The First Day

Welcome to the first day of reading my sister's blog!

As most of you probably know, Molly recently started a blog about living abroad as an au pair in Denmark. She's worried that it's self-indulgent to write a blog about her day-to-day experiences, but I've read it and trust me, it isn't self indulgent.

Check it out if you haven't already: http://mollymwe.blogspot.com

Molly has been in Denmark for 12 days now. For those of you who have been too busy to read her blog-- let me catch you up: She arrived in Denmark on September 1st and was pleased to meet her new family. She has three Danish children, a Danish mom and a Danish dad. People in Denmark are clean, laid back, and they don't sue each other. They eat bagels with lox and drink expensive coffee. Trains are cheap, museums are free, and bicycles are rampant. Molly doesn't have the cord to upload photos from her digital camera to her computer, so she can't offer us proof of how cool everything looks-- For now, we'll have to take her word for it. The children in Denmark are cute, which earns them points-- but they don't speak English. So, they lose a few points there. Molly has plans to enroll in a language class to learn Danish, and in the meantime, she will use her blond hair, blue eyes, and nodding/smiling abilities to blend in and give the impression she knows what's going on around her.

I know, I know. This blog isn't supposed to be a rehash of Molly's au pair blog-- it's supposed to be about my own personal experience as a reader of Molly's au pair blog.

So, you probably want to know what I'm wearing. Well, it's laundry day and I don't have any clean clothes, so I'm wearing my least favorite long-sleeved shirt over my least favorite tank top and a non-descript skirt over my least favorite pair of underwear. I haven't actually gotten started sorting my clothes or taking them to the laundromat-- but I don't have any clean underwear left-- so that's how I know it's laundry day.

On September 8th, Molly asked if anyone had ideas for a long-term project or activity that could keep her occupied during the day while the kids are at school.

So, I brought my laptop into the kitchen where my roommate Sharona was rearranging the spices and dry goods in our pantry and I asked her to help me brainstorm some ideas for Molly. Here are a few things we came up with to keep Molly entertained & busy in her off-hours:

-begin an advice column
-write a letter to a different famous person you admire every day for a week and see who writes back
-make a list of 100 things you like
-undertake an art project from Miranda July's list of creative assignments: http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/
-read every book Art Garfunkel has read since 1968-- for the full list of books in the order in which they were read, check out his website: http://www.artgarfunkel.com/favorites.html
-swap skills with somebody in Faxe or a neighboring town: pick something you want to learn-- how to play piano, how to build a chair, how to repair a bicycle, how to bake bread-- then, make a list of all the things YOU know how to do and advertise with a flier or online.
-take a dance class
-cruise online dating sites: http://mingle2.com/countries/65/denmark

Well, Sharona is making me a snack, so I better go.

Don't worry, Molly, and all you readers out there: I will be checking Molly's blog regularly and you can be sure I will give you the full report.