so..how do you pronounce that?

I'm in my new home for the next four months in the small village of Tindbæk, Denmark, just outside of Bjerringbro.  I'm living on a farm, with a family of 5. The oldest brother has moved out to study at university, and the Risgaards family has been gracious enough to let me use his room. The next eldest, Stine (Christina without the Chris), is my age and goes to school in Viborg, but plays Handball for Bjerringbro FH. The youngest, Irene, is quiet, but was nice enough to show me how to open the windows- which involved pointing and motioning before she understood what I meant. My host parents have been extremely gracious, even though the father speaks very little English. Luckily, my host mother speaks excellent English. Neither of the girls seem comfortable speaking another language, though I'm sure their English is MUCH better than my Danish...

Getting Here was an adventure in itself, what with our first train from Bremen to Hamburg being delayed 25 minutes (EXTREMELY rare in Germany), causing us to miss our connecting train to Aarhus. Luckily, we were travelling with the Bergsma family, and we were able to figure it all out. It went much slower than we expected, but we got here! On our train from Bremen to Hamburg, we got out at the first stop called 'Hamburg'-no easy feat. 8 people, 15-ish bags of luggage, and 9 carry-ons. We fought through throngs of small children rushing to get on the train for a field trip, and about 45 seconds after getting everyone off, we realized we'd gotten off at the wrong stop. Everything had to go back onto a completely packed train of small mammals called 3rd graders, thus delaying the train another 20 minutes after a teachers luggage got mixed into ours, causing a frantic search of the ENTIRE platform, only to find it safe in the luggage compartment. Never before had I been called a 'stupid head' in another language. Insulsted by a foreign 3rd grader.

This adventure was after loading all of our things onto a train, only to find it was the end of the line.

Only once more did frantic on-again, off-again loading have to happen.

After we arrived, all of our baggage went to the Club as we walked with Allan Friis and learned a little more about Bjerringbro. It's a beautiful little town, and all the kids from the club seemed happy to see us (especially the U16 boys!)

More to come!



p.s. Denmark public toilets cost money- exchange to Kroner BEFORE arriving!