Copenhagen: Part 1

Last year we visited Denmark Twice. Yup TWICE. We started off the year thinking that my parents were not going to come and visit, and we wanted Denmark to be a priority for us to visit, so we did a trip in July to the land of our forefathers. :)  It was an amazing trip - very beautiful - very nice. Got to see Bendt Nielsen's farm and feel the ancestral vibes. It was great.  We spent most of our time in Copenhagen, but spent some time in Roskilde at the Viking museum, and also down at Mons Klint to see the chalk cliffs.

THEN... soon after getting back to Germany, my parents decided to come out after all. And they wanted to go to Denmark. So... we went again in September when they came out to visit.  This time we rented a car and drove from Hamburg through almost the whole country of Denmark over the course of a week. The places we visited included: 

• Tonder
• Romo
• Ribe
• Hobro
• Rold Skov (Forest)
• Mols Bjerge (National Park)
• Aarhus
• Odense
• Copenhagen
• Mons Klint (chalk cliffs)
• Kronborg Castle (Helsingor)

So - we have sooooooo many pictures of our Denmark trips that I'm going to split them up into at least 2 posts.  Here's the first batch!

Denmark has a lot of these crazy crows with fuzzy grey vests on. :)

We call this the "Churt-ch". Because the rock it's made out of is shiny black churt. 

See what I did there?  Eh? Eh?

At Tivoli, they had this awesome ballet on one of the stages with people wearing traditional Danish clothes. Awesome. It featured a scandalous supernatural character we called, 

"the fairy of promiscuity". 

Tivoli. It's a magical amusement park - apparently Disney Land was based on this place. 

Church of our Savior in Copenhagen. 

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Near the top of the spiral tower of the church. 

The royal guard posts in Copenhagen

Christiansborg palace. Didn't see the inside, but the outside is pretty... large.

Bishop Absalon - very important figure in Danish history. And religious figures that carry weapons are just awesome regardless. 

Inside Rosenborg palace. Silver lions, an ivory throne made from spiral Narwhal horn. Seriously epic.

The throne room in Rosenborg palace.

The crown jewels - in the treasury of Rosenborg palace.

Rosenborg Palace from the outside. 

The beach in Copenhagen. It was not super warm, but the water was soooooo clear. 

The look of traditional Danish churches. These things dot the landscape all over the place. Very scenic.

The white cliffs of Mons Klint. It was sunny and nice when Risa and I were there.

We joined the masses of saps who spelled out their names on rocks on the beach. :) Cute. 

The beach at Mons Klint.

Another example of the Danish style churches - love them.

The outdoor Viking museum in Roskilde. This guy is deomonstrating how to kill someone with a sword. Ha ha ha. Awesome. 

At the viking ship museum - actual viking ships they pulled out of the harbor and pieced back together painstakingly over... forever.

Far shot of Roskilde with the cathedral in the background.

The first day my parents were in town - hitting downtown Hamburg. :)

Inside the courtyard of Hamburg Rathaus.

From the spire of St. Michael's church. (Hamburg)

Inside St. Michael's church. Anything named "Michael" has to be awesome, right? And it is.

On the beach at one of our first stops in Denmark - Romo. Not terribly warm, but beautiful nonetheless.

The famous church at Ribe. It was rebuilt in a different style after it burned, so now it's a mash-up of differet styles of architecture. Very cool place.

The coast at Ribe. We didn't find any of the migrating birds we were looking for (black sun phenomenon), but it was very nice anyway.

This was in Rold Skov, a.k.a. the "Troll Forest". Soooooooo cool. 

I can see trolls living here. 

Risa sitting on a troll.

We stayed at this super cool guest house in Hobro owned by this old guy. Spoke very little English, but was full of energy and good vibes. Loved it. 

A cool striped church on top of the hill in Hobro.

An old viking castle ruins in Mols Bjerg National Park.

Mols Bjerg National Park. Awesome.

