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These breakfast rolls come in different shapes and sizes, ranging from pastry to white breads to horns. Many times they are garnished with poppy seeds, as well as any other seed that seems fitting. Think of a rundstykker as being Denmark’s bagel or donut (depending on where you are in the States).

As a child we often fed ourselves donuts on the weekend, bicycling to the local donut shop, Mr. Shipley’s in Whispering Oaks if memory serves. Later our family made a brief transition to IHOP on the weekends before settling in La Fogata or Las Palapas for breakfast tacos. When I entered university again Donuts became a staple as Hillcrest Donuts was within walking distance and the day olds were cheap and filling and just as good as today’s fresh made, my future wife loved waking up to donuts, juice and coffee.

When I moved to Denmark in 1998 I finally understood her love for this routine in university, it was a reminder of home, a comfort of home. The only thing missing was the nutella or pålæg chokolade (plate chocolate), I think this taste need was eventually satisfied when bagel shops started to open on every street corner in Dallas and you could get variously flavoured cream cheeses with your bagel.

If the type of rundstykker is important, then equally important is the topping. Rundstykker are typically accompanied with butter, lots of it, pålæg chokolade, Nutella, honey, leverpøstej (liver pate) or cheese. The cheese varies from household to household. There are some hardcore cheese eaters who will start the day with a block of DanBlu (Danish Blue Cheese), and others that start the morning with some the most god awful stinkiest cheese one wishes never to smell on a Sunday morning. I’ll admit the idea of liver pate for breakfast took some getting used to, but nowadays I can’t think of a better way to start a weekend morning than a freshly made warm leverpøstej on a grov birkes (type of rundstykker).

Eating breakfast on the weekends is one of the few times that we are gathered at the breakfast table or in front of the TV as a family. We are all sitting together, no school, dad on the way home from work, football (soccer) practice or swimming or track and field or dad on the way to work or or or. We are all together in the house, this is a precious time for us and one that I often take advantage of. One day the kids will be gone or not home on the weekends and I’ll look back wondering where did the days go? I’m already wondering how things have moved on so quickly as my sons turn into almost teenagers.

It’s become routine to wake up on a weekend morning and be met with “Have you made coffee?” and “Are you getting rundstykker?” Gitta and I agree that I am responsible for weekend breakfasts. And while I might be stiff or resilient to getting out of bed, my answer will be “Yeah, I’ll do it”.

Far from it. It’s rainy, cold, windy, and wet. Very wet. On avergage Denmark has high’s in the 60′s with roughly 170 rainy days a year. That’s a fair deal of rain. And when it is not raining it is often overcast. Summers are wonderful and short, any chance of sun and the country exits their shelters and heads to the garded, city centers, beaches or park. In the winter when it is cold, wet and windy the Danes retreat to their homes enjoying fires in their cylindrical ovens (franklin stoves) drinking coffee and eating cake.

A far far far cry from the live oak covered rolling hills deep in the heart of Texas that I grew up in. I did move to Denmark partly due to a woman. That is no lie. We met in university, Southern Methodist University in Dallas Texas. We were both swimmers and entered university in the same year. I was instantly in love with her and pursued friendship until she gave in to me and took me as her lover. We married and moved to Denmark.

Up to our marriage we were living together in a grungy apartment, one we could afford. We chose space over quality, both of us being over 6 feet tall we need space; and I have my hobbies which take up space. Accommodations have to be large for us otherwise I start to feel claustrophobic and go stir crazy. So we found a cheap place up in North Dallas where Richardson, Plano and Dallas merge. It was close to our work and far enough away from SMU, I had a need to start defining myself outside of the contexts of university life.

At the time she had promising career opportunities and I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. One might argue that I still am. My career started as an assistant manager for BlockBuster Video, fun at the time but really a dead end for me. I could have made a career of it, but I was impatient and lacked (still do) the operational mind that is needed to run a store. I like structure but I am not a routine person. I tend to think laterally and not linear. Eventually my impatience and panic at the thought of moving to Denmark led me to switch jobs, first a customer service manager at Office Max and then an assistant manager at KBToys, before getting on a plane and running down a new course.

She had gotten a job offer in Denmark, we weren’t certain where, either Copenhagen or Aalborg, and we were hoping for Copenhagen, more she was as she knew the transition of foreigners to Denmark was not simple. Alas the job was in Aalborg, a small town in the north of Jutland, the mainland of Denmark. Nothing like Dallas. Nothing like San Antonio. Not too much like Copenhagen.

Shortly before June of 1998 she moved to Aalborg to get settled with the housing and job. I joined her shortly after. We were married the same month, and in the summer of 1998 I began to find myself.

Or at least the journey to find myself. Or find myself again. Or maybe to grow up. I really did not want to come to Denmark, it was not on my top 100 places in the world to live. In fact I’m pretty certain that I backed out, an event that caused tears and sleepless nights for my soon to be bride. My family was against the move, mother, father and brother all telling me that this was a mistake. And I almost agreed with them. I spoke with my soon to be brother-in-law’s wife, American as well, about her experience in moving to Denmark. None of it was convincing me to move to Denmark.

I’d been there in the middle of winter for Christmas. Cold, windy, wet, sun goes down at 03:00 comes up at 09:00. Pitch black. Cold. I slept through my first visit; eventually sleeping through my first winter. This was not a good advertisement for a young man as myself to come and live in Denmark.

And yet here I find myself after 13 years. Married, children, employed a home owner, my own man. Denmark was the most unlikely of places to start my adulthood, to settle down to grow up.

This is a custom that I am completed of a MOTU 200X Zodac.

The recipe of parts for this figure are:
DCUC Superman arms and legs
DCSH Superman legs
MOTU 200X Zodach
Apoxie Fixit for sculpt

This is a custom that I am completed of a MOTU 200X Beastman.

The recipe of parts for this figure are:
GIJoe Sigma Six Stormshadow
MOTU 200X Beastman
Apoxie Fixit for sculpt

Work in progress pics of Hordak from Masters of the Universe. Complete with a 200x MOTU NECA Staction Hordak figure and DCUC Eclipso.