A nice slow start to the day. Dick was quite sick and so not up to going out at
all. With some consultation, Patti was
able to find a pharmacy and get some Danish probiatics and some Alka-Seltzer
type fizzy tablets. The pharmacist felt
these should help him take care of his intestinal bug. This is such a miserable way to spend time in
a very lovely apartment right next to the Queen’s Palace. He was in bed sleeping all day long.
Cousin Annette came over by bus and met Patti in order to
watch the changing of the guard at the queen’s palace. Not super exciting, because the queen is on
holiday, so we just got the short set…but still quite cool. We had a bit of a problems finding one
another, because Patti’s cell phone was out of minutes, but finally worked it
out. The communication part of traveling
has gotten so complicated, but Annette was great helping getting things all
arranged.
Then we went on to her house with her son, Thorbjørn, who
just had a 12th birthday. A
great lunch and were joined by his dad, Anders, and a chance to chat and meet
them better. Her mom and my dad are
first cousins. We loved getting a chance
to meet her son and hear from him some of the important things that we should
know about their community. We were
joined by other cousin Kristian and his friend, Gitte, who were at our house a
couple months back in California. So
nice to see them in their city. We are very hopeful that we will have many more
visitors form Denmark coming to California over the years.
We all then went on a short tour of the neighborhood by
bike. Bikes are so important here, but
we have been warned to watch out carefully or you could get run over. We believe it! But this neighborhood was the perfect place to
bike. Great old shade trees, and lots of
buildings that were built in the 1700’s, with the “new ones” built in
1900. We made a stop at Thorbjørn’s
afterschool program, and got to see a very nice recreation facility. There we found that one of his favorite
things to do was play ping pong. This is
a favorite with Patti’s family back in the States, including with Josh who is
nearly the exact same age as Thorbjørn.
Patti and he had a little game.
What fun.
It was a great afternoon, and we ended with a little picnic
in a park right by the house where H.C. Andersen died. (Actually, the plaque on the building said somehting like "This building replaced the building where HC Andersen died...but close enough!) They were very good sports in trying to get
me to as many of his important sites as possible. We thought the old trees might have been
around when he lived in this neighborhood. Our picnic was lovely.
Thorbjørn’s dad offered to drive us to see the woods outside
of Copenhagen. Because Dick was so sick,
we had to cut things short and skip this for now. Willy and Karin came and picked up Patti and
then we collected Dick who was still feeling terrible, and we all went back to
their house. It is really something wonderful and touching to have some many
people be so nice to us. Karin made him
some thin oatmeal porridge which is what they feed sick children in
Denmark. Very nice. Goodnight, Dick!
It was a good adventure
in the city, more so for Patti than Dick, who mostly got the chance to lay in a
very comfortable bed and sleep. The flat
was fancy and nice. And if you have to
be sick far away form home, having your own apartment with a really good
bathroom rates right up there in terms of appreciation. Now back to our home away from home, to Karin
and Willy’s.
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