Slo go to Oslo

A week ago we took a mini-vacation on the overnight ferry to Oslo. We left on a Friday evening, stayed Saturday in a hotel in Oslo, then returned to Copenhagen on Monday morning. It was a relaxing, civilized way to travel, much more enjoyable than flying if one can afford the time. While in Oslo we took in the Norwegian Folk Museum (maybe the last in a series of open-air museums), the Viking Ship Museum, the Munch Museum, and the Stenersen Museum. We also visited Vigeland Sculpture Park and strolled along Karl Johanns Gate. The last hours were spent at the Åkershus fortress.

The ferry to Oslo comes complete with several restaurants, bars, clubs, and a movie theater. We ate too much at the buffet breakfast and dinner. I found the quality of the dinner better on the outbound trip than on the return. Between meals and sleeping we enjoyed sitting on the deck and watching the coastline scroll past, at least until the wind picked up. At one point it was slinging plastic chairs across the deck and people headed for cover. Everyone told us it was a smooth ride, but we went through some weather. It was nothing serious, but enough to bring waves from the west once we got into the open water north of Sjælland which set the boat rocking. This made sleeping a bit challenging at times. On the return trip we had the additional sensations of the rocking boat layered over the special effects of Spiderman 3. The travel sickness bags stationed at the stairs indicated that the rough ride had been anticipated. Fortunately we didn't need them.

After dropping off our bag at the hotel, our first stop was at the Norwegian Folk Museum. We took the bus from the city center out to the peninsula where many of the museums are located. At the museum we saw many preserved homes and farm buildings which indicated that Norway was far more rustic compared with other parts of Scandinavia based on what we saw in the other open air museums (Skansen, Den Gamle By, Kulturen). One treat was the stave church which was occupied by a Spanish tour group when we went in. It was reaching back a ways to recall enough Spanish to understand the tour guide. I managed as much as: La Ultima Cera = The Last Supper. The reenactors were baking lefsa, chopping wood (pictured) and demonstrating Norwegian Folk Dances. Another fun stop was to visit a preserved Oslo apartment built in the early 1900's. It gave us some insight to our own building in Copenhagen which is now fully whitewashed, but originally was more colorful. Another photo shows Alexa outside a one-room schoolhouse.

At our visit to Vigeland Sculpture Park I was a bit distracted by a short Italian man who I was certain was Yogi Berra. I managed to get a few photos of him and on further review discovered his smaller nose and ears distinguish him from the famous Yankee catcher. The sculpture park was a bit over the top. It's good that the artist was able to have an outlet for his creativity. At some point it seemed like an interesting idea gone too far, but the park setting captures the work nicely. Had it been in a museum, it would have seemed very repetitive to walk into room after room of naked bronze people in various poses. In all, the statues raise questions about the struggles of humanity on many scales, personal to societal.

The Viking Ship Museum held two well-preserved Viking ships and the lower part of a third. I learned that the dramatic dragon heads at the prow and stern were used in ceremonial vessals and not warships. On warships, captains would mount staves with their personal insignia to identify themselves. As ships may be used by different captains, they could just swap out their personal emblems then head off into the sunset to wreak havoc.

The Munch Museum records the life work of a disturbed artist. Unlike many disturbed artists, Edvard Munch lived to the ripe old age of 81 and captured many self portraits tracing the journey. Security at the museum was very tight, coming on the heels of the recent theft of The Scream, Munch's most famous work.

Moving ahead to this weekend. Finally beautiful weather in Denmark - on a weekend no less! Yesterday we visited a friend from work and enjoyed the bike ride up through the "Whiskey Belt." In the span of two hours we walked to the beach, enjoyed tea and cookies in his garden overlooking a field and the Danish countryside, and soaked up the sun. One outcome of this visit was that Alexa was able to meet another of my co-workers. A second outcome is a borrowed book "Arabia Felix" on the Danish expedition to Arabia 1761-1767 written by Thorkild Hansen. So far it's a good read, interesting insight into life and politics at the time and a reminder of how much we take travel for granted. The book describes the troubles the expedition faced merely getting to the North Sea from Copenhagen. Granted, they left in January, but after travelling 2800 miles (out and back several times, returning to the calmer waters near Helsingør) they were still only 30 miles closer to the Mediterranean Sea. After a very enjoyable visit, we and our bikes hopped the train back to Copenhagen.

