The Waiting Game

So today was a HUGE day for me. Klaus and I went to the Udlændingestyrelsen (immigration service center) this morning to turn in my application for my visa to STAY in Denmark!!! Woo-hoo!!!
We filled it out Sunday and he got all of the paperwork and my passport copied and got the form needed from the municipality on Monday. And we checked and rechecked that we had filled out every question and signed everything that we needed to about 30 times and then this morning he took off work and we turned it in!!! Yay! Its a very nerve wracking process mostly because it would be so easy to miss something and then we would have to start all over... But at this point it is out of our hands, and now we wait...

They told us to expect it to take about 2-3 weeks for them to get the application scanned into the system at which point they would send us a letter saything that they have recieved it and it is under review. (We should get the letter in about 3-4 weeks) And on the letter it will say how long they expect the rest of the process to take before I can get my CPR number (basically a social security number, but it is required to do ANYTHING in Denmark) sooooo.... cross your fingers that everything will go smoothly! :)

A friend of ours told us that once we turn in the application we should really just try to forget about it until we get the letter because it takes forever and you can't do anything about it anyway. This sounded like good advice, but I just don't know how to forget about it! ha! I'm just hoping that the next few weeks will go by quickly! :) Or by some miracle my application falls on the top of the right mound of paperwork and gets processed super fast??? haha! Wishful thinking!

In other news, Klaus and I are taking a trip to visit his parents this weekend so I will get to see where he grew up! :) I'm really excited about it and have no idea what to expect, but hopefully I'll get some good pictures and post them next week sometime!

Until then, we shall wait...

XOXO
Joy

Fastelavn (aka Danish Halloween)

One of my favorite parts about living in Denmark is learning about and experiencing their culture and traditions that are so different from what I knew as a child. Which is why I was really excited about this weekend... Its Fastelavn!! :) Back in October I mentioned that danes don't typically celebrate Halloween in the fall- well this weekend is Danish Halloween :) Well, actually the only similarity is that little kids dress up and go from door to door collecting treats.

The two holidays have totally different origins- Halloween started as a harvest festival whereas Fastelavn is linked to the holidays leading up to Easter- specifically the Sunday or Monday before Ash Wednesday and Lent. Also, Fastelavn doesn't have any of the ghosts and golbins and witches and other scary things associated with it, but instead they tried to ward off evil spirits by putting a black cat in a barrel and hitting it repeatedly with a stick (think pinata style) These days the live cat is replaced by a picture of a cat on the outside of the barrel and candy or fruit instead :) The first person to break the barrel and let the treats out is crowned "Queen of Cats" and the person who gets the last piece of the barrel to fall is crowned "King of Cats"

This morning, Klaus took me to a farm where they have this all set up for kids to come play so that I could see it first hand! :) It was really funny to watch- especially since all of the kids had on full snowsuits under their costumes!

That's a lot of little danes swinging around sticks!

The little knight!

Pippi Longstockings & A giant banana

Lunch was Veggie Soup
and Pølser (hot dog/sausages)

Another very important part of Fastelavn is the pastries! :) Klaus baked some of the traditional fastelavnboller for us last night (gluten free of course!) and they were amazing!!! Flaky pastry filled with a vanilla custard and topped with icing- what's not to like???

Before

After

 

So that's pretty much Fastelavn in a nutshell- kids with sticks beating up barrels WITHOUT cats in them (anymore)... and yummy pastries! :) Woo-hoo! There's also something with twigs decorated with streamers and candy, but the only thing I could find out about where that comes from is that ultra-pious people used to flog their children on Good Friday with twigs to remind them of the suffering of Jesus on the cross, but now apparently its the children who flog their parents to wake them up on Fastelavn Sunday... weird danes... Not really sure about that part of the tradition. There's more about it on this wikipedia page.

 

I'm going to leave yall with a few pictures of the pretty snow (mostly because I know in a few weeks I might need to look back and remember that I really did think snow was beautiful at some point! haha!)

 

 

 

 

XOXO,

Joy



Getting back in the danish swing of things

I've been back in Copenhagen for a little more than a week and I finally feel like I'm settling back into the swing of things. The first few days I had some pretty bad jet lag to get over (the first time coming this way on a flight) but that was probably due to the fact that I wasn't able to sleep on the flights for more than about 20 minutes... I REALLY don't like turbulance- it makes me really nervous which means I can't settle down and sleep. :( But on the plus side- I got a LOT of knitting done! :)

Its been really nice to catch up with most of my friends so far, and figuring out time to get together with others means I have something to be really excited about! :) I've also gotten back into my gym routine. The one thing I haven't brought myself to do yet is the running club... its just TOO COLD and dark and the past couple times its been wet/icy... Yes I'm making excuses, but I've worked out a solution in the meantime (like until the weather decides to play nice)- Klaus has to drive to the starting point for the running club, so I've had him drop me off at the gym on his way and I work out/ run on the treadmill while he freezes runs with the club and then he comes to get me when he's done. Win-Win! :) They're saying that Saturday might be warmer and if that's the case I might try it... :-/??

The weather hasn't been too much of an issue for me- I'm just trying to figure out this whole "lots of layers" thing. Its not really something I've had to do growing up in Texas or even in Ohio because I never really had to walk to wherever I was going so it was more just bundle up to get to the car until the heater kicks in and then run into the heated building. :) Luckily I got some really great winter weather gear for christmas/ birthday this year! (Mom- those gloves have been a life saver!!!!)

All bundled up!

The other thing I've never gotten to do in Texas was to build a "real" snowman- as in rolling the snowball on the ground in order to make it bigger! Klaus was pretty amused that I've never actually done that, but he was a good teacher and we made a pretty cute snowman if I do say so myself!

See??? Roll the snowball on the ground and it grows!
Who knew?!?!

Ta Da! :)

So see! The cold isn't really so bad! :) Yes I know- its only been a week, check back with me in a couple months and we'll see what I say then! ha!
Hope everyone is doing well back home!
XOXO
Joy