Daytrip to S. Denmark

I've been very busy at work and haven't been spending much time with the kids and realized not long ago that we have been living in Europe a year and a half and the kids have still not been to another country in Europe (other than a brief stop in London traveling between the US and Germany, which doesn't really count). So I promised myself, that we would do more traveling together and to begin I would offer to drive them to Denmark on Saturday. (Plus, after weeks of overcast sky and on/off rain the sun finally came out on Friday.) When I mentioned it to them Friday they both eagerly accepted and wanted to do a "road trip." The next morning M had a daybag packed and ready to go; T is a little slower getting into motion in the mornings but he also threw some things together and hopped in the car. V stayed home with L for the day. We drove west and connected to the German autobahn network (no speed limit!). Then headed north to Denmark. The kids wanted to see how fast the car could go on the autobahn. We got it up to 130 km/hr (the recommended/advised speed limit), and some people were still flying past us, but I had a feeling parts of the car would start flying off or the engine would shake apart if we took the little car any faster. We crossed a huge bridge spanning the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal (shipping canal between the Baltic and Atlantic North Sea). Eventually we crossed the border into Denmark and pulled off at Padborg (a town I had been to on the train line, and I knew where an ATM was). Once we crossed the border it was very dark and foggy.



We parked and walked to the ATM, I took out some Danish Krone (Denmark doesn't use the euro yet). Then we went back to the car and pulled into a gas station. The nozzle didn't fit into the tank of what I thought was gas (I don't think it was diesel either, that was clearly marked at a different spot, perhaps it was kerosene? --good thing I didn't put that in the engine!), so I tried the next one and it fit, but then I had to pay and press a button before it would turn on, ... finally figured out how to fill the tank with gas, then we got a snack at a bakery.



Then got back on the road and headed west. One problem with driving in Denmark was I have no idea what the general speed limits are. So I tried to get behind people and follow them. It seems like outside of towns it is something like ~100 km/hr and inside towns ~60 km/hr, which is a bit faster than in Germany. We passed a car that had crashed off the road and that was a highlight for the kids, the back of the car was sticking up in the air from its angle on the bank.



We passed lots of rustic houses (thatched roofs, timber frame) farm buildings, and churches.



All in all it was very similar to Schleswig-Holstein Germany, which is not surprising. The kids got to hear Danish being spoken, and they commented that people were quieter here then in Germany. We made it as far as Tønder (Tondern in German), ate a late lunch, then it was time to head back. On the way back I stopped at a shopping center outside of Kiel and let the kids run around the stores for a while, by the time we finally got back home it was well after dark.

Car is running again

So, the oil light kept coming on, I smelled oil burning, and sure-enough the car was leaking oil. We stopped to check and put more oil in. V pulled the dipstick out and the entire tube around it had broken off and came loose. This of course lead to jokes about her not touching anything connected to the engine again (especially after her "fixing" the radiator in our apartment on Easter Sunday 2008), but driving over teeth rattling cobblestones every day at 50 km/hr on the way to school probably did it. So we put the car in the shop to get it replaced and V and the kids went back to taking the indirect bus route to school and back. There was a series of miss-communications about when the car would be ready. "They needed to order a part; it would be ready tomorrow, ..." Tomorrow: "they needed to order a different part, it would be ready at 4pm ...". 4pm: "It's not ready, come back tomorrow ..." I'm not blaming them, the combination of V's and my German and their English could have lead to anything happening, but the dipstick tube did get replaced by the next weekend. The bolts had sheared off and rather than drilling and using a reverse-thread extractor to remove them, they just welded the new parts on. But this was not the end of the story. After replacing the dipstick tube the oil pressure switch was leaking oil (which we only noticed later after getting the car back). It was right next to where they had welded and a gasket was clearly bent on the switch where the oil was leaking out. We took it back and they replaced it for free, immediately. Now we have the car back and everything seems to be fine.

GETonline

I wanted to mention a website (GETonline) that lets people set climate goals and energy use parameters and the program calculates the best (minimal cost to the economy) way to meet the goals, if possible, by phasing in and out certain sources of energy (oil, solar, nuclear, ...) at different times over a century. Of course it is far simpler than reality, but I think it is a great way to present a feel for the dynamics of what is a very complex system.

From playing with it a general pattern seems to be, if there is no energy policy then coal use will predominate in the future (it is cheap and plentiful); if there is a non-trivial energy policy, solar is likely to predominate in the future.

M's tooth

M lost her first tooth Saturday night! She was worried because it was taking so long, but we told her it is normal in our family and our teeth are stronger because they grow slower. She can't wait to tell her friends at school.

Smoked Herring

Back from Sweden, off to Austria

No time now -- heading to the airport. Will update as soon as things settle down.

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In Sweden I was too busy for much sightseeing. Also, the sun came up late and went down early. I was only able to snap a few photos of the sunset from in front of my hotel before it got dark. (BTW- I stayed at the Hotel Charlotte. The rooms are arranged in an octagon with a spiral staircase in the center.)

Halloween