Hello Copenhagen, Goodbye Copenhagen. Hello London, Goodbye London.

On Thursday, after finishing with the cleaning and packing, we began our long journey home. We met Karsten's brother Lars at the Middelfart bus stop after some anxiety about whether we were in the right place or not. Middelfart is the halfway point for the trip between Aarhus and Copenhagen so there were just enough seats for us, with Griffin riding shotgun, by the bus door and beneath the coffee pot.  

I spent the journey talking with a gregarious Dane (an anomaly) named Ida (AY-da) who had spent five years in the States on a soccer scholarship. She struck up a conversation after observing me eating a sandwich and potato chips ("so American"). She and her girlfriend, who were headed from their home in Aarhus for a long weekend in Copenhagen, talked with me at length about Denmark and the Danish people. 

In Copenhagen, Pam and Rowan trained to Norrebro for some shopping and coffee shop reading (respectively) while Berit, Griffin and I dabbed to our AirBNB apartment on the canal, another spacious, gorgeous flat.  

All that talking on the bus really took it out of me but I mustered the energy to head across to the street to the Fiskatorvet mall with the kids. Berit and Griffin got drinks at the Baresso, but I had to get out of there pretty quickly. 

We walked about 30 minutes into the centrum to meet Pam and Rowan at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum. Griffin's opinion on the matter was that one art museum this trip was enough, but Berit was positive about the venture (generously so). 

Man Ray, Egyptian mummies and hieroglyphs, and French masters, all of which we fairly ran through. The kids stayed to play chess at the Man Ray exhibit while We foraged for dinner at Central Station. 

Our cabbie back to the flat, Søren, was a friendly, older Dane who we enjoyed talking with and who agreed to pick us up at 5 am Friday morning to take us to the airport. Everybody caught at least a few winks on the two hour flight to London and, after going through passport control and customs, we wended our way (speedily, via the Heathrow Express) to our Marylebone (75 Lisson Grove, Earls Court 16) flat, dumped our belongings and hit the streets. 

We nourished ourselves on coffees and pasties (oh ye delicious Cornwall pasties!) before making for Carnaby Street, Picadilly and other Soho destinations. We wound around through London, splitting up again as the girls headed to Cath Kitston and Griffin and I to Picadilly where he was pulled into some improv by a beat-boxing, saxophone-playing busker. Griffin and I wound our way through Charing Cross, through the book shops and down to Trafalger where we met the girls at Nelson's Column.

We cooled off and rested our feet in the Waterstones bookstore there. Pam bought a couple of YA books for her and Rowan. We walked down Whitehall, past the Cavalry where the changing of the guard occurs, past Westminster Abbey and across the Thames at Vauxhall Bridge (I think), turned and promenades along the Thames back up past the London Eye, leaning at the South Bank Centre where we fed ourselves among a throng enjoying various street food and music at the South Bank Love Festival. 

After 13 hours on their feet, everyone was pretty over all the walking. We took the Baker Line tube from Waterloo Station back to Marylebone. It's 6:45 a.m. It's Saturday, and we have a flight at 3 p.m.  Our idea is to hit the Portabello Market this morning, which was an absolute carnival when we found it here two years ago. We'll have to be back here at noon, collect our things and head off to Paddington Station to catch the Heathrow Express back to the airport for our 3 p.m. flight home What a long, incredible trip it's been. 

The North Sea, Gorilla Park, Riding in Romo and Jurassic World

Saturday and Sunday, July 4 and 5 - The North Sea

Pam and I get up and bike down to our beach at Høl again before any of the kids are up. I swim, and She does beach yoga. Pam also makes and leaves these fairie mandalas at every opportunity. 

We buy sugar snap peas at the roadside stand on the way home. We would have bought jordbaer as well, but there will be plenty to pick from our garden, plus the jordbaer jam that Tanja has in the refrigerator. Homemade. 

We drove to Jutland's West coast on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we were at Henne, a beautiful expanse of beach chock full of Danes and Germans. Rowan, Griffin and I played in the water, Berit read her book on the beach, and Pam and I walked the strand as usual. We only saw one naked family. Rowan and Griffin and I finished with some hacky-sack.

