It's Fall in Denmark!

 It's definitely autumn now! (That's efterår in Danish.)

Gone are the days of endless Danish sunshine, but contrary to what you may have heard, Danish autumn can be quite nice. The temperature hasn't dropped to the bone-chilling levels of winter, the sun still shines sometimes, and when it does rain, it feels cool and refreshing. As you can see, I had to increase my biking accessories to make sure my face and hands don't get frozen in the morning, but overall, we're having a very pleasant fall.

Speaking of bicycling, I have cycled to and from work 74 times this year! I set a goal of 100 days, but between my work-from-home days, sick-kid days, and holidays, it's gonna be a real (weather-dependent) stretch to make it there. I figure I'll be satisfied with anything over 75. It's still a big accomplishment for me.

In order to help realize this dream though, I needed some more waterproof gear. I have a nice rain jacket and rain pants, but I didn't have any way to keep my feet 100% dry. The other thing that became a problem during the first insane downpour was my computer, planner, and all the other work stuff I had in my backpack. Soaked, man. Zac and I took a trip to Lyngby, and I am pleased to say I now have rubber boots for rainy day rides and a waterproof backpack.

(Sometimes, I forget I have the proper gear and get soaked instead.)

We got delicious smørrebrød, on our trip to Lyngby, too. :)

* * *

Zac and I also went to one day of Copenhagen Metal Fest. A guy I used to work with at ALK is the drummer in a band called Dying Hydra, and they're actually a great metal band. We had one of their albums shipped to us in the U.S. and we have been looking for an opportunity to see them play since we moved here. They don't play often in public though, so we had to buy a full-day ticket to this festival just to see them.

We skipped the first half of the day and just planned to go for the evening shows. We ate birria and burritos at Mæxico before we headed to Amager Bio. There are so many good restaurants in Copenhagen that we like to take the opportunity to try a new one every time we go into the city.

The Copenhagen Metal Festival is only for Danish bands, so in that aspect, it was interesting to hear some smaller, lesser-known-to-us bands, even if they weren't really our favorite shows ever. Dying Hydra was great, as expected. It was a pretty late night though, and we foolishly failed to ride our bikes to the station, so it was a long walk home once we got back to Birkerød in the middle of the night. Thank goodness for the warmth of the train beers!

* * *

September also brings International Day at the kids' school. The school organizes several events involving family participation throughout the year, which is objectively good, but we hate the obligatory nature of it all. My strategy is to go all-in for International Day in September and then ignore all other requests for parental assistance the rest of the year. :)

Last year, we did soda floats at the U.S.A. table. It was a big hit, but it took a lot out of me and Zac and was really expensive. This year, we opted for Rice Krispie Treats. Have you ever made 400 Rice Krispie treats?!

Suffice it to say that this was just as difficult as soda floats, but at least I could do all the work up-front from the comfort of home instead of scooping and pouring for several hours in real time.

There was a lot of good help at the U.S.A. booth and we met some nice people. They contributed Whoopie Pies, mac 'n' cheese bites, chili, doughnuts, and Jolly Ranchers to the sampling feast, so we were very popular.

Last year, we had laid out all kinds of trivia and interesting information about the U.S., to try to showcase our country, and no one really cared. They basically just wanted the food and then they moved on. This year, I came up with the idea for a U.S.A.-themed photo booth. I figured that it would be a fun and easy activity for people just passing by, and there was virtually no reading or learning required.

I bought some things from an online Danish party store (USA fedora, a couple of USA-themed glasses, a flag bandana, a pair of glasses with an Uncle Sam beard, mustache, and hat attached to them, etc.). I also brought back some leftover 4th of July paraphernalia my mom gave me (red, silver, and blue star necklaces and a little fireworks bobble headband). I bought a downloadable 4th of July photo booth prop file from Etsy. I did have to print them all, glue them to card stock, cut them out, and tape them to skewers, but they turned out great.

Some of the other USA booth participants brought some cowboy hats and stuff like that to put out as well, so it was a pretty successful setup. I couldn't serve food and monitor the photo booth, so Zac stepped in to help with that part. There were a lot of people who didn't understand the concept (even though I had a total of three signs describing how to do it...), and he had to very patiently explain it to them and snap a few pictures for people.

The kids marched in the flag parade with their friends, and we donated some stuff to the raffle basket.

So there. We have done our part for the year. Barbers out.

