Celebrating America in Denmark!

I've been really terrible at keeping the blog up to date recently- SORRY!!! We've been really busy- lots of exciting things for me to fill you in! But first I want to post a few pictures from our "5th of July Party" (the 4th was a Thursday, and last year the danes were confused as to why I was having a party in the middle of the week so we moved it to Friday.)

It was a bit odd to be the ONLY American at the party, but I feel so blessed that my Danish friends are willing to humor me and play along with all things American! :) They even ate the PB&J sandwiches which is not something they typically eat! We also served pulled pork (BIG hit!), burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, ants on a log, popcorn, chips, fruit, veggies, and of course CAKE!

We had so much fun relaxing and spending time with our friends! Of course I wish I could have celebrated with my American friends and family too but I am so thankful for my friends here! :) AND Klaus and I will be back in the states in a few weeks and will be able to celebrate with everyone then!

 

Our other big exciting news is that we're getting a puppy!!!!! "Big Tex" will get to come home with us on August 10th!!!

This was taken when he was 8 days old!

Big Tex is the puppy at the
top right corner of the picture! :)

We've been spending a lot of time getting ready for Tex (puppy proofing the apartment, reading books, researching training clubs in the area, etc) Other than that, we're still running with the club a couple times a week and taking trips around Denmark (I'm still not allowed to go anywhere but to and from the states) and we're still waiting on my paperwork to come thru so I can resume my Danish classes/ find a job- but we've been told that we can expect that to come thru in September (cross your fingers!!)

I hope everyone is doing well, I will try my best to keep up to date with the blog. We're heading to Texas in a couple weeks and I can't wait to see everyone again!!! I miss ya'll!!!

XOXO

Joy

Danish Wedding Traditions Explained

So we've had some people ask us whether we had a "Danish" or "American" style wedding and party but really we didn't have either! We tried our best to blend the traditions from each style and ended up with a completly unique and very fun party!  I thought it would be fun to explain some of the danish traditions and show some pictures too.

• Toast Master- Our good friend Jesper agreeded to be our toast master for the evening which means he will be keeping the flow of the reception moving. He will let everyone know when it is time to eat, as well as introducing people who would like to give speeches or songs. Jesper did an AMAZING job and actually went above and beyond by doing the whole thing in BOTH languages and even recapping peoples' speeches in the non-native language (it was a little bit like the Olympics where you hear everything in multiple languages!!), it was great and everyone loved having him as Toast Master!

• Speeches and Songs- one of the traditions that was pretty different for the Americans is the "giving of songs". Basically, people will take the tune of a common song (Like My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean) and change the lyrics to be about the wedding couple. They will bring the lyrics written out for all of the guests to sing along! We had three songs at our wedding and they were all a lot of fun. The one his mom did came with a cute box to hold the song sheets that she made look like a Ham Radio (one of Klaus' hobbies) and had included yarn and knitting needles (one of My hobbies) Helle's song sheets were rolled up into scrolls with a blank heart attached that in the song she explained that people were supposed to sign their name on the heart and hang them on the branches she had put on our table. What's neat about this is that we have kept the branches in water and they are now blooming and look so pretty!

• Kissing Traditions-
  • Clinking on glasses- the Americans will be familiar with this one, however there's a danish twist on it. When the guests clink on glasses the couple is supposed to stand on their chairs to kiss.
  
  
  
  • Stomping on the floor- This takes the tradition one step farther and the couple is supposed to crawl under the table to kiss if the guests stomp on the floor.
  
  
  
  • If the bride leaves the room the female guests at the party will run up to the groom and kiss him! The opposite is done if the groom leaves the room- all of the men will run up to the bride to kiss her!

• Bridal Waltz- This takes place just before midnight and usually replaces the american tradition of the "First Dance", we will actually do both at our party. During the waltz the guests form a circle around the couple clapping and slowly moving in towards the couple. By the end of the dance they surround the couple.

• This is also when the guests take off the grooms shoes to cut the toes off of his socks!! Apparently this has to do with making sure he doesn't go after any other women now that he's a married man! I've also read that its to make sure the first wifely duty of the bride is to fix his socks... but I like the other explanation better!

• At the same time, the bride is having her veil torn into pieces by the women at the party! Apparently this is supposed to bring luck to both the bridal couple as well as the guests who take home a piece of the veil. They are supposed to make a wish for the couple and tie the piece of veil on their car antenna/ bike wheel/ etc and when the veil falls off the wish will come true. As best I can tell, these traditions replace the garter and bouquet toss that is usually done in American weddings (we opted not to do these since we did the bridal waltz).

We had so much fun with all of the traditions and it made for a really fun evening! I hope some of these explanations help a little bit, but really its all good fun just of the danish variety!

XOXO,
Joy

The American Invasion of Denmark (aka Joy and Klaus' Wedding!!)

So much has happened since my last blog post! Mainly, I GOT MARRIED!!!! :) Klaus and I were married on April 6th in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by our amazing family and friends! We both felt incredibly blessed and couldn't have asked for a better day. :)

The week leading up to the wedding was crazy busy but also SO much fun because the Americans arrived!! The weather was chilly but as good as we could have hoped for- NO snow or rain and perfectly blue skies for the majority of their stay in Denmark! :) I think it snowed the day after the wedding but for Denmark that's not too bad :)

Michelle, Paul and Noel were the first to arrive and we spent Monday and Tuesday showing them around Bakken and then Copenhagen.

Walking to Bakken with Michelle

Noel and Paul driving the bumper cars!