The beach town in Henne is cute. We got ice creams and everyone read their books. I got licorice ice cream (lakrids). Have I mentioned the Danish love affair with licorice yet? Licorice everything. I'm really going to miss it.

After a failed attempt to get into Vejle's Gorilla Park we once again made for the West Coast - this time to Ringkobing and Hvide Sand (White Sand). It took a while, but we found the parkour park in Ringkobing. 

By the time we hit the beach at Hvide Sand, the skies were dark, thunder boomed in the distance and apocolyptic gulls circled in swarms, swooping down to feast on the small jellyfish. 

Rowan  and Griffin were in the water, Griffin scooping up jellyfish and throwing them to the gulls. I dove in also as Pam combed the beach for rocks. She was like a North Sea mystic with big headphones vaned draped in towels, walking through the rain, collecting talismans. 

Beriit, engrossed in her book, never left the car, and was none to upset about it when we all came scurrying over the dunes in the downpour.

Monday - Gorilla Park

We showed up at Gorilla Park at noon and our group assembled for instruction - first in Danish and then in English. We secured our harnesses with locking caribiners and zip-line accessories and were off - first on the practice course and then into courses one through six.

Each course took us a little higher, across traverses that were incrementally higher, scarier and more challenging. The kids were off by themselves on course 4. I finished course 3 with Pam, and then we skipped to course 5 to avoid the line. 

How high were we? I don't know - 50 feet? There were some pretty scary obstacles, like the one where you have to jump on a snowboard and surf to the next tree. 

We all had a blast and finished the evening in Vejle's downtown area. More ice creams and a candy store that had a Willie Wonka-sized selection of licorice.

Tuesday - Horseback Riding in Romo

On the island of Romo we rode Icelandic horses through forested dunes. I giggled like a little girl as I bounced maniacally through the never-ending trotting. 

Towards the end of our two hour journey, it began to rain. Afterwards, we thought we'd find Sonderstrand, a Romo beach popular with naked German tourists. Instead, we found this vast expanse of sand that Pam insisted was the beach at low tide. Only Rowan would set off with us across the barren sands, kicking the soccer ball.

Wednesday - Jurrasic World

Today was a rain day. After mailing our postcards, buying dinner and stopping by our bakery for coffee and breakfast pastries, we made a spur of the moment decision to pile in the Berlingo and speed off for the movie theater in Vejle. We made it just in time to enjoy our tradition of going to see Chris Pratt movies on rainy days during our vacation (last year it was Guardians of the Galaxy in Massachusetts).

We cleaned the house and the car. Tomorrow, we head to Middelfart to catch a bus to Copenhagen. The journey home begins.

Roskilde Festival and Vikings in Sweden

Thursday - July 2, Roskilde Festival

I've never been to a music festival - no Lollapalooza, no Bonaroo. The closest I've come is three days of Grateful Dead shows in Las Vegas the year that Jerry Garcia died. That's my benchmark.

The Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark is Northern Europe's largest musical festival. It takes place over the course of eight full days with musical performances on six main stages and multiple sub-stages throughout that time. A huge expanse of land is taken over with rows upon rows of campsites filling up much of it, and by the time we hit Roskilde, three days prior to the festival's final day, this area was a quagmire of garbage, piss, and drunken youth. 

However, once we walked into the festival proper, everything was pristine, well-maintained, and chock full of things to do. There were multiple art spaces, dj spaces, a maker area, graffiti zone, and more stores, stalls, stands and windows selling food, drink, clothing, and sundry souvenirs than you could ever possibly want to see.

It's like a hundred Grateful Dead shows all wrapped up into one big orange party.

The day began for us at the Gloria Stage, an inside venue where at 10:30 a.m. we packed in with the rest of the early risers for the sing-along. A whole slew of Danes as well as a variety of other Europeans and us singing Beatles, Pete Seeger("God Bless the Grass"), Simon & Garfunkel, etc. led by an excellent Danish combo that included a stand-up bass and an accordion, and the English words projected above the band. 

