Aug 2 Day 50 Fly to Los Angeles & train home

So, we were up super early saying our goodbyes to Lars and then off to the airport driven by Julie. We’re so appreciative of all their good hospitality. Both of them thought they would maybe take a break from speaking English for a couple of weeks after our visit. We are so thankful that they speak such good English, but we know it’s tough speaking so much English. Julie dropped us off one last time in the “kiss and fly” drop off. Goodbye we’ll miss you. Thus began 26 hours of travel.

We were at the Copenhagen airport in plenty of time. We checked in and were really appreciative that the nice lady at Scandinavian Airlines let us slipped by our too heavy by 12 pounds suitcase. Yikes. Everything went well in Copenhagen. We loaded the plane and headed off to Toronto. Both of us watched a lot of movies as we crossed the Atlantic.

We landed in Toronto and had several hours wait before boarding the plane again. We were super glad that we could go through an American customs station there in Toronto. This would save us a lot of headaches once we landed in LA.

The flight from Toronto to LA was another six hours. All went smooth again. A little more movie watching. Trying to catch a little bit of a nap. It’s not so easy sleeping on a plane.

We were happy to land in Los Angeles at about 6:30 in the evening. Even not having to go through customs, LAX is always a little overwhelming. To go through the airport, picking up our all too heavy suitcases. And then started the way home in California. First, we had to find the Fly Express Bus that went to the LA central train station. Kind of confusing, but everything was in English. This was definitely a plus. We waited half hour to catch the bus. Then off to the train station. It was kind of a hassle figuring out how to buy a ticket, but nothing like how would have been in Copenhagen. A little perspective now. We got our ticket, but it wasn’t going for another two hours. The nice Amtrak lady ordered a golf cart for us and several other people to get us to the other side of the station where our train would arrive. We took it.

We had been traveling for over 20 hours when our train arrived.  We hopped on and then another two hours train ride down to Oceanside.  It was now after midnight local time. Patti couldn’t get her Uber app to work on the phone. Both of us were so tired. However, she did have the Lyft app and used that, and a very nice Lyft driver arrived and drove us home to our house. We arrived shortly after 1 AM, glad to be home. We fell in to bed happy and grateful. Another grand adventure had come to an end. There’s nothing like home sweet home!

Aug 1 Day 49 Gørlev & Back to Copenhagen

Our last full day in Denmark.  How the time has flown, but we are also getting ready to go home.

We were so lucky that Birthe had made special arrangements for us to visit a Viking settlement and to have a private tour in English done by a local guide.  He had done a lot of preparation and was able to talk about not only the Vikings settlement, but also the birds, history and plants in the area in English.

This was a site of an old encampment where a lot of important trading had happened.  Even though it started to rain, we still had nearly three hours of really interesting tales and things to see including the foundations for old buildings and a replica of a gold ringed necklace that had been found on this former farmland.  The area was a park with a very nice visitor interpretive center.

Patti and Thørborn enjoyed trying on costumes and playing around.  It was a delightful way to end our visit with Birthe and Finn.

We were driven to the train and bid goodbye to these family members.  What a nice visit.

The train ride went fast.  We were getting very used to getting off in Valby, and walking to the apartment. Julie and Lars had returned to work, so they were tired, but we had a nice last dinner together.  Over gin and tonics, we had the chance to reflect on the many adventures that had happened since our arrival.  Lars remarked that it would seem strange that we wouldn’t be coming back again in a few days.  They were excellent and generous hosts. But, time to finish our packing.  We go home tomorrow.

July 31 Day 48 Gørlev, Denmark

We had a morning of beginning the packing for our trip home to the U.S. as well as getting ready for one more overnight visit with family.  This time, we took the train about one hour to the town of Gørlev where cousins Birthe & Finn live.  We had a brief delay when another train broke down on the tracks.  We had the challenge of trying to understand what was happening when all of the announcement were in Danish. Finally, we asked a nice guy and he let us know what was going on. After a while, they backed our train up, and then we went and picked up the folks who had been stranded.  We had very little trouble with transportation on this trip in terms of lateness or breaking down, so this was minor.  Finn was waiting for us at the train station, and drove us 20 minutes to their home.  This included seeing one of the many mounds created by the Vikings.

