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.