Denmark and Birthdays

My visit to Denmark was amazing! Louise was an awesome hostess and took me to many amazing places. We were in Copenhagen, Tivoli, Rømø, Ribe, Legoland, and Kolding (where Jutland's biggest mall is).

My first weekend was spent in and around Copenhagen. We went to some pretty typical tourist-y places. First stop was the Little Mermaid statue. It's not really something too impressive (Louise warned me about that from the beginning), but it was kind of cool to see. Plus, seeing the expressions of the excitable tourists was fun. Later that evening, we went to the Tivoli amusement park. It was all decked out for Halloween (Denmark seems to be trying hard to adopt that holiday). It was really fun! The next day we went to the east coast before visiting a Cold War military base and heading home.

On Tuesday, we chanced the weather and took a trip to the island of Rømø. It was windy and cold, but the rain managed to hold off. It was really amazing! I saw a few (dead) jellyfish, and people were actually swimming in the water. I guess Wisconsinites aren't the only ones to like polarbearing! After that, we went to Ribe. We climbed the tower of an old cathedral and got an amazing view of the town!

Thursday was Legoland. Yeah, it's kind of aimed toward little kids (and there were a ton there, but we still had fun. It's kind of amazing what people can make with Legos!

Then on Friday, we went shopping! Despite the near-fiasco with Louise's bag, we had a lot of fun. Maybe we could have spent a bit less money, but we didn't go totally overboard. It's a good thing I wasn't there alone. I would have gotten so turned around!

In between those days, we carved pumpkins, went to a relative's birthday party, to a small get-together and even just relaxed a bit.

Sunday morning, I was woken up by a group of crazy Danes, singing to me in their language that I don't understand. They wished me a happy birthday and gave me gifts. I got some traditional Danish things made by Danish companies. They're going to be really great keepsakes! After that was breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon and toast) before relaxing, repacking and heading off.

My trip back to Germany went smoothly. I made all my connections in time and had no troubles with my bags. When I got back to my hostfamily's house, my hostmom told me to set down my bags and go in the kitchen. I knew something was up. I opened the door to find my hostdad, hostsiblings and hostsister's friend sitting at the table with a cheesecake, champagne and gifts. They wished me a happy birthday and we all sat down together. We ate some cake, drank some champagne and I opened my gifts. I told a bit about my trip to Denmark and gave them hard candies made to look like the Danish flag. In all, it was a really nice welcome.

So, that was my first week of Herbstferien. It was amazing! Thank you Louise and her family for taking me in and being such great hosts! Thank you hostfamily for a great evening!

Bis später!