Happy 6 Months!!!

We celebrated Kai's half-birthday last night with her Danish family complete with a flag-decorated table (a danish tradition) and Danish bday songs. Video and pics to follow, but we look forward to being able to tell her that her first celebration was held here.

Meanwhile, we're just enjoying this wonderful ride we're on. We can't wait to see what the next 6 months bring.

From pickled herring to pad thai...

Greetings from Copenhagen!

We were bemoaning the icy, rainy, blustery 30ish degrees here until we were not so gently reminded by our Minnesota brethren that it was -10 to 2 degrees there. Yeah....this'll work. And 80-90 degrees in Bangkok next week will work even better!

That's right, we finally have a plan and more importantly, a plane ticket! I have to admit it was a strange conversation at the travel agency:

-- Hej. Hvordan kan jeg hjælp dig?

-- Hej. Jeg vil gerne ha et ..... Um, we'd like to buy a ticket please.

-- <seamlessly switching into flawless English...I hate the Danes> Yes, where would you like to go?

-- Well, we were thinking Bangkok.

-- No problem....

-- And then maybe Hong Kong....and then Sydney....a side trip to Auckland....maybe to Indonesia...back to Australia....then towards the States?

-- No problem, I have just the ticket program for you here. <and gosh darn if he didn't have exactly the type of routing and overland trip options we were looking for>

-- Um...wow...okay. Yeah, that would be great. We'll take it.

-- And when would you like to leave?

-- In two weeks. <which is high season to go to Thailand, btw...>

-- <masterfully manages not to blink> I think we can make that work. There. <and upping the ante...> And as you get one more stop for this price, why don't you break up the trip home with a stop in Fiji....

-- Um. Yeah. Ok. <Brian and I are wondering if this question is in the dictionary under 'No-Brainer Decisions'>

And then some paperwork later we walked out of the office, considerably lighter in the checking account (though not really considering all the places the ticket is going to) but holding tickets to get us all the way back home again at the end of next summer. I must admit it's not everyday that I just make that kind of major purchasing, life-affecting decision so casually, but the planning process for a trip like this really warps your brain.

The Eurorail pass in Europe starts the change in thinking. As you have the ability to get on any train going anywhere, you begin to relax your itinerary and be open to more spontaneous decisions about destinations. The logical end to this train of thought occurred as we were planning the Asian leg of our adventure. There are many places we want to see and definitely not enough time to dive deep into them all. As we have decided that we don't want to rush around the area, that meant we needed to make some choices, leading to the following email conversation (paraphrased slightly).

Lincoln: so where are you going to be spending Christmas?

Brian: Well, we're not sure. We may go to Bangkok and be exploring Thailand, but we are also toying with being in India. But since we also want to visit China before hiking in New Zealand, and don't want to cut Laos and Vietnam short, we might skip India.

Lincoln: This has to be the all-time best sentence in an email I've ever received. You make it sound like India, China, and New Zealand are stores in a strip mall. Last night I toyed with hitting Target but I had to stop at Fred Meyers, the gas station, and the bank before the kids' bedtime

It's great having friends to remind you when you are off floating in rarefied air. But it's also kind of a cool transformation to watch happen to ourselves that we are actually starting to think that way.

More details as the departure date approaches. But just wanted to let everyone know that as of December 13th, it's a whole new ballgame! (sorry...was practicing my holiday movie taglines. Now we just need movie announcer guy to say it for us)

Happy December.

Becca

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a short note from us to our friends and family around the world: Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving in your country or not, we just wanted to tell you how thankful we are to have you in our lives and know that you are out there.

 

When travelling like this you don't ever stay in one place long enough to make deep friendships (though we appreciate the folks we have met along the way: the Gimmelwald gang, Karla & Darren, Matthieu & Jeanne), and so the emails and comments on the blog from all of you out there make a HUGE difference in making us feel like we're still part of a normal life and that there are people out there who care what happens in our lives.

 

We also are thankful for the opportunity to have this experience. It wasn't easy to extricate two ultra-responsible, type-A, "must-do-what-is-expected of us" people from career paths, but it was one of the best decisions either of us has ever made. I hope that following along on our adventure has made it easier for some of you to envision doing things that you might otherwise not have considered.

 

We'll be thinking of you all digging into your turkey-with-all-the-goodies today. I think we will be having Molly's famous mac and cheese (and maybe a little chicken to pretend it's a turkey) while babysitting the grand kids up here in Copenhagen.

