Here you see our neighbor Tina hard at work hanging her laundry out to dry. While yes, we do have some people who hang their clothes out to dry, We see this picture EVERYWHERE! Whether you are in town or in the country, there is laundry being hung outside, on balcony's, garage's and carports. While you might come to some wonderful conclusion about how nice it would be to have the time to use a line I have to add that ....Tina is a business woman, who has daily business of her own to tend to, yet uses the line most of the time to dry her families clothing.
( Yes, we did see this exact model at Anders and Julie's in the US too, but I have to mention that he's a Swede and she is a Canadian!) ;)
We are taught quickly that the timer below becomes your best friend. You see while parking is free in many locations, there is only a limited time that you can be parked. (Even at the mall-maybe to encourage only well planned shopping experiences) At any rate, the fines for failing to use your timer can be costly...even up to 500 kroner. ( approx. a hundred dollars) So far, so good, but we have had to go back to the car after walking all the way to our destination, only to have to go back to set the timer.
The lovely shopping carts that you see below are pretty much the same no matter where we have gone shopping - and believe me, we have shopped everywhere! Sometimes in more than one store in one day for different items.
There is one catch with the shopping carts here though...you need a coin to use one. No coin, no cart. This is a lesson that we are still learning. After a few times hefting 5 milk containers and misc items in a basket you would think that would be a no brainer now.
Also, all of the wonderful carts that we have found fail to move in an orderly fashion. We want to go straight, the cart prefers its own direction. Of course it is never the direction you want it to go! Funny enough I have yet to see a dane struggling like we do. I have to say though that we are improving. It is all about being able to decide where you don't want it to go, and then aim for that general area. ;)
Bicycles' are EVERYWHERE here. What we thing is fanastic is that there is a well organized system to make biking feasible. They have their own well lit paths that take you pretty much anywhere in the city that you would like to go. The paths are well lit and some even have a yellow line to divide the direction of traffic. There are even lights at intersections that apply solely for those on two wheels. Something that we have been amazed at is the number of Senior citizens cruising around town. Forget the walkers here, they simply hand out bicycles. Oh, and bad weather does nothing to prevent the bikers, they just keep their heads down and keep peddling, no worse for the wear.
I guess I should mention too that they even have a path that goes around the entire country. It is called the Margarita path - named so for the flowers that you find along the sides of the paths.
(I know I have spelled it wrong, but I will include the corrected version as soon as I can look it up! ) The spelling above gives way to an entirely different kind of path...! :)
While I can't say that biking around the country is on the list for the near future, we have made good use of the many paths around our home. We have solid fun every time we go, and I know that although we have gone on quite a few rides, the favorite ride to date was when we got caught in a rainshower that made it impossible to see. We were all laughing and trying to miss anything coming our way. Sophie doesn't remember much, because she was all cozy, tucked into the bike stroller. I think she may still even doubt if we biked at all!