* * *

Speaking of our patriotism, we also successfully received our mail-in ballots for the November election! Many people have asked if we can still vote while we live abroad, and the answer is: yes.

We had to fill out online applications to register to vote as citizens living outside of the U.S. We were required to use our last U.S. residence address during the registration (even though we no longer live there), which felt kind of weird, but this is how it's done, even if you don't own the home anymore. We had to print special envelopes and then mail them to the Kootenai County elections office.

Several weeks later, I was able to go to the Idaho voting website and check our voter status, and we were happy to see that we were registered and that it showed we had requested absentee ballots to be sent to us abroad.

We weren't sure how that worked, but in September, we got emails with download links for our ballots. We were not allowed to fill them in online, but we were asked to download them, print them, fill them out, and then mail the physical ballots back.

My first concern is that on a normal ballot, they are printed on very thick paper of an extra long size and they are two-sided. We printed these on A4-sized regular office paper, and printed them on one side only for a total of four pages. If we had printed them two-sided, the ink would show through the back onto the other page when we filled them out. There were no directions included that said to do one or the other.

My other concern was that the different size of paper from a normal ballot actually shrunk the text a little bit, including our little bubbles to fill in. They are slightly smaller than normal. I am a little worried that if someone tries to put them through an electronic ballot reader, they won't work right.

There were specific envelope requirements we had to comply with to mail them back and ensure they were secure, but we followed the directions very carefully. I paid for postage and shipped them off, and I have been checking to see if my ballot has been received and/or accepted several times a week since then. (Nothing yet.)

Anyway, we'll let you know how it goes!

* * *

I never want to give the impression that our lives are sunny and amazing every moment now that we've moved to Denmark, because there are still less-than-perfect days. Ya know, it's not like normal family dynamics suddenly changed. We are still raising children, after all.

One such example took place a few weeks ago. As you know by now, we live on a lovely lake called Sjælsø, and there are pathways that take you along the edge of the lake through the forest. We've long wondered if we could walk all the way around the lake though.

Others have told us it's possible but been a little vague about the details of how to do it since part of the waterfront is private property. (I found out that law about waterfront having to be public property only applies to the sea, not the lakes.) I found an AllTrails map for it, and while a large section of it is along a road, we decided to make the kids go out of the house with us and join us for the adventure.

Harrison was upset that it would take too long and be too far of a distance. Kaden was fussy because we wouldn't let him take his bike. Harrison was cranky because at the mention of biking, he suddenly was also upset that he couldn't take a bike. Khloe didn't want to leave her bedroom and had been in kind of a mood for the several days leading up to this. I almost told them all they could just stay home, but I decided they weren't going to bully us into leaving them at home on screens on a nice day.

Zac packed snacks and water in a backpack, we outfitted everyone appropriately, and set off on our familiar trail.

"How far is it?"

"How long will it take?"

"Why can't I use my phone? I'm just looking at the maps."

Ugh.

We made it farther than we had ever gone together before after a little while. We finally found the little birdwatching hut on the lake, we walked over some cute little bridges, and we made it to the military training grounds that we can hear sometimes but had never seen.

Khloe walked either well behind us or well in front of us the entire time. I made her remove her ear buds and stop listening to music, but this was not well-received.

Once we got past the military training area, we were spit out onto a busy stretch of road with barely any shoulder. It was a tough and loud walk, and our map was updating poorly so it was hard to see if we had an opportunity to take a more scenic (and safe) route. We saw an opportunity to get off the main part of the road and walk a little side road, but that ended up being a kind of creepy road running along several abandoned, boarded-up homes. There were two guys squatting down taking pictures of something under a pile of boards that didn't pay much attention to us, and there were two people who had built a fire and were cooking some food over it. They gave us a friendly greeting.

We emerged next to the refugee camp, but still, we had to continue on the road. When we finally got back in the forested spaces, Harrison was complaining about needing to rest his legs, Khloe wasn't really speaking to us and seemed incredibly angry at me after I kicked her off her phone again. Kaden had come around, I think.

The rest of the walk was through the most beautiful, niche little forested areas, and it was objectively so lovely. There were interesting signs describing the wildlife and the purpose for some of the man-made things, and there were old abandoned structures that were super intriguing.

We couldn't enjoy any of it though because one kid was whining and one kid was stomping so far ahead that we lost her on the diverging trails several times. She and I got in several arguments, and finally, we just let her go. She took a different way home completely.

