[Festival] Inviting the world in

[Solveig0]

We host in an old farmhouse in a tiny village in Northern Denmark. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. 282 inhabitants at the last count. It’s as local countryside Denmark as you can get. Chickens, dog and hens, and a large garden with an old fruit orchard, maize labyrinth, and several kitchen gardens. It’s local, it’s rural, it’s countryside.

My background is international. I moved to Denmark from London, and before London I lived in Beirut, Dubai, Washington DC, Tokyo, Pisa, Aix-en-Provence, Zurich, Sana’a… Airbnb is for me a way of inviting the world in, of reconnecting with the world, giving my family a global outlook on things. I met my Danish husband in Japan, and while I work for a global tech company, my husband works with local farmers and is very much connected to everything going on around us and is at any time able to tell who got a new tractor, who’s cow ran away, and who’s farmhand is taking over which farm. 

As a family we have a motto to explore, learn and live a life of generosity. We love helping international guests connect with our local, and what better than Airbnb to help us with that?

We’ve had quite a few American groups and individuals stay with us to find their roots. Some turning so local that they knew the local café better than us (yes! Our tiny village has a café run by volunteers, lots of our guests visit!) and becoming Facebook friends with half the village. Its lovely to follow their quest to find new relatives, enabled by Facebook posts and connections.

We’ve also had Chinese from inner city Shanghai who liked nothing as much as digging their own potatoes. They had never been outside the city in China and had never seen vegetables in their natural habitat before. Not only did they leave a great review, they also left us a traditional knotted red bookmark that hang on the wall in our living room, next to a tribal knife from my time in Yemen.

From closer by, but still international, we’ve had several Norwegian groups help out with the chickens, the last of which was earlier this summer, and left with bag of new potatoes, the same chicken and a recipe.  

My girls (6 & 7) have learned that the word “trampoline” is understood in almost all languages. And once you get going on the trampoline, language is no barrier to further play.

We also have international friends coming to visit and sometimes to stay. We had 14 nationalities at our wedding almost 10 years ago, and it’s a privilege to block the Airbnb calendar for a few nights or a week and reconnect with friends from afar.

Old friends or new friends, having a guest house on Airbnb means that you get to make friends over experiences, a meal or both.

This topic is part of our Festival of Hospitality 2022. You can find the full line-up here.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Solveig0 282 inhabitants is HUGE. We have about 40 in our village. In fact I am not sure we would even claim to be a village except we are  in the Domesday Book and have a very nice 13th century church.

[Solveig0]

You win! 🤣🤣🤣

[Laurelle3]

@Solveig0 your little village sounds interesting and the relationship with the rural area. On your picture of the residence it has a rock at the front near the road with the name Vandergar on it. Is it the same as on the building Vandergaard, what does the word  mea? is it your surname?

At the moment (your summer) where are most of your guests travelling from?

[Solveig0]

Hi @Laurelle3 , the sign says Vestergaard/Vestergård - aa as an old fashioned stand in for å. Vester means Western and Gård means farm, so its the farm in the west. We've only lived there since 2015, so the name follows the property. 
Summer is over here, so not so many guests any longer. This year we had loads from the Netherlands, I think with flight situation and everything, people were looking for holiday places closer by. We have loads of travellers with dogs, and a lot of people only staying one or two nights. 
What about you? 

[Laurelle3]

Hello from Downunder @Solveig0  thank you for the information about the name of your farm.

Today is the first day of spring and  the garden is starting to bring a flush of colour to brighten our days. Mind you our winter is different to yours. Temperature by the beach where I live only drops down to 5 degrees and up to 24 on a few days.

This year most of our guests are from our state NSW we live 180km from Sydney and our guests have  taken a holiday close to home in case the rules for Covid changed.

Our bookings are filling up as I have 6 months open but manually block off 3 months so that I have control and this way it doesn't effect the algorithms for Airbnb and we only advertise on Airbnb.

[Helen427]

@Solveig0  Your children have grown so much since you first posted photos of them online, it's so neat to see them embracing nature so lovingly.

