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Greeting no. 44

Here comes the annual greeting from the Petersen Family 😊

Another year has passed – time really does fly. Suddenly it’s December again, and you start reflecting on how much you actually manage to do in the course of a whole year.

We are all in good health, and the year has offered a bit of everything in terms of experiences, both at home and abroad.

Cathrine:

Cathrine started the year by travelling for three months to the other side of the world with a good friend. They had a full itinerary and managed to cover New Zealand from north to south, the east coast of Australia, and ended on Bali (as well as Lombok and Komodo). They returned home with backpacks full of experiences, and in Cathrine’s case, with an even greater appetite for new adventures.

She spent the summer and autumn working as a tour guide, at Starbucks, and as a waitress at a restaurant to save up for her next adventure. It begins this January, when she flies to the Caribbean on January 4th to board a boat sailed by the son of some of our good friends. She and several other young people will be crew members on the boat for two months, and from there the plan is South America. There are no major plans beyond the fact that she will be back in Denmark no later than July 10th, when her summer job as a tour guide for American football players coming to Denmark for tournaments begins again.

We hope she has an amazing trip – and if anyone reading this has tips or contacts in that part of the world, we would gladly receive them 😊

Christian:

Christian has started the Master’s part of his education, studying Medialogy (don’t ask me exactly what that is 😊). He is really happy with it and finds it exciting. He’s thriving, and there’s no doubt that his diagnosis and ADD medication are some of the biggest reasons for that, as he says himself. He has found more calm and is better at noticing how he feels in social situations, and he says no when his social “cup” is full. It brings peace for everyone.

He has started climbing with one of his friends and has really taken a liking to it. He goes once or twice a week when university doesn’t take all his time.

Where Cathrine wants to go out and see the world, he thrives here in Aalborg and doesn’t feel the need to travel. However, he does want to join us on a ski trip for the first time in four years this January, and we’re looking forward to having him back on the slopes.

Erik:

Erik ended 2024 by being laid off. It turned out that the tasks he was asked to complete before leaving were more extensive than expected, so his employment was extended for the rest of 2025. And now, at the end of the year, they have withdrawn the termination altogether, so he continues in a new role as Head of Strategy. A strange process, but the tasks he has now are exciting, so all in all it’s a good solution.

He hasn’t travelled much for work this year, but he has taken responsibility for their department in Sweden, so he has been there almost every other week since August.

He still cycles a lot, and in June he and four others went to Italy for a few days of cycling. They had a great time – and he has covered many kilometres on the bike throughout the year. Besides that, he spends time on cross fit and of course golf, which we again played quite a lot of over the summer, when the light evenings allow us to fit in 9 holes after work.

Lotte:

I’m still working at the same place and I’m very happy there. I never know what I’m walking into each day, and that’s the best part of the job. I also have the funniest colleagues, and there’s laughter in the office every day – everyone shares the same sense of humour, which is truly a gift.

I’m project coordinator for over 40 supervisors around the world – most of them in Cuba, where we have a large project. It grew significantly during the autumn, and changes in the project’s background meant that my boss and I had to travel there at very short notice in September to talk to our client and meet all the people we have hired. It was an extremely exciting but also tough trip – Cuba is subject to countless restrictions due to the US embargo, so it is a very poor country.

The roads, for example, are not pleasant to drive on, and travelling from north to south cannot be done in a single day. The roads were so uneven that – according to my watch – I got all my steps in just by sitting in the back seat. In the first 3.5 days, we spent a total of 24 hours in a car (during daylight hours, mind you). We slept in five different hotels the first five nights – with varying levels of electricity, since Cuba only has enough power for 30% of the country. Power cuts are normal.

The trip included a visit to one of the two cement factories currently being built, where our supervisors work, including a climb up a 100‑meter tower with a view over the entire area. When the factory is finished, it will be able to supply the entire southern part of Cuba with cement – one can only hope they solve the electricity issue as well, because as things stand now, there isn’t enough power to run it…

In my free time – besides quite a bit of golf – I still train a couple of times a week and make it a priority. And then there’s Saga, our now rather old horse. She used to be Cathrine’s, but I think she’s more mine now 😊

Trips

The year has offered many fun trips.

We started in January with a ski trip to Ischgl in Austria with Lotte’s family. Lotte’s parents no longer ski, but they happily join for the après‑ski, which we had a lot of fun with. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, and skiing is just fantastic.

In April (Easter), we (Lotte and Erik) went to Cannes. We stopped by Switzerland to visit some good friends from our time living in Ipoh – always lovely to see old friends again.

In Cannes, we visited another old friend from our time in Jakarta. We enjoyed the area with both a bike ride along the coast and a coastal hike.

The rest of spring and summer were spent at local events and dog‑sitting. Since we no longer have our own dogs, we’ve taken care of friends’ dogs while they were on holiday – three in total over the summer. We had no holiday plans, so it was cosy.

We did take a week off in July, going on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords with Lotte’s family. Christian chose not to join, as he doesn’t thrive being surrounded by so many strangers on a big ship for several days. The rest of us went and had a lovely trip, enjoying nature and relaxing on the ship when we weren’t ashore. It was a huge ship – about 6,000 passengers and nearly 2,000 crew – practically a floating city.

In October, we celebrated our silver wedding anniversary. We rented a holiday house and invited our closest family. We enjoyed three cosy days, making good use of the outdoor spa and going on long walks. On the evening of the actual day, we had hired a chef to come and cook for all of us. Highly recommended – we didn’t step foot in the kitchen, he handled everything, and when he left, the kitchen was spotless, and we could just continue enjoying the evening.

In November, we felt we needed a bit of holiday since we hadn’t prioritised it during the summer. We flew to Malaga and found an apartment in Marbella. The weather wasn’t great, but we had four lovely days and set ourselves the goal of walking at least 10,000 steps each day. That was easy enough with all the hiking routes in the area, and we enjoyed having time off and slightly milder temperatures than the Danish autumn.

Our last trip of the year was to Hamburg for the Christmas markets last weekend with a group of friends. We had never been to Hamburg before, but we definitely have to go again – it was so charming walking from one Christmas market to the next. We were lucky with the weather, so we could really enjoy glühwein and taste the local specialties.

This greeting is written just as we are wrapping up Christmas.
We’ve had a lovely Christmas with the whole family here at our place, and tomorrow we’ll continue the celebrations at my parents’.
We hope you are all doing well and have had a wonderful Christmas.
We wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!