales in the places we've lives since we've been married, but never something on this scale.

So we've been thinking alot about what we'd want to build and how to build it:  Studying design books, reading Alexander and the like, and just trying to think a bit more deeply about what we want and like in a space.

To that end, we've create a site - Meridian House - to track the myriad decisions that have to be made and the discussions that have to take place.  We have some wonderful, enlightened builders lined up who have done work for us before and my dad the "old school" engineer who has graciously agreed to help us with his experience and drafting of plans for the builders and city planning authorities.

It's a daunting task, but rather exciting.  Those of you interested in the house project can track progress over there.  It will have its own feed and blog on our progress.  'Biking with Vikings' will continue to be the place where we describe life in Scandinavia.

a week in the life, part 1

monday is skating lesson day for Malcolm.  Every Monday after work I take him to nearby Hørsholm Skøjtehallen for ice skating instruction from Hørsholm Kunst Skøjte Løber Forening (Hørsholm Figure Skating Club). 

Malcolm is an absolute beginner at skating.  He's kind of a cautious kid to begin with, so he's afraid of falling down even though he's got a hockey helmet on and padded 'pants' (courtesy of a school mate's mum, who makes them for the skating club) under his snow suit.

The first day out I skated with him but the instructors pointed out that was not allowed, so the second week he pushed around on an orange road cone.

The week after that, they took away all the orange cones and they had to skate solo!  That was a bit tough for him at first...

but he got the hang of it (with a little coaching from the bench from his mum and I).

This week, the big breakthrough was falling and getting back up without any assistance, which he did a couple of times by himself (last week the instructor/girls would help him up).

Even though he is rather afraid of it, skating is a good thing for him.  He's strong enough but a tad awkward and skating will help his balance and physical confidence.  When he finishes a session and has accomplished something new each week, he just *beams* with pride and he is full of energy when he gets off the ice... a far cry from the first week when he almost begged to get off the ice :).

I remember when I first skated around age 8 -- playing hockey actually, although I'd never skated before and had the wrong skates -- and how awkward it was at first, but I quickly grew to love it and I hope he will, too.  Definitely it is easier at age 8 than 4, but I'm hoping he'll enjoy it and stick with it, and by this time next year, he should be zooming around the rink like the other more experienced kids.

kulturnatten

Copenhagen's kulturnatten (the night of culture) is a fun, annual art event -- similar to Seattle Art Crawl -- except more of a big, omnibus, event with something for everyone, ranging from visual and aural arts  museum open houses (The Postal Museum with working pneumatic mail tubes), church and streetcorner concerts and even a re-enactment of American Civil War battles :O.

For 70 Kr per adult (40 per child) you get free public transport throughout the metro area for the entire evening and admission to all exhibits.  We checked out street choirs and performers, light shows on various buildings, climbed the runde tårn (round tower) to have a look

and nearly made it through a candlelit Frederiskberg Have 

 to the zoo where they had some special kid stuff going on, but Malcolm was petering out by this time!

I missed the transvestite fashion show and the halloween costume parade on rollerskates, but I really enjoyed what we did manage to catch.  Just another reason to love Copenhagen.