Gardeners Go Europe

Already two weeks are over since we came back from Denmark. Looking back we had such a wonderful time in that country. There were a lot of great people and a beautiful landscape.
We saw a lot of sights and it's so fantastic having the sea right ahead. Working there was an amazing experience and refreshen our english was great as well.



Last but not least I would like to thank the teachers in Germany and those in Denmark. It was so great beeing a part of this project and to learn so many things. I would also like to say thank you to the company OKNygaard. It was fantastic working with your employees and to get to know your way of working.

The time in Denmark was amazing. I've learned a lot. Normally I built big construction site and sometimes you have do the same thing for a longer time. At the most time it's gonna be boring, but in my company in Denmark we built small private gardens. Small construction site are more existing than bigger ones. In this 3 weeks we finished 2 construction sites and started a new one. For the first time i built a small wall and laid turf. I liked the landscape in Denmark and we made some beautiful trips at the weekends.


At the end I had to say thank you to our teachers Misses Mangold and Mister Schrader for the organization, I knew that was a lot of work. And for the great time in the company. The 3 weeks running very fast and I liked the work in Denmark. The people in my company were very friendly.

We put a lot of Sand into a trailer in the morning and then we drove to our construction site. I take the sand with a wheelbarrow from the trailer to the place where we are working. After that I spread the sand on the area. The stones were 5 cm high therefore the sand should be 2 cm higher than the stones. After that, I drove over the sand with a vibrating plate. This vibrating plate would condense the sand. Then I pull off the sand with a lath on the right high (5cm).

After that we put all the earth on the trailer with a wheelbarrow. A colleague drove the earth back to our company and brought us new sand. Then I finished the base garde. We started with the terrace now. We had to pave the half terrace, because we don't had enough stones at this day.

This was the end of the working day.

This morning i woke up after short 5 hours of sleep. Sunday evening i got back from Kopenhagen at 12pm because there were some delays with my Flixbus. I had planned to go to Kopenhagen since the day i found out i was going to Denmark. It was just a short weekendtrip, too bad i couldn’t talk Kathi, Max or one of the others into. But my best friend from back home decided really last minute to come visit me up here in Kopenhagen. So i took the Flixbus friday afternoon after work, and went couchsurfing until sunday evening. It was really worth it, the danish people really live out their own style and inlove their open-mindness. We tried to get the most of this short trip, and pretty much cycled all across the city.
This picture was taken at Nyhaven, one of the most popular tourist spots, but still a really lovely place!

This monday morning i was really tired and it was quite hard to get out of bed. Our construction site was in Hobrø again, so we already knew what the plan for today was. Use loads of sand to build the planig for the sidewalk and the concrete plates. Use the excavator and its suction device to put the plates in place and also put in the small cubs in between the big plates. I think this will be the work we do for the next couple of days until we go back home as well. I would categorize this as road construction, but it’a still really interesting to see and do.


This is already our last week, time went by really fast!

Another week is over and the weekend is right ahead. On Saturday we could finally get some sleep in and had some great breakfast in the morning. After cleaning up our house, we went to Aalborg. Jochen, Katharina and Max wanted to go to the zoo. After their trip they told us that the zoo was fantastic. They stroked animals and took some great pictures. Lars and I went into the city for shopping. We went into many shops but didn’t buy too much. Because it was a sunny day, we wanted to go to the sea. After our city trip we went to Hals to get to the sea and put our feet into water. It was such a great day!



Furthermore, I want to tell you what I had done this week at my work place. I still behold some new operations and how the danish people build their construction site. Jannie, the danish girl I worked with most days of the week, told me what we are going to do. We finished the pavement we started to built last week. Beyond we changed some broken plates of a pavement with new ones and took a vakuum device, helping us to place the plates more easily. One plate weights about 70 kilos. Above this we planted huge trees directly in the middle of the city. I was so fascinated to see how the trees flew at their right place, supported with a crane. We planted metasequoia glyptostroboides, pinus sylvestris and many more trees. The biggest tree weight about tree tonnes and the diameter of the bale was 1,65m. Almost as tall as me!



It was a great week and I'm excited what I am going to do the last week in Denmark.

This Sunday really was a sun-day, it was a perfect late-summer day with a clear, blue sky and bright sunlight, the temperature was about 20 degrees. Perfect day for a trip to the beautiful city of Aarhus, about half an hour away from Randers, by train.