So again, I'd hate for you to think that suddenly, it's easy to raise teenagers or get kids off screens or something just because all the other parts of living here are so freaking fantastic. :)

[There are zero pictures of this day because it was so terrible. All pictures in this section are from like a week or so later when Zac and I went back to enjoy it by ourselves.]

* * *

The kids are pretty happy just getting to do their own thing, and Khloe has returned to acting like a normal human, so we're pretty stoked about that.

Harrison is growing his hair out, and all those gaps from the teeth he lost are coming in nicely. He is good about his homework, he's been having lots of play dates with friends, and he does a decent job of alternating screen time with physical play. He has been building a lot of airplanes out of LEGO and magnet blocks and stuff lately.

Kaden's class had an internship week, so he came to intern at ALK with Zac's group! He got to try his hand at equipment calibrations (not on anything we were actively using, of course), tour the water systems, see the production areas, shadow different people, and of course, experience the amazing ALK canteen food. He even came by to visit me at my office. :)

He also joined a baseball team in Lyngby! The coach is from the U.S. and is trying to introduce baseball here in Denmark, where it isn't so well-known or popular as a sport. Kaden is fitting in well and despite not being very practiced, he's doing great.

You can see him listening attentively to his coach during his first practice (far left)

The boy can bat!

Khloe continues to practice guitar, and today, she's trying to learn a pretty French song on the piano. She has been drawing a lot and is getting very good at drawing characters from the Spider-Man universe. She has helped out with some of the autumn yard work, and she's doing well in school.

* * *

Speaking of art and music, Zac and I have been extra cultured lately.

He's trying to get back into the violin (I brought his old one back from the U.S. with me on this last trip), and while he plays violin, I play the flute. It's fun to reach back into our brains for these neglected musical abilities. Our hope is that eventually, we will be able to play a whole duet. :)

We also had to go to Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen for Danish class. We had been learning about Danish art and artists as we learned some descriptive adjectives in Danish. Our teacher thought it would be good for us to take a trip to one of the art museums in place of our normal class one night. We had about 90 minutes to walk around, and our goal was to find three art pieces we liked, take a picture of them, and then be prepared to describe them and answer questions about them in class the next time.

It was a nice museum, and of course there was so much we didn't get around to, but it was fun to kind of walk through and decide how we felt about the different sculptures and installations and paintings. Plus, we all went out for a beer afterward.

Shortly after our museum trip, Zac and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary! We wanted to go to a nice restaurant in Copenhagen and maybe check out some more museums. Are we artsy museum people? Not exactly, but I think we both enjoyed doing something outside of our normal comfort zone, so we kept it going.

We went into the city the weekend after our anniversary. There are four small-ish museums in the Frederiksberg museum group that we thought we might visit.

The first one, Møstings, is in a pretty, historical house. The installation was mostly textile works showing kind of the relationship between communities and personal homes with the crumbling outside world. The artist made several depictions of people in different settings using old reclaimed scraps of different fabrics. Some were flat, but some had dimensions because of the way the fabric was sewn, and it was very cool. I've never seen anything like that.

The second museum was called STORM, and it showcased the history of humor and satire throughout Danish history, from the earliest forms up to the current issues with censorship. It was really interesting to think about how historical events shape satirical comedy and how the introduction of new platforms changes the space completely. The exhibition was really nicely put together, and even though it was in Danish, we did pretty well getting the gist of each section. I'd love to go back and spend more time at that one when my Danish vocabulary is a little larger.

The last one we made it to was the Cisterns. We've wanted to check those out for a while. The Cisterns is where they once stored water for the city, but now, they use it as a gallery. The exhibition in there when we visited was a sound installation about mourning and loss. There were several recordings of different professional mourners (yes, I guess that's a thing in some cultures). The cisterns were dark and full of water, and you walked on these metal grate boardwalks following a central light below your feet. The songs of mourning echoed through the cisterns as you moved from one area to the next. It was very loud and a little disturbing, but we appreciated the experience of doing something new. Plus, we got to pop out of it into a beautiful sunny rainstorm.

Our dinner was at a bad Italian restaurant. We both thought it would be great, but it fell quite short of our expectations, and the food was not good. It was fun to be able to laugh about it together though, and we were able to get some good ice cream at another venue for dessert.

We went to a vintage video game arcade bar to wrap up the evening, but we left after a few games of pinball and Ms. Pacman. It was pretty hard to get access to some of the games because of people sitting at tables in front of them, and many of them were unplugged or not in good repair. I'm glad we got to check it out, but it's not going to be a repeat destination.

