closet space

Not counting the kitchen cabinets, this is all of the closet space in my entire flat! I consider myself a simple living girl, but this is a bit extreme!

Nevermind winter coats, hats, purses, sweaters, and my extensive shoe collection, but where am I supposed to keep practical things like a vacuum cleaner, cleaning supplies, sewing materials, luggage, my aerobic step, exercise ball, and cat litter?

I guess I just found a use for the scary and abandoned bathroom in the common hallway; only problem is, I'm a bit scared of going in there...

kaffefløde

My Jura Capresso superautomatic espresso machine still lives atop a granite counter in my Motherland. During our years together, she provided the most perfectly frothed soy coffee drinks a girl could ask for.

But now, I live in the land of 220 volts and my Danish coffee set-up is a bit more basic. Soymilk is a definite specialty item here (expensive and not widely available) and the french press is the coffeepot of choice.

If it were not for these adorable little bottles of kaffefløde, I might be rethinking my hasty departure from the steaming Goddess.

But seeing these teeny tiny glass bottles inside my little euro fridge makes me smile, and that seems to be a very fair trade :)

P.S. kaffefløde = coffee cream

rapeseed in spring

One of the things I love about living in Denmark is how much closer I feel to my food. Every day on my ride to and from work, I pass the fields that grow my food. If wasn't stuck on a bus, I could stop and buy potatoes, strawberries (and other things I can't yet identify via the written word) right from the people who grow them.

In early spring, I watched the baby lambs grow bigger every week, white at one farm, black at another. I see cows grazing in open pastures. And the other morning, I cried as I passed a truck full of screaming pigs on their way to slaughter, and I knew that being a vegetarian is absolutely the right choice for me. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought of those pigs and been glad that I know how to make "bacon" from a block of tofu.

But the point of this post isn't to lecture you about the karmic pitfalls of eating meat, to each their own. I wanted to share with you one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen...

It's rapeseed, and the Danish countryside is full of it in springtime. I'd never known that canola oil started off so beautifully.

blå sko

I cannot overemphasize the importance of practical shoes in my life right now. For more years than I'm going to count, my daily footwear has been along the lines of those Kate Spade leopard print pumps at the top of my blog. I was a shoe hound long before Carrie Bradshaw took the obsession mainstream and both of my grandmothers were shoe hounds in their day, but there's nothing like a carless life among cobblestone streets to make a girl rethink her priorities.

"Sko" is Danish for "shoes" and naturally, it's one of the first Danish words I've learned. I was fully prepared to pay 199 DKK (about $33 US) for these blå sko, but no need, they rang up 74.50 DKK (about $12 US) and the next day, I scored an adorable blå kjole for 49 DKK (about $8 US) at a thrift shop! Together, they have an awesome retro vibe that's got me itching to bob my hair :)


My shipping container arrived last Friday! I'd forgotten how time consuming it is to set up house, especially when you have to factor in a trip to Germany to procure a Dyson!

All in all it's going well, with only a few casualties... one of the movers accidentally cut the top of my table with his box cutter; I stupidly stacked some plate weights atop a couple of plastic bins, the whole house of cards came down and dinged the heck out of my floor, and I nicked the edge of my wooden countertop with my Cuisinart.

More outright casualties include a cool green vase, but I'm grateful it wasn't the Tiffany vase, and a glass teapot whose lid I dropped because I didn't realize it was double wrapped inside a little dip bowl.

There have also been some minor but annoying damages, like the edge of one of my tables is nicked, a piece of trim fell off of my vintage dresser and got left behind in Connecticut, and a bit of the finish is coming off of my jewelry box.

But when you figure how far all of this stuff had to travel, that's not too bad and thankfully, none of my favorite pieces have been lost or ruined.

It's slowly coming together, and there will be photos soon...

mushroom soup with brown rice

My shipping container isn't due to reach Denmark for a couple more days, then it needs to clear customs, but I've borrowed a knife, a plate, a bowl, a set of utensils, and a pot, so my kitchen is open!!!

Danish summer so far is not at all what I was expecting. This week has been cold, rainy, and perfect soup weather, so the inaugural cooking expedition in my new kitchen was this rich mushroom soup that I improvised from a recipe my sister sent me...

butter
1 - 2 onions, chopped
1 lb. mushrooms
2 cups veggie stock
2 t dried dill
1 T paprika
1 T soy sauce
1 1/2 cups milk
3 T flour
1 t salt
2 t lemon juice
1/2 cup crème fraiche
1/2 cup brown rice, cooked
ground black pepper

Melt a bit of butter over medium heat, add the onions and sautè for 5 minutes or so. Add the mushrooms and sautè another 5 minutes. Since I didn't have a fancy mix of mushrooms, I used a combo of sliced and coarsely chopped white mushrooms to add texture.

