Spring Flowers

These little crocus type flowers are sprouting all over the place. They don't even need a cow pie for starter food.

5 Things You Won't Hear Me Say Here

#5: I wonder if that guy would like to sell that old abandoned car for parts?

First of all, there are no abandoned cars. Secondly, nobody in this entire country would consider leaving junk in their yard. Thirdly, I don't have any wrenches.


#4: Gentofte is not that bad.

When I was a kid from Carlyle, it was not acceptable to like neighbouring Arcola or anyone who came from Arcola. This was a problem for me as my Grandparents and many relatives lived in Arcola. (I have since learned that they are fairly normal.) When the Arcola-Kisbey Combines rolled into town to play the Cougars, we were gathered at the entrance to yell and swear and give them a hard time. When the Arcola hockey team came to play my 12 & under team with their star defenseman Dean LeQueyer and his 150 mph slapshot, I had pure hatred (but mostly fear) hidden behind my goalie mask. 
Gentofte is the new Arcola. My brother and sister-in-law live there but I still can't like the place. When the rich-kid Gentofte Stars drive 10 km up to Rungsted to beat our kids 12-0 with their passing and skating and teamwork, it makes me want to go out to the parking lot and break the antenna's off their cars. Not that I would…or did….not ever. 


#3: "Jeg kan tale Dansk"

This one I'm disappointed and sad about. I very often say "Jeg kan ikke tale Dansk" (I can not speak Danish) when people start talking to me in Danish and then they immediately switch to English. I have many good excuses for not getting going on the Danish language, but it was one of my goals and I have to chalk it up as a complete failure. You can talk one on one in English with almost any Dane, but if you want to join a conversation or be included in a group, you MUST have Danish. I am happy I'm here instead of Germany or France where you would not be so lucky to find English speakers, but you can't really join the society without the language.


#2: Hey, that was easy!

Nothing is easy. After acquiring my CPR, I spent a couple of hundred dollars for a medical exam and some paperwork for a temporary drivers licence. Now I find out that I have to do a theoretical and practical tests and those will end up costing upwards of a thousand more dollars that we don't have. Now this is getting ridiculous. I may just have to hole up in a shack in the wilds of Denmark to avoid the government like they do in Idaho.


#1: Keep the change!

Restaurants, cafes, coffee shops and bodega's are stupidly expensive. Even if the waitress has great cleavage and flatters me with a laugh and tells me I have ordered her favorite dish and places a hand on my shoulder when she talks, no tip! 

Aalborg Cup

A cup is a tournament, Aalborg is a town in Northern Jutland and RIK is a group of feisty young pups from Rungsted Ishockey Klubben. All the great hockey nations gathered for an international tournament to take home the Aalborg cup. France, Norway and of course a number of teams from Denmark drove, ferried and cross-country skied to the town of Aalborg for one monumental weekend. The French team (Le Gothique - cool name & logo) from Amiens drove over 12 hours to have their hearts broken. The Norwegian teams from Stavanger ferried across the dangerous North Sea to risk their lives and return with only a couple of victories. But the kids didn't travel this far to win a tournament - they came for the pure fun and enjoyment of hockey. The parents came to win.

International tournament featuring the "Big Three" hockey nations.

Games were played at the GIGANTIUM! Always pronounce this with a Monster Truck voice.

When you go to a tournament here, everything is provided at the rink except the "hotel" which is a classroom in a local school. Yes, I slept on a skinny mattress on the hard concrete floor at my advanced age - no problem. It's just like camping except instead of worrying about bears, I have to worry if one of the kids drew a picture of the Prophet for a school project.

Tom's coach, Alexander, gets everyone to bed, makes sure they brush their teeth and get to sleep and he even serves up the food. He's a young University student who volunteers at the club and has no kids of his own - great guy and the young players really relate to someone who knows as much about internet games as they do.

All meals for all the kids are prepared by tournament volunteers. You can go the whole weekend without spending any more money than entrance fee and overnight stay.

The Rungsted Ishockey Klub. Tom is wearing the toque on the right side of the photo.

I was cursing myself for my bad name memory and confusion until I found out that between parents and kids we had 3 Alexanders, 2 Jans, 2 Jakobs, 2 Sebastions, 2 Oscars, 2 Andreas and a Tom. The Danish book of baby names is 4 pages long.

There is no tiering system in DK, so when you enter a tournament, you can expect to get beaten by the same team that whupped you a month ago in the last tournament. RIK pulled off an unexpected tie against Hvidøvre but ended up with 2 wins, a tie, 3 losses and 2 whupp'ns. The kids had fun, blah blah blah, parents all agreed that our own kid played like an NHL prospect and the rest of the team didn't pass enough.

L'Amiens cool and funky team logo. Puissance, Emotion and Adrenaline. (Puissance? sounds like they need a doctor for that)