That was a lot of fun. We made Gloria stage our "lost person" meeting place, as it had an large open-air outer room filled with couches - shade and comfort in a central location.

The day was filled with activities and musical acts. Florence + The Machine and Muse, late that night, were highlights, but we also really enjoyed bands we hadn't known going in - Veronica Maggio, Sarabi, Jupiter & Okwess International, Mastodon and especially Ezra Furman, whose raspy voice and crazy energy made him something of a young Tom Waits (or Dexter Romweber, for my Chapel Hill peeps).

At the end of the night, the kids chilled in the Gloria couches, befriending a couple of young french women, Candice and her friend, who evidently fell in love with Rowan and Griffin. Pam and I spent some time at the Orange stage for Muse. 

We all met up at 11 pm and exited in true Stormagan fashion, forming a crazy train by grabbing hands and snaking through the Muse throng for the exits.

Did I mention that Roskilde was Rowan and Griffin's first concert and Berit's second? Pretty epic! It's all downhill after this.i

Friday, July 3 - Swedish Vikings

We awoke at our Roskilde Fjord-side cabin, packed up and headed out. In a little over an hour, we were crossing the Oresund Strait, the body of water that separates Denmark from Southern Sweden. The Oresund bridge/tunnel combination is nearly 8 kilometers long, the longest bridge in Europe. 

We landed in Malmo, Sweden and headed to a cafe in the diverse section of the city. Coffee Joint gets high marks for its service, its coffee drinks and especially its art.

From Malmo we headed down to Trelleborg, a small village on the Southern coast, for a Viking market. This took place at a Viking ring fortress built in 980 A.D. by Harold Bluetooth, son of Gorm the Old and inventor of Bluetooth wireless technology. 

The Viking market was populated by would-be Vikings from all across Europe. The first guy we spoke with was from Iceland. He showed us the leather he made from the skins of salmon and cod as well as a sort of bowl that was at one time the nutsack of a sheep. I kid you not.

I also spoke with an older Swedish woman, a fiber artist who made decorated woolen belts not unlike the ones the kids learned to make with Amelia in Lejre, but with more complex designs. And I had a long conversation with a Swedish Viking named Thor Bjorrn (Thor's Bear) who makes ancient furniture and let me check out his comfy-looking tent.

We watched a Viking battle and a Viking wedding as we enjoyed our usual picnic lunch. And then we left, enjoying walking through the streets of Trelleborg, and stopping at a candy store where we bought some Swedish fish (though in Sweden, they're just called fish).

Den Gamle By, SUP, and a Road-trip to Roskilde

Have I mentioned the licorice? In Denmark, it's "lakrids" which is (roughly) pronounced the same, and the Danes love it. Every store has multiple varieties of licorice to choose from in various forms. At the Roskilde Festival, I could have gotten chicken marinated in licorice. I have a bag of licorice potato chips that the kids won't touch, and tonight, much to their chagrin, the soft ice cream pops had a licorice shell and a licorice center.

Other differences besides the preponderance of licorice include the fact that the Danes are extremely quiet people - particularly on public transportation, but pretty much everywhere, they are quieter than us. And when I say "us," I mean our family. We're pretty much the loudest people in Denmark right now.

And they are pretty unabashed when it comes to public urination.

And it's light all the time here, but besides all those things Denmark is exactly like America.

Tuesday, June 30 - Den Gamle By and Stand-Up Paddle-Boarding

The problem with this adventure being such a packed whirlwind is that I don't take the opportunity to write things down. And then I forget out stuff. And when that happens, I pretty much just have to hit the highlights.

On Tuesday, we trekked back up to Aarhus, where we went to Den Gamle By, an open air museum where they've gathered something like 75 historic buildings from all over Denmark to create a realistic historical Danish town. 