We visited the historical town "Den Gamle By" where we could see a lot of buildings from Denmarks past, all rebuilt so lovely and put together in the middle of Aarhus. You could learn a lot about Denmarks history, about the people, their life in the past, and about different crafts they did. We visited a blacksmith's shop, a drugstore, a bakery, a tailor's shop, and a beautiful garden full of medicinal herbs, just to mention some. I think, to see everything there, it would have taken like 2 days or more.





We also wanted to see the Botanical Garden of Aarhus, which is just aside "Den Gamle By". You can do a botanical journey around the world, walking through the Mediterranean Europe, Africa, Australia and the South American Tropics. We were absolutely fascinated. It was nice to see how they designed the greenhouses and how they care for the plants, as we are working in Randers Regnskov during the week.





After that, we went to the Centre of Aarhus to eat something and do a little bit of sightseeing. We finished the day with a delicious burger and crisps and left Aarhus by train again. A bit tired but very happy ...

Tuesday 17th September was all about civil engineering. Our construction site is located at Høbro south to Åalborg and 20 minutes to drive from Elmerhøj via highway.

Espen the apprentice, Amelie and me had to take out the kerbstones the civil engineering firm had put in concrete. The reason for that were some settlements near the street. With an excavator, shovel and musclepower we took the kerbstones out and leveled the ground anew. For the next day we prepared the strings at the existing kerbstones to get the row in place. Unfortunately this construction site has nothing to do with our everyday gardening work as we are actually subcontractors to the big firm Karl Jensen. No plants at all
We had to finish a bit earlier, there was no trailer left in the morning so we could not get any concrete for the kerbstones. So we had plenty of time before picking up Lars and Jenny from Nygaard...
In the evening we made some selfmade vegetable stew which was awesome! After some card games everyone fell exhausted into bed.



In the morning it was raining a lot! After lunch the sky was nealy blue





In Germany we would need to get a traffic bypass plan... the danish guys just put some cones at the needed places. The pedestrians have to walk right on the street to cross the construction site, in my eyes a very dangerous endavour

The second week is almost over and I can't believe it. As Rebecca wrote in her first blog, time really does fly here.

Randers Regnskov is really one of the most beautiful zoos i have seen in my whole life. It seems like a magical place to learn about wildlife and nature. Asia, Africa, South America and Europe are represented. It almost seems like taking a trip all over the world, when walking through Randers Regnskov.

Everyone welcomed us very warmly. Sergio, our boss introduced us to almost everyone in the first few days. And the ones we have not gotten introduced to, they learned about us through the weekly newsletter, that all the staff gets.



Usually in the morning we do some chores. I really like that part of the day, because I get to water all the plants in the snake temple. It's very interesting to see where all of the snakes are hiding. I always have to watch my steps, because they are hidden so well. But as soon as you spot one, u suddenly see snakes in every corner.



I'm enjoying every day and I am already excited for tomorrow.

The day began at 5:30 in the morning. Everyone was tired, it was just way to early in the morning. Jochen and I took the bikes to drive to our company. It took us about 45 minutes. Work began at 7:00.
We finished our construction site today. The days before, we built a small wall and we laid turf.

I sweeped the street with a broom. After that we finished the grass. Then we cleaned the construction site, we put everything on the car and drove back to the company. There we put the excavator and all the other things away and cleaned them as well. I cleaned the car and after lunch we drove to another construction site.
A workmate told us what we had to do on the new construction site. First we dug out some plants and removed other plants. By then it started raining.
After the rain we finished up and it was the end of the work day.

I walked along the river to the sea. It was a beautiful view.


In the evening were cooking together. We had gratinated paprika. Inside was feta cheese and rice. It tasted very good. Everyone liked it.

It's already 1 week now that Vanessa and I have been working at the fantastic Randers Regnskov Tropical Zoo. We were welcomed very friendly on Monday by Sergio and his team of gardeners, and we also met the animal keepers of the zoo. Everyone is really nice and friendly, we felt like being a part of the team from the start. We could already work at different places, for example inside in the jungle domes and outside where they have a farm with cows, pigs, goats and a nice playground area. We cutted a lot of plants outside growing into the fence and we mowed the lawn with a lawn tractor. We also helped building a new outdoor area for the cows with fresh sand.

