Frejas 2nd birthday

Here's a clip from (one of) Frejas 2nd birthday parties. She is the cutest ever!

For you, Dennis

We need to start working on our walk again...

SOMEBODY KILL ME!!!

We finally got rid of Teletubbies. Now this guy is starting to bug me!

 

Famous Danes

Yesterday we had dinner with an American couple who couldn't name a single Dane they ever heard about!!!

Well, here it is, the list of famous Danes: Famous Danes according to Google

It's funny that high profiles like Brigitte Nielsen, Bjørn Lomborg and Whigfield (yes, WHIGFIELD) are ranked higher than any of our royalties.

Back in DK for team building

This is me and a ranger (Carsten Mørk). It seems that he is trying to teach me something about teamwork, but I can't really remember.


Anyway, I was back in DK for a team building thing with the company. Great weekend! A lot of new faces. Must have been 20-25 people I didn't know because they started after I left for Ukraine. This company is GROWING!!! 

Womens club in Kiev

The International Womens Club in Kiev (IWCK) finally got a website: www.iwck.org.

This club is fantastic. My wife is a happy member, and most of our social network and activities are related to the people we've meet in this club.

They do a lot of charity as well. Check out their site!

If you are planning to stay in Kiev for more than a week, I seriously recommend the book: "Kyiv Survival Guide". It's simply a must-have if you haven't learned the local language yet!

Happy birthday

We were at Mattias' and Lucas' 3 year birthday party yesterday. About 30 internationals showed up to celebrate. It's always fun at these events. The kids are having fun, the adults are socializing and networking. It's just a great way to spend the Saturday afternoon.Liz and Dan were hosts at this great party. Thanks guys. We had a lot fun.


 

My wife and I in our creepy elevator.

 

Kindergarten in 5 languages

My daughter started in her new kindergarten this week. It's sort of a French/Ukrainian kindergarten and it is NOT allowed to speak Russian. So, we basicly added two more languages for her to handle. She's good at Danish, good at English, she knows some Russian and now they are going to speak French and Ukrainian to her too!!! I think I would be confused, but she seems allright.

Most of the kids there are internationals, and it is very impressive to expirience how all these small people handles languages.

Book review: "Raising a daughter"

I just finished reading the book "Raising a daughter", which is kind of a study on the difference between boys and girls and some guidelines on what to be aware of when raising your daughter.

One of the main points made in the book is that boys need to act more where girls need to talk more - the book itself is an excellent example of that fact (400 pages)!

Our nanny stays!!!

The day before we left for Egypt, Frejas nanny (Olga) told us that she had been offered a great teaching job at Kyiv International School. A wonderful oppertunity for her, but as you can imagine, sadness immediately spread in the family.

But guess what, when we came back to Kiev, the phone rang, and Olga told us that she really wanted to stay with Freja because she just likes her so much.

I'm on your side Olga. Freja is just the greatest kid in the world, and she could also make me pause clever career moves.

 

Relaxing in Egypt

Just came back from a great week’s vacation in Egypt. Finally a hotel that’s actually better than the marketing brochure.

Click here for pictures

Independance day postponed

Today is Ukraines independance day. I was hoping to witness a huge "Soviet style" military parade, and a lot of activity in the city center.

The event has been overshadowed by a plane crash earlier this week killing 170 people. Therefore all independance day related activites has been postponed untill Saturday, and today is used as a national day of mourning to honour the victims. That's what I heard anyway.

I'll try to get some pictures from the military parade this Saturday.

Cutest pirate in the world

 

Killing time Saturday afternoon

Yesterday I went to a Ukrainian shooting range with a couple of friends. I never really tried shooting before, but this really was fun! AK-47 (Kalashnikov), 9mm pistol, semi-automatic assault rifle, shot gun, sniper rifle and an authentic German rifle manufactored in 1939 with bullets from 1936, that's what I tried shooting with.

The only time I got nervous, was when I pulled the trigger with a 1936 bullet in the chamber - I'll never do that again!

Watch out!

This picture is taken from the train to Lviv. I wonder what happend to the guy in front of the other train?

By the way, there's about 600km from Kiev to Lviv - the train ride was 14 hours!

Kiev pictures

I've added some pictures of Kiev for you to look at, although the picture below probably illustrates the currently most important tourist attraction in Kiev.

The family

This is my family. It's hard to be pessimistic when you live under the same roof with them. Miss them very much right now – they been visiting family in Denmark for the last couple of weeks, and left me in Kiev.

Kiev ZOO

Never EVER play the trumpet or hurt your finger near the horse!!!

First language

A couple of months ago, there was a lot of debate in Ukraine about which language should be the primary; Ukrainian or Russian. The difference between those two is not that significant in my opinion. But in Ukraine this question, as almost every other question, divides the country in two.

The fact is that everybody speaks Russian, more than half speaks both Russian and Ukrainian and very few speak English.

In my opinion, the most important question is not what the first language should be – just vote for it and get it over with – the question is what the second language should be: English or Chinese?

With the global economy and all, I think Ukraine should start figuring out how the world is going to communicate with them. We Danes have known the importance of that for centuries. I mean, we are doing pretty good even with limited resources and a language nobody knows or cares about (except for us Danes of course).