The Swedish Interlude

We enjoyed a weekend of (mostly) sun by taking in the last days of the Jazz Festival, watching Italiensk for Begyndere, and taking the train to Sweden to explore Lund.

Friday evening we saw the end of a jazz performance by a good group at the Østerbro stage, only a 10 minute walk from our apartment. Saturday had some promising weather, so we went down to the harbor and saw another band featuring a xylophone. It was enjoyable - modern, but not too "out there." Afterwards we took a walk down Strøget before heading home. On the way we picked up Italiensk for Begyndere which is a Danish film from 2002 that won some awards, see here for reviews. We both enjoyed the film - it developed slowly but really drew us in.

Finally, we took the train to Lund. Lund is a university town in Skåne (southern Sweden). Lund was founded by one of the early Danish kings (Knut the Great?) in 990. It remained part of Denmark until 1658 when it was ceded to Sweden, thus beginning "The Swedish Interlude," as described in the museum we visited. The Swedish Interlude continues to this day. Danish flags flew alongside Swedish flags, demonstrating the divided loyalties of the region (it's a long way to Stockholm). We spent most of our time at Kulturen, an open-air museum with about 40 homes mostly from the Skåne region. Like the other museums of this type in Scandinavia, we enjoyed the insight into the history of the region. Since most monuments preserved for posterity were built by the military, the church, or the aristocracy, these museums are a rare chance to see another side and get a feel for how people lived then. You can see a picture of me crawling out of a Småland farmhouse that was home to a family of 9 until the father ran off to America, not to be heard from again. Unfortunately Kulturen didn't have the reenactors like the denizens of Den Gamle By or Skansen, but it did have good written descriptions about the people who inhabited the buildings preserved on the site.

After Kulturen we visited the cathedral. It was compact, as cathedrals go, but impressive and solid. We were treated to a half-hour choir concert by a touring group from Bowling Green University (Ohio). They did several African-American spirituals and some other favorites we knew from our choir days. It was a nice reminder of our own European choir tour 12 summers ago.

Frederiksberg Have

Last week we passed our level 3 Danish test (yay!). It doesn't seem to mean much, we're still in the same class with the same book and the same teacher. It's been going okay and now we're on our own for the summer. We get a summer break and now hope that we don't forget everything.

Last weekend it was very hot (by Denmark standards, not Texas standards). On Sunday we headed over to Frederiksberg Have for a stroll. We had heard it was nice, so we took the Metro over to check it out. I've attached some pictures. It was a large park with lots of trees, some clearings and a palace adjacent to the Copenhagen Zoo. Lots of people were out picnicking, reading, or just soaking up the sun. We saw lots of herons which inhabit the park along with the usual swans, geese, and ducks. By next year we'll also be able to see elephants thanks to a zoo expansion which will give the elephants more roaming room and also make them visible from Frederiksberg Have. During our walk we stopped at shaded benches to cool off and people-watch.

Stevns

Where to start? We're in the middle of a busy week after a busy weekend which included a very hyggelig choir party and a fun excursion to Stevns Klint with colleagues from my job. Our choir performed its spring concert on Tuesday of last week and it was very nice to have J&P/(Mom&Dad) there to see it. Little did they know when they attended my brother's first elementary school orchestra concert that they would be in for 30 more years of music recitals. I can only hope the quality has improved with time (no offense intended, K). We celebrated Saturday with a barbecue. Tension was in the air because of the ongoing Denmark-Sweden football match which ended in dramatic style with a 1) Danish player punching a Swedish player, 2) a red card from the referee banishing the Danish player, and 3) an assault from a Danish athletic supporter who ran onto the field, took a swing at the referee, and made it back to his seat before security caught up to him. All this after drinking 15-20 beers (by his own admission). This was after Denmark had crawled back to a tie after being down 0-3. We went back home by way of the train station close to the football park, and people seemed to be taking it rather well.

Other enjoyable highlights of their visit include the ballet at Operaen (including the water bus ride across the harbor and the stroll along Nyhavn), the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (an amazing collection with impressionist art, Greek and Roman sculpture, neo-classical sculpture, and Egyptian antiquities) and visits to Roskilde (Viking ships and dead kings) and Karen Blixen's house. Regretfully we did not know enough to suggest the Glyptotek to G&L, our previous guests, but it's definitely on our to-do suggestions for future visitors. My favorites at the Glyptotek were the coin collection (with all of the Roman emperors over 500 years) and the statue heads. The statue heads reminded me of an Steven Wright line, " I went to a museum, and it had all the heads and arms of the statues that were in all the other museums."