Afterwards, we headed over to the LYNfabbriken art center and the surrounding area of galleries and cafes that feed the artist population of an art school there. After grabbing ritual caffeine, we settled into a grassy area and ate our usual lunch of cheeses and meets atop good bread before splitting up. 

Yes, Pam and I bid the teenagers adieu, as they walked off into Aarhus's concrete jungle. We were just two, before Pam lost me with her quick pace through gallery row, and I headed off to Aarhus's only English language bookstore.

We rendez-voused in time to make our 4:30 appointment down at the harbor for stand-up paddle-boarding (SUP). SurfAgency appears to operate out of a van down there (low overhead), and Finja and Michael do a great job at getting us outfitted and on the water with ease. 

We paddle past the many boats in the harbor, advised to pay attention to the jellyfish. The white / transparent ones are harmless; it's the red ones with the tentacles that can be meters in length that we need to watch out for. So we do. 

Actually none of swim, except for Rowan - very briefly, at the end of our journey. Despite my predilection for diving in the water, I don't want to test the potency of the jellyfish. We paddle and enjoy the scenery - the coastline, the Aarhus architecture and cathedral in the distance, the naked sunbathers on the pier.

Wednesday, July 1 - Lejre Experimental Archaelology Center

Road trip! On Wednesday, we headed East, out of Jutland, through Funen, and into Zealand, our destination - Roskilde, and the Roskilde Festival (www.roskilde-festival.dk) for which we held tickets for Thursday. 

We landed in Lejre (pronounced like "liar" with a Boston accent) to take in the Experimental Archaeology Center there (www.sagnlandet.dk) where, for the low low price of 125 kroner apiece, we got to experience ancient life in Denmark. Pam and I toured an Iron Age village and watched a ritual sacrifice; the kids rowed a wooden dug out canoe and weaved wool into decorative bands. We had an excellent time talking with Amelia there who, at 26 years old was back in school for some sort of fabric / textile arts communication degree.

We landed in Roskilde for dinner, walking the street mall there, where signs of the festival were present in the form of orange bean bags, orange couches, and orange cow statues. Oh, and inebriated young people (not orange, though). An older drunk turned to compliment Rowan ("You are very young, but you are very beautiful..."), who I brusquely cut-off, hurrying her along.

Twenty minutes from Roskilde was our Roskilde Fjord-side cabin. It got high points from the parents on design and cuteness, but low points from the kids for the lack of wifi and small floor mattresses for them. All in all, not a bad night of "roughing it" prior to festival day.

Eskegov Slot, Sculpture by the Sea, and the Highway to Høl

It's Tuesday morning. It's the last day before we head out of Jutland towards adventures on Zealand and beyond. The Roskilde Festival is Thursday - well, it's all week, but we have tickets for Thursday - and we'll be staying in Roskilde Wednesday and Thursday night with plans to do castle things, Viking things... maybe even Sweden things.

But today is Tuesday, and it's sunny, and Pam and I are engaged in our morning rituals in the sun room. Books, papers, iPads spread about the table - writing, researching, and plotting our day while children and turtles sleep.

Monday, June 29

Yesterday was a local day with a walk through the forest down by Rands Fjord. This, of course, after we make our traditional stop at the local bakery for delicious Danish pastries and 12 kroner coffee. I plug GPS coordinates from the brochure and map into the Garmin that has been our navigational angel since we got wheels, and in a short time we're in beech forest next to the fjord waters following the well-marked paths past farm land and farm houses, Danish sheep and cows.

After the hike, we explore the coast by Brejning, starting at the marina where employees of a local school are bailing out their sailboats. When we ask for a good beach, they point us 1.5 kilometer up the coast, but what we find there is a muddy, rocky mess that, despite the excellent pier and rowboats that Griffin enjoys jumping into ("Zeb and Lars were here."), is not what anyone should call a "good beach."

We had down the coast to Hvidbjerg Strand, which our hosts recommend to us as their best beach, but it proves to be just a narrow rocky strip of coast - and not even pretty-rocky (like England). Sharp and pokey-rocky. Muddy rocky.