Once we reached their home in Gørlov, we found that Birthe, their daughter Annette and grandson Thørborn were waiting for us.  We were so warmly greeted.

It was so fun to see their home and their yard with so many great fruit trees growing there. We had a lovely lunch. Did we mention that our family all seem to be great cooks? More delicious food.

After lunch, we took at nice stroll to the local church where they had a couple of old and important Runestones.  These were so interesting.

Then we also walked around the town and Annette told us stories of growing up there.  Then there was time for a little rest before more family arrived for dinner.

Annette’s sister, Charlotte, arrived with two of her three kids.  The third would arrive later, after his heavy metal band finished practicing.  We enjoyed time to visit and meet this section of the family.  There were lots of great topics of conversation before, during and after dinner.  It is such a pleasure to have time together with relatives from far away.  We hope that more of them will come to visit us in San Diego.

July 30 Day 47 Fly to Copenhagen

We decided to take a slower start and easy morning having breakfast and then checking out about 11 o’clock. It had been a powerful stay in Berlin.

One last time figuring out the public transportation and we headed south to the largest intact section of The Berlin Wall.  This is known as the East Gallery.  Here over 1.3 kilometers (.8 miles) of The Berlin Wall still stand. Artists from around the world were invited to come and paint their art on the wall.  There were lovely sections, and brutally violent parts, and some that we didn’t understand.  But seeing the wall in a very long setting gave us a much better understanding of what it must have been like to not just have some short segments of it, but to have half the of large city surrounded by it.  This was a very powerful experience.  We walked and walked, took photos and pondered. The Wall fell.  The city is still in healing. Wow.

We then took the train to the airport, checked in and had a nice lunch in an American-style diner.  Then, a quick one-hour flight to Copenhagen.  A train “home”. And Berlin was a wrap.  What an interesting visit.  We were all so glad we went.

July 29 Day 46 Berlin

After such a heavy day yesterday, we decided we had had enough of the Nazis…and so decided to go visit the DDR (The former East Germany) Museum. This privately owned museum focused on bringing alive the experience of living under the East German and really Soviet rule from after WWII until the wall came down in 1991.  The place was a mixture of some very serious stories about The Wall, and the hardships for the people.  But, there were also with lots of fun and interesting exhibits like of a state-run preschool room complete with toys you could play with, and a full equipped East German apartment. We spent a couple of hours soaking in all of the really interesting facts of life, such as all children in the preschool were potty trained in unison, and the party officials got to drive some VERY nice cars compared to the common people.  A very well done glimpse into a society that was very much cut off from the West for a very long time.

Another chilling space that we visited was the place where in 1933 the Nazis had an enormous book burning, burning more than 25,000 books on this University campus. There was a memorial in which you had to bend down and peer into a room under the sidewalk under a glass pane.  There you could see empty bookshelves. Very grim, especially for a couple of book lovers like us.

We grabbed some lunch at an outdoor cafe along the Spree River and  then walked along the river. Berlin is such a beautiful city.  It is hard to grasp what a complicated history has played out here.

We ended up at the Nineties Berlin Museum which preserved the stories of what happened directly following the fall of The Wall. There was a huge emphasis on the music scene in Berlin, which was not so interesting to us.  But, there was also an area which showed video interviews of people who talked about what happened when the found out The Wall had been opened, and the aftermath of trying to reunite a city and then a country that had been torn in two for so long. There was a dramatic memorial to those who died trying to cross The Wall.  The names were printed directly across from an arrangement of AK-47s.  It was touching. There was quite a bit more about the Wall.  Fascinating!

