It’s been a busy and disruptive month, as I foretold you, so instead of trying to cover everything in one post and mixing all the apples and oranges I’m splitting it into two.
The first post, this one, covers normal life from the end of the last post right up to October 9.
The other post will cover the landscaping project that tore our property to hell and put it back together. That’ll come later because our property still hasn’t been put completely back together.
We’ll start with some “slice of life” pictures Trine sent me because she thinks it’s nice to have “slice of life” pictures.
That’s Maddie and (her) Lucas, obviously, and a very familiar scene for us. The unfamiliar scene would be of the two of them cleaning the kitchen afterwards. (Oof, ow! Daddy, really? In the family blog?)
Every day at the office I have to walk by one of the worst pieces of “office art” I’ve ever had the misfortune of having my eyes assaulted by. It’s not only a crappy, amateurish painting, the likes of which Maddie could have outdone when she was ten, but also frankly disturbing when (if) you take the time to wonder what’s actually being depicted.
So you go ahead and tell me that my use of AI to give me the image in Claymation doesn’t represent a dramatic improvement:
It’s obviously a million times better, but for some reason I’m having a hard time convincing the relevant people that we need to print my version in full size and plaster it over the existing monstrosity.
On Saturday, September 14th, Trine and I took a tour of Christiansborg with one of our party’s elected members of parliament. (For the permanent record, I became a member of the Furesø Kommune board this summer.)
We’d attended an open-house for new citizens back when I got my citizenship, but this was a much more in-depth tour with a lot of fun insider anecdotes, plus an hour-long talk about what’s going on in the current session and how things are shaping up behind the scenes for the next election.
We got to see the original Danish Constitution (it was on public display temporarily for some reason or other: ordinarily they just exhibit a copy).
I also noted a motto engraved over one of the chamber doors that I’m not sure will be there for long:
“You seem similar, but different. Bear in mind: men are men and women are women.”
Interesting bit of verse to have emblazoned on a wall of parliament. How long you figure it will last?
More striking than that simple tautology that seems almost anachronistic today were some of the prime minister portraits lining the walls, mostly from the early years of the 20th century.
Like American presidents, Danish PMs get to choose the artist who’ll do their official portraits for parliament. You have to wonder what some of these guys were thinking:
“Make me look like Satan, or at least one of the lesser demons. Or maybe just like my skin’s been peeled off.”
“For my artist, I choose my 12-year-old nephew and his four-color palette.”
The Danish parliament is unicameral. . . and here’s the single chamber:
We went with our friends Marta and Rune (parents of Maddie’s friend Josephine), and afterwards we went out for a glass of wine and then a nice dinner. On our wanderings I happened to notice we were standing in just about the exact vantage point Beth must have used for her painting of the Nikolai Kirke spire.
A propos of nothing, an evening Didi walk let me get this tranquil shot of Sondersø at twilight:
We celebrated Trine’s birthday on Sunday the 15th.
It was such an unseasonably nice day we started things off on the terrace.
I wrote a little song for the occassion, which is a very normal thing to do in Denmark, but thanks to AI I was also able to record it with a great vocalist and full orchestral backing. It was pretty catchy.
Only two more “morning commute” pics. By September 19, it was just the first rays of daylight breaking over the horizon by the time I reached the marsh. Not long afterwards, as you’ll see, the sun was gone completely. I’ll see it again in March.
Trine’s big birthday present this year was the Dyson V11:
I’d done everything I could to convince her to accept a three-day weekend in Vilnius instead, but she stuck to her guns and chose the Dyson V11. Which makes “stuck to her guns” sound literal, because it looks a lot like the rail gun you from the 90s video game Quake.
Although it’s attachments obviously look a little less lethal:
Yes, it’s just a cordless vacuum, but by God it looks enough like the Quake rail gun that I love going around the house with it and blasting lint and dog hair into oblivion, so I’d call that a win-win.
Maybe that’s why Trine wanted it so badly.
Next, for the permanent record: I voted!
Trine and I attended an orientation night at Maddie’s gymnasium:
First time I’d set foot in there—or near there—since Trine and I attended an orientation for parents of kids considering attending the Marie Kruses grade school back when Molli was thinking about transferring. Which was, obviously, a while ago.
Meanwhile, the weather had taken a definite autumnal turn, so it was time to start enjoying our new fireplace again.
I told you I’d voted, but for the first time ever this year, Molli voted in an American election.
My own first presidential election would have been in 1984. . . which was just, what, five years ago? Ten?
Ah: like I said: by October 6, I was riding through the marsh in darkness. (The light on the path is from my bike lights.)
I thought I’d try a “slice of life” shot of my own, and this is one of very few pictures in existence of both girls with their respective Lucases. Lucai? Lucaser?
The afternoon of November 4th, my friend Geoff sent me this selfie from Oslo, where he and his wife Austin had just boarded the boat for Denmark.
A little before 10:00 the next morning, I was there in Nordhavn to collect them as the ship pulled in:
At about the same moment I took that pic, Geoff sent me this one:
(Fun fact: the white building to the right of the cruise ship is PensionDanmark.)
A few moments later:
I’m going to break the narrative for a moment. Those pictures are from the Saturday morning of their arrival. Starting the previous Wednesday, however, we’d had contractors tearing our property apart for Phase I of our landscaping project.
