Well….three of us are back home.  Joe, Celeste and I landed safely in Dulles yesterday at 3:00 pm after a slightly bumpy flight. Those of you who know me well know how I handled that!!  Yes, Celeste held my hand.  ) There was a little luggage snafu, but by 5:00 we were on the road back home. Kathy and Jason continue their travels abroad, visiting London, Paris and Amsterdam!

Thank you, thank you Denmark and all the wonderful and special we have met. We have made lasting friendships and this is an experience that we will remember for the rest of our lives!!

Rotary GSE is a wonderful program and our descriptions and pictures of people and places cannot fully capture all that this trip has meant to every one of us. (Even though almost every picture was duplicated by the multiple cameras for each pose!) LOL, Jason!

Our team was very special and we had a great time together.  I miss us already……

M/S Sagafjord in Roskilde

Yesterday was a busy day! Our last full day in Denmark. We started with a city and church tour, followed by a picnic/ dig over our lunch time. At the dig we found axes, blades, pig teeth and tusks and many flint pieces. It was fun to see evidence that man was here 7,000 years ago! We finished the afternoon with a team meeting. We discussed our experience, and planned the presentation for that evening.

Last night the Kalenbourgh Rotary club put on a wonderful meeting. It was also our going away party. It was sad to say so many good byes

at once. It was nice that most clubs had the coordinator and/or a representative at the meeting.  We finished our program with a short talk from each of us on what the GSE trip has meant, and what we learned in our profession.  We all agree this has been a great experience. Our team leader has been fantastic. We all look forward to going home, or continuing on with other countries, but we will never forget our GSE experience.

What can I say?? GSE trip to Denmark was a success!  Great vocational info, lots of history, and many new friend!  Safe travels to Joe, Celeste, and Jen.  Jason and I are going to Sweden!

Walked by the water with Jen, Celeste, and my hosts.  Now they are making us a wonderful dinner!  Jen is playing beautifully on the piano!

Going sightseeing and sailing today!

Dear friends and family, We miss you! The conference was amazing. Jason’s thank you talk to the Rotary clubs on love, learning and potential.
I will give you a quick update. Today is Wed. I started writing this on Monday night.  To tell you our computer time is limited is an understatement.   Last night we had a very nice team dinner and today we each went to work in our own professional areas. I spent the day at Kalundborg Hospital with lead nurse Bolette Trier in Ward M3. It was a very educational day!
Here are some new photos.
The team can now do three different Salsa moves. We can now all do the regular front and back, side to side, and the turn!  Jason has done a great job teaching Salsa to us all and to several clubs who have learned from others about his dance instruction.  This has been a fun interactive activity. Have a wonderful day. -Celeste

Moving to last new host family in Kalunborg!

So we had a Rotary conference for this district and there were people from many of the rotary clubs within this district. There are people speaking, different presentations (including ours), they serve all three meals, etc…

So everyone got up early that morning to get to the conference on time – It was a little distance away. But then again if you drive more than 20 minutes its considered far away.

Anyway, we get there and I get the laptop set up for the presentation and everything is going smoothly. Setting up the laptop at every meeting has been sometime frustrating. When I get to a location I have to get everything set up before I can really socialize. Its not a bad thing just sometimes a little frustrating I can’t settle into a new location right away.

So the conference commenced with a choir singing a few songs and it was okay. Honestly they were a little “pitchy” but then again so am I when I sing so I guess I have no room to criticize.

So we give our presentation and everything goes very smoothly. We have had 6 times prior to practice and I’m glad we had that practice. (The video will be posted later). After our solid performance we were presented with gifts and we went back to our seats. When I sat down however I realized that we never really said a big thank you to everyone who was there. This is an amazing trip and I wanted to completely convey our gratitute – so I wrote another little speech to say.

After a bit everyone left the conference room to take a break and grab coffee and such. I however stayed in the room and wrote down a few notes to make a speech. I asked the president of the rotary clubs if I was permitted so say something before the next part of the morning got started and he said it was okay. So I got up on the podium and spoke the audience about our thanks and wonderful travels. I also talked about three things. Love, learning and potential. The video will be posted later and I may go into more detail in a later post so I’ll spare you the details now lol.