We took the bus back home, arriving just minutes before a huge thunderstorm rolled through.  Dick and Patti were super happy to enjoy the rain from inside, while Julie and Lars were stuck in a doorway with others waiting for it to stop raining.  We connected back up and had one more good German dinner.  And there was some good German beer for those who like beer (everyone, except for Patti.)

July 28 Day 45 Berlin

One of the very touching things we found in Berlin are something called “Stumbling Stones”. These are small brass plaques that are embedded in the sidewalk paying respect to someone who was either murdered or brought to the death camps by the Nazis in World War II.  It started as an idea by one German man, and has now spread to over 1200 sites throughout Europe.  There is the website that describes this project. http://www.stolpersteine.eu/en/home/

What we found is that it is so hard for people to comprehend the horrors of people killed in statistics.  But there is something about having a name and the fact that this PERSON lived or worked in the building by this stone is very moving.  We found these in many place. Our hearts mourned for the loss of life and family that these represent.

We also had the chance to visit “Checkpoint Charlie”. This was one of the places that people from the West could cross to go into East Berlin while the Wall was up.  Dick remembers having crossed through this checkpoint over 40 years ago.  There was quite a powerful display about The Wall and how the conflict unfolded in Berlin.

Then, Patti had to take advantage of the chance to get her photo taken with some US soldiers. We scratched our heads trying to understand why they had Soviet hats to wear… but, whatever.  The photo was fun.

We walked by an exhibit focused on the devastation of Warsaw by the Nazis.  Hitler had a plan that he wanted to kill everyone (nearly all were Jews) so that Germany could take over the area.  It was chilling to see photos and read about these evil plans and the deadly results.

It was a surprise to us that much of The Wall was not removed by heavy equipment.  It was removed by people who became known as "wall peckers" who took it down chip by chip.  Once The Wall was down, there was a decision to mark its location with paving stones wherever it went.  We could see those stones as we walked along the route of the Wall.  Today, there were a few places where buildings were erected over were The Wall had been. We also had the chance to see one of the few remaining watchtowers from which guards looked over the dangerous no man’s land, and shot anyone who tried to escape the East to get to the West.  Very chilling!  We also talked with a college instructor who was working this gig on a temporary basis before starting to teach again.  History majors were in abundance on this trip.

A solemn memorial is the Holocaust Memorial or the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This consists of nearly 3000 grey stone slabs of various sizes with spaces for people to wander among them and contemplate the horrors of the murder of millions of Jews people. It is meant to be a place of contemplation, remembrance and warning.  We spent some quiet time there, thinking and remembering. As with many memorials, there are questions about whether it adequately serves it purpose.  Were the dead honored enough?  Is there enough warning?  Nearly everything seems inadequate to the job…So much death.  So much violence.  So much ignorance.  It was very sad. There is also an underground museum, but the line was too long, and we were not able to go there.  It was still powerful.

So, we had set the tone in the morning, and following lunch we met up with our walking tour which focused on Hitler and the Third Reich.  This was lead very a charming young man from Spain, who had a Masters Degree in German History.  This was a tour he created to walk us through the narrative of how Hitler came to power, and eventually to the end of the War and Hitler’s death.

In 3 hours, the history of Berlin came alive as we walked through the city and heard the stories of a county which had been beaten down after WWI, and then a charismatic leader who promised to bring back pride and economic prosperity. Fascism and evil plans were not prominent during his rise, but it was very frightening how quickly democracy was overthrown and a tyrant took control. This included the memorial to the members of Parliament who voted against Hitler.  All of them ended up in Concentration Camps and most were killed.  The memorial, beside the Reichstag, was a set of steel plates with the people's name and what happened to them.  We might have missed it but our guide pointed the plates out to us.We listened very closely as we pondered the world situation, and the situation in the U.S. today.

The tour was so well done, but exhausting.  We ended it in the old Jewish section of the city.  Again, so sad, but also, filled with hope.  We spent time in front of the one Synagogue that was not destroyed by the Nazis.  It was the main place of worship for the Jewish people before the war and is again.

As we walked about the old Jewish Quarter we heard the stories about how the people were isolated and then removed to the camps.  We found many of the stumbling stones along each of the streets.

