Capellagarden

Yes. We are here. We finally made it to Capellagarden!

Today was our second day in Sweden and our first day of classes. They speak Swedish here. As obvious as that may seem, we never really truely understood that they would ALL be speaking Swedish ALL THE TIME! We each traveled through a day of orientation spoken entirely in Swedish. Crazy. It's comforting for me right now just to see the words I have typed and to go back and read them and understand what I am seeing. While the language has been a strange new thing, the people are more kind than I could have imagined. The school is a collection of like-minded artists and craftspeople and there is a strong sense of community even now, on day one. Everyone is very helpful. We have begun settling into our house that we are sharing with three other students- Luca, from Holland, Emeri from Japan, and a Swedish girl we haven't met. Last night was very cold. It turns out our house is a summer cottage so it is not insulated, and while it was sunny and warm during the day, it got really chilly in the evening. Okay, so listen to this crazy story: Yesterday, we arrived at the school in time to have dinner with all of the students who had already come. While we were walking back to our house after dinner, Barb said ''There was a girl at dinner who looked really familiar.'' I listened to hear and nicely nodded, thinking to myself ''yeah, right, we're on the other side of the world.'' In fact, I didn't even give her comment that much credence. I simply followed up her comment by talking about something else. So that's how we left it. Then after an all school orientation this morning the girl that Barb thought looked familiar walks up to us and says, ''You guys look familiar.'' Oh, crap...what's going on?! We were taken aback and unsure of how to proceed to making the connection. In a moment of pure genius, I asked ''Have you ever been to Canada?'' She replies, ''Yes. Have you heard of Abbotsford?'' ''Of course!, that's it...we all went to Columbia Bible College (a small school of 500 students). She was at the school for one year while we were there. We had never really met, but had seen her enough for Barb to recognize her. Amazing. Some might think, ''What a small world.'' But others would be quick to say, ''It's amazing how God works!'' We came all this way, hoping and praying that there might be another person sharing our beliefs.

So, I should provide some relief to those of you who joined us in being completely stressed out about having nowhere to stay in Copenhagen for 2 nights. When we got to the airport, we approached the customs agent at his booth riddled with tension (expecting the usual interrogation we get from those US Border Cowboys). Instead, he looks at our passports, smiles, and says, ''Did you know your name, means classy?'' ''Oh....gee...that's nice'' went through my head, fully expecting him to tear apart our luggage, find my tools, ask why I was visiting his country with a bag full of chisels and then demand to see the student visa that I never applied for. Instead he said, ''Welcome to Denmark.'' We smirked at each other as we walked through security and on our way to what we were beginning to think would be a cold, shivering night on the streets. After taking a train to the city, we arrived in a most beautiful old station. Walking out of the station and into the city centre we were met with sights of Copenhagen that were everything we hoped they would be- beautiful buildings and beautiful people, many of them riding old bikes. It was afternoon, and our need to find a place for the night became absolutely necessary to maintain our sanity. We went first to a 1000 room hostel, expecting to have the choice of either a queen or a king size bed. Fully booked. Uh-oh. A little nervous, I tried to maintain some confidence as I spoke with Barb about it. The hostel was really my first and last idea. How could 1000 rooms be booked...in a hostel! Isn't that were troubled youths stay when they go on their after-high school backpacking trips across Europe? How could there be a thousand of them in this one city?!! Anways, we moved on. The lowly Astoria Hotel (every city seems to have one of those) had a room but it cost almost $300/nt. Finally, we went to an information kiosk in the city that helps visitors find rooms to stay in. We were connected with a lady who we were supposed to meet by taking a train out of the city to a small village where she would pick us up in her car and then take us to her apt. Okay. The adventure continues. So we do this and we meet her and she is the nicest, trendiest middle aged woman who picks us up in her car and zips us over to her apt. (which she rents to vacationers) which looks like it was cut out from a Modern Home magazine. It was very nice and we stayed there both nights. We had a great time.



So now we are here. The adjustment to living in Sweden might take awhile, but we are doing it together. Being here together is great. We can be lonely together. We can be hungry for ''normal'' food together. But we are together and it's a lot of fun.