I'm really excited to go to work everyday, it's really a very special place. You feel like you are in a different world with all the plants, animals, sounds and scents. It's really fun to clean the windows and being watched by a crocodile or an anaconda snake, and sweeping the floor being observed by a monkey or having a turtle sitting on the path where you just wanted to go with your wheelbarrow to collect the leaves probably never happens somewhere else.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I will be back to the jungle again! :-)

Today is Monday, the first day of the week and also the first day of our Denmark experience. My alarm rang at 5:15, and by 5:30 everyone was walking around the house, getting more and more excited for today. We packed our lunch the night before, so we did not have to hurry on the first day. Jochen and Katharina could ride their bikes to their company and I brought Jenny, Max and Lars to our company with my car. It takes us about 1 hour to get to Elmerhøj. This is the company where Max and I will work for the next 3 weeks. Elmerhøj has 20 employees, a little bit bigger then the one i work in back home in Germany.

Today we started building a staircase. It’s a new construction site we just started today, around a brand new house.


My danish coworker said this garden should be done by the time i leave to go back to Germany, so hopefully i will still be there to see the finished project.
We got off at 4pm and drove back to Aalborg to get Lars and Jenny. On the way back to our house in Egense we went to IKEA and bought a few things we still needed, for example bed sheets, a thermos bottle and cutting boards.

For dinner we cooked spaghetti carbonara and played cards, before everyone went to bed around 10:30pm. Great first day, many more to come!

After we all met in Hannover on saturday afternoon we went groceries shopping at Aldi, because most groceries are cheaper here in Germany. Then we went to a chinese restaurant to eat buffet, which was really amazing. There we could also get to know each other a little better. After a noisy night at the backpackers hostel we drank some hot chocolate and walked a couple of minutes to the nearest bakery to get breakfeast and some food for the car ride up to Aalborg. We left Hannover at 9am and arrived at our house at 4pm. Afther we settled in our house Finn came and told us the most important things about our stay in Denmark. In the evening we cooked together and played some cards.

This day we all knew, would gonna be a good day, because it's weekend. We started with a great breakfast with cereal, orangejuice and coffee. After packing our bagpacks, we started going to Løkken, to see the most beautiful sand dunes. It was so great to feel and smell the sea at this wonderful place in Denmark. Later we went to Rubjerg Knude, where we could see a lighthouse. But it was so windy, that all the sand was pretty much everywhere, all the way down to our underwear. We also went to a little cafe, were we ate some cake and drunk a cup of chocolate. Some of us also bought some handmade cups, which were so lovely.
A few hours later we got back into our cozy cottage and cooked a typical meal from Germany, respectively from "Schwaben", it's called "Käsespätzle". Later that evening we played cards, like almost every evening.

Furthermore, i'm going to tell you something about my company in Denmark, it's called OKNygaard, where i started working on monday this week. The whole week i worked in different teams, where we plucked out weed, cutted hedges, planted many cotoneasters and started building a paving. All employees are so helpfull and nice to each other, so that i felt very welcome working here.
I'm curious what I am going to do next week and what new expressions I can get. The work here is different from the work in Germany.

We will see and I will tell you how my week was going in my next block next week.

As we woke up at 5 o´ clock we already heard the danish rain falling down on our wooden terrace. We knew that there is going to be some rain for a time but after starting to drive to our companies the intensity and frequency of the hammering rain began to increase...

The company i am working is Elmerhøj south of Aalborg and about 42 minutes away from our Novasol House.
On monday the employee Christian an I started to complete the garage driveway of an older couple. The material is concrete plaster taken from the old driveway. It is the first time I layed concrete plaster just on a bed of compacted sand. Will this construction hold for another decade?! We will see...

Back to today— because we were three workers at the site Christian had to drive by himself. I had to drive the small but agile Toyota Pickup transporting sand for our plasterbed. While singing in the rain we cleaned the used plasters and leveled the ground. Until 8:40 everything was fine but shortly afterwards the intensity of the rain once again rose so we started our breakfast a bit earlier.
While eating some Huober pretzel sticks we joked around saying that its like Waterworld with Kevin Costner and he drives down the road with his ship... because it rained like cats n dogs. We checked the weather after a while but the sandy plasterbed was completely under water. At 10 o´ Clock we decided to go back to the company. Our clothes were soaking wet.
Luckily Amelie, who is driving evry morning to the company, too came 10 minutes later. A short, cold, wet day was finished at 11 AM.
At our home we firstly had to tumble dry the clothes.... tomorrow i willl get some wood for our metal stove so that we can heat up the house up to a cozy temperature. The sauna is on temperature and ready to use. Could be worse i guess...
Tonight we will eat rice with thaicurry and maybe play some cards, read or just chillax and heat up.

