Italian Adventures

Part two of my cruise recap was delayed a bit because I spent the week decorating and preparing for our Halloween Party! :) More on that later.

On Day 4 of the cruise we made it to Naples, Italy!

Beautiful view as we got off the ship!

I was so fortunate to get to go to Pompeii with a guided tour and explore the ruins of this 2,000 year old city! Our tour guide was super sweet and kept calling our group "my family" We got to see so many cool areas from a wealthy family's home to the public bath house to the bakery and of course the town square.

Our tour guide! "My family! My family!"

The city center of Pompeii

Inside the bath house

The bakery

Mt. Vesuvius in the background

Pompeii has always been on my list of places to visit ever since reading about it in my high school history books. The idea that people were living their normal lives and everything was frozen in time is fascinating to me. I would LOVE to go back to the area and spend more time exploring it and I would love to explore Mt. Vesuvius with Klaus as well! :)

Linda and me at the city center

A perfect day to explore the ruins of this amazing city!

Actual human remains perfectly preserved under mountains of ash.

The next port we came to was Civitavecchia, Italy! This was the first (and ONLY) day of not so great weather, so I was VERY happy to have a bus tour of the highlights of Rome and then a 2 hour stop in the Vatican City! :) I wish I could have spent DAYS here, as there is sooooo much to see and do that even on the driving tour we weren't able to cover everything in the 9 hour tour! I did enjoy seeing the Vatican City and even found a bobble-head pope for my parents! :)

Circus Maximus

Altare della Patria or "The Wedding Cake Monument"

The Colosseum

St. Peters Square- and the LONG line to get into the basilica!

Me and the Pope! :)

Next up was Lucca, Italy (or more precisely the port of Livorno) This was another incredibly fun day that I got to spend with Linda doing a guided tour. When I was at CCM there was a summer opera program that took students to Lucca, Italy so I had always seen pictures from my friends' trips, but going myself was a whole different experience. Lucca is ADORABLE! It looks just like something you'd see in a movie or on a postcard. We only had about 45 minutes of free time after the walking tour, but I was able to snag some good souvenirs- real Italian leather gloves for me and a belt for Klaus as well as some very yummy chocolates! :)

A view of the walls that have been turned into a city park

Such a quite, sweet little town!

A mansion for one of the wealthy families in town-
It was originally built for the people who brought beer to Lucca!

Our Italian tour guide- Alexandro and Linda
"Oh! Mama Mia!!!"

Piazza Anfiteatro

Narrow, winding streets

With that, we said Arrivederci to Italy and headed to France! :) Next, stop- Toulon, Italy and Barcelona, Spain! :)

Ahoy Matey! Part 1

This is a LONG overdue post, sorry (long story with a lost password into this account... oops!)

Earlier this month, I had an AMAZING opportunity to sail aboard Holland America's Neiw Amsterdam in the Mediterranean with a friend of mine from CCM (Yay Linda!!) It was an incredible week and I have so many memories from the trip that its a little overwhelming to try to put together this post, but here goes! I'm sure I will miss a lot of details, but hopefully I can share how much fun I had and how incredibly blessed I was to have this chance! :)

Our cruise left from Barcelona, Spain so I flew in the night before and stayed overnight at a very chic and fancy hotel (thank you free night from hotels.com!! lol!) I picked the hotel mostly because they had a free shuttle service from the airport to the hotel and then from the hotel to the cruise ship, which made me much more relaxed since I wouldn't have to rely on my AWFUL Spanish that I was trying to remember from high school (that has since been totally messed up by learning Danish!) The first thing I noticed about Barcelona were the palm trees!!! They were everywhere and definitely set the mood perfectly for a (late) summer vacation! It also helped that I was going from the coldest week so far in Denmark (mid 40's all week leading up to my departure) to temps that were closer to the highs of the Danish summer! :) The sun felt WONDERFUL!!!

Once I got on board the ship and found Linda who showed me around to all the important places (cabin, dining hall, life raft, the theatre where she works, and of course the pools!) I spent some time exploring the ship and trying to figure out where everything else was before settling in on a lounge chair and soaking up the sun!
 
Our first day was at sea while we headed south to Sicily, so I spent a good portion of that day still wandering around the ship (I can't tell you the number of times I was walking to the "bow" instead of the "aft"...)