We concluded our tour by what had been the Jewish Cemetery.   It had been desecrated before and during the war.  A very moving memorial was located there.  Buildings nearby still showed the damage from the heavy fighting at the end of the war as the Russian Army fought block by block and building by building, As our guide said, it gave him hope that so many people came on this tour when they could be sitting in a pub having a beer. We finished very sobered, but also grateful to have heard such a powerful story, so well told.

We grabbed dinner in a very cool local traditional German garden restaurant, which especially had the largest snitzels any of us had ever seen. We needed a bit of a break from the heavy history lessons we had been learning.  The food was delicious and the atmosphere much lighter.

Public transportation took our tired bodies back home.  Guten nacht, Berlin!

July 27 Day 44 Fly to Berlin

Today the four of us (Patti, Dick, Lars and Julie) were up early…maybe a bit TOO early, but we had to catch the train to the airport.  We were flying to Berlin.  The train, the airport and the one hour flight all went very easily.

When we arrived in Berlin, there was an information desk that helped us to buy transportation cards that would be good for the bus, train and metros in Berlin.  We bought them and then used them throughout the next 4 days.

With one slight misstep, we found our way to our AirBnB in the former East Berlin area.  We were very pleased when we were able to have a very early check in, and then headed down the street for a delicious lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant where we ate at a sidewalk table.

We decided to head into the downtown historical area to get oriented.  We found it to be so interesting to be based in the former East Berlin with so many sights from pre-WWII and the post-war times.

We wandered the long busy streets and soaked in the sites.  As we walked we saw both very modern buildings and lots of museums and old historical buildings.  What a fascinating city. We knew we were going to really enjoy our time in Berlin.

We were so familiar with images of the Brandenberg Gate but it was still quite amazing to be standing before it and then walk under it.  It was a dramatic sense that we were really in Berlin.

Patti found online information that today was the Gay Pride Festival. As we rode on the metro, we started seeing all kinds of rainbow flags and people dressed up in their fancy parade wear. We saw rainbow flags everywhere.  Including, once we got to the area by the famous Brandenberg Gate, The U.S .Embassy had rainbow banners and signs. Go, Embassy staff!

We were struck by the cultural phenomenon of the Greenman.  This was the figure on the "walk-don't walk" signals at corners. Other countries had figures on these signs but the Germans have adopted the figure as an opportunity for amusement.

Another fun discovery were the Berlin Buddy Bears.  These were the result of an effort nearly 20 years ago where these bears were painted by various companies and individuals.  Many have traveled around the world and are now scattered in Berlin. Patti could not resist them!

The Brandenberg Gate is near where The Berlin Wall stood until it was largely torn down in 1991.  We got our first glimpses of the remnants of the Wall, which were very striking.  We would see The Wall in many other places throughout the weekend.

We walked and walked, and finally cut through a large park.  The crowds of people were a bit overwhelming, although the crowds were very friendly.

We were quite tired from our traveling and walking, and so went back to our apartment, found a place for dinner, Julie and Lars had a beer at the pub next door, and then headed to bed.  We were in Berlin!  Much to see tomorrow.

July 26 Day 43 Copenhagen

Today brought breakfast and then time to say goodbye to these cousins.  Such gracious hospitality.  It was so nice to see them again.  Willy and Karin were heading off to run a tennis tournament for the next week, and we needed to get back to Lars & Julie’s to get ready to go to Berlin.

Karin drove us, and time for more goodbyes.  Then, we were home again.  The weather was very hot, so Julie and Lars were off swimming.  We got the chance to do some laundry and begin our packing.  What to bring to Berlin?  We were getting to be expert packers.

A nice dinner in the evening, then off to bed.  Berlin beckons.

July 25 Day 42 Copenhagen

The day started with a little shopping outing. Willy was in need of a hat to protect his ears from the sun. It was fun getting a chance to see a Danish shopping mall. This trip hasn’t had much shopping so far.