I just think it's fun to go on dates with Zac in the city, and I'm glad that we tried some new things. Some were great, some were not, but it was all nice since we did it together.

* * *

And guess what?! I finally got to tour the world famous Carlsberg brewery exhibition! I've been wanting to go for a while because I heard it was great. Alanna came over from Post Falls for a big meeting and we agreed it was a must-do.

We saw the exhibition first. It starts with a little DELICIOUS glass of Carlsberg (freshly tapped, super cold...so good), and then it's sort of self-guided. You move through different rooms, and there are very high quality video guides, memorabilia, and interactive brewing fun. It's super educational, incredibly interesting, and really nicely put together. We had 90 minutes, but it was not enough time if you're really truly interested in learning. I would've spent another hour in there easily.

Look! We made tiny avatars of ourselves having a beer together.

After the exhibition, we got a free beer and then we got to drink it while a guide walked us to all the historical locations around the area. We got to see the laboratory! I mean, exterior only, but it was still thrilling.

We saw gates, houses, brewery buildings, chimneys, and all kinds of things on the tour. The architecture was beautiful, and learning some of the stories behind all of it was entertaining and kind of incredible.

* * *

Zac and I also went to see Stoned Jesus at Ideal Bar in VEGA. The Abbey and MONDO DRAG were opening for them. Zac was really excited about the concert and I was kind of along for the ride until about two weeks before the concert. We were listening to music and a song I really like came on. I asked Zac whose song it was and he said it was Stoned Jesus. He then played several more songs from them, and I realized I had been hearing them for like 10 years without knowing who performed them. So anyway, I was pretty excited for the show as well. I also think it's a lot of fun to go to a concert in a small venue with a good band. It's so cozy and intimate!

We had to pick a place to eat before the show, so I suggested a super delicious-looking chicken sandwich I had seen on a Copenhagen Instagram page I follow. It's from a restaurant called Poulette, and the sandwich is supposed to be delicious, spicy, and have perfectly balanced flavor. Later, I learned that it got very famous when it was featured on an episode of The Bear.

It may not look like much, but it was absolutely tasty and everything else I was promised. The restaurant has no seating, there is only enough space for the three-person staff, storage, a drink cooler, and a register. You wait in line outside, file down a small staircase to the register, place your order, grab your drinks, and squeeze your way back outside to wait. Eventually, an employee shouts your name and hands you the bag, and you go find a bench or a stool to eat on.

There were a lot of American tourists eating there, and since it's pretty out of the way, I'm certain they were there because of The Bear. I hadn't mentioned it to Zac because we haven't seen that show and because it wasn't the reason I found the restaurant in the first place, but when I told him, he was super embarrassed to think that other people might think we were American tourists going there because of the show. Haha. No matter. We ate some great food on a city bench outside a convenience store and it was fantastic.

After our sandwich, we went to a corner coffee and beer bar to kill a little time before the show and then walked over to VEGA.

We were pretty much front and center for The Abbey. They didn't have a very high energy, but the music was unique and they did some cool things. When MONDO DRAG was setting up, I looked over at the group and recognized the bass player from Acid King. We saw Acid King at Loppen several months ago. Zac wasn't sure it was the same person, but admitted it could be and that it was feasible since both bands were from the U.S. I looked it up and an Instagram post confirmed that the bassist from Acid King was touring with MONDO DRAG as a fill-in for their normal bass player. Booyah!

Zac was kind of impressed that I recognized him, but it was easy to recognize the person I spent all of Acid King's concert staring at because I was too short to see anything else. :) We introduced ourselves after the show and he was really nice.

The keyboards were rad, and the bass lines were really good. MONDO DRAG was a great build up for Stoned Jesus.

Stoned Jesus put on a really phenomenal show. They were kind, appreciative, interactive, and just so talented. The bass was vibrating in my shirt sleeves. They did a really cool encore medley, and the energy was high and super fun the whole time. It might be one of the best shows I've seen.

* * *

Autumn has been good to us so far (kids' minor tantrums aside), and I still can't believe how many great bands come here to play at these little venues right in front of us.

Oh, and like many of our Pacific Northwest friends and family, we were able to see the Northern Lights here the other night for the first time! We could see the reds with the naked eye (except poor, colorblind Zac, who couldn't even see it on my pictures). Now that we kind of know what to look for, we can be a little more on the ball during the more vivid light shows!