Greetings from Denmark (no 42)
As 2023 has flown by and we are approaching the end of the year it is time to look back on an interesting year for the Petersen family.
Cathrine:
Cathrine is now 19 years old and attends 3G (final year of high school) at a gymnasium here in Aalborg. This summer she will be graduating and then time of children in the “school universe” is really over. During the first half of 2023, she spent a lot of her free time with theater on the theater talent course, which she was supposed to finish during the spring. A lot of afternoons were spent practicing and it was very stressful, as she also had to juggle time between school, work at Starbucks and friends at the same time. It all culminated in a great performance (where we the audience did not get the impression of stress 😊) - a version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which they had staged themselves - very impressive.
During the summer holidays, she got a job as a tour guide for a group of American soccer players who flew to Denmark to take part in a soccer tournament in Gothenburg. Her job consisted of helping them from the time they arrived in Copenhagen until they left again. She was at Tivoli Copenhagen with them, on the bus all the way to Gothenburg, during the soccer tournament and followed them back again – a total of 10 days. Lots of work, but good experiences and good salary 😊
Now, as mentioned, she continues in high school and has also been elected student council chairman - so she has plenty to look after besides working, going to social gatherings, singing in choirs and seeing friends. Next year offers a gap year for her, and the plans are many - but first a plan must be made to earn money so that the other plans can be realized.
She has had time to do some travelling of her own during the year. During the summer holidays, she spent a few days in Berlin with some friends - they borrowed grandma's car and drove themselves. During the autumn, she went to New York with a good friend, and they had a fantastic trip - after they changed the 8-bed hostel room for a hotel room, where they had their own bath and toilet 😊
Christian:
Christian has had a different year this year. He is still attending the university's Medialogy course, and is very happy about it. As you know, he has struggled with depression and anxiety, and it culminated earlier this year in some sort of breakdown. To cut a long story short, he ended up being diagnosed with ADD and Asperger syndrome. He was prescribed medication to help with ADD in November, and miraculously, it helped almost immediately. After a month of evaluating the dose of the medicine, he has now completely adapted to it and he is happy again, because he can now concentrate at school and focus on the things he has to learn without losing sight or interest. For us, it's a small miracle - he can feel the difference between how he's been in recent years and what he can suddenly do now.
His Asperger's manifests itself socially. He is not so good at social relations and small talk - this can be easily accepted when you, as his closest, understand him and him, and even though it has also previously been completely accepted that he withdraws after some time in social gatherings, everyone fully understands why. It's a huge relief for all of us - including him, that he now has words for all the things that has been messing with in his head and he couldn't understand.
After years without much activity, he has slowly started climbing with a friend he has. He has really taken an interest in it, and it fits perfectly with his personality and has therefore been easy for him to get used to.
He still lives in his small apartment and enjoys having easy access to shopping and the university (and the washing machine at our house 😊)
We are very excited to see what 2024 brings for him in this “new life” of his.
Lotte:
I am still employed at Aalborg Airport with all the experiences it brings 😊 and still ride Cathrine's horse, Saga 😊 - which I still enjoy very much.
Otherwise, it has been an exciting travel year!
In March I was in Borneo with my friend, Lisbeth. It was a trip that was actually planned as a group trip before Corona, but was postponed and postponed. In autumn 2022, it was postponed indefinitely due to lack of registration. However, I was "mentally" prepared for the fact that if I were to go on that trip myself, it would have to be now (you don't get any younger, after all). Fortunately, Lisser had been along for the adventure all along, so we decided to do the trip, just for the two of us. This meant I could plan it precisely to suit the two of us and find the best Borneo experiences for us in the 2 weeks we were going. The purpose of the trip was primarily to find out if you could even climb Borneo's 2 highest mountains in 4 days - Mt Trusmadi is approx. 2600 m above sea level and Mt Kinabalu is barely 4100 m above sea level. Long story short - we could, and we were incredibly lucky with the weather and everything else that could interfere on such a trip. No rain, no injuries, no lost luggage, great guides and drivers all the way. We had an experience of a lifetime by standing on two mountain peaks 48 hours apart and a lot of stairs, steps, impassable paths and jungle climbing and laughs and talks along the way. The trip after the mountains was well-deserved relaxation with wildlife experiences and 3 days at the end in Kuala Lumpur with massages and delicious food and fun with local friends.