Holy crap. A tip to Hobro is worth the price JUST TO GET THESE PASTRIES. They're even called "Hobro Pastries" (translation). Oh. Em. Gee.  I'm salivating just looking at the picture. 

Cologne (Köln): not just a perfume

This post features our trip to the lovely cities of Dusseldorf and Koln (known as Cologne to anyone outside of Deutschland). Lots of cool stuff goes on in that region, including "Carnival", which is basically like Brazil's Carnival, but toned down and Deutsch-style. We were there just before Carnival started, so they had set up all the bleachers along the streets and were advertising all over town for it, but it hadn't got all cray-cray.

We started off in Dusseldorf. Our friends Justin and Miranda were flying through Dusseldorf on their way home from London and spent the night there so we could hang out with them. It was great! We took them to get some Bavarian food and see the sights (what there was to be had in Dusseldorf anyway).  I feel bad that we didn't take the 20 minute train ride to Koln to show them the Dom, but... we didn't really know at the time. Oh well. Here's some pics!

This may look like a giant turd on a bed of mashed turd, but it was delicious. Bavarians know how to eat!

This is a disturbingly awesome sculpture memorializing some medieval war or something... my German wasn't good enough to read the description. Regardless - it was awesome. 

It wouldn't be a German city tour without old churches.

The riverside buildings and scenery was very nice.

From left-to-right, Miranda Jennings, Risa Nielsen, Mike Nielsen (me!), and Justin Beecher.

Keeping with our travel tradition, we got some expensive and amazing gourmet hot chocolate. It's always worth it. ALWAYS. ALL... WAYS... (chocolate addiction is a real thing kids. Just say no.)

Dusseldorf struck me as a somewhat "modern" city - there were some very striking skyscrapers and hip business districts.

These buildings were all the way across the river. Go semi-decent-camera-zoom. :)

One of the best things about having awesome friends is that they bring you awesome stuff. Miranda and Justin brought us Rootbeer (an American favorite) and Three Dragon Ante (our favorite card game) among other things. This is actually the SECOND time they have given us this game. There's a story here, so bear with me. 

While living in Vietnam, Miranda also gave us the gift of  Three Dragon Ante. We began playing it with our friends there. Before long, Xavier, Maxi, Charles, and even Phi were hooked. And I mean HOOKED. We played that game every day at lunch and sometimes at parties. It was serious - so serious that when we moved, they would have cried if we took it with us. Naturally, we left it there like good friends do. Well... come to find out, the game is out of print! We tried to find another copy, but the cheapest that eBay had to offer was around $50! That wasn't going to fly. We nearly resorted to printing an illegal pdf copy, when Justin and Miranda came to rescue and brought us another copy. It was epic. They were like timely, well-dressed American super-heroes.

Now for Koln. Koln definitely had more interesting things to see, but don't let anyone from Dusseldorf hear you say that - I guess like many German neighboring townships, there's some kind of rivalry going (as we learned the hard way from our friend Helmut Winterstein). Check it!

A lovely banana mural! Lot's of cool street art in this city.

The Kolner Dom is the defining feature of the city. It's... HUGE. And amazing. It kind of jumps out and smacks you in the face right off of the train.

 Inside the dom.

Of love how Germany is full of unicorns.

 From the top of the dom. Now THAT was a lot of stairs.

A famous pair of statues in the city. Rub the nose for good luck. :)

This guy is hilarious. A statue built to taunt the government (housed in the building across the square). At least I think... I hope my history is right.

And the retort. Here's the Rathaus across the square with a face under the clock that sticks out it's tongue twice per day. :D

Again - a place of amazing street art.

As per custom - gourmet hot chocolate. Aaaaaawwwwwwww yeah.

It's tradition to write you and your love's names on a lock and attach it to the bridge. Imagine this going aaaaaaaaaaaall the way across the river. There must be hundreds of thousands of locks. Seriously.

And of course we did our own. :)

St. Ursula's church... not so impressive from the outside, but inside...

Yup - a giant room plaster with human bones. All over the walls, making interesting art - it was equal parts of creepy and amazing.