And so it's down to Høl, the gorgeous stretch of sandy beach that Pam and I found a few nights back. This is the best beach in town, without a doubt. Maybe the locals are just trying to keep it that way.

The water is super cold. We walk way out in the low tide and it's still only up to our thighs. Rowan, Berit and Pam read on their beach towels, Griffin practices the songs he's been assigned for a camp he's doing when we get back, and I doze.

Sunday, June 28

On Sunday, we headed up to Sculpture by the Sea, an event that happens occurs through the month of June on odd years in which large public art sculptures are erected along Aarhus's southern coast. 

It was kinda neato - we liked the huge shipping containers resting atop big puffy pillows. Berit particularly liked the fact that I believed they were resting atop those pillows and not on top of hidden supports. Better than the sculpture however was the people watching and the starfishes that Griffin found in the shallows as he bounded across the boulders that line the coast.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Moesgard where Pam and I walked the beach for interesting rocks. The water is (still) frigid, but Rowan and Griffin both swam in it, as did I after some wrestling over the matter (literally) with Griffin.

And Griffin built this awesome sand sculpture.

Saturday, June 27

Griffin nixed our mountain biking idea for today, having fallen off of a play structure yesterday and banged up his hip, but we still thought we'd get outside up in the Lake District, an area north of us with rolling hills, beach forests, lakes, rivers and Denmark's highest point (at 171 meters).

We're thinking we'll find a good hike by visiting the tourist office in Silkeborg, but things never go like you plan. We land there in the middle of the Riverboat Festival, complete with throngs and throngs of Danish retirees getting their New Orleans jazz on. 

We enjoyed some lattes and crepes and walked around town, where Rowan bought a copy of Scott Westerfeld's Pretties to replace the one she left somewhere in Copenhagen. The shop keeper with the cool star, owl and bird tattoos pointed us to the Almind Sø (It's pronounced like "soot" except without touching your tongue to the roof of your mouth at the end. Go ahead, try it. I'll wait. The word means "lake.") as a nice place to hike around.

 

The weather, already un-awesome, suddenly turned downright horrible. It rained buckets, cats, dogs and frogs. It came down like a mother. Griffin and I huddled in a shop alcove, and Pam and Rowan and Berit came and rescued us with loaner umbrellas from a sports equipment store. We walked through lakes back to the car.

When we got to the Almind Sø, the rain had let up. I dove in the lake and swam for about ten seconds, as did Rowan and Griffin. We walked around the lake path, singing songs and marveling at the large, black slugs.

Pam is very cool, making breakfast for the kids and sandwiches for lunch while I write this. I've had to spend some time this morning catching up. And I haven't even gotten too Friday yet! 

She set the smoke alarm off while cooking the bacon. It was the second time since last night and I'm pretty sure that Tanja and Karsten are right now receiving text messages from their neighbors that the Americans are burning their house down.

Friday, June 26

Today we drove back to the island of Funen to Egeskov Slot (slot = castle), a fantastic 15th century castle complete with moat and drawbridge whose former owner, Count Gregers Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille was one of the best bowhunter's in Denmark (with skill comparable to that of Ted Nugent). The castle's "Deer Room" has Count Greger's trophies (heads), many with the arrow that took down the animal.

The castle and out-building are full of cool collector stuff - there are about a million classic cars and motorcycles, an vast intricate dollhouse that includes the world's smallest working organ, a piece of Marie Antoinette's dress, Dracula's tomb (really not ssure what this is). 

We really enjoyed the grounds, though - particularly the treetop walking - spiral staircases that ascend into tall trees and rope walks between the trees. Pam got lost in aa hedge maze, so I went in to find her, losing myself as she came out. According to Rowan, all you need to do is place your right hand on the wall to your right and keep it there as you walk through the maze. I'll test that another time.

Back in Børkop we stop by the roadside vegetable stand and the butchers. We plied young Søren the butcher with questions about the chicken breasts and the sausages. He probably thought we were idiots, but was exceedingly friendly about it. "Chicken" in Danish is "kylling." 

We're kylling it.