We ♥ Denmark! Part I

“Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
― Hans Christian Andersen 

Have you ever been delightedly surprised by a vacation?  You expect it to be good, but then you find your expectations should have been much, much higher?  That is exactly what happened with our little trip up north.  Denmark was delightful.  

Day 1

Our first day out was all driving, and after 7 hours in the car we were all happy to land somewhere other than the van.  Our dear friends are the Volz family, and they call a little village near Hamburg Germany home.  They were gracious enough to let us stay in their home there for the night.   I suspect the Brothers Grim at least visited the area and then used the darling forest as the scene for Hansel's and Gretel's adventure in the woods.  We took an enchanting walk into this forest that begged to be walked through...and I wish I could walk through it daily. 

The neighbors' home seems like a quintessential German house, the whole area was exactly as I imagined it to be.  Side note, Eric got a kick out the man using a flame thrower to clear the weeds in his front yard.  Efficient.

Isaac and Seth loved staying at "Johan's house." The floppy eared bunnies kept them happily occupied for over an hour.

DAY 2
It didn't take us long to get to the little area we were staying.  Check in was later, so we found a spot to watch some fishermen and this cool boat.  We noticed lots of elderly local folk hanging out at the same dock.  It may have been a sign that we were in for a few rendez-vous with the elderly. More about that later.

We went to lunch and Eric got the best Salmon sandwich ever...and it cost about the same amount as a whole salmon would have cost back in Oregon...for real.  Then we walked around one of the streets and went window browsing.  Denmark is NOT cheap.

This is what met our eyes on our first walk down to the beach from our little rental house. DAR-LING!

There were more thatched roofs in Denmark than Belgium and Germany.  I love, love, love  thatched roofs.  And I was delighted (I wont apologize for over using this word...cuz it not possible to over use it when speaking of Denmark) to find a guy re-thatching a house along the trail to the beach.  My stealthy move to click a picture of him didn't work. Doh.

Day 3
On a Sunny day we went to the west coast to a little place called Ribe, which is Denmark's oldest town.     This is where the Viking Centre and where you can sample the life of the Vikings a 1,000 years ago.  

We got to try our hand at all sorts of activities.  Eric is in one of the bunker houses...which I suspect didn't smell to lovely back in the day.

 Funny man let the boys try on a Viking helmet.  He was piecing a chain mail shirt together, and boy-howdy, it was heavy. 

 This lady was making the most divinely smelling stew.  

 Seth was a pretty good shot with the bow and arrow.  And Isaac was consistant, he didnt hit the "bull's eye" (which was a picture of a pig) but he hit nearly all his arrows in a very small circumfrence.  It was impressive.

 There was warrior training for the children and this was the highlight of the day for two little boys whom I like.   I wrote to E's family news letter with the story and I am going to just repost it here.  (side note:  My dear friend, Alicia, is moving back to the states.  She was at my house and shared a sage piece of advice, "Done is better than perfect."  So I am going with that and not rewriting.)

Today we went to a Viking park where they had viking training for children.  The viking trainers where loud and bossy and gruff, but our boys loved it...sorta.  I'll explain.  The children where taught to yell while attacking, and children on the side lines should cheer for their fellows who were fighting the viking trainers by pounding the hilt of their swords on their shields.  Before Seth went out to fight the viking trainer, I encouraged him to yell loudly, and he was brilliant at it.  The Viking hammed it up and let Seth knock his sword out of his hands.  Seth proceeded to chase him around; the crowd loved it, and through their laughter cheered for Seth.  Seth's next viking opponent (there were two) had a long pole with an ax-spear at the end, and with it he snagged Seth's sword...to which Seth promptly began to cry. The crowd laughed and laughed and cheered for Seth again when said viking dramatically let Seth impale him after he pointed towards, and encouraged Seth to pick up his sword.  (Note: Just now, when I was tucking Seth into bed, he got a sparkle in his eye and asked, "Mom, when I chased the Viking around, was that hilarious?"  So all in all, it was a positive experience.)

Isaac's favorite part of the training was defeating a line of vikings with shields all interlocked (the shield wall), with the other trainees.  Isaac would have flourished back in the day; he is an outside sort of fellow,  he has expressed his desire to widdle, he loved hammering sticks in round molds, he loved shooting a "real" bow and arrow, he followed the viking warrior-teacher's every instruction to the letter (maybe I should buy a cool viking hat and shield), he climbed a cool apparatus and balanced across it.  I am glad he was born in the latter-days, but he would have been an awesome pioneer too.  

And Eric didn't say this outright, but I think his favorite part was when he Eric and Isaac balanced on a big tree trunk and then tried to knock each other off with a flour sack that was filled with bunting.  It looks easier than it actually is.  Eric knocked me off 3 times too.

 It looks easier than it actually is.  Eric knocked me off 3 times too.

Even Benjamin liked getting in on the hammering action.  It was cool to see how they made wooden nails/pegs into the proper shape by hammering a wooden shard through a hole and the putting it in the next hole that was narrower and so forth, until it was the desired circumference. 

Play grounds are not the same in Europe as they are in the USA...they are cooler in Europe.  I think they would be deemed to dangerous back home.  Cooler playgrounds in part 2 to come.

The old Germanic word "runa" means whisper, advise, secret.  During Viking times, words could bring good luck or bad luck.  The inscription on this monument rune is meant to give Danes power and life.