(not quite) meatless

I still have not bought pork - Yeah! That's a hard thing to do here, so I'm pretty happy with myself. However, I will end up buying some bacon here in a few days, I think Pete might waste away without his morning hit.

I made another brown rice and veggie casserole-thing again one night, salmon again one other. Last night was a veggie spaghetti with green olives and a side of Gorgonzola, and I used organic wheat pasta which was very filling.


For lunch, I seem to alternate between tuna and egg salad. When I get burned out on one, I switch to the other. Either way, I make them the same really - mayo, mustard, onion, capers, herbs, and S & P.


Now if I could just kick my coffee addiction. I'm not too bad, we ran out a day or two ago, and I was able to cope. But I did need to pick some up so that I could make a small pot to go with these chocolates the Swedes gave us the other night. They are Danish chocolates, so most of them have some form of hazelnut (chips, nougat..) in them.



The daycare workers have agreed to go back to work as of today. They didn't get their 15% raise, but I think some sort of agreement was reached. The nursing home workers are still striking however. They will not budge on the 15% demand. Its interesting to hear what our Danish teacher thinks of the strike. She says that she's read that some nursing home workers will work at private facilities on top of their normal job, and that for these people to complain that they are tired and overworked is just not right.

So again, just like my experience with the doctor, its a weird combination of things that makes what should be a smooth running socialist society, not so smooth. I used to proclaim that I was a socialist in my thinking - but was I naive. Now having more experience with it I can see that its not THE solution either.

I will say this however - for all that I think the health care here is awful, the daycare sub-par...People seem to be healthy and happy (60 minutes says they are the happiest people in the world). The Danish economy is flourishing - even with a 37 hour work week, and 6 weeks off for vacation. Its an almost self policing society, where children are quite safe. They are looking forward - becoming environmentally and energy sustainable. So, in the end, I might complain, but we can learn some things from them.