20 Frikadunser on my plate

The title of this blog is “Frikadunser” because Mattias taught me that word and i love it!

(Thank you, Mattias :))  Also: Every time I say it to a Danish person, they laugh - so that’s a win. 

We kicked off October with the Culture Night in Copenhagen, which was SO cool! If any future volunteers are reading this, please look into it! (Also, don’t miss the Nykøbing one; but you’ll probably experience that one anyway.) After Culture Night, we brought our volunteer friend Andrea back with us so she could spend the weekend with us in Nykøbing. It was so much fun! She even helped us with our sink (more on that later) and joined us in helping Guna move! Andrea is such a power woman! So yeah, we helped Guna move to a new apartment, which went quickly and is so perfect because now she’s practically our neighbor. 

Now, about the Sink: We were in a very dramatic enemies-to-lovers relationship with our kitchen sink. It wouldn’t drain at all! We tried to work around it by just not using the sink, especially since we have a dishwasher… right? Wrong! The sink really became our enemy when it filled up every time we used the dishwasher, leaving us with a stinky swamp in the kitchen. We resorted to washing dishes in the bathroom, which was… interesting. BUT on a fateful Thursday morning, a team of plumbers stomped up our stairs with a huge tube and cleared out all the stuff clogging the pipes. After that, we finally made peace with our sink and were able to move on to the lovers part of the enemies-to-lovers relationship. 

With the sink issue solved, we turned our attention to the next thing: LEAVES! Leaves leaves leaves that we collected for the workshops we were going to hold during our Autumn holidays I don’t want to know what we looked like, digging around on the ground trying to find leaves that were neither too crispy nor too soggy for pressing and preparing for the kids. But we did it! The autumn holidays turned out to be a busy, fun-filled week! 

Shortly after that, we started joining Katrine’s art class as her little assistants, and oh my god, I love it so much! The kids are so sweet, and I can’t get enough of their endless creativity. Sometimes they give us little pieces of their artwork to keep, which I love and cherish. 

Outside of work, I’ve been wandering around Nykøbing Falster a lot—strolling through the city center, journaling or reading at cafes, and always ending up at the harbor. Tabea and I go on lots of walks, whether together or alone, and it’s really nice to communicate our need for either company or alone time openly. 

The last weekend of October (my birthday weekend! :p) we spent in Copenhagen meeting other volunteers, exploring the city, and celebrating my birthday! Guna and Debbie joined us for my birthday dinner, and I’m so happy to have met Debbie! She’s a literal ray of sunshine, and I hope she visits us again soon. It was such a fun weekend, and now I’m 20!! AHHH, I feel old! 

At the next team meeting, everyone sang for me, and I got such thoughtful presents! Mette gave me some colorful wool socks, and every time I look at them, I feel so grateful and happy to have such wonderful people around me. 

A few days later, Tabea’s parents and her little brother visited us and made Käsknöpfle, an Austrian dish that’s a local specialty of the Vorarlberg region, where Tabea is from. It’s like an elevated version of mac and cheese, and it was SO good! Tabea spent the weekend with her family in Copenhagen, and I took the chance to meet up with my German friend Franka to catch up on all our recent experiences. Meeting Franka reminded me of how much I miss having friends nearby to call up, go out with, or invite over. I love and value Tabea so much, but I’m starting to feel just how “alone” I am—that might be a bit of the culture shock everyone warned us about. Still, I’m trying to take things slow, enjoy the little things, and stay excited for the future! And it should be really exciting because our next stop is Jul På Fabrikken!

..Aaaand language school! I forgot to mention that but we had our language school interview last week and are starting on Danish 3 next week, with Tabea taking the evening classes and me taking the morning classes! IM SO EXCITED FOR THAT! 

That’s it for now!  

(By the way, if you’re looking for a song to listen to, I’ve had “Watermelon” by John + Jane Q. Public and “400 Lux” by Lorde on repeat the last few days :) ) 

Let’s see what November brings!