I also found some very nice places to hang out and read, including "The Crows Nest" which was on the top deck at the front of the ship which had an amazing view of the sea as well as some SUPER comfy reclining chairs- pretty much every time I went up there every chair was taken by someone who was sound asleep!! ha! The Crows Nest was also home to the library, coffee shop and board games, so there were always people up there to talk to, which was fun for me to get to hear about so many different people's travel expierences. One couple was telling me that this was their 3rd cruise THIS YEAR!! It was always funny when I told people this was my first time on a cruise ship because so many of them are veteran cruisers, they'd all say something along the lines of "I remember my first cruise..." :)

Palermo!

Our first port of call was Palermo in Sicily! :) It was soooo WARM! And SUNNY! This Texas girl was so happy to be wearing a tank top and shorts again! :) Linda and I spent the day exploring on our own which was really fun, and a bit challenging since neither of us knows Italian. But we managed to find our way around and back to the ship before it left so I count that as success! We found a really sweet pottery store with all kinds of hand crafted items. The owner of the store was able to give us directions to the opera house (Teatro Massimo) and we headed that way. :)

Pottery Shop



Teatro Massimo



From there we headed to a local open air market that reminded me so much of what you see in the movies, loud Italian men shouting at each other and using a lot of hand gestures, tons of scooters squeezing through the narrow streets and weaving among the pedestrians and cars alike!
As we made our way around the city we got to see a lot of incredible architecture as well as some very interesting looking trees that were like nothing I had ever seen before. The city itself was very busy with a lot of traffic and people out and about.

We found our way back to the port and stopped to have lunch at a café, I was SUPER jealous of Linda's calzone (darn gluten...) and afterwards we both had some very yummy gelato! :)

This is only about 1/3 of the selection!

The "Sail-away party" that evening had some amazing views as we left Sicily and headed towards the Italian coast. Seeing the sunset over the mountains was one of the most breathtaking things I have ever seen!




Next stop, Italy- specifically Pompeii, Rome and Lucca! :)
XOXO,
Joy

Apples and Pears oh my!

We have been staying super busy and enjoying the beginning of Fall! Last weekend Klaus and I took Tex to a pick your own apple farm and managed to come back with TWELVE KILOGRAMS (about 26 lbs!!) of Apples and Pears! :) There were 5 varieties of apples and 2 kinds of pears so we have some for baking and some for eating which is nice. So far I've made an apple crumble dessert and will be making my Nana's apple cake recipe this evening! I'm also going to try to make applesauce in the crockpot (yay for pinterest!)

We lucked out with the weather and it was beautiful! It was sunny and in the mid-70's (the next day it rained and was in the low 60's...)

Tex did sooo well and kept up with us the entire time (about 2 hours) He was having so much fun running around and meeting new people, some new other dogs and even a few sheep too! (The sheep were behind an electric fence so he really didn't get to meet them but he watched them and was probably thinking "those are the funniest looking puppies I've ever seen!!")

It was so nice to be able to go out and have a fun date with my husband and also spend time with the puppy. We are soooo happy that he's a people-puppy and loves to try new things! (He also loves having his picture taken- or at least likes the sound the camera makes)

In other news, I had my placement interview for my Danish classes last week and I will be starting Module 2 in October!! Woo-hoo :)

I'm off to go try and make some applesauce now :) If you have any good apple recipes feel free to send them my way!
XOXO,
Joy

When it Rains- it POURS!

No, this is not a rant about Danish weather (actually its been a BEAUTIFUL day with just a hint of fall in the air!) But rather, after spending MONTHS waiting and basically twiddling my thumbs to find something to fill my days with I am suddenly Busy! :) It is WONDERFUL! :) I feel so alive and so happy, which also makes me feel more like myself than I've felt on a consistent basis in a long time.

So first of all (and what has been filling the majority of my time over the last month) is having Big Tex join our little family! :)

He is absolutely adorable and super smart! He is so much fun to hang out with and I'm really enjoying the fact that he's (mostly) housebroken and can spend the majority of his time outside the pen. He LOVES people and really wants to be a helper-dog no matter what we're doing, which is such a good trait and I wish we could take credit for it, but I think its just the way he is! :)

Having Tex around also means lots of trips outside which, in turn, means I have met SO many people in the last month! He's a really good conversation starter and people seem much more open to talking when he's around. I've gotten pretty good at understanding the common first questions like how old is he and what kind of dog is he when spoken in Danish and I've also gotten more confident in responding to these questions in Danish as well. :) He's also given us a new social network thru the puppy classes we're taking him to. There are 10 puppies in his class and all of the owners and trainers are so friendly and very easy to talk to! :) The trainers have been VERY helpful in coming over to us immediately after the group instruction to make sure I understood it (which I do about 50% of the time)

Puppy face kisses!