At our outing in Stevns, we first went to Stevnsfort where they are establishing a Cold War museum. It is still in progress, with limited opening times. Summer 2008 will be the official opening. The fort was a secret systems of tunnels dug behind the chalk cliffs looking out on the Baltic sea. The intent was to monitor Warsaw Pact military movements and defend both land and sea against attack. The fort includes two turrets with 150mm guns from the German Gneissau battlecruiser. These guns and other defenses were originally established around Denmark as part of the Atlantic Wall defense system. As occupiers adding insult to injury, the Germans even made Denmark pay to build these defenses. The fort was interesting with long dimly-lit corridors, 80's vintage computer equipment, escape passages to the sea, and cool spiders. The cave spiders there are found only at the fort and on the Danish island of Bornholm. They made me think of Smudge from GoblinQuest. Nearby is Stevns Klint where chalk cliffs and a church perched on the cliff edge are slowly being eroded away. The church was built in 1250, presumably a safe distance from the cliff. In 1928, after being closed for 18 years because of the cliff erosion, the chancel fell into the sea. In the cliff below the church, the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, at which time when the dinosaurs went extinct, is accessible. There has, however been significant erosion due to eager geologists collecting samples. I've attached a picture of the cliff compiled from several shots and merged together using the autostitch program (free download). Try it, it's easy.

Eat at Joe's

My posts have been less frequent lately with the arrival of our guests, but keep checking in on us! Our latest guests, J&P (AKA, Mom & Dad) are off to Norway on the ferry to Oslo. Weather has been a mix of beautiful and not-so-good, but weighted toward the better days so far. Since their arrival on Thursday, we've taken in Rosenborg Slot and the crown jewels, the Botanical Gardens, Amalienborg Palace, the changing of the guard, the waterfront, a bus tour and a boat tour. On Saturday we had dinner and a nice visit with Alexa's cousin from Sweden and her boyfriend. Friday's dinner was at Joe's Restaurant and Cafe in Valby. At the changing of the guard I learned that there are three sizes of guard details. It depends on whether the queen is home or not. When she's home, there's a full detail with band and everything including mounted police for crowd control. The group we saw on Sunday was the smallest detail where they were just guarding the building. Apparently the band also plays on Wednesday up until the middle of June whether the queen is home or not. I've posted an old picture of the full detail.

Joe's Restaurant was just like it sounds - a local place with good food and nice unpretentious atmosphere. When we arrived at 6:30, we were only the second group. By 8:00 the place was packed and we left satisfied at 9:00 while it was still bustling. Unlike the U.S., people spend the whole evening at a restaurant, there's no thought of "turnover" to get multiple customers at a table through the course of the evening. At one Copenhagen buffet restaurant, someone observed that the meal was so quick that the restaurant might serve 2 or even 3 groups in a single night. That's a new concept here, but I still find it awkward to flag down the waiter to get the bill after a couple of hours.

Catching up on something I forgot to mention in the previous post, when G&L were visiting we went for a walk after dinner and decided to go to Kastellet. This was on Thursday May 3 which is the day before Store Bededag. Store Bededag (lit. big prayer day) is the product of a decision a few hundred years ago to combine 10+ religious observences into a single holiday. It also happens that there is a Copenhagen tradition that people walk around the ramparts of Kastellet the evening before Store Bededag. There were over 1000 people walking around with others picnicing and a military band along with a strange hat contest (pictured). Apparently the tradition isn't that big because all of our Danish friends had not heard about this annual event.

Fine ferry friends

We've been busy with our guests, G&L. They headed home on Sunday after a great streak of beautiful spring Danish weather. The next day I watched hail falling outside my office window. Hopefully J&P will get the good weather when they arrive next week. During their visit, G&L took a side trip to Oslo and three day trips from Copenhagen (Roskilde, Helsingør, and Lund, Sweden).

Last weekend we visited our friends M&P who live near Århus. It was wonderful to see them and they were gracious hosts in every way. We saw the sights including Moesgård, Den Gamle By, Århus Domkirke, and the occupation museum. We enjoyed the trip there, driving across Sjælland to Sjællands Odde (odde=cape) where we caught a fast ferry to Århus. The whole trip took a little over three hours. Sjællands Odde (pictured) is a beautiful part of Denmark with the sea visible on both sides as you drive. There is a little town which is besieged by heavy traffic every few hours when the ferry comes in. The ferry was fast, kicking up a rooster tail the whole way. On the return trip dolphins playing in the ferry's wake couldn't keep pace.

