Moved

I have officially moved over to "Wordpress."

I believe I got the new address to everyone via email, but in case I missed anyone...here is where you can find me now:

www.nicholep8.wordpress.com

Blogging Break

My long term readers will have noticed that the past 2-ish months I have been less then enthusiastic about blogging. I feel a little guilty about this because I know that this blog is more important to much of our families than it is to me at the moment. (and that makes me sad, because I love this blog) For many of our family members and our close friends this blog serves as a way to keep them up to date with our doings while we are an ocean apart.

There are a couple reasons this blog has started to loose its focus and excitement for me, but none that I am going to get into at the moment. I am working on remedying this situation so hang tight.
I'm going on a blogging break....

Strong Man/ Køge

Saturday we did something a little crazy. We went to a strong man competition, and it was a blast. These men were freakin' HUGE!!!! And oh so very very very very strong. They did some events on the grass which I didn't get any good video or pictures of but here is one video from a lift on the stage. They had to lift these tires over their heads as many times as they could in 30 seconds. This is the guy that won this section of the competition.

Check out those thighs!!!

After strong man we went to visit our friend Jens in Køge.
We had been down there before but only to his house, this time he showed us around town.

Vallø Slot

Sheep in a field

4th of July

Klaus + Sarah + Burgers + Budweiser + Passing an American Football around in the park + Guitar Hero = Lots of fun!!

edited to add the Budweisers.

Drunk Danish Graduates by the Truckload

This past weekend the streets of Lyngby (as well as those all over the country) have been filled with trucks toting students finishing their final year in school (equivalent to our high school seniors in the states) on their traditional Danish celebration. The students decorate trucks with flags, banners and flowers. They then load up in the trucks of all sorts; moving trucks, pick up trucks, old military trucks etc... The students stand in the back waving beer bottles, flags and making as much noise as they can while they are transported to each one of their homes where their parents treat them to a little food and drink. As you can imagine they get louder and rowdier with each stop they make.

As we walked along Lyngby Hovedgade we were passed several times by different trucks. We were even lucky enough to see three guys mooning everyone behind them. (I can just see American parents horror and reaching for their childrens' eyes to shield them. Here, I think everyone just laughs) Often there are signs on the back of the trucks that will say honk 1 time for a cheers, 2 times for a drink, 3 times for a flash and different variants on it. As one of the trucks passed us (the one with the mooning boys) there was an overwhelming smell of alcohol wreaking from it. haha.

Since we live mere steps away from Lyngby Hovedgade we were able to hear the screaming, singing, chanting, hooting and hollering students along with all the honking cars congratulating them all day long Friday and Saturday both at home and at the gym. About once every two hours the noise got increasingly louder as a truckload would drive past our flat. I love stuff like this in Denmark. This could never happen in the states for 100 different reasons, but it is so perfectly Danish.

I didn't have my camera or video camera on me while we were walking the streets but I got a couple videos from our windows.

Addicted

In the almost 3 years we have lived here one of the things we say repeatedly is "we should (should have) really go (gone) to a soccer game"
Now that we are soccer crazy we decided to do something about it.

I ordered these on Tuesday and the nice post lady came knocking on my door today delivering them. For those of you that don't read Danish, they are tickets to a Denmark-Spain soccer game in August. Yea! We've really enjoyed watching Spain play in the Eurocup (in fact they play Russia tonight in the semi-finals) so it will be great to see them live! The only problem is going to be trying to decide between now and then, who to root for!! Perhaps we will see whose fans we are sitting around and put on the appropriate shirts. The obvious choice is Denmark (And I already have all the "gear" from my halloween costume), but we've established this familiar and informative relationship with the Spanish team. I honestly couldn't even tell you a single players name or face from the Danish team, different story with the Spaniards.....

*sigh* decisions decisions...
Either way.........WE ARE GOING TO A SOCCER GAME!!

Winding Down Denmark

When we moved back here in November of 2006 our plan was to stay for two years, have some fun, do all in Denmark we didn't do in our first fifteen months, travel around and then see where the world would take us. We arrived with open minds and hearts to the possibility that yes, maybe we would leave before two years, maybe we would stay longer, maybe we would never leave, but we knew fate would guide us to whatever it was we were suppose to do.