Anyway, the rest of the day went well. We went to a castle and heard stories of kings and ghosts. We got to have really good food and for the most part a relaxing afternoon while the latter half of the conference concluded.

When we returned me and Jen went for a walk and just talked. We wanted to go into a store but just about every store closes at 5 on Saturdays. Serious nothing was open. But we had a nice talk anyway so it didn’t matter.

Later that evening the whole club had a wonderful dinner. While we getting situation and having a drink or two there was a guy playing the piano in the background. Surprisingly there was additional entertainment, opera singers in fact. Again there will be a video but it was funny and very well done. Apparently the gentleman who was singing is very well known in Denmark. He sang with such force, but with so much ease it gave me chills. Amazing…

We ate and drank the rest of the night away. By the time everyone was feeling “good” another band started and they were playing jazz. I got a chance to have a little of salsa fun even though there was no salsa. There was a lot of laughter and good times had that night.

It was around 1:30am when we decided to leave and we rushed home. I was wide awake so I stayed online doing a few things. I didn’t get to bed until 4:30am probably. Here was the problem: Troels, my host sent a message earlier that day that I was to get up at like 6am to go somewhere with him. I never got the message. So of course I was crazy tired the next morning… but I’ll describe that next time.

But the next day was honestly one of the highlights of the trip, if not my whole life. But that will have to wait until next

Another great day! In Gørlev, staying with Marianne and Flemming. After a quick breakfast, we went to Høng to Danske Bank where Marianne is the manager. We talked a little about the banking/customer service aspect of her job, then she walked me to Wirz Jewelers where I spent over an hour talking to the owner and learning a bit more about the biz in Denmark. Their most popular item is a brand called “Spinning Jewelry”, which are small stackable rings. The most popular metal is yellow!! (not so in WV) They also carry Pandora beads, which is a Danish design that is hugely popular in Denmark and the states, but alas CCJ does not carry them. (more pitching to C. back home?)

I walked back to the bank where I learned that Joe had been by after his dentist visit and wanted to rent a bike from the shop across te street. Marianne talked the owner’s new helper into lending his own bike (a cool racing one.. first day on the job!) for 100 dkk (about $20) and Joe was happily on his way.

While we waited for lunch time, Marianne showed me how the branch receives feedback on how their clients are satisified with their overall experience. Marianne’s branch does very well!! I also learned that Danish banks are kind of “one stop shopping” for all financial needs: checking, saving, all types of insurance, investment planning and mortages and car loans. There are not many stand alone mortgage companies like there are in the states. They have mostly been absorbed into the banking network.

It was then time for Marianne to pick up our lunches and drive us home to eat, but still no sign of Joe. I could only remember the bike shop owner saying, “he left with no helmet! Oh well, too late now!” After about 5 minutes, Joe comes racing in and says that he biked out 10 km, but the bike got a flat 5 km back and he ran the bike the remaining distance. Needless to say, he was very sweaty and was very ready for the beer and Aqvavit that we had for lunch with Kathy, Marianne, and Joe’s hosts!

To our friends and family, We miss you all!

The team enjoyed a visit to the Viking Museum recently. We learned a lot about Vikings! That same day we also visited a lot of churches. The Ringsted Church was one of our favorites.  We continue to have a great time together, and learn a great deal each day.  We have very little down time, otherwise I would write more!  I will try to post more pictures tomorrow. We all are enjoying our time in Denmark, and appreciate the hospitality of the Danes.  Goodnight! -Celeste

p.s. I should mention while we are on the Viking subject that we had a wonderful sail on a sailboat a few days ago. One of my hosts on a previous visit had said, “let’s go pretend we are Vikings and hop into the sea.” I said, “it looks cold Leah – but ok!”  So this time, with thoughts of the Vikings lingering, we hopped off Paul’s sailboat into the freezing sea one at a time.  I really wanted to make sure everyone on the team had the chance to experience this cold water. I can tell you everyone leaped out of the water pretty fast!