Approximately one month has now passed since my internship in the beautiful country of Denmark came to an end, and the wonderful memories of my time there still stick with me.

It is important for me to keep these memories alive and to now try and integrate what I have learnt during my time in Denmark into both my personal and working life. The friendliness of the Danes and their attitude in general is so good, that I now believe the claims to be true, that Denmark is the happiest country in Europe, and possibly even the world.

Before my internship experience, I believed that being satisfied with one's career and work must have meant being less productive. Taking things a bit easier etc. But I now know this not to be true. For me, being satisfied with one's work gives you more energy to last longer and helps you to keep up with difficult and sometimes exhausting projects.


In my German workplace, if I took a break to eat a McDonald´s, this would often be rushed. I would feel under pressure to get back to work quickly. Feeling such pressure and stress must surely affect the way staff treat customers. I am sure that staff would treat the public in a much friendlier manner if the staff themselves were happier in the workplace and had good peace of mind.

In Germany, I think the population would benefit from trying to learn how to add more 'hygge' to their lives.
This Danish word can be explained as 'an atmosphere of warmth, well-being and cosiness'. 'Being at peace and able to enjoy simple pleasures whilst living in the moment'.


When I arrived back in Germany, one of the first things I did was to buy some candles in readiness for the cold autumn months ahead. As the bad weather draws in, I will light the candles and wrap myself in a blanket, read some good books and try myself to 'live in the moment'.

I am very happy overall with my internship experience, and I must thank 'Erasmus plus' for arranging everything for me. I would also like to offer great thanks to Mr. Schrader and Mrs. Mangold, who had great energy and organized everything from beginning to end.
I am also very thankful towards Randers Regnskov and all the staff who work there, especially Department Manager Sergio Pacinotti, who was extremely patient with me and always walked about with a constant smile on his face. Last but not least, I thank my host family very much for taking care of me and for giving me a nice place to stay.
Life is so much easier and much more pleasurable when you have nice, lovely and caring people around you.

I am now two weeks back in Germany and I had time to reflect on my time in Denmark.

First of all I have to say how grateful I am for the chance I got to work abroad.
Erasmus+ is a great program and I want to thank our teachers in Germany Mrs. Mangold and Mr. Schrader for organizing everything so our stay in Denmark could go by so smoothly.
In Denmark our contact person Finn Slaikjer helped us with setting up at the Sporthojskole and he showed us interesting places.



And I really need to thank all the nice colleagues at Buus&Co for treating us as colleagues and showing us the differences in danish gardening.
I hope you had as much fun as I did and thank you for showing me Denmark and the danish lifestyle.
I also want to thank Martin Linneman for giving us the chance to work at Buus&Co, I had a really great time at the company and I learned a lot.

I got to meet new people, from the colleagues and the people all around Denmark to the other participants of the Erasmus+ program. Thank you all for the great time.



I learned a lot about the use of plants in gardens and about gardening in general and it was a great experience.

Now I´m back in Germany for one week and had the opportunity to think about my stay in Denmark.
I´m so gratefull that I had the opportunity to stay for three weeks in Denmark. I really enjoyed my stay and the work in Aalborg. I came back home with many beautiful memories and I gained many experiences.
I`ve learned so much and I met so many friendly people.



The work was so much fun and we had really friendly colleagues. You had the feeling that you are a part of the company. They treated us like real colleagues.
It was interesting to see how companys in an other country are working. There are some differences but some things are slightly the same. It was great to see that our collegues are as interested in the way of working in Germany like we were in the danish way.
Apart from the work, we have seen so many beautiful places like Skagen where the North- and the Eastsea are coming togehter. I also enjoyed our trip to Randers Regnskov and Aarhus where we met the other two students of our group.
I had a really great and intresting stay in Denmark and I definetly have to come back!

