Legoland and Stevns Klint

Instead of being rife with commercialism or being one giant commercial for the purchase of Legos, this place is a true homage to what can be done with the little colored bricks and a lot of creativity. It’s way more about engineering and imagination than commerce. The drive was a little over two hours and it poured most of the way but was sunny and dry by the time we go there. We spent the whole day there looking at the scenes – everything from landmarks in Copenhagen to scenes from the Star Wars movies. Many of them had motorized components including locks that took little boats through canals and trucks and cars that circled towns (no tracks in sight they must have been “programmed” some way). The tourist season hasn’t quite started in Denmark yet so there wasn’t much of a crowd which was great, and we never waited for more than a minute or two in the lines for the few rides (couple of fun/small roller coasters [made from steel not Legos]). Hotdogs for dinner before we left the park (Danish hotdogs... soooooo different from American dogs...) and an easy drive home with no rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

just under a million Legos used in this replica of the queen's palace in Copenhagen

To get to Legoland, we had to cross the Storebæltsbroen or "Great Belt Bridge." Next time you feel like complaining about the toll on the 520 bridge, it's $40 each way to cross this one.

We had the car through the next afternoon so first thing in the morning, Chuck drove Susan and me to Stevns Klint which is very old church (1250-1300) on a cliff that started eroding into the sea o the 1920s. The part that started dropping off was the old cemetery, and apparently, the coffins started sticking out of the cliff wall, exposing skeletons and other grisly matter.

After that excursion, we drove back to the rental lot at the airport, returned the car, and took the metro into Copenhagen for a little shopping at Magasin which is the Saks (sort of) of Denmark. Really nice department store with a beautiful housewares department from which I would have loved to have completely re-outfitted my house, if luggage and budget were not considerations.

The entire gang (Bo, Laila, Chartlotte, Per, Theresa, Alberte, and another cousin, Anita, plus Helle a Dane whom Ellen and Susan knew in Sacramento and who now lives in Denmark) were coming over for dinner so we got back in time to greet them for our “American night” party. These lovely people brought us all gifts – candy for the kids and two wrapped presents, one for Chuck and Ellen and one for Susan and me -- which turned out to be really nice Danish flags, one for each of us. I’ve said for years that being close friends with Ellen for so long makes me an honorary Dane, now I have the flag to prove it.

Theresa and me - she had fun reminiscing about her junior year abroad in Springfield, Illinois

 

Blue Planet Aquarium

Since all the others in the group live in Northern California and spend a lot of time at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Blue Planet (billed as the “largest aquarium in Northern Europe”) didn't quite measure up, but it was a nice way to spend the morning. We got there before the crowds and left around lunchtime, wandering into the neighborhood near the aquarium for a schwarma before taking the Metro to the airport where we picked up a rental car for the next day’s excursion.

check out the clownfish in the lower left - I heard "look, there's Nemo" in four languages

tank full of piranha

The evening’s entertainment was dinner at Charlotte and Per’s house. Charlotte is cousin Laila’s daughter and her house is a fifteen minute bike ride from where we are staying. They have a lovely backyard and they grilled hamburgers in honor of their American guests. Theresa (another cousin’s daughter) and her seven year old daughter Alberte were also there and we had a great evening with all the relatives.

Susan, Laila, Charlotte, Theresa, Bo, Ellen, Per, and me

Danes start learning English around the second grade so all Ellen's relatives spoke English. Sometimes they would struggle with a word and check with one another in Danish for specific translations but communication with them (and everyone at tourist destinations, shops, train stations, etc.,) was no issue. Alberte had just completed the first grade so her English was just the basics she had picked up from Theresa (who works for the Red Cross and speaks English every day at work, but Danish at home) and was fairly limited to "yes," "no," "thank you," "hello," and the like; I think she said "pleased to meet you" when we were introduced - adorable. Torunn and Steen can say about the same in Danish which a few other phrases for favorite Danish foods thrown in, but apparently the language of childhood is universal because the three of them ran around the yard playing (and Charoltte and Per have a dog who also spoke the universal language...) and having a great time despite their limited ability to actually converse with one another.

