A Short Mid-Blog Reintroduction

Today I'm pretty sure that my little intro to Odense, Denmark thingamijgig posted on Janssen's Everyday Reading blog.  So, if that's the case, welcome to you potential visitors who were probably like, "Denmark?  What the heck is in Denmark?"

Bikes.  Bikes are in Denmark.

Also, licorice-flavored chocolate bars.

And blonde people.

And us!  We're in Denmark.  See!

Well, I don't know why this photo would be self-evidently Danish, but you're just going to have to trust me.  I promise.

So, I'm Heidi and my husband is Paul.  We moved to Germany in 2011 and then Denmark in 2013.  We both work at the local university and generally spend our off-hours being super interesting people, what with all our book reading and walk taking and food...cooking.

I'm also super fashionable.  Ever since I was a child...

Workin' it!

So, you know. There's that.

We do this other boring thing though, sometimes.  We travel around Europe.  Whenever we get the chance.  And we try to report about our trips here for our families and passing observers.

In a week and a half, for example, we'll be going to Lisbon ("Down that old South American way...").  To...do something mysterious because I have absolutely no preconceptions about what Portugal is like.

Also, in September, we'll be going to Paris for about a week where one of our goals is to stand in line for forever to get an official "Best Baguette 2013."  

And one of my personal goals is to figure out a way to use the word "fragonard" in a way that sounds legit to some other American tourists--even though it actually doesn't mean anything in French (it's just the name of a Rococo artist that I once studied).  But, I lived twelve years of my life somehow convinced that it meant "duck" so something's gotta go down with it when we're there.

Something like, "Oh, be sure to order the fragonard paté!  It's not on the menu, but they'll make it special."

or, on the subway, "Perhaps we can go to the Luxemborg Gardens to feed the fragonards?"

At any rate, we're here.  We're learning Danish.  We're working up the courage to try curried herring.  And we are the Hunns.

Aaaaaaaand we're back.

The thesis is done.  The week-vacation-from-everything-in-the-world-after-turning-in-thesis has passed.  And life goes on here in Denmark.

And so I thought that this first "Hello World" post since the dark times could highlight something that I remembered while going grocery shopping today: the expat experience of buying basil.

You know how in the U.S., if you want to buy basil it's like, "Here's this tiny packet of sad shriveled leaves for five dollars or a giant, giant two pound bag that maybe people use to feed horses because there is so much of it for fifty cents." And you're like, "Conundrum!"  You know that?  Am I even remembering that right?  I seem to be pulling this vague memory of basil-buying out of the mists of time (aka two years ago).

Well, here, there is only one kind of way to purchase basil: as a potted plant.   Yessir.  Right there in the produce section, a bunch of potted plants of basil.  In Germany, basil was the only potted-option but here there's potted basil and parsley and chives and (if you're lucky) cilantro aaaaaand some other things that I still don't even know what they are because...Danish...and I'm not Julia Child.

So, other than the annoying part of trying to get a potted plant home in tact when you're carrying home all your groceries in a backpack and four hand-held cloth bags (super fun), it's actually quite a smart solution.  Use as you go, you know?

Also, three more weeks to Lisbon!

I don't even know what in the world we'll even do in Lisbon, but I do know it will be hot and people, after living in coastal Oregon then coastal Germany then coastal Scandinavia (latitude = Homer, Alaska)....I'll just let you fill in the rest of this sentence with whatever the heck you want.