I would like to thank all the people who made it possible that I could live and work for three weeks in Denmark.
First of all, I want to thank my German teachers Mrs. Mangold and Mr. Schrader for the great organization and the support! Also I want to say thank you to the Danish teacher Finn Slaikjer who has made a great organization too. We had a great last day in Denmark! It was really great that Finn has showed us around in the Agri college, the Rhododendron park and the beach in Blokhus.



Thanks to my mates that have stayed with me in Denmark, it was nice getting to know you!
Many thanks to my danish company OKNygaard! I had a really great time and a lot of fun while working in your company. Thanks to all colleagues, you treated us like real colleagues and I had the feeling that I was a part of your team! It was great fun working with you and I gained many experiences. We were assigned to the maintenance team and it was great that I had the chance to do some `rullegræs` and a lot of planting. I liked it! Especially, i would like to thank Peter,it was a pleasure working with you. Most of the time we were working with Peter and he took care of that everything was good and told us what we were going to do and showed us the persons, who were working with us.



Thank you for having us! I definetly have to come back and maybe I can work at your company again!
And last bust not least, many thanks to my german company `Link - Garten- und Landschaftsbau` that gave me this great possibility to make this experience in Denmark and that supports me.

Greetings
Maren

Ups, we missed the street


What a beautiful place!


We will be back!

As Lea and Christoph already wrote, we visited the Agricollege on our last day and Finn showed us the pracitce areas of the school as well as all of the different types of animals that live in the college.
From speaking birds to snakes to the "normal" farm animals like cows and pigs, everyone has its home there.



The students at the Agricollege get a lot of practical education in school e.g. driving a tractor or paving stones. We all were amazed by the hugeness of those areas.



After seeing over 50 different Rododendron types in the park we drove to Blokhus at the North Sea coast. Though the weather was already very cloudy and windy, we had fun watching all of the stuff the waves deposed on the beach. But with the time the weather got worse so we decidet to leave the beautiful village.



Still wet from the rain, I had to say Goodbye to Denmark. Goodbye to all the nice people I met, goodbye to the tasty buffet in the Sportshøjskole, the constant LTE Internet, the appropriate traffic light settings... I could continue like this for a long time I think ;)

I will miss a lot of things and people here.

Hello again!
My last week in Denmark is now over and it was really sad to leave. I had such a good time there! On Monday of my last week, in the evening, I went to Aalborg's football stadium to watch a soccer match and have some beer with my bosses from Elmerhoj. I think there is nothing better you can do when you have finished your daily work :) On Tuesday the weather was great and we got to finish some parking places at work. After that we went for a short trip with the long boards (which you can borrow from the sports college we are staying at!) and enjoyed a beer and the sunset near the harbor. On Thursday we were working at a lovely place out in the forest, where some people want to pimp up there summer house. After midday our bosses surprised us with a barbecue with all our colleagues at Elmerhoj. That was very, very nice and we are so happy to got to spend this three weeks at Elmerhoj. But Lea and I had to say goodbye to our colleges, that was less cool and we feel really sad about it. On Friday we got a guided tour through the Agri college in Aalborg, from Finn Slaikjer the man who organized the Erasmus Stuff in Aalborg. It was very interesting.
Starting the Trip home at 12 am we were back home 14 hours later.
Everything was great! Nice greetings Christoph
(Some more pictures will follow soon.)

The very nice stadium in Aalborg:


I still have some of my lovely Berg beer:


A really smart system to move heavy labs :

Sitting in the car back home, enjoying the green landscape and thinking about such beautiful weeks in Denmark.
In Elmerhøj we continued our project at the car dealerhip which was a lot of interesting and for me new experiences. We also built gabions and had a fantastic quiet working place near a lake in the nowhere.



At our last weekend we hiked in the national park at the westcoast and visited the historical bunkers there.
In Lindholm høje we saw the old graves of the wikings which impressed a lot. Such a nice day we finished with an breathtaking sundowner.



Our last day in Aalborg we spent with Finn Slaikjer the Agricollege teacher. He showed us a park full of beautiful Rhododendron.
After eating the best Bøfsandwich we are driving back home to reality.



Thanks to Mrs Mangold, Mr Schrader and Finn Slaikjer who organized the Erasmus for us and makes it possible to stay in Aalborg.
Thanks to my company ,,Albrecht Bühler-Baum und Garten“ for discharging me from work this time.
Thank you so much Elmerhøj it was so much fun to work with you in the gray part.
For sure we will see once again.



Tak!

Lea