In regards to Vestergård / Vestergaard, there was an Anna Vestergaard who played a key role with the Railways in Denmark.

I wonder if she, or her ancestors, ever lived in your now home!

Maybe you could, in your busy life (!!!) look up the local cemetery and Burial records and see what pops up who used to be there, factoring into account there's likely to have been a 5 mile or more limit at the time, that if one lived or died more than 5 miles away from a Church/ Burial Ground they could be buried on their own land or where they died in quite different times to what we live in.

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers?items_per_page=10&query=Vestergaard%2c+Denmark&snippet=...

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19500724.2.144.5

I wonder if Kristen Vestergaard who migrated to New Zealand and worked on a farm was originally from your Home location of Lorslev in Denmark?

Thanks for stepping up and contributing to The Festival of Hospitality again.

All the best from Nieuw Zeeland

Do you know which Vestergaard's the location you live in @Solveig0 they are related to?

The above articles and history shows how small our worlds are.

[Solveig0]

@Helen427  I doubt it! There's 10 farms with the name Vestergaard just in the local area, its a very, very common name. There's bunches of people with the name in the village, and they are not related. 

I'm Norwegian, and in Norway people are named after places, so if you meet a Malvik, she or he is most likely in my family. But there's Vestergaards all over Denmark. 

In Denmark, names are more generic. Either Hansen or Olesen (my husband is Olesen, Son of Ole), or from the farm (Vestergaard, Østergaard) etc, and are not related. More uncommon names are - of course - like everywhere, but they were typically not farmers or from that class, if that makes sense? You have German or Scandinavian nobility moving to Denmark taking their names with them. 

[Clara116]

@Solveig0 Thanks for a fine post....I love how you homestead truly. Living off the produce you grow and harvest and buying from locals for your meats and such. Looks like a splendid living and extra life for you both. Reads like you are living your lives to the fullest with your jobs also, how cool is that also what a variation of interest. 

So interesting that the pigpen floor was still kept and used....I'd love staying in a former "pigpen". Many people here in the USA live in what we can pigpens but its nothing like your lovely place. 

I hope many will come and enjoy the natural, wonderful style of life you offer, even if its short term. We garden and it makes everything in our lives different, just by growing some of our own foods. 

Blessings to your sweet family,

Clara

[Helen427]

Your location @Solveig0 , including at Aalborg has some interesting reading in New Zealand's archived newspapers, here's a link to a Court Case involving New Zealand and Aalborg charities!

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19461031.2.51

I'll leave you and your family and the Danish locals to look up the surrounding locations in Papers Past, and provide some recent photographs to show how the geography has changed as there's some old aerial photos in our archives that will be of interest to you over in Denmark.

[Solveig0]

The world is so small! @Helen427 

[Delphine348]

Hello @Solveig0 ,

What a great experience you have shared! It’s really nice to see how you stay connected to the world while raising your children in a local community and close to the nature! 

I have never been to Denmark yet and only heard about Copenhagen and Jutland area as my husband worked for one of your world famous company for years.

I live in the countryside and we plan on having chicken soon. I don’t think I will grow vegetables though as our dogs are always ruining our tomatoes plants each year ! We hope we will have better luck with the chickens !!

[Ana27232]

Hello@Solveig0,

What a wonderfull place it  must be!! Took me back to where I grew up, small town at the foot of the Andes Mountain; my dad planted our vegetables and mom preserved  them for the winter, chickens and goats runing around.

Thank you!

[Solveig0]

Thanks @Delphine348 !

Chickens are both good and bad! They take all the insects, so you get less damage on your crop, but they will also be more than willing to eat the crop, especially in the newly planted spring time. So we fence the vegetables in for the first part of the summer, then let the chickens lose on the late summer. The dog hasn't been a problem, but because we don't have a lot of heat, our tomatoes are in the greenhouse. The dog mostly steals apples and potatoes 😄 

[Quincy]

Such a lovely topic @Solveig0! 😊