2011.07.16 - Relaxing at home

With friends and family

We are now in the middle of what is called summer in these (Scandinavian) parts of the world. You wouldn't really know by looking out the window - lots of rain and wind. I have been in the water once only so far, so for me the summer has still not arrived. But whenever the sun has been out, we have also been out with a BBQ and a steak in our hand (well, I have had a steak in my hand and Paula has had a chunk of tofu in hers!).

Our boxes arrived from Korea last Wednesday. There were only 17 boxes this time so it was much easier to organize than last time where we had to find room for 74 boxes! There is still a lot of old clothes, towels and kitchen gear that has passed the best-by date and will find it's way down to the garbage containers soon. The funniest thing is that the boxes arrived two days after my new contract was finalized, so in fact we could have just sent off the boxes to the new destination! Well - not really. We still have two weeks before we head off for new adventures in Oslo. Around January we will then return to ..... Korea! Funny how we keep returning to Korea. I guess that I have become the Korea expert !?!?

A few weeks ago we went to Denmark for a friend's 40th birthday near Ribe. I met Claus many many years ago and reconnected with him last year when we went to Greenland to visit him. I think he had hoped for a bit of summer weather (why else celebrate your birthday 6 months after the actual day?), but he had no such luck. But more luck than the people living in Copenhagen who received 150mm of rain in 1,5 hours and had to spend the next weeks trying to remove the sewage water from their basements! But back to Ribe.... after some good food and company at Claus' party, we drove up to our other friends Gitte and Peter for some wholesome countryside cosiness.

From Gitte and Peter's we drove up to my sister Merete, who has recently moved to a new farm in the same area. We had seen photos of their farm but it looked even better in real life. It's a big dairy farm with 250 cows. I think it is much better than their previous farm and so do they. It has a better stable and much better facilities. There is still some work left before they get as they want it, but I am sure that they will get there. For now they are making a full renovation of the living quarters. We picked up my niece Lea and drove the 20km down to Henne Beach - a beautiful beach and vacationing area full of Danish and German tourists. What a privilege to live in this area!

Then back to my parents for a few days. It was good to see them and see their new project - a small allotment garden in Bogense which provides them with all the veggies and fruit they need (and more). It's a nice small garden but requires - according to my parents - no small effort to keep up.

We also had time to visit our friends Vanda and Peter (apparently all our friends are called Peter) in Juelsminde as well as my cousin and aunt in Væde. We did not have enough time to see all the family, but we will be returning in a week's time, when my sister will be home on visit with her family.

Last week we went to Smidstrup by Gilleleje in Denmark to visit our "Korean" friends Ulrik and Karine, who were spending a week in a summer cottage there. They had been set back by their daughter Maya's chicken pox, and so had to cancel their plane tickets and drive up from Paris instead! A little tired I think but then that doesn't really matter when you are summer cottaging. And their other kids, Jonathan and Juliette were not the least tired !! The kids had me multitasking all day - playing three different games at the same time! And at night Maya started crying and went straight to our bed with open arms and tugged in with me! A little surprised, I was also happy when Ulrik took over and got quieted her down with a glass of milk. So that was our minute of "how it is like to have a baby"!

Tuesday we coordinated our return to Sweden with the arrival of one of our old-time friends Paulina from Chile. She had set aside three days of her holiday in Denmark to visit us and her and Paula soon got into the old ways of talking and sipping red wine !!

Now we are slowly adjusting to the thought of moving to Oslo. Paula is selling out of her Skin Food stock (skin care products from Korea) and I am trying to sleep and rest as much as possible before starting to work again. New job, new colleagues and new town/country will be a little tough in the beginning! We also need to reconsider our trip to Chile. We had hoped for September but I guess we will have to wait until January now. Will wait and see after I have settled in in Norway.

Slide show below: