Saying farewell to Odense

Tomorrow we pack up and Sunday morning we are on our way to Hamburg. Seems like our time has really gone fast. We love it here and will be a bit sad to leave. But our time is running out and we have so much more to see.

We will especially miss having a comfortable (and beautiful) home and the easy access to the internet, skyping, blogging, etc. But, we vagabonds have to take the good with the bad.

For those of you who stay at home because of the language barrier, take note. Only a couple million people speak Danish, and if the Danish weren't pretty good at speaking English, they would be very isolated indeed. (They start teaching it in second grade.) Even the Swedes and Norwegians often prefer to speak English with their southern neighbors. We have not yet had a problem with language. It is fun to watch the Danish people get this momentary blank stare when we say "Hi", it is like they are turning on their English section of their brain and then off they go, and after a few moments of warm-up, they are speaking to us like old friends.

Though I must admit, Gene and I have not really learned any Danish phrases. Unless you call "Ge mornin" a phrase. The town names and street pronunciations are more then we can handle on most days and the GPS just says "turn right", she doesn't even try to pronounce the streets. Of course, there was that time yesterday, when Emily, our British GPS, started speaking Africanese. It was really funny. We could understand a little bit and it took us awhile to realize she had changed languages on us. Then there was the time she got stuck on "turn left", had Gene going in circles. But mostly, she has been a great guide and we definitely wouldn't leave home without her. Especially with all of the driving we are doing.

We went into "town" today, shopped around a bit, couldn't find anything that would fit into the corners of our tiny suitcases, so left empty handed. Had a beautiful windy, fall day, we feel like we are leaving Denmark just in time, before the real weather arrives.



On a final note, here is our little casa. In the back yard is a tall flag pole with a long Danish flag blowing in the wind. We will remember the gorgeous sunsets and huge rain drops.









We had to sit in the car today while a little rain cloud dumped a huge amount of water in about 5 minutes. Then sunny again, and off we went.


So la la

(Cousin Caroline says this means "up and down" in French). I just think it sounds really cute as a sign-off.