Steen 10, Alberta 7, Torrun 12

I’ve been hearing about all these people for the twenty years I’ve known Ellen, so it was wonderful to meet them in the flesh – incredibly friendly, hospitable folks who couldn’t be nicer.

A Bike of One's Own

 

Today our first order of business was to get our own bikes for the rest of our stay. We made our way to Biskeli which rents bikes; when the bikes are no longer suitable as rentals, they are refurbished and sent off to people in need in Africa. Our big plan was to get our bikes, get back on the train to Sølrod Strand, pack a picnic lunch and go for a bike ride around our town.

getting our bikes home on the S Train

The weather could not have been better. It was sunny and warm bordering on hot, and we couldn't get over how gorgeous it had been for our first few days here (a situation Ellen assured us was more miraculous than just general good fortune). By the time we had stopped at the grocery store and made lunch, we were hungry enough to skip the picnic portion of the ride we intended and instead took our sandwiches down to the beach to eat there before heading off. Thirty minutes later, it was raining as hard as it has ever rained in the history of precipitation (with the possible exception of my day at the U.S. Open last year http://www.placestogo-manomi.blogspot.com/2012/09/tennis.html).
 

We finished our lunch in the shelter of the covered back porch, played a fun dice game Susan had brought for just such a situation, and by the time the rain finally let up, Bo had offered to give Susan and me a driving tour of the area and had come to fetch us. Chuck came as well while Ellen rode off to the grocery store to get supplies for dinner.

Bo gave us a tour of the suburban/country-side past farm lands and fields, ancient churches, and spectacular seaside neighborhoods. He drove us around for almost two hours giving us commentary about the history of the area and taking us past pretty vistas and flowering fields.

 

 

 

Landmarks

Today we went into Copenhagen and Ellen gave us a tour of family landmarks (her favorite aunt's former apartment, the primary school her mother attended, the family plot at the cemetery, and other places from her childhood), as well as more obvious points of interest (the queen’s residence, the famous port neighborhood, beautiful parks). I had been to Copenhagen once before and remembered it fondly but didn't quite recall the booming metropolis it has become. And all those bikes... everywhere, ridden by everyone ("bike clothing" rarely seen [people are in their work clothes], helmets are non-existent except on very young kids who aren't seen much on the city streets anyway; city riding is about transport not leisure). I love walking around cities, but being on foot seemed uncool and inconvenient in this realm; we had a really nice day of city sightseeing, but it was a beautiful sunny day and we were all wishing we could join the crowds on two wheels.

lots of old courtyards...

...and new buildings

modern architecture

the new opera house

needs no explanation

Nyhavn

the queen's palace

 

Copenhagen: City of Bikes

[Prologue re: traveling with extremely limited internet access. Okay, maybe it wasn’t like losing an appendage, but I definitely did felt the loss of not being able to email my friends and post the blog as I went. The house where we stayed didn’t have a connection so every once in a while I’d peddle to the nearby library and use their wifi for a few minutes to check my email on my phone and say a quick hello to Peter and Cheryl; it would never occur to me to miss my work email while traveling, but it was a little strange not to keep in close touch with my friends or post to the blog every night – the whole point of the blog being to document a trip, as much as I can, while it happens, since I will have forgotten so much by the next day. That being the case, I wrote the posts each evening and saved them and I am inserting the photos now and uploading. – M. June 21, 2013]

I think people know about Amsterdam's bike culture but I can't imagine it has anything on Copenhagen. Most city streets have designated bike lanes with designated bike traffic signals, there are huge parking lots for bikes near the Metro stations, the commuter train we take from the little town where we're staying into the city has designated train cars for bikes, and even the highways out of town have bike lanes -- the entire population seems to travel by bicycle. The country being so flat - it's no wonder; the country being so cold... not sure how that factors in so many months of the year - probably not at all, they're hearty folks, these Danes.

