Posted by Naomi on Feb 20, 2009 in
Hugo Carnival, or Fastelavn, is celebrated seven weeks before Easter and has something to do with cats in barrels, yummy treats and beating up the people you like … or something. Read the wikipedia entry here for a better description!
I guess one of the traditions is also dressing up as all the children (and the teachers too, it was FANTASTIC!) dressed up today (Fastelavn is on Sunday).
Hugo chose his own costume … it was a hard decision between Spider Man and a policeman.
Actually, this highlighted for me, one of the things I find difficult here. Everyone over the age of seven speaks English, but everything is written in Danish. There have been written notices on the board at preschool and I knew that it was something to do with Carnival but I had to ask one of the teachers what it said … everything is written in Danish, and I can generally work out some of what it’s saying (and a bit more, if I can use an online translator) but I still miss the detail. It actually makes me feel a bit stupid - which I’m not, really. I do get sick of having to ask, every time. And don’t get me started on official forms!
Posted by Naomi on Feb 16, 2009 in
snow The lake at the end of our street is frozen so the snow covered it and it looks amazing … there are small melted areas that I think might be from where the ducks and swans sit. There is more snow forecast for later this week. (If you call a light rainfall a shower, do you call a light snowfall a frosting?)
Posted by Naomi on Feb 14, 2009 in
doing stuff in Copenhagen 
This weekend we caught the train in the opposite direction up to Helsingør to visit Kronborg Castle (which was where Shakespeare set Hamlet). Today was another beautiful sunny (freezing!) day, and the wind off the Øresund as we walked around the headland to the castle was VERY brisk! The Øresund at this point is only 4km wide and you can see across to the Swedish town of Helsingborg, a fact that was extremely uninteresting to Hugo.
He was much more interested in the Castle itself, especially when we reached the children’s room, with lego galore. They also had a table set up for making masks, but I think this might be for the Danish Carnival (Fastelavn ) celebration, not a regular activity.
Posted by Naomi on Feb 13, 2009 in
doing stuff in Copenhagen Today the sun is shining so we decided to go to the zoo. Although sunny, it is still freezing cold and there’s quite a lot of snow still on the ground. It was strange to see the animals in the snow, especially the lions and the elephants.
Sophie was really interested in seeing all the animals this time which was great - up until recently she’s really just come along with Hugo and I, without really being very interested in the animals.
… we even had a little piece of home when we heard the kookaburra laughing
Posted by Naomi on Feb 11, 2009 in
snow We had our biggest snowfall since we arrived today. Yesterday as I was riding down to pick Hugo up from pre-school, it began falling … soft, drifty, gentle snow. It was lovely (except for the freeze factor). It continued to snow overnight and we woke to find everything under a layer of snow. The snow fall this morning on the ride to pre-school was less of the floaty, drifty kind, and more of the pelty, stinging kind … less fun. But it was extremely white and beautiful!
Hugo’s class went for a walk to the park to play in the snow. Hugo had to borrow boots and a jumper - he told me, as we walked in the door at pre-school, that he needed to bring an extra jumper today, oops. Nonetheless, he had loads of fun. They made snowmen, and Hugo threw a snowball at another boy who knocked over his snowman. I asked if the teacher was cross with him for throwing a snowball at another child and he said “no, mummy, it was ok, the teachers weren’t watching” …
Posted by Naomi on Feb 7, 2009 in
doing stuff in Copenhagen We decided to visit Malmø in Sweden, which is about 45 minutes away by train across the Øresund Bridge. We didn’t really have a plan beyond getting some lunch and sadly that ended up being McDonalds (I continue to be surprised that it is so difficult to get a ‘normal’ sandwich here), although there was also a Subway (yay!). Hugo was excited to find a park with play equipment and we spent some time there before hopping on the train home again.
We met an American couple on the train who are soon moving to Australia so we talked to them for a while. Apparently they go to Malmø for Subway, too.
Malmø, the gateway to fast food.
Posted by Naomi on Feb 2, 2009 in
biking for the passengers, apparently.
Posted by Naomi on Feb 2, 2009 in
Hugo 
Hugo’s first day at preschool … he has been so keen to go (I think, far more than I can remember him being in Australia - I don’t know if that’s because he doesn’t have to walk here, hehe).
The preschool director suggested that I stay with him today so he wasn’t too upset - as it was, he basically didn’t notice that I was there from the time we arrived, so Sophia and I came home for lunch and went back a couple of hours later to collect him. He was playing outside in the sandpit and didn’t want to leave.
He doesn’t seem to mind too much that the other children speak Danish, and his room teacher was great with translating, and talking to him in English. I think he’ll pick Danish up quickly (and then I will use him to translate for me ;)). His teacher said he had a great time laughing with all the other children at lunch time, and he’s very keen to go back again tomorrow!