 

More posts coming soon. We've had our heads buried in Lonely Planets and atlases trying to figure out a path through Asia so that we can get our plane tickets and start thinking about visas. As soon as that gets under control we'll finish updating the blog both about Italy and about the process of trying to plan this next phase of the trip.

 

Until then we'll be loving living "at home" again briefly and enjoying the time with Mogens and Grethe, Lotte and the family, and Michael and Jannie.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Becca and Brian

Til Lykke Med Ny Hus!!

Dateline: Odense

On June 30th we regretfully said goodbye to Mogens and Grethe and their wonderful backyard and headed to Odense, on the island of Fyn. Odense is the birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson, and this is the 200th anniversary of his bday, so it's been a big deal. We are here not only to pay homage to HCA, but to visit Michael, Becca's former ultimate frisbee teammate and good friend from when she lived in Copenhagen 13 years ago, and to meet his fiancee Jannie.

We enjoyed walking around the old center and the pedestrian shopping streets and played proper tourist with HCA's house, but the highlight was hanging out with Michael and Jannie. After a much hilarity at dinner and a pub, we were taken out in their new (!) car to see their new (!) house. We were honored to be the first ones to officially toast the house with good wine, good chocolate, and (of course) much throwing around of a frisbee in their huge yard. (What else do you expect from 4 ultimate players?). Their new house is in the middle of some absolutely beautiful countryside with old farms and fields (and lots of cows, very important)

We were really sorry to only have an evening to spend together. We needed to head up to Oslo and they were leaving to go down to Germany and compete in the European Ultimate Club Championships (Michael on Ragnarok, Denmark's top team, and Jannie on Flying Circus). They've invited us to come down and watch the finals and if we can figure out the logistics and timing, we will. Otherwise, we wish them luck with their wedding planning and hope to have many more fun visits in the years to come.

(7/7 note: The logistics proved too difficult and so we were unable to make it down to join them. However, Ragnarok plays in the semifinals this (Friday) morning. Wish them luck!)

Hair today, gone tomorrow

So I was getting a little weary of my hair on this trip; I'd been growing it out in various styles after the wedding. Unfortunately I was starting to look like a 70's retread and a little too hippie backpacker for my taste.

Of course, being one who isn't afraid of extremes, I now look I'm ready to report to the Danish army...

Comments (as I'm sure there will be some) are always welcome...

Brian

PS Korbel, if you're reading this I promise I'll grow it back at some point...

Welcome to Copenhagen!

We've spent a week or so here in Copenhagen visting our friends the Sarbaek/Rasmussens. Weather has been glorious so we've been able to spend the weekend doing things like playing croquet. Copenhagen has special meaning for both of us; Becca spent a semester here while at Carleton (where she lived with our friends) and this was my first foray into Europe a year and a half ago (the weather is slightly nicer this time around).

Basically, it's just been a great time to relax with friends and "family" with a little bit of sightseeing thrown in. Mostly, we've hung out in the backyard and practiced golf swings and enjoyed the view.

In other news, Monday was our wedding anniversary. Can't believe it's been a year since the big day. Despite a difficult year, we're both still very happy and looking forward to celebrating the big day for years and years to come!

We decided that instead of going out to dinner to celebrate (we'll save that for Paris or someplace like that!) we would rather cook dinner for our family here to say thanks. Good idea....not the best implementation. We have a number of really good dishes that we make (yes, really!) but we aren't quite familiar enough with the proportions and all the ingredients to do it without a recipe. So for freelancing, we thought about steak or our favorite way to do salmon, but we decided to try and recreate an absolutely yummy greek pasta we had improvised at home.

In retrospect, cooking with unfamiliar ingredients, in an unfamiliar kitchen when you'd like to make something really nice for a group of people might not be the most relaxing way to spend an anniversary. Luckily we had a plan B (and even C!) which we had to pull out when it became clear part way through that our original meal wasn't turning out the way we had expected.

In all other ways, the meal was wonderful. Good friends, a beautiful table, a delicious traditional homemade Danish cake, and a lovely portrait of us. We couldn't have asked for more.

Now, on to Odense (Hans Christian Andersen's home town) to see Becca's friend and former teammate Michael, and then up to Norway.

The fam (minus two)
The gang