Then we drove to the town of Dragør. This was such a sweet seaside traditional town. Willy and Karin had good friends who have one of the little houses. So, we stopped by for a quick visit. Every street and ally had all kinds of lovely things to take photos of. We wandered and enjoyed this seaside setting. Lovely. And had a chance to see or at least walk by the home where their daughter is now living. What a lovely setting.

Hollyhocks, flowers from Dick's childhood that were everywhere in this small town.  We do not see these often at home but have seen them so many times on this trip.

So many of the homes had weathervanes on their roofs. We were struck by what interesting shapes of many of them.  What a fun treat to see them!

We’ve been trying to find time to stop for ice cream for the past couple of days so this was it. Some really excellent ice cream and we got our cones and went inside and ate them while gazing out the water. A lovely summer afternoon.

Back to the house and a quiet evening which started with our picking ripe plums from their tree.  We took on the task of washing and preparing them for Karin to cook them into a wonderful sauce.

One of the highlights was also trying to focus on the amazing night blooming lilies. We finally caught a couple of them in the process of opening.  They would slowly unfold and then suddenly pop completely open. Wonderful. And then off to bed.

July 24 Day 41 Copenhagen

Today we took a drive to the east for another family dinner. On the way we got to see the countryside, and stopped at delightful lake where had the chance to watch families play in the water.

The gathering was at the home of Willy’s sister, Bente, and her husband, Mogens. We enjoyed meeting them when we were in Denmark before. We were pleasantly pleased to know that their brother, Ejvind and his wife, Ellinor, who normally lived in Mexico were here for a visit and would be joining us. So nice to get a chance to also meet them. We were also really happy that later on Bente and Mogen’s daughter, Helena, arrived introducing us to her fiancé, Jakob. They recently became engaged, as well as Helena graduated so there were lots of things to celebrate.

What has become a tradition for these visits is to pull out the family photo albums.  We were especially interested in the photos from nearly one hundred years ago of the family on the family farm in Jutland.

It was really a delightful afternoon with lots of wonderful food and great conversations getting a chance to talk about our travels, other people’s travels, life in Denmark, life in Mexico. Gathering with family, especially family that are such interesting people is such a wonderful opportunity. All too quickly, the afternoon passed and it was time to say goodbyes. To say goodbye in Denmark begins in the living room, and moves to the kitchen, and into the hallway, into the doorway, and sometimes out to the car, and it’s important to keep waving in case the people us are driving away are looking for you. Saying goodbye takes a long time. It was a lovely, lovely time.

July 23 Day 40 Copenhagen

We woke up to the sound of breakfast. Willie & Karin had been busy putting together a lovely breakfast for us to eat out in the garden. Listening to the birds answer surrounded by flowers.
Ahhhh, this is good.

Today the four of us would take the train into Copenhagen with the special focus on going to Christiansborg’s castle. There we would see an amazing display of modern tapestries done by one of the finiest artists in Denmark, Bjørn Nørgaard.

This was another one of the Danish Royal palaces, and it was lovely to see there were so many wonderful rooms. And we really enjoyed seeing the library seeing the ballroom, seeing the way that they do the Royal Place settings. They have people whose whole job it is to make sure the place settings are just right and it takes three days to set the table for these royal dinners.

The grounds of the palace were so beautiful.  What a great setting for a photo of Willie and Karin. We strolled around enjoying such things as the new statue which featured at King holding two towers upside down. The artist stated he wanted to arouse curiosity. Success.

Lunch was fish and chips with a view of the water in the canals. Then we also had a chance to see the outside of the building Karin and Willie lived in when they were first married many years ago. It was fun to hear their reflections on how life in the city had changed in that time.

Copenhagen has bicycles, bike lanes, and bike bridges everywhere. 62% of people in Copenhagen used bikes to commute to work, wow. It is a very bike friendly city.

We took the Metro back to their house, and then enjoyed an amazing salmon dinner. Great, great food. Another beautiful day in the city of Copenhagen.