Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday

Even though my calendar says that it is Halloween, it doesn't feel like it here.  Yes, the danish stores sell pumpkin and ghost decorations...even a few costumes...However, I have yet to see the massive 'shrine to candy' in any store or even a single trick-or-treater (well there is candy but it is, most likely, in the usual aisle and in the same colored wrappers as always). I am okay with this though, because it feels and looks like fall here.  I think it was Friday morning that scout and I set off to find this small lake near our house.  We found the lake and after seeing just a few seconds of it,  I decided to turn around and run home to grab my real camera because I could not get over how amazingly spectacular the colors and overall ambiance were on that morning (that sentence just makes me sound like a weirdo.. spectacular ambiance?)  Maybe the pictures, from just a regular camera will prove this to you :)

Trail towards the lake

The water had been like glass when I was there 20 mins earlier.  By the time I returned, ducks had arrived.

All I can say is that the picture just doesn't do it justice.

It actually looks warm in this picture!  I can assure you that it was still quite cool

Now here the water was like glass

I seem to take a lot of this type of photo

And the humorous part of this particular morning was that there were probably 100 toddler, preschool and elementary school-aged children around the lake at the same time.  I, with a cute-faced dog, am always popular with the kids....only problem here in DK:  most kids only know a few words of english. (such as 'ciao'  which I had to tell them was actually italian)  But, my beginner danish was enough to communicate with them...and they seemed to understand me, which gave me about the biggest boost in my 2nd language quest yet :)  Scout eventually became impatient with all the inactivity and began whining. The kids thought he was whining about the ducks..I didn't really know how to tell them that he was ready to go, but they thought that I didn't know what a duck was in danish.  They started to say "quack" in danish...which I attempted to say back to them..obviously wrong...bc one of the girl did the most dramatic "rappen" (quack), rolling R and all ( & danes don't roll their r's)  It was just so funny to me and I enjoyed it.  I also noticed that the teachers here seem a bit more relaxed with where the kids are and what they were doing.  A group of toddlers was playing by a lake for pete's sake! (and climbing through dense foliage in areas..do kids not get lost here??)  I just don't see that happening in the U.S....unless a fence was installed around the lake and maybe then...

Now I will end this post by wishing one of my best friends a happy, happy birthday...She was told growing up that people dressed up in costumes just for her every year...To Rachael, I hope you have a great day and see many costumed people :)