Then on Wednesday my parents arrived and we did some more sightseeing around Copenhagen in an attempt to help them beat the jet lag (not sure it totally worked...?) Thursday morning I made a trip to the airport to pick up Kim and showed her around the city a bit too including a stop at Ny Havn for a beer and people watching.

I left Kim at Nørreport and pointed her down Strøget for some shopping and headed back to the airport to pick up CJ and Jess. :) Klaus met us at the airport and we took the tired/hungry travellers back to their hotel to meet up with my parents and took them all to dinner.

Friday morning was spent setting up the reception hall with the Krogsgaards, me and Michelle. I think it turned out really nice even if it was a bit hectic to get it all put together. After lunch the Sheplers arrived in Brede and helped us wrap up the last bit of decorating before heading to the church for the rehearsal.

Talking thru the ceremony and figuring out how to make it work

In all the craziness of the day I FORGOT the rehearsal bouquet!!
But it was a work of art and deserves to be seen!!
Thanks girls!!

Friday evening we all went into Copenhagen for the rehearsal dinner at Madklubben Vesterbro, another adventure (there was a mishap with our reservation so they had to do some quick rearranging of tables to get us all seated) but we had a great time and very good food! :)

 

 

Saturday was the big day!!! :) Everything went very smooth and surprisingly I was not nervous or stressed at ALL. :) I think because I had done so much work ahead of time I was able to relax and trust that the rest of the pieces would fall in place and was able to just enjoy the day. It was PERFECT! :)

Mom helping me get ready

 

Bridesmaids

The Shepler women

There are so many more pictures from the day, but this post is already getting SUPER long, so I think I'll post the rest on facebook once we get them back from the photographer. :)

Sunday morning we had our FULL family over to the apartment for brunch and present opening :) By this point Klaus and I were exhausted and decided to opt out of the Sheplers' adventure to Sweden, which was apparently a good choice as they FROZE! This was the day the weather turned yucky and they got snowed on!

This was also the day that Klaus let me know what was going on with my visa application... There has been a mistake made (things happen.) and he got a letter on THURSDAY that said my application had been denied based on some miscounting of the days I've been in Denmark and what they considered my "first entry date". Thank God Klaus was smart enough to wait until after the wedding to tell me about it because I think I would have had a meltdown if he had told me Thursday or Friday, but unfortunately for him, he had to deal with it on his own for I'm sure what felt like an eternity. :( We have appealed the decision and I have been granted the ability to stay in the country during the appeal process, so no worries there. But unfortunately it takes on average 7 months for the appeal to go thru before they can re-look at the visa application... All this means that we will have to play the waiting game quite a bit longer (probably summer of 2014 before all is said and done...) I am trying to be positive about it and focus on all the things that I can do while I wait. Things that I wouldn't have time for if I had a job or school, but it is a tough time right now and the timing of it is pretty unfortunate. However, I refuse to let it take away from the amazing time I had with my friends and family at our wedding!

Thank you all for the love and support you have given us!
XOXO
Joy

PS- for those keeping track: I made 6 trips to the airport, saw the Little Mermaid 3 times and played tour guide to 8 Americans in just over one week!

Busy busy!

Sorry for the lack of updates, we are still WAITING to get a letter about my application, but it should come any time in the next week, so keep your fingers crossed please? I've been checking the mailbox at least twice a day, but apparently that has no effect on how quickly the letter will arrive. The crazy thing is that we found out the church we are having our wedding at has to issue me a CPR number in order to do the ceremony. Which means I technically have a number, but it is not attached to any of the rights that normal CPR numbers have. Its a little confusing but basically I still have to wait for the government to attach my number to my visa application to be able to go to the doctors or schools or libraries or apply for a job or anything really, but hey they gave me a number! ha! :)

Other than that, I've been really busy with the wedding planning mostly, I won't bore you with all the little details, but I am REALLY excited to see everything start coming together in such a good way! :) I also can't wait to see my friends and family again- Michelle and I talked yesterday and Noel informed us that they would be getting on a plane in 18 days!!! Oh my gosh! :) Sooooo can't wait to see them again! I have been a little homesick recently (nothing bad, just wishing my mom and Michelle were here to help me with the wedding stuff mostly) so to know that they will be here so soon makes me really happy. I can't wait to show off Copenhagen a little bit and show them my new life here and of course celebrate Klaus and I's new life together with everyone! :)

I've also started going to spin classes again which has been an interesting experience. I find myself completely exhausted after each class and I really think its the combination of the physical activity and the mental part of trying to understand what the instructor (a David Letterman look-a-like) is screaming at me in danish! ha! Luckily there's a really nice girl in the class who has let me sit next to her for the past few weeks and has been soooo helpful and patient with me. The first week she sat next to me she translated almost the entire class for me (a MASSIVELY impressive feat I must say!) And each time since then I've needed a little less and less translation. Last night it was actually the other way around where I would try to translate in my head and then just look to her and ask if what I thought I heard was right or not. :) The other big difference in these classes than the ones in the states is that we're all hooked up to heart rate monitors that are then synced into a system that displays them on a giant projector screen at the front of the class. Basically your HR monitor has a number on it and as you walk into the class you sign into the computer system and put in what your max heart rate should be and then it calculates percentages based on that. So when David Letterman says "femogfirs procent" I know that my little monitor needs to be at 85%. I also know that if I don't get my little monitor to say that, then David Letterman will point at it and yell "Kom Nu!!" haha!

So that's what's going on here. I know I promised pictures from our trip to Jylland to see Klaus' parents so I'll add a few here, but I've posted most of them on facebook too. :)

 

XOXO,
Joy

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