Copenhagen-
Time to get up and do some laundry. Part of the price you pay for traveling
lightly is having to do laundry, so it was time again. This time we appreciated having Karin to give
instructions, because the Danish washers were just a mysterious as the French
ones. They take a bit longer than ours
do to wash, and then put the clothes on the clothesline, which Dick and Willy
hung up. Gotta love those guys. The smell of fresh laundry dried outside is not something that we get to experience very often.
We had a couple of field trips today led by Karin and Willy. The first was to Drager . This is a small traditional Dutch village
about 15 minutes from Willy and Karin’s home.
You can see the water between Denmark and Sweden from there, and we
could see the new bridge that connects to the two countries. The town itself was built before 1800, and it
full of these lovely small, yellow houses.
We walked around taking photos, and then were thrilled that one of
Willy’s childhood friends was home there, and invited us to see what the housed
looked like inside. We can’t imagine
living in a house that was over 200 years old.
It was lovely inside. And Willy’s
friend, a retired “headmaster” married to a teacher, was a delight.
Back to the house for lunch and then we caught the Metro
into downtown Copenhagen to go visit the village of squatters called
Christiana. This was set in an area that
was abandoned military barracks and building, and in 1971 (during the time that Dick made his first trip to Europe) young people took over the buildings and
moved in. They have proceeded to create
an amazing community there. It is known
as a place of hippies, and there was an abundance of marijuana in sight there,
but it mostly had quite lovely, peaceful feeling about it. About 800 people
(adults and kids) make there home in this place. We had never been anywhere quite like this.
We went back on the Metro, picked up our car and bags, and headed off for an evening with more family. This time, Willy’s sister Benthe, her husband Mogens, and their daughter Helene. We had a terrific evening, starting out on the back deck with coffee and chocolates, and then moving into looking at old family photos. Patti got the chance to see photos of her great-grandfather, his Twin brother, their siblings, and see a variety of very cool postcards that a great uncle had sent to Denmark beginning in 1914 and that had been careful kept all these years. There were also newspaper articles, all in Danish, but we had several fluent Danish/English speakers there who could translate. It was all incredibly moving, and Patti took digital photos of the photos. We will have to see how these cam out, and whether we need to have some of them scanned. Benthe was able to say who many of the people were, which is wonderful.
We went back on the Metro, picked up our car and bags, and headed off for an evening with more family. This time, Willy’s sister Benthe, her husband Mogens, and their daughter Helene. We had a terrific evening, starting out on the back deck with coffee and chocolates, and then moving into looking at old family photos. Patti got the chance to see photos of her great-grandfather, his Twin brother, their siblings, and see a variety of very cool postcards that a great uncle had sent to Denmark beginning in 1914 and that had been careful kept all these years. There were also newspaper articles, all in Danish, but we had several fluent Danish/English speakers there who could translate. It was all incredibly moving, and Patti took digital photos of the photos. We will have to see how these cam out, and whether we need to have some of them scanned. Benthe was able to say who many of the people were, which is wonderful.
Patti also got her first glimpses of the family farm on her
mother’s side: Lybokbo….translated as something like Happy Farm. It did look like such a happy place. Patti
was also able to record Willy translating one of the news article interviewing
the uncles from America. Very funny! Thanks, Willy.
Benthe was terrific. She had been a teacher and a principal
for many years and was now retired. She
was both glad to hear stories, but also to share stories. One of her favorite ones that her
grandfather (one of the twins) told was a time when he was going somewhere
during the war (probably WWII). The bus
stopped in a little town and the people got off and ate at a café. Things were very rationed at this time, and a
farmer who hadn’t used his sugar in his coffee, slipped the sugar into his
pocket. As he left, a waiter chased him
down saying, “You forgot the cream” and then poured the container of cream into
the guys pocket. This was an example of
what great-great-uncle Marius thought was really funny.
Dinner was cooked and we were called inside to eat. Another feast was service, this time focusing
on Wild Boar. Yep, wild boar, which
turned out to be great. Patti loved
it. All of the food was excellent: great
salads, perfect bread, and topped off with a great cake. Patti learned to cut the cake by asking each
person how many “minutes” they wanted (5 minutes, ten minutes…some of course,
request 6.5 minutes). This moved us into
some great cross cultural discussions on things like which part of the pie do
you start eating, and what do your people do when children lose their baby
teeth. Inquiring minds want to know. And everyone was so generous with their
speaking of primarily English. Both of us know how much work it is to try to
find the words and to express yourself in another language, and these guys all
were masterful.
All too soon, it was time to pack up and leave. Invitations to come to visit were again
delivered and received. More excellent
family. As Dick said, “You have some
REALLY nice family.”
Willy and Karin then drove us back into the center of
Copenhagen where they were going to spend a couple of nights in a lovely condo
that Karin’s sister owns. It is in a
great, historic neighborhood literally right next door to the Queen's palace. Wow!
Again, how nice can you get? This
will let Dick and Patti more easily connect with family members on the other
side of the family who live closer in.
We feel in bed exhausted, and Dick ended up getting sick in
the night. Bummer for him. It is no fun to be sick and away from
home. He was hopeful that he might be
better by morning, but had along tossing and turning night. It had been a very full day!
“I
knew the vacation wasn't going to last forever... But the here and now was up
for grabs, and I wasn't about to let it slip away.”
― Amanda Howells, The Summer of Skinny Dipping
― Amanda Howells, The Summer of Skinny Dipping
No comments:
Post a Comment