Den Gamle By (the old city), one of the stops during our 2005 visit to Denmark, is an open-air museum of buildings gathered from different parts of Denmark and reassembled in Århus. On our last trip it was pouring rain and we ducked in and out of the old buildings trying to stay dry. This time we had complete sunshine. There were period actors scattered around, including two guys brewing beer in the old brewery. They said they like their job. They provided free samples for visitors who purchased a souvenir glass. Moesgård was an interesting museum covering the bronze age, iron age, and Viking age history of the area where they found a "bog man" who had been thrown in a bog after being killed 2000 years ago. The chemical composition of the water in the bog preserved him and now he lives in a glass box in the museum. The grounds surrounding the museum include a large wooded area and a walk down to the sea along with a stave church, iron age reconctructions, and a collection of stone age sites.

Yesterday the Swedish royals came to visit Denmark. They looked like they were doing much better than the bog man we saw in Moesgård. They arrived at the harbor next to my workplace, so someone went out and took a few pictures. Here is a photo of the Danish Queen with her cousin, the king of Sweden. The Swedish crownprincess Victoria came also, but I don't have a good picture of her. In the evening we watched the beginning of a big state dinner on TV. The queen and king made speeches after an awkward period where the guests made small talk. It actually made me glad that I'm just a commoner.

Friends in fun places

It's nice to have friends visiting from Houston. The weather has cooperated, being sunny and rather warm for April but just now cooling off. They have traveled around on their own during the weekdays. In the evenings we've enjoyed dinners in the apartment, hearing about their days and catching up on news from Texas. This weekend we enjoyed spending time with them, going off to Trelleborg and then touring Rosenborg Castle (the part not under renovation) and seeing the treasury and crown jewels.

Trelleborg is the best preserved ring fortress from the Viking age built by Harold Bluetooth, son of Gorm the Old. The fort was attacked by a rival army led by his son Swein Forkbeard who eventually prevailed and became the third in the line of Danish monarchs which continues to this day. I mostly tell this because of the cool names. Lately they've been in a rut with every king since 1513 being named either Christian or Frederick. A brief respite is provided by Margrethe, the current queen; but another 70+ years of Christian/Frederick can be expected given the current heirs to the throne...

Trelleborg is a an hour and 15 minute drive from our apartment. On the way through south Sjælland we saw fields of rapeseed blooming a brilliant yellow. At the fort we enjoyed watching the sheep and lambs in the adjacent field and also explored the reconstructions of Viking houses (picture #3). For dinner we went to a cafe on the church square in Slagelse (picture #4) a nice town in western Sjælland. It was cool in the shade, but the cafe provided blankets to help us keep warm while enjoying the fresh air.

Rosenborg Castle is one of my favorite places in Copenhagen because of the history and the beautiful grounds. Unfortunately it is currently under renovation so only three rooms are open for visitors. For now, a visit to the treasury with the crown jewels is included in the ticket price.

Now our friends are off to Oslo on the ferry before returning to Copenhagen and a short jaunt to southern Sweden and Jutland.

Out and about

In the last week or so we took two excursions, one to Møns Klint and another up the coast on our bikes. In between I took a quick trip to Oslo for work.

Møns Klint is Denmark's version of the white cliffs of Dover. We drove about two hours south to the island of Møn and spent a couple of hours strolling along the top of the cliffs and looking out on the water. It was a blustery day, but no rain. We didn't go down to the beach at the base of the cliffs because the stairs were closed due to the risk of landslides common in winter and spring. We'd like to return in the summer to camp overnight and spend more time exploring. On this trip we filled the tank for the third time since arriving in Denmark. One amusing thing is the behavior of the new digital camera which has a palette that strongly favors purple. I recall this happening on the first "roll" from the old camera (same make) before going away, hopefully it won't last too long.

I next went to Oslo for a 2-day training course in the middle of the week. I had some time on a Tuesday afternoon to stroll around Oslo and enjoy the beautiful weather. I saw Vigelund Park and the Akerhus fortress on the waterfront. Before the start of the course I had a brief Danish conversation with the guy next to me who introduced himself in Danish, so I thought I'd reply in Danish. The teacher and several other participants were Norwegian, so it was interesting to hear the Danish/Norwegian conversations. Norwegian words are very similar to Danish but the pronunciation is closer to Swedish.