Stir in the stock, dill, paprika, and soy sauce and simmer for 15 minutes.

Whisk together the milk and flour and stir it into the soup. Cover and simmer another 15 minutes, then stir in the rest of the ingredients and heat it through.

It kind of tasted like beef stroganoff, minus the beef :)

I wanted to post pics of my new place, but there's not much to see at the moment. One thing I know for sure is that I love my new kitchen... it's not only beautiful, but it has a perfect work triangle and tons of well conceived storage.

bringing opie home

In light of this recent BP fiasco, I've actually been happy not having a car. Yes, I know that by riding the bus, shopping, and begging rides from friends, I'm still a consumer of oil, but consuming on a smaller scale has taken the sting out of suddenly going from 2 cars to none.

There are times though that it's highly inconvenient to not have a car. Yesterday, for example when I had to move Opie from where he's been staying to the new flat, which is over 2 km away.

Opie is a big boy. He weighs about 20 lbs so it was kind of a hardship when my plans to borrow a car fell through and I was faced with carrying him all that way. But, I solve problems for a living and those skills thankfully transfer to every other area of my life. So...

I packed Opie into his carrier, packed his supplies into my backpack, and hauled it all to the grocery store where I borrowed a shopping cart. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I'm doing a lot of things these days that I wouldn't normally do. In order to borrow the cart I had to put in a 20 kroner coin, which made it feel a little more legit, but still I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be pushing a 20 lb. cat across the city in a shopping cart.

He howled all the way there. He also does this in the car, so I knew I wasn't causing him any harm. But I wonder what people thought about this crazy backpacked lady pushing a howling cat through the city in a shopping cart on a Sunday night.

I regret that there are no photos of this, and today I'm laughing at the craziness of it, but at the time, it was very stressful and I just wanted to get my baby home.

Opie appears to love his new home. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw him lounging on one of the shelves in my wardrobe. He's also been hanging out on the bathroom shelves, under the bed, and just running around our empty space. To him, it must seem like a giant jungle gym. It's nice to finally have him home.

home

I have the keys and we're officially living in Europe!

eurovision

I officially own foreign real estate!!! By "officially" I mean I've assumed a 14% interest loan until the government officially processes my more reasonable loan, and I'm in debt for a property to which I don't have keys.

But the real point of this post is to talk about Eurovision!!!

Eurovision is a European song contest where artists compete in their home country for the opportunity to compete in the semi-finals. Voting is done American Idol style via SMS messaging, you can't vote for the country you're calling from, and the 25 highest scoring acts go on to the finals.

Saturday night, I attended my first Eurovision Finals "Gala" and I'm completely smitten with Milan Stanković from Serbia...

I know you're probably thinking that the stress of the move has gotten to me and that I've finally cracked, but...

I love that he so clearly loves to perform! I love his silly outfit! I love his hair! And I love his choreography! Milan makes me smile and yes, I do sing his song in the shower :)

not so fast

Right now, I'm supposed to be collecting the keys to my new flat, but like everything associated with this move, there's another last minute change of plans.

A couple of hours ago, I checked my old email account and saw two emails my bank advisor sent yesterday...

One informing me that the money had been transferred to the seller, along with the equivalent of about $10K to the real estate agent. This freaked me right out, because I thought the seller was paying the listing fees, but since I can't actually read any of the documents I signed, it would be completely plausible that I agreed to pay the listing fees.

The phone menus are all in Danish, so it was impossible for me to reach my advisor until a Dane rescued me by navigating the phone menu. It turned out that my freak out was completely unnecessary and it was just a misunderstanding due to what seems to be an ever widening language barrier. The real estate fee was deducted from the sum transferred to the seller, so my expense was exactly as I was expecting. Phew!

We also discussed the contents of email number two... Ejerskifte! Ejerskifte is insurance that covers the cost to repair anything that was not documented in the inspection report.

The person who paraphrased my Ejerskifte policy, mentioned that the quote was valid for six months. What I didn't know is that my right to purchase the policy expires as soon as I accept the keys.

Since the policy needs my signature and I was on the other side of town, without a car, and this information was revealed less than two hours before a 45 minute bus ride and 15 minute walk to the flat, I had to reschedule the key hand off. Next available time is Friday afternoon. *sigh*

This is frustrating and disappointing, but once the dust settles and I catch my breath and know for certain that I've actually pulled this off, I'll know that I can do anything I set my mind to. There's nothing like turning your entire world upside down and jumping into the rapids without a life vest to show you what you're made of...