Working in Danish

(written by Lindsay)

My command of the Danish language is very shaky, yet somehow I manage to get through each day at my new job as assistant teacher in a vuggestue (day care for children up to 2 1/2 years). It helps that children I work with have a average working vocabulary of about 4-5 words. Of course, there are many things I have to negotiate and communicate with my co-workers on a daily - scratch that - minute-by-minute basis: So and so needs to be changed. Who's going to get the food cart from the kitchen? What time do you leave today? So and so just woke up. We can't rinse the hard-boiled eggs because the water has been shut off while they're fixing the washing machine down in the basement. Little things like that, over and over again all day long.

So to say the least, I'm getting in some good practice. My co-workers assure me that it is not too irritating working with me, my American accent, and my limited comprehension. I get what they say for the most part. By the second time for sure. They understand me for the most part, by the second time I repeat something usually. It's a little trickier talking with parents because I never know what they're going to pull out of the air to talk about. Mysterious illnesses or rashes that I have never heard of, references to lost articles of clothing, specific instructions for what so and so can eat because his tooth is loose after a fall. And then there are lunch breaks in the staff room, which surprisingly haven't been too hard for me to follow. We talk about vacation, other day care institutions, the weather, how long I've been in Denmark and how long I plan to stay.

All in all, I like going to work. Being with small children, there's rarely a dull moment, and it's nice to have a real experience observing learning in an institution after so many years of studying learning in institutions. After just three weeks, most of the kids have grown fond of me, and sometimes fight over my lap. It's a good feeling to give and receive so many hugs in the course of the day. Certainly more tangible rewards than sitting and writing a dissertation alone in my house. Throw in the free snacks of rye bread and banana slices, hot lunches of beef stew and rice, and an income to support our traveling habit, and I figure I've got a pretty sweet job (for now).

Cavan's bicycle

(written by Lindsay)


One of the most interesting aspects of our move to Denmark has been our transition from having a car to biking and taking public transportation. Jumping on our bikes to head to the train station, the grocery store, or to take a ride for fun out in the forest is second nature to us now. It has been fun seeing how Cavan has experienced this as well.


In early May, a couple of weeks after we returned from our trip to the States, we noticed that Cavan was spending a lot of time at his day care on these orange bikes that they have, which have no pedals. They sit low enough for kids to push along on the ground with their feet and are amazing at helping them to learn to balance on their own. One day when I picked Cavan up, I watched as he picked up his feet and began to coast down the sidewalk there on the playground. I talked to his lead teacher a few days later, and she told me how much Cavan loved to ride that bicycle all day, and how it would be great if he had one of his own that he could bring (apparently because he just stood watching when another kid was using one of the orange ones). So we ordered one on the internet and surprised Cavan with it a few days later. In Danish, it is called a løbecykle which translates to "running bicycle."


Ever since getting his own bike, Cavan has learned so much about bicycle safety and the rules of the road. Every day, on the way to day care, we both ride our bikes together through the "Skovly" - a collection of small houses and gardens in a relatively closed off area. He has learned to listen for cars (which drive very slowly) and to pull off to the side to let them pass. We also bike around in our neighborhood, where he has learned to ride beside me on my right side, on the street. He has learned to stop at intersections and to look both ways for cars. A few times, I have even let him ride on the bicycle lane with me on a busier street near our home. One day, he even managed to keep up while we went for a ride on a path through the forest, near our home. We were out riding for over 40 minutes! He's had a few small crashes, but for the most part, he rides very under control.



In the U.S., it seems that we get bicycles as toys. While Cavan certainly plays around on his and enjoys riding, his has been a very different experience. Already at 2 1/2, he uses it for transportation and understands that he is a part of traffic when he rides. And all of this on a bike that has no pedals! So here are a few pictures and a short video of Cavan riding, in case you're reading and wondering what in the heck I'm talking about:





This is a picture of our ride home through the Skovly:








There is a place there in the middle for him to rest his feet while he's coasting. Definitely a great feature that this particular bike has, which I haven't seen on other models.



And here's a short vid of Cavan riding, about a week and a half after he got his bike. I don't have anything more recent, but this is still cute, I think:

Hot, Hot Summer Days

(written by Lindsay)

In comparison to last summer, you'd think we were living in Texas. This year, we have had two long stretches of hot dry days, with temps reaching the mid-80's. This may not sound like much to all you Americans with an air-conditioning thermostat on your wall, but when there are very few places to get relief from the heat, it wears you out. Due to all the brick and the stone courtyard, our house gets pretty hot in the afternoon and stays that way until early morning. But I'm actually not complaining (much) because soon (maybe tonight) it will all be over, and for the first time in years, I have a decent sun tan!

We have been out and about quite a bit in recent days, in large part because it's no fun to sit and bake in our house. Last weekend, we had a fun multi-stop adventure in Copenhagen. It's that time of year when all the locals are sunning on the beaches of Spain, France and Italy and all of the tourists from everywhere else are making their way through the tourist attractions. So we got to pretend to be tourists for a day, which is always fun. Our first stop was the Rundtårn near Nørreport station, a spiral ramped tower adjacent a church which leads up to a great view of the city. Tom and I were hoping to take a good look around, but it turned out that Cavan was not too thrilled about the view (or possibly the height) and he quickly pulled us back down into the stairwell.

After the tower, we made our way to Tøjhusmuseet or the Royal Danish Artillery Museum. We found it in one of our guidebooks earlier that day, and thought it would be just the thing for the little guy, who loves to pretend to shoot his guns. There, we saw weapons from canons to machine guns to swords, and uniforms and armor to boot. Cavan really gravitated toward one canon in particular, which he kept asking if we could buy.

After the artillery and a quick lunch under a shady tree in the park, we set off past Nyhavn to a harbor where a large ship from Italy was docked. We had read in the paper that there would be tours and thought it might be cool to check out. The tours included the top deck only, and honestly, I was too terrified to enjoy it. After climbing the narrow stairs up to the deck, with the ocean looming below, and then noticing that the edges of the ship had absolutely no barriers to prevent small children from falling right off the side, I clung onto Cavan the entire time. I was so glad to be back on dry land.

To conclude our day in the hot, hot sun, we stopped for awhile at a playground in the shade to let Cavan run around and to recoup my sanity. It was a nice, fenced in area. We relaxed on a bench while Cavan climbed and spun around on this spinning seat thing. We weren't paying much attention to what he was doing over there, so apparently he'd been spinning a bit too much - when he stood up to walk back to us, he began walking at a right angle to where he intended and crashed into another couple who was sitting on a bench. I couldn't stop laughing. He just looked so confused. All in all, a great day out. Cavan is such a good traveller, and it is so fun to take him to experience these new things all the time. How lucky we are to live close to such an interesting capitol city!