Visitation

Saturday 26.July
Finally it arrived – the first day of Andersens' summer holiday 2008. No elaborate or excotic plans, just 2 ½ weeks in Denmark, visiting family and friends, but still a holiday long awaited and anticipated. Lukas already had been in Denmark for 3 weeks, so it was only Lisbeth and me travelling today. Bus to the station, train to Birmingham, plane to Billund and there Allan would be waiting for us for the short drive to our first stop. It all went as uneventfull as it sounds. Managed to read 1/3 of Playing for Pizza before we landed in Billund. 30 minutes drive and we arrived at Allan and Ea's place, a small farmhouse with barns. 3 horses and a new dog we had never met before.

After watching football, having dinner and playing with the dog it was time for bed. Tomorrow we would go and visit some other good friends living in the closest town. For once we had planned these visits before our holiday – everything was prepared. It felt good going to bed. It was going to be a great holiday.

Sunday 27. July
Did not wake up in time to make it to the service in Vejle, but caught the next bus 2 hours later. I had agreed with Levi, who we were going to visit, that we would meet at 12:30 – had just forgot to agree on where, which was a slight problem, as we had never visited them at their present address (did not even have the address). Decided we could make it for the corps by 12:30 and as the service had started at 10:30 we hoped Levi would still be around. He is the corps leader and he didn't use to preach less than 20 minutes. This was also his last meeting at the corps, so there would also be coffee afterwards which definitely would go on to around 12:30. The theory sounded good, but when we arrived at the corps it was locked up and deserted.

It was at this time we realised we didn't have a phone number for Levi and Elisabeth either. We weren't totally lost, we had lived in Vejle for 4 years and knew our way around and I had brought my newest toy: The Blackberry! A quick call to Allan and Ea, they would give us the number for Levi and Elisabeth and we would be back on target. Again real life did not match theory. For some reason the Blackberry didn't work – or at least I couldn't make any calls on it. Found a payphone, called Allan, but he did not have Levi's number, or at least could not find it before our money ran out.

At 13:27 Lukas would be arriving with the train from Copenhagen, his first cross country travelling on his own, so we headed towards the station. Levi knew we would have to pick up Lukas, so maybe he would come looking for us there? Bought a phonecard, called my mother, who had Levi's mobile number. Now we were rolling, or would have been if Levi would just pick up that flipping phone! In no time the card ran out after I had reached the answering machine 4 times. Lisbeth was not amused, but at least the sun was shining and the sky blue, so we could enjoy the weather while waiting for Lukas to arrive. Through a sudden streat of inspiration I tried to send a SMS to Levi (those who know me will realise how desperate I was when I start to use SMS). It worked, it went through and Levi replied. Now he knew we were at the station.
Lukas arrived, everything had gone well on the journey. Levi still wasn't there, but he is not famous for arriving on time, so nothing unusual about that. After waiting a while, and after Lisbeth had asked a few times, I realised Levi might know where we were, but he did not know we were waiting for him! Fortunately Lukas had a phone, I made a quick call and within 10 minutes Levi arrived and drove us to their house. The time was was now around 14:00, we were 1 ½ hour late and Lisbeth assured both Levi and me she would not leave any planning in our hands in the future!

Elisabeth was very gracious about it, but I guess being married to Levi she is used to things like this. (I have to stress I take the full blame for the lack of planning this time – Levi's only problem was he could not read my mind) We had a lovely meal and spend the rest of the afternoon in the garden, including playing football in what must have been 30 degrees Celsius.

It is 3 years ago we last met Levi and Elisabeth and it was so good to catch up with them again. We met Levi first time when he came to us as a cadet for his summer training and have kept in touch ever since. We married Levi and Elisabeth and for some years we were stationed at neighbouring corps in Copenhagen, but since we left for Latvia we have not met so often. Time and distance are no barriers for friendship though, and it felt so good and natural to be chatting away again.

They had just bought a ”new” car (not sure how old it was, but the price was £ 1,000, so your guess is as good as mine) and when they realised we did not have a car with us on our holiday, they straight away offered us to borrow their old car (don't know how old that is either, but probably older than the ”new” one). Friends like that is a true blessing and we actepted their offer after they had assured us it would not inconvenience them at all.

Seeing Levi and Elisabeth again was a great start to our holiday and the car certainly were to make it more eventfull. Monday was going to be a wonderful day.