One year in.

So before we close out March and head full on into spring, we have a big anniversary to celebrate here.  The Gerhardts officially made it through one whole year on the Jutland peninsula back on March 11.

These pictures aren't really related to the blog post, but a post
with no pictures is kinda boring.

I don't know what you're thinking, but what I'm thinking is "What the heck?  It's been a whole year already?"  I'm pretty sure this has been the fastest year of my life.  New places, new people, new language, new foods, new job, new apartment...I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that it all seemed to go by so fast.  But it's hard for me to believe that it's been a year since we moved because I still feel kinda new here.  I think part of it's because I'm still not really comfortable with the language.  But a bigger part is probably because, no matter how long I've been here, I'm living in a culture that is not the culture/society that I'm most familiar with.  There will always be things that just seem weird to people who did not grow up Danish.

I'm currently reading a book called "How to Be Danish", but since I don't plan on changing my name to Mette or dying my hair blond (and the book is really more of observations on Danish culture than an instruction manual), I'll just have to be glad that I can now make it through a grocery store trip without feeling illiterate and I can at least tolerate the salty black licorice.

We caught the train down to Rold Skov/Rebild Bakker
which is a huge forest south of Aalborg.

And there are some things that I really like here.  Off the top of my head (meaning this is not a complete list but just what came to mind right now)...
The bike infrastructure is great, and traveling by train is actually a viable option (unlike in most parts of the US).  Paid vacation days, paid sick days, maternity leave, flex-time, and working from home seem to come standard with most jobs and aren't things that you have to negotiate in your employment contract.  The wonderful hours of glorious sunlight in the summer almost make me forget about my winter time complaints.  And the pastries...oh the pastries...how did I live without hindbærsnitter for 28 years of my life?  That thing Americans call a Danish is a complete insult to deliciousness that I have enjoyed over the past year.  And the beaches...definitely a nice surprise.

But for all the chocoladeboller that have blessed my stomach in the past 12 months, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't miss some things from the USA.  Like Mexican food.  And mountains.  The American kind of football.  Turning lights on by flipping them up instead of down.  120V kitchen appliances.  And being around people who have known me for longer than a year.

It's not the Rocky Mountains, but you definitely can't complain.

That last one is hard.  As someone who's pretty extroverted (surprise!), I enjoy meeting new people and hearing their stories.  And when you're a foreigner in a country, you tend to meet a lot of other foreigners in that country.  So I've been able to meet people from all over the world here and learn how similar and different their stories are from mine, and I've definitely learned a lot.  (Meeting new people here has also made realize that the "Boulder bubble" is definitely a real thing.  Boulder friends, did you know that not everyone likes camping, craft beers, and kombucha???  :D)

But, while meeting new people is exciting for me, sometimes I don't want the excitement but rather the comfort of being around people who already know my story.  People who know what I mean when I say "the rollerblading incident" or "that time I broke my elbow".  People who don't need me to explain why I doubted that I would ever finish grad school because they know, they were right there with me.  (And right now, I'm remembering just how thankful I am for David in my life.)  Of course, it just takes time to tell those stories to new people.  As most people who have moved to a new place as an adult can tell you, making friends is a lot harder when you're the only one who's new and you don't have tons of people (i.e. college classmates or whatever) who are also new and in the same situation as you and all wanting to make new friends at the same time as you want to make new friends.  And that realization makes me hugely grateful for the people we've met here who have been willing to share their already established lives with us.  It really makes me think about how I welcome new people that I meet and if I'm willing to show that same hospitality and love.

So there's some thoughts on this adventure so far.  I'll let you know how the next year goes.

We made it.

Walking from my office to the bus stop...it's actually
light out and the sky is blue not grey!

To March, that is.  Whew.  We made it to March, a month where sunlight is a thing that actually exists.

When we moved to Denmark last March (more on that big anniversary later), we arrived on this beautiful spring day with the sun shining and most of the city out riding bikes.  And it pretty much just improved from there.  The days got longer, the weather got warmer, and we settled into to life here.  But I did think it was a little odd that, often, one of the first things people here would ask me when they learned that I had just moved to Denmark was "can you handle the weather?"

Can I handle the weather?  There didn't seem to be too much to handle.  Moderate temperatures and no snow until January with the bonus of the best summer weather that Denmark has had in past 10 years.  Didn't seem too hard to me.  Sure, it rained a lot, but nothing crazy.  "Just wait until the winter" they'd say.  Ok, but it's not like cold and snow are foreign concepts to me.

As it turns out, questioning my ability to handle colder temperatures and a few snowy days was probably the wrong thing to be asking.  In that respect, the winters I experienced in Pittsburgh and Boulder were definitely worse than Denmark.  No, the worst part of Danish winter, by far, was the utter lack of sunlight for practically 4 months.  (Now, I'm pausing here for a sec to ask myself "Am I exaggerating here?  Were there really no sunny days from November until March?"  And when I think about it, I think I can remember a few.  But a few sunny days over a third of the entire year is not that much.  So despite the tiny bit of exaggeration, I stand by my statement.)  It was SO dark!  At it's worst, winter days had barely 7 hours of "light", if you can even call what made it through those pervasive, grey clouds light.

Aalborg's Christmas Market

One of my co-workers, a Dane, described it to me like this... In November, the short days start to get to you, but then Christmas cheer comes to get you through December which doesn't seem so bad until the party's over in January and you never want to get out of bed and February is the longest month of your life.  But, he said, if you make it to March, then you have hope.  I remarked to him that most of the world is not like this.  You can live places where you naturally get vitamin D...year-round!

But this is not any of those places.  This is Denmark.  And since we're living here not there, we've picked up on a few things to get us through the season.

For example, Christmas is really big here.  Without Thanksgiving to hold them off, Christmas festivities started in November, coinciding with the begin of the dark days.  Streets were decorated, a giant tree from Norway appeared in the center of town, little stands popped up selling gløgg and carmelized almonds, and there was some kind of Christmas party every weekend.  So for a while, you actually enjoy the darkness because it makes the Christmas lights and candles look even prettier.

It's not dark...it's cozy.

Which brings me to a key item to surviving the winter...candles.  Candles everywhere.  I've never seen a bigger candle selection in my life.  But they really work.  When you light some candles, your house is no longer a sad, dark place, it turns into a cozy place where you want to curl up with a blanket and a mug of something warm and good.

And with that, you're well on your way to a very hyggeligt evening.  Throw in some friends and some good conversations and make it last as long as possible...who needs to go outside anyway?  The Danish (/Scandinavian) concept of hygge proudly has no direct English translation but roughly means "cozy togetherness".  It's believed to be a factor in how places with consistently terrible winters still manage to be the "happiest places in the world" (according to the people who rank those kinds of things) and is a big enough deal that the Danish tourism website even has suggestions for how to experience it on your next trip to Denmark.

And we'll definitely be spending as much time in the sunshine as possible now that it's starting to show itself again.  David noticed during the summer that everyone seemed to be outside all the time.  Not really doing anything special outside, just sitting in the park reading a book or hanging out with friends.  He thought that people must be outside so much in the summer in order to make up for lost time in the winter.  I didn't want to believe him, but now, I know.  He was totally right.