bike parking lot in Copenhagen

I arrived two days ago after a quick transfer in Reykjavik. Ellen met me at the airport in Copenhagen and we took the Metro to the S train (the commuter line) to the town of Sølrod Strand, a little town south of Copenhagen where Chuck and Ellen had rented a little holiday cottage. Chuck, Ellen, the kids, and Susan, a friend from Sacramento, had arrived the previous day and settled into this great little seaside bungalow. It was a ten minute walk from the S Train station to the cottage which is at the very end of a dead-end road; the backyard has a gate right to the beach – nothing fancy but very comfortable for the six of us with easy access to Copenhagen.  

bike car on the S Train

The rest of the day was spent visiting with some of Ellen's relatives who dropped by to greet me. Ellen picked this town for our base because it’s where her cousin Laila and Laila’s husband Bo live. I also took a nap as I hadn't slept at all on the overnight flight to Reykjavik; we had an early dinner on the back porch where we have so far eaten all our meals, the dining room in this house promises to go totally unused given the glassed in back porch, and then we all went to bed early with the northern night sky still completely full of light.

 

our little cottage

dinner on the back porch
Chuck, Steen, Susan, Torunn, Ellen

 

the gate connecting our backyard to the beach is just beyond the big tree to the right

the stretch of beach behind our cottage

Snow, Spa, Seven Bottles of Wine*

*plus two more bottles in the fridge

First thing we did was unpack the snacks and determine that the main difference between the guys going to Whistler (two weekends ago) and the girls going to Whistler (last weekend) was that guys see no difficulty in refugee camp-like accommodations (one bedroom, one bathroom, six dudes), while we three ladies had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a bottle of sparkling wine in the fridge.

It was pouring rain when we arrived on Friday and it continued to rain as we headed into the Village for the evening's entertainment. We ended up in the Irish pub which was packed, but somehow managed to find three stools at the bar next to a guy with a wolf-hat. Brooklyn-Keith and his brother Dan were basking in the glory of West Coast snowboarding, and the guy next to them, Gordy, was up from San Francisco. The difference between resort towns that center around an activity and resort towns that center around simply atmosphere (like Puerto Vallarta), I've discovered, is that everyone wants to chat about the central activity, so there was much talk of snow conditions, Vermont versus Tahoe versus Stevens Pass, fashion accessories made from stuffed animals, and why the Shake Shack on Columbus Avenue is better than the one in Midtown (http://www.placestogo-manomi.blogspot.com/2012/09/shake-shack.html) - in Puerto Vallarta, I can easily go three days without anyone talking to me.

On Saturday morning, Wendy, Christina, and I headed to Blackcomb for our first day of snowboard and ski camp. We split into our individual groups: Wendy to the intermediate ski group, Christina to the bad-ass snowboard group, me to the intermediate snowboard group, and then spent the day battling massive snowfall and not being able to see our own feet. It was a tough day and when we compared notes before getting into the hot tub at the hotel, Wendy had had a great day with her group and an exceptional coach, Christina was a little skeptical of her class having spent most of the day in the terrain park, and I was sadly disappointed with my coach, having received little to no actual instruction, but just basically spending the day snowboarding with a bunch of very nice women (ranging in age from 20s to one lady who was probably 60) with the coach just acting as a guide to the runs, which is not what I'd paid for. It takes more than a bad coach to make for a bad vacation though, so I was still happy as a clam to be outside, not at my desk, hanging with such lovely friends, and the aforementioned many bottles of wine were there for the taking, so we poured ourselves some red and headed for the hot tubs.