No pics, obviously—I’m saving those for the “landscaping” post—but the previous afternoon the contractors had been digging for new garage stairwell and had jammed a spade straight into the water line to the garage. Trine managed to talk them through how to turn off the water feed to that line before it became a total catastrophe, but the weekend we had planned was suddenly thrown into confusion by our need to repair an underground waterline before work resumed on Monday. Also, there’d been some added drama Friday night that had resulted in Trine and me getting only about four hours of sleep by the time we had to wake up on Saturday.
So instead of touring Copenhagen, we spent the morning racing around to hardware stores in search of the parts we needed. . . and then, after failing to find anything at all we needed, visiting Maddie at work.
. . . and then killing two birds with one stone, or killing two flies with one smack, by taking Didi for a walk by the lake to show it to Geoff and Austin. . . who were in the middle of a smooch at the end of the pier when I snapped this picture just a second or two too late (that’s them furthest right, way in back):
We got into town just about an hour before our dinner reservation at Nyhavnskroen—same place we’d brought the Asheville Nagans (who were at this point still recovering from Hurricane Helene)—so we were able to get a little tourism in on the way.
I love that one: it doesn’t even look real, it’s like “Here’s Geoff & Austin in front of a green screen onto which we’ve projected a lovely twilight scene of Nyhavn.”
We came home straight after dinner, exhausted, but were straight back into Copenhagen the next morning (after the usual Danish bakery extravaganza breakfast). And we went straight back to Nyhavn for a canal tour.
The boat guide had told us early on our trip that we’d only be seeing the Little Mermaid “from behind,” which, as most of you know and the rest of you can see, was of course true, but it gave me an inspired idea for some canal tour merch. Specifically, a t-shirt that says “Copenhagen Canal Tours” on the front, but on the back has a picture like the one above and a legend reading, “I took the Little Mermaid from Behind.”
Wait, what? The reception committee Hell says my table is ready?
This picture looks like a mistake, but it’s not. It’s what’s left of the beautiful Børsen building that burned down earlier this year:
Just a nice shot of the statue in the center of Kongens Nytorv:
. . . where we paused for a snack break at one of the many hot dog stands.
Unfortunately, Geoff and Austin’s visit was during the one brief period of autumn when Tivoli is closed for the summer but not yet open for its Halloween season:
Sunday was our Nordsjælland day. We began at Frederiksborg.
This is Saturn eating one of his children—one of many statues from the facade currently being restored or replicated.
Here’s a close-up of one of the variants, where you can see the markings the artists used to ensure the recreations were 100% accurate.
The chapel:
Along the walls of the chapel were hundreds, maybe thousands, of crests and mottos. I forget whose this was, but I loved it:
“We are where we are, we must go further.”
Hallelujah.
I actually took a lot of touristy pictures, but there are plenty of Frederiksborg pictures in this blog from previous visits by Nana and Sophie, so we’ll skip all those.
From Frederiksborg we took a walk through Hillerød and had lunch, then drove up to Gilleleje.
Austin was very happy to get some real Danish rye bread (and flour!) to bring home to Colorado.
From Gilleleje we made our way to Kronborg, where Geoff got to play Godzilla on the model of the castle.
I include this picture because one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken is basically the same shot, but against a searing blue sky in the height of summer back in 2003 or 2004.
One day I’ll present them side by side. But not here, not now. Sorry.
Geoff and I thought it was important to get visual documentation of just how miserable the weather (cold, windy, rainy) was.
The next day was supposed to be another Copenhagen day, but Trine talked them into a visit to Roskilde, so we began our day with a visit to the Domkirke (cathedral) where all the Danish royals are buried.
First order of business for me at all cathedrals is to light candles for Nana and Pop-Pop:
This is another spot that’s been covered in depth in the past, so I’m not including many pics.
That’s my favorite crypt detail, that badass skull-crown-with-wings. It’s one of the early Kings Christian.
Next stop was the Viking Ship Museum:
Our Roskilde Day was just yesterday, Tuesday. We came home for a dinner at Hai Long with both girls, and then all went to bed, exhausted.
And the next pictures are from this morning (and give a foretaste of where we’re headed in the forthcoming “landscape” post):
Straight from those pictures we piled into the car, I drove them to the airport, and that was that.
Not pictured: the night before, when everyone else went to bed exhausted, I stayed awake long enough to start the dishwasher and have it fail on my catastrophically. And the next afternoon—today, just hours ago, from my vantage point—the washing machine ran four full loads before deciding to throw up errors and beeps. Good times.
Since I raised the issue of the broken water line, I should mention that before Trine and I could make our mad dash to our last best hope of a hardware supplier on Monday morning, the contractors had one of their guys fix the line themselves. We’ll pay for that, I’m sure, but at least that crisis was averted.
It’s late on a Wednesday night as I write this. I’ve had five great vacation days with an old friend and his wife, and had our property torn apart and mostly rebuild over the past week, and just wanted to get this out of the way so I wouldn’t have it hanging over my head as I begin catching back up with work and normal life tomorrow.
So I’m just going to post whatever I just cobbled together without double-checking for typos or anything. The publisher regrets any errors or oversights.
Oh: I should also mention that a lot of good pics from the Geoff and Austin visit are still forthcoming, since they’re still flying back to Denver and haven’t yet sent me their shots, many of which include me, Trine, and the girls. I’ll include them in the post after the landscaping post.
