Couch Surfing in Aalborg

Ok, I have fallen in love with couch surfing. Aalborg was my 2nd try at it, and it was just as awesome as the first time. Now, I'm looking for a place in Amsterdam to stay also. The people have been so amazing and nice to us. Lene and Mikael in Aalborg were no exception. Lene picked us up by car from the station, let us drop off our bags at her potato farming boyfriend's flat and then drove us all the way out to our case study's home. We bought them a cake to show our appreciation. Check out their digs! I love the Danish style, but not gonna lie... it's not homey enough for me. I prefer the big comfy couches by the fire place. Still it was very nice.

Day 1 with the Mønnike-Hald family: This family is so sweet. Morten welcomed us into their home sat down with us and talked about what we were going to do over the next day with our filming. We spent Wednesday and Thursday evening with them. Wednesday, Morten drove us to Camilla's soccer game. She was so good! I think we were all very impressed by her team which looked a lot smaller and younger than their opponent. Camilla was not at all camera shy as she threw her deuces to us and said call me! I think her friends were all very excited to be filmed. The coach asked for some of our footage, even though I tried to explain our footage is mainly of Camilla and not of the team.

After the game they invited us to dinner with them. Bolette and Camilla seemed to have a lot of fun teaching us Danish words. I can now count to ten, pronounce some weird dessert, and I know the words for stomach and heart.

Day 2: Camilla and Bolette introduced us to their rabbit, Clicks. BIG Bunny! It was camera shy though. Then, they played a little soccer together and got into a dandelion war with us... we were all shooting them at each other with our thumbs. Camilla was ruthless! I can't tell you how many dandelions to the eye I received.

The interviews went very well. They were very open and shared many stories with us. I can't believe how attached we became to that family in just a short 2 days. I guess when you're asking such personal questions, how can't you get somewhat attached. Seeing their family together made me a teensy bit homesick, but really... I don't have time for those feelings right now! So we left them Thursday with a card and a game for the family. We hopped back on a train to Aarhus, and got a good night's rest before the editing process began.

Today was the first day. We did really well. We spent 5 hours in the lab logging and capturing all of our footage. We also decided on a hook for our story. Hopefully, tomorrow we'll be able to dive right into the storytelling process. Tonight we've been brainstorming on our title.

Nothing has seemed to fit yet though. Here's a few ideas we were playing with.

-A Family of their Own
-They are mine
-All their own
-Gifts on a Plane
We are wanting to tie the word plane into the title somehow because when Bolette was little... that's where she imagined babies came from. As, that is how her sister and her arrived. See their adoptions were in 98 and 2000. It was a little different than when Dad and Kim went to Russia to bring Aly home. They just met the adoption escort in Copenhagen and never went to India during the adoption process. The family does have one incredible story about traveling to India this past year. It made me really want to go to Russia whenever Aly is ready to go.