Last weekend we took the train north with our bikes and rode north from Klampenborg to just south of Vedbæk. There was an excellent cycle path that ran along the railroad right-of-way. The weather was perfect and we stopped for ice cream on the way back. It was about 25 km in all (I like kilometers, because it sounds like we went farther than we really did....).

Arken

Last weekend we went to see the "Sculptures of the American Dream" exhibition at Arken, a modern art museum south of Copenhagen. It was a bit disquieting and comforting at the same time to walk among these life-size figures that look so familiar. Several pieces were set up in ways where it required a double-take to determine if they were part of the exhibit or museum visitors. The style was called "hyper-realism" and we left debating whether it was really art. After considering it further, I came to the conclusion that if it makes you think, it's probably art. Equally enjoyable (or maybe more) than the exhibit was the cafe. We've noticed that most of the museums in Denmark have excellent food available at their cafes. Highlights in our museum food experiences include Frederiksborg Castle, Louisiana, the Workers' Museum, and now Arken. We only had sandwiches, but they were delicious and accompanied by a beautiful view of the sea.

We're looking forward to returning to the area around Arken this summer. There's a beach and lots of well-marked cycle paths. To get to the museum, we took the train and walked 2.1 km from the station to the museum on a dedicated cycle/walking path. It was very easy to find, but not easy to walk into the steady strong wind with temperatures at or around freezing. It had occurred to me on the train ride that I could have driven; that thought reoccurred frequently during the walk. In any case it was good exercise, the walk back to the station was very easy with the wind at our back, and I didn't lose my excellent parking space...

Vroooommm!

This week's good news is that I passed the driving test and will now have an official Danish driving license (when it arrives in 2 weeks). It's valid until I turn 70 years old and can be used in any EU country and Norway (not in EU). The test was fine. For those who don t know, as of May 1, 2006, non-EU citizens have to take the driving tests in order to be granted a Danish driving license (required after 14 days of residence). I received a temporary license after turning in my Texas driving license. I took the theoretical test then the practical test which was last Monday. This would have been pretty trivial except that I had to do it in a manual transmission car. After a few lessons over the last month, I went for the test in Helsingør. Providence may have intervened because when the policeman asked me to turn right at one point, construction blocked the way. I then turned left and wound my way along some coastal and country roads until I returned to the police station. Had I turned right, I would have headed into the medieval streets of Helsingør full of vacationing Danes and Swedes buying alcohol. The only challenging things on the test were the roundabouts, but there was no problem.

Today is our guests' last full day here. We're going to the ballet. Over the week we have kept a fairly leisurely pace, but we've managed to see a lot of things. We went to the viking ship museum in Roskilde, did a harbor tour, some walking tours, visited the Jewish museum, the Karen Blixen museum, and the DGI Byen swim center. I know I'm forgetting some things, maybe I'll add them when I remember. We've had a great time, and welcome all who would like to visit.

"Goin' to Loosiana"

As before, starting with a cat. Sammie was a little jealous of Kevin's publicity, so she wanted to share her enthusiasm for her new home, buy being photographed with the Danish flag and some very small dalmations. Sammie is having a bit of a hard time. Kevin has taken advantage of the move and the new territory to assert his dominance in addition to showing a bit of attitude now and then. Sammie (as you may be able to tell in this picture) is not happy about the situation. These debates usually occur around 2:00AM.

Today's trip was to Louisiana. This is the main museum of modern art in Denmark, located on the coast about 40 minutes north of Copenhagen. Much of the art was by living artists. There was a large exhibition of videos. My favorite was slow motion film of people (maybe 20+) being doused by a couple of fire hoses. Sounds weird, but (as they say) you had to be there. We just weren't sure how they got a group of people to volunteer for that. The grounds of the museum are the biggest attraction. The museum is on a hill overlooking the Øresund with a view of Sweden across the water. Lots of sailboats were out on the beautiful day. Tomorrow we'll go to the beach.

As of last week, we're official Danish residence. After a bit of a delay, we got our residence permit and registered our address to get our CPR numbers. The CPR number is the magic number that is required for all public services. It means we can go to the library and after a six week waiting period, the doctor. (Don't worry, the company covers us for that time period) The next hurdle is the driver license. As of May, Denmark has made it much more difficult to get a Danish drivers license, now requiring a doctor's certificate and the written and driving tests. The woman at the US embassy told us she was glad she didn't have to do it when we inquired about the new reglations. We'll see how it goes...