A trip to the aquarium & an Easter Party…hippity hop...

We skipped Friday børnhave again this week to go to an aquarium (Fjord & Bælt) in Kerteminde with the expat playgroup. We braved the rain for a few minutes to go outside and see the seals and porpoises get their teeth brushed; but it was another cold, windy, and rainy day – so we spent most of our time indoors. Pete learned about starfish, crabs, sea worms and shrimp. And he learned what a microscope can do. All the kids held a starfish at some point, one little boy (not mine) even tried to eat one.


Saturday was the expat Easter party. This was for the whole expat group, not just for people with kids. Some, like us, had just arrived. Others have been here for what I’ll call “long enough to be considered Danish”. There was a potluck (I tried out a new potato salad with a tahini and lemon dressing), kids games, an egg hunt, and a guy playing the guitar (Pete has been into guitars lately - he's curious about how the sound is made).

Grandpa Barrett would be interested to know that the party was held in a 4H barn where the kids got to feed rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, weird looking ducks, and sheep. Another interesting thing was the bottom of the barn was just that - concrete, stalls, hay, and the 4H kitchen and dining room area. Upstairs was a very nice meeting room with wood floor, fireplace, tables, couches, and skylights. You'd have never known it was the top of the barn.


I don't know if its hanging around older kids at børnhave, or being outside for four hours a day in the muck and mud - but Pete is a bit braver these days. He was picking up worms he found under a brick and feeding them to the chickens. Is this MY kid?


A little lesson on the Danish flag: When you see a Danish flag outside someone's house, 99% of the time it’s not super crazy Danish patriotism. Its Party Time!

We learned this helpful cultural fact in our Welcome to Denmark course a few weeks ago. The Danes do love their country, but the flag rarely symbolizes the sort of patriotism we associate with the US flag. (That's why when some foreigners burned the Danish flag in retaliation of the "bad" Danish cartoon; it didn't exactly lead to the outrage that the burners were trying to elicit.)