People come to Whistler from all over the world. The highest "foreign" population is from Australia, and it seems like half the workers in the Village are from Oz, with a fair number of Kiwis thrown in the mix. The place is also full of Brits, some of whom we chatted with in the hot tub. After soaking for a while, we changed for dinner and ran into Gordy from the Irish pub in our hotel lobby and ended up having dinner with him and his friend Paul at the restaurant at the Whistler racket club, which was totally dead on a Saturday night, but we had a very fun dinner. Christina and I split the surf n' turf -- an incredibly mediocre steak which would have come with two prawns had Gordy not had the foresight to inquire about the quantity of "surf," the answer to which prompted us to order an extra side of surf to go with it, and Wendy had a pasta dish that appeared to have been made with an entire can of tomato paste. But once again, the important point that good company trumps bad weather and bad food was illustrated, and it was a very nice evening.

On Sunday we woke up to blue skies and sunshine and headed back to camp. Unfortunately, my coach really seemed to be phoning it in and after crashing onto my rump twice in quick succession on a narrow run which was lousy with ice and herds of skiers, I was done. I bailed on the rest of class and headed back to my room and a soft bed and HGTV. I went back for the camp's wrap-up events and actually had a chat with one of the managers about my experience. I debated whether or not I was going to do that but then I realized there were some safety issues at play. My instructor never made a point of checking on the riders behind her, let alone actually coaching us, and when I was on that narrow run, I was a couple minutes behind the group with a pretty steep cliff of powder on one side - if I'd gone over the edge, I wouldn't have been found until spring. Wendy said her instructor went down every run first then watched every member of her group descend and gave individualized comments after each run; Christina said her group was big so one coach went down first while a second one rode sweep to make sure everyone was accounted for -- this made me think some feedback might be in order, but the clincher was when a couple of us in my group realized that two girls weren't back yet even though most of us were already settled into our beer and waiting for the wrap-up events to start. One of the missing girl's friends tried to call her, no luck; I noticed that some friends of the other girl were back and we checked to see if they had heard anything; turned out one of the girls had taken a bad fall (oh, and she was ten weeks pregnant), the other girl was waiting with her for the ski patrol. The friend of the injured girl rushed off while our coach didn't seemed concerned at all, and um, said she had to get home and left. The manager I spoke to seemed fairly appalled by all this and apologized for my experience and told me she'd be glad to give me a discount if I'd like to come back to camp again some other time. I think my experience was unusual and I appreciated her response and was glad that Christina and Wendy got much better value for their camp dollars. But AGAIN, I had a good time... any vacation in a beautiful town is better than the best day working, and unless you shatter a femur or something, I think you have to be trying pretty hard to have a bad time in Whistler (hopefully the injured girl from my group wasn't hurt too badly).

Sunday night we hit the hot tubs again, this time we chatted with a couple of guys from Ontario who worked at the resort, and one of the guy's father
who was out west visiting his son - none of these gents were surprised that none of us could name the Prime Minister of Canada. Stephen Harper, people... THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA IS STEPHEN HARPER!! After our soak, the three of us went out to dinner (mediocre pizza, a large pitcher of sangria), and then to a nice bar where a dj was spinning in a corner while the bartender crushed up gooseberries for Wendy's cocktail and Christina and I had something hot and chocolaty and topped with whipped cream.

And then on Monday we had an awesome morning at the Scandinave Spa down the road before heading home. Jenine had been there before and I was really hoping we could hit it this time since I missed it last time I was in Whistler. 

(http://www.placestogo-manomi.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html) We managed to book three massages for 10:15 and quickly checked out of the hotel. The place is beautiful -- you walk from the parking lot down a path to a lovely building nestled in the woods. The property is terraced with pools of different temps on different levels, there are two relaxation solariums, and I sat in the nicest steam room and sauna I've ever been in - both huge, and the steam was so thick in the steam room it took me a minute to realize Wendy was already in there when I walked in. We soaked and lounged into the afternoon and finally hit the road for home around 2pm.

Great way to spend four days.