When we talked about getting Tex, we were under the impression that I would not have my residence permit until mid-September. I had joked that as soon as we got the puppy my papers would come in.... and GUESS WHAT?!?! Lol! We actually got my residence permit in the mail on the exact same day that we got the ownership certificate from the Danish Kennel Klub! :) YAY!!!!

Since I now am "official" I have been able to get appointments with the doctor and the city integration/ job center as well as the language school! :) Its been really great to get the ball rolling on so many things so quickly and I am soooo looking forward to restarting my Danish lessons soon. I have a placement interview next week and we'll see if they think I need to re-take module 1. Its been over a year since I took it, but I'm hoping I've been practicing enough that I can move on to module 2. But since I'm changing schools I'm not sure its possible since I don't know if my old school covered the same info in Module 1? Keep your fingers crossed! :)

Ok this is a SUPER long update, but there's lots of fun and exciting things happening around here these days!!
XOXO
Joy

St. Louis and the rest of Texas Recap

Again, this is a delayed update- the ipad and blogger just didn't play nicely together...

The morning after the Texas Reception we (mom, dad, Klaus and I) drove up to St. Louis to visit my Nana and Pawpaw! :)

 

While we were there I got to show Klaus around some of my favorite spots in St. Louis. We went to the Arch, CityGarden, Forest Park, Central West End, the Loop, the Zoo and of course the Muny! :)

 

 

 

 

 

We got to meet up with my friend Tracey who took us on a backstage tour of the muny so Klaus could see what I have been talking about ("This is where the raccoons come up from beneath the stage") and she was able to fill me in on what's been going on in the couple years since I haven't been there! :) We also ran into a lot of familiar faces and got lots of hugs! It was soooo great to see everyone again! That evening, we got to see Mary Poppins with Mom and Nana, it was such a good show! It was also neat to just be an audience member! :)

The next morning we got to have brunch with one of my favorite people in the world- NEVIN! :) It was sooooo good to catch up with him again and I was really happy to introduce him to Klaus!



Once we got back to Texas, we spent most of our time visiting with friends before we had to go home. :) I loved getting to spend time with people, but of course wish I had more time to spend since there were quite a few more people I would have loved to see as well! (Its funny how quickly 3 weeks goes by!!)

We also got to celebrate mom's birthday by going to Rick's in downtown McKinney with the whole family which I think she would have really enjoyed if she hadn't felt so sick.. :( I know Klaus and I REALLY enjoyed the dinner but we both felt bad that she wasn't feeling good! Hopefully the steak is just as good reheated when she eventually can eat it! :)

Klaus and I left Texas on the 8th, landed in Copenhagen on the 9th (with our 250lbs of luggage!! lol!) and picked up our new puppy- Big Tex- on the 10th!! (More about him in another entry later, this one's already getting super long!!!)

We had a FANTASTIC trip and we feel sooo grateful that we were able to catch up with so many friends while we were there! I miss y'all a lot!
XOXO,
Joy

Delayed Recap of our first half of summer vacation!

** This post was written Sunday afternoon but because of the less than stellar Internet connection it is just now being posted on Thursday! Oops!

It has been a crazy whirlwind first half of our trip to Texas so far, but we are having a blast! It is so great to reconnect with friends and catch up on how life is going. It always reminds me to appreciate how cool it is that I get to live in Denmark and experience all of the new and exciting things. I've also really enjoyed hearing about all the adventures that have been going on over here while I've been away! :-)

Klaus has been getting the FULL American treatment on this trip including his first snow cone, his first Major League Baseball game (Go Rangers!), the first time getting to go thru the "fast line" in immigration and his first root beer float! :-) so far the only thing he's not a fan of has been the root beer float, he thinks its ruining 2 perfectly good things and way mess with a good thing?

 

Last night was our American wedding reception, I can't even begin to describe just how happy and grateful I felt to be surrounded by so many amazing people from all parts of my life! We had a blast getting to see everyone, I just wish I could have spent more time with everyone individually, but please know that I was sooooo happy to see everyone who made it out last night! 



The Joyces

Hellquists!

Friends!

The Family

Mom & Dad

Stair step Cousins

Captain America!!

Project Linus Ladies

 

We are currently in the car heading to St.Louis for a quick trip to visit my grandparents as well as do some of the tourist things with Klaus who will be seeing St.Louis for the first time! :-) I'm hoping to show him the Arch, the Muny, possibly the zoo and of course some of my favorite restaurants in the Loop and CWE! :-)

 

I will post more later but I just wanted to do a quick update while I had a bit of time in the car! :-)

 

XOXO,

Joy