This two year plan worked out beautifully with our perfect apartment choice. The woman who owns this apartment is living out of the country and will be returning in January. Our options at that point would be to move away from Denmark (with the help of the company) or not only find a new apartment (without a relocation agency this time) and move into it ourselves.... To find another home in the central location of Lyngby that we live in, would be near impossible. We would have to gamble and risk that our lives that we have come to love here, would be changed drastically.

As the next six months are starting to come into focus for us, our plans seem to be holding perfectly in place. For those of you that remember, because of our previous situation when moving here, we are completely prepared for anything life throws at us in changing plans very quickly. But for now, our plan remain. We will be coming home to Texas in January. The exact day will not be decided by us until December, but it will most likely be within the first two weeks.

Last time we moved away from Denmark we both felt our lives here weren't finished.
If we had to move tomorrow, I know we could already leave with our lives in Denmark feeling complete. I am certain, this will make leaving here much easier.

It is time to start winding down our Danish Life, yet again.
So, here we go.......six months and counting.

Skt. Hans Aften

Last night was our 4th (and most likely our last) Skt. Hans Aften to spend in Denmark.
For the 4th time, we did absolutely nothing to celebrate. We didn't go any of the celebrations that were close to us or far. We didn't partake in watching a witch burn in a bonfire, we didn't drink, nothing.

Well, we had hijacked a Playstation 2 over the weekend, returned it yesterday and hijacked it again last night and played Guitar hero all evening..... does that count for anything? ;)

Sorry Skt. Hans Aften, I guess we were never meant to be....

Turkish Delight

I'm sure only like 2 people that read this blog are going to find this remotely interesting...but whatever... :)

Last night was our 12th night in of watching Euro cup games. The Turkey-Croatia game gave us an intense ending. The previous game Turkey played was pretty intense. They seem to do really well at the last minute under pressure. Last night was no different. I was certain Croatia was going to win, but my heart was rooting for Turkey. I enjoyed watching the team play and I'm always a little bias to countries that I have visited and enjoyed. I assumed Turkey was a lost cause.

The game ran its full 90 minutes with no goals from either side. A winner was needed since it was a quarter-final game. The game went on to two extra 15 minute periods taking the game to 120 minutes.

This is what happened the final 1.5 minutes of the 120 minute game
Croatia=Blue
Turkey=Red

Turkey, as I mentioned above, proved again to play well under pressure and at the last second. There was an extra 1 minute added to the game time and in the very last second of that one minute, this is what happened

WOW! Two hours of game time for two goals in the final minute and a half!
So, finally, after 12 days/16 games we got to see a shoot out!

I was so so so happy for Turkey!!! What a game! Denmark has a large Turkish population and when we moved here in 2002 the World Cup was going on. We were in the city the night of a big game that Turkey won and were amazed of the parades of cars and people marching around chanting, singing,listening to loud music and sporting the Turkish flag. I think we had been here about 2 weeks and found it amusing to see for the first time, people go nuts over a soccer game! We couldn't help but wish we had been in Copenhagen last night wondering if there were giant flags being marched around the city.

Unfortunately, I think Germany is going to eat them alive at the next game...

As we were crawling into bed I snapped a shot of the not pitch black sky

12:09 AM

Summer Solstice

For the first time since 1975 the summer solstice doesn't fall on June 21st. It falls on June 20th, and that ladies and gentlemen, is today.

Why is this significant to me? Well it usually isn't but for the 4th time in my life, it is. The summer solstice for most people marks the start of summer and the longest day of the year. (YEA SUN), but for me.... I usually feel sad because it means, the sun, will slowly start going back into hiding.(boooo) Actually it has kind of been in hiding for the past 2 weeks behind clouds off and on throughout the day already. Denmark holds their solestial celebration, "St. Hans Aften" in a couple days. If the weather is nice, maybe we'll go find a celebration and watch the witches burn in the bonfires.

So, I guess I'm ready.......bring on darker days Denmark...I can handle it!!