Can the Danes bring that to Africa?

June 6.2009-
I forgot I uploaded a video. Here are some Danes celebrating the big Denmark Victory.. and got a couple of disgruntled Swedish women yikes. Mild for European football crowds.. but this is pretty rowdy for the usually quiet and calm danish people!

Of course the star is Copenhagen in the pan around. We're in the city hall square and you can see all the nice buildings and the amusement park Tivoli right behind the TV.. This is the center of the city!

Routing for Red & White

June 6. 2009-
Sweden vs. Denmark 2008. As far as I understand, late in the game last year, after Denmark came back from a 3-0 deficit, a man ran out onto the field and attacked a referee. The referee got to call the match by regulation, since he was threatened, and the score reverted back to 3-0. Sweden won and Denmark was outraged!

That brings us to this year. This year's football match was being played in Sweden but that didn't cool any energy. They set up big screens all over Copenhagen and we watched the game at Rådhuspladsen.

Pretty soon it got interesting. 1-0 Denmark!!There was something with the shoes..
Near the end of the game, still 1-0!Amy and the pretty skyAnd a big win for Denmark!!! Take that Sweden! (Sorry Blake and Courtney:)
"Vi er på vej til Afrika!" ("On our way to..World Cup, South Africa 2010")

Oh and our shot from earlier.. we tried to show off our 'Jul' beer. A bit of Christmas beer in June? That takes dedication. Me, Angela and Amy :->

Huntin' slugs!

June 6.2009-
I crashed Amy's small town life this weekend and joined her in her Au pair duties Saturday morning. The kids, boys I should mention, were desperate to go outside and show me their snail collection. Sure enough they had a tank full of escargot in their play area. After a few minutes Amy got them excited about going on a slug hunt! A what? I had to chase after the three of them going full sprint into the front yard.

"Sneglen, hvor er du?"
Amy said one time she walked through the woods (the forest as its always called here) promising the boys slugs and they couldn't find any. She said it was because they hadn't called for them yet. They yelled out, snails where are you, and all of a sudden found one. Now they can't go anywhere near the woods without Daniel screaming at the top of his lungs to get the snail's attention.

Here they go on a mission..Oliver spots one!Daniel pokes at a fat one.
"Sød Kelly.." Amy taught them to address her kindly.
Sweet Daniel picked me a flower.. aww!Oh Amy, the ever happy Nanny!!
Oliver, 3, and Daniel, 4.. Too cute for words! Danish only speaking too mind you, its amazing what you can communicate without ever talking! After I was handed a bug, a flower and a "sword" , while with the help of Amy got to tell them I hated snakes, eww slanger, I was in!

KuBB

May 1.2009-

One very busy work day in early May (actually it was May 1st, international Labor day except for in U.S. most people were in the park drinking, but we 'dedicated folk' were at still at work) we decided to learn an important Swedish game. Its called Kubb. Kubb is played like every other BBQ game where you underhand lob an object at a marker and hope to get your object in/closest/or past the target (cornhole/horseshoes/wiffleball respectively). Kubb however is a rudimentary game with an old conquering the kingdom feel. Here Basia explains the rules:

The game pieces are blocks of wood. The stick you throw is a dowel. The only fancy piece is the King in the center (presumably the center of his Kingdom).

You have to throw like this or Basia WILL yell at you. (Apparently I was trying to softball pitch the stick which was not acceptable. I did have some accurate throws though!)

Then the playing field is setup like this:

Your 5 soldiers (handsome blocks of wood) are set up in army formation at the back line. The opposing team stands at their nearest soldier (at the start the back line) and throws the stick (riffle?) at your men. If they succeed in knocking down one of your soldiers they get to keep it. In order to find a position for it however, the team that just lost a soldier has to "set" it in the other teams territory. At the center of it all, watching, is the King.

To set the soldier on the other side YOu get to throw it. Same throwing rules apply (Barbara would be proud.) The goal is the throw your man as close to the center line as possible because on your next turn (which happens right after you set your soldier fortunately) you have to kill that soldier first. If there is just one man down, its not too hard to get it. If the other team hits 3 or 4, its very difficult. Here are men being tossed around:

The King has the pretty crown here you see.

Well what happens if you toss a soldier and then can't kill him to win him back to your side? The other team gets to move up to the position you tossed him at and throw from there. It is very fun and the game goes back and forth very quickly.

In fact at the end, which my team unfortunately learned the hard way, once you have conquered the entire Army and are now going for the King the other team can declare a mutiny and go for the King as well. Ah, alas, we had all our men fighting for us but could not save our King.. which is also the King we were going for? Hm, quite confusing. Point is we lost. But we had a lot of fun trying!

Occassionally I got picture hungry also~