In April, it was time to redeem the birthday present from the friends from Malaysia – a trip to Thyborøn (Western Denmark) on a puch maxi. We were told that we should bring good clothes because in Thyborøn it is windy, if not stormy - so luckily, we set off in dry weather and maybe only windy that day? We don't know because we're not local, but it was certainly windy. It was a super fun experience - of course because of the weather but also because of our guide, who is local and told one funny story after another along the way, a long with telling us about life in that part of Denmark.
Otherwise, the year has gone by going to concerts and a single day at a festival and otherwise seeing family and friends around. Due to my work at the airport, which involves weekend shifts every other weekend, we can feel that it is more difficult to manage to see all the people we want to, since it can usually be done during the weekends - but we try, and please know that we wish we could see you all!
Erik
Erik still works at Skiold and at times this involves travelling which has led him to Vietnam (with a short stop in Malaysia when Lisbeth and I were there), France, Spain, Sweden, Poland etc. There is still a lot to do, and he continues to carry on being busy The bike has also been out this year, although not as much as he would like due to work, but I’m sure there is a New Year's resolution about this hidden up the sleeve 😊. Otherwise we still play a of golf when the weather permits.
Lotte og Erik
When the planning of our summer holiday began, Erik and I found ourselves in a holiday situation that we haven't been in for over 20 years - namely that it was just the two of us on holiday together 😊 - sad in a good way but also exciting at the same time.
We ended up packing the bags and bikes in the car and driving south towards Annecy in France. Here we rented an apartment for less than a week and explored the area by bike and hiked in the mountains in the area (for a Dane anyway) in the incredible beautiful area. A cycle route of 37 km has been created around Lake Annecy itself - no cars on the path and it is relatively flat. Erik could get his taste for hills managed on a smaller mountain right on the route, so he tried that, and in the second attempt he made it to the top – 8 km steep climb. Annecy really surprised us positively in every way – both nature and coziness all in one place. We enjoyed not having plans and just taking the days as they came. From Annecy we drove further down to the south of France to visit our Swiss friends, whom we haven't seen much since we parted in Ipoh many years ago, but with whom we are still in touch. They have a - we found out - fantastic summer house or summer place I would probably call it far out in fantastic nature in an area called Orgnac-l'Aven. Great to see them again and see the house they've been talking about since we met them in Ipoh in 2004. There were big trees to provide shade by the pool and last year they had installed a real pétanque court too - a nice relaxing reunion. They showed us the area, which was simply beautiful and fascinating in every way. The best thing is to be accompanied by locals, they know the way to the small places that tourists cannot easily find.
From here we drove towards Alba, where we visited our neighbors who have a house there. On the way we stopped for a few nights at the Gorges du Verdon – Europe's Grand Canyon. Here we enjoyed a few days of cycling, rented electric boats and sailed into the gorges and enjoyed nature. We found a small cozy bed-and-breakfast place and got good local tips from the owner for both cycling and the trip over to Alba.
In Alba we stayed with our neighbors for a few nights, and Erik once again indulged his desire to cycle with our neighbor, who took him out on some long, hard bike rides in the area, which is by no means flat 😊 I got to see the area the walk with the neighbor too, and it's a really charming area, they have found a house in and they have done an extremely nice reconstruction of the house too.
In September, we flew with SAS direct route from Aalborg to New York and had an extended weekend in New York using Erik's bonus points to pay for the tickets. None of us have been there, so it was great for us to have 3 full days to explore the city (or mainly only Manhattan). We walked a lot of steps/kilometres and we were incredibly lucky with the weather. On the list of things we reached are Ground Zero, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Highline, Chicago musical, Times Square, Central park on bicycles, etc. - we slept well on the plane home 😊
During the autumn holidays, we had found cheap tickets to Malaysia - but without Christian, who did not want to go. A group of friends that we know back from the time in Malaysia joined and we had a fantastic week of diving and fun at Redang (our second home) and revisiting well-known places and restaurants and shops in Kuala Lumpur. The only downside is that you want to go back….. 😉
We have spent Christmas with the family - Erik's family on December 23 and Lotte's family on December 24 - in addition to that, Lotte has worked some days - because the planes are still flying and people want to go on holiday, so airports are not closing down for the holidays.
On New Year's Eve we stay home with the dogs 😊 - they don't think fireworks are the most fun thing in the world, so we stay at home and look after them and calm them down as much as they can be calmed down. Mindy is now 13.5 years old and can hardly hear, so she is not as affected by it all as Molly - who has already had a rough start in life. She is a nervous wreck - but she has, after all, survived Chinese New Year in Malaysia 4 times, so there are worse evenings than December 31 😊
With these words, we would like to wish everyone a merry and peaceful Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year!
All the best
The Petersen family!
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