Autumn Holiday

We've learned that in Denmark the weeks of the year are referred to by their numbers. Most of these numbered weeks are insignificant, but 'week 42' means 'autumn holiday' and is therefore very important. There is no school for the entire country and nearly all adults take the week off of work. We took full advantage of this opportunity and had a blast! 

Commonly known as "The Great Belt" (Storebæltsbroen).
The longest span of this suspension bridge
is 1.6 kilometers, longest outside of Asia
and 3rd longest in the world. It is very impressive!

We started our autumn holiday with two days in Legoland. Denmark is actually the homeland of Lego. Lego headquarters are in a city named Billund, on the peninsula part of Denmark. Billund is only about 3 hours from where we live, and with all the bridges and islands it was quite an interesting drive. We traveled across the world's 3rd longest suspension bridge going from our island of Sjaelland to the island of Fyn, and then across another small bridge to the peninsula called Jutland. 

Legoland Hotel all ready for Halloween!

Legoland was a blast! We stayed in the Legoland hotel so enjoyed the decorated rooms, bunkbeds, large buffet breakfast, foosball, pool table, and Wii room. But the absolute highlight, of course, was the park itself. We loved the rollercoasters and rides; we marveled over the mini-land with Lego replicas of cities from all over Europe--with operating locks for Lego boats to get upstream and mini Lego trains running throughout; we enjoyed the aquarium with sharks and sting rays (real, not Lego); and we had fun watching the boys "earn" drivers' licenses and then drive around a road course complete with a round-about, gas station, and car wash. (One of the fun parts of the Lego driving school was that each driver had a Lego flag on the front of his or her car representing his own nationality. We saw flags from The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, France, and Poland. Ours were the only kids from the U.S. There was a Legoland employee out on the driving course who would compliment or correct the drivers as they drove around. It was fun to hear him switch languages depending on which driver he was talking to.)

Picture Time!

LEGOLAND hotel:

Maurie at entrance to hotel.

Cool fountain with floating Legos.

Goofy kids!

Having fun with  the cool Lego statues all over the hotel.

Give 'em a rope.

Pool sharks :)  This quickly turned into our favorite pool game: "spaz."

Proud of their contribution to our picnic lunch for day #1 in the park.
For those of you who know our history of homemade lunches and amusement parks...
those are PB&J, NOT meat sandwiches!  :)

Rollercoasters and rides:

Despite the rain pelting our faces, we managed to pull off a picture with all six of us!
Missed you, though, Kyle. :)

I won't spoil the surprise in this "POLAR X-PLORER" rollercoaster, just in case any of you make it to Legoland, DK. But it was AWESOME!! 

Every time we got off a ride we practically raced to the photo booth to see
what theatrics we had managed to pull off while descending at very high speeds to our death.

I still crack up every time I look at this! Travis is playing, but Ben is dead serious. Poor kid!
Lest you think we're terrible parents, he actually wanted to go on this rollercoaster several
more times after this first ride.

This fire truck "ride" is a friendly competition with other Legoland-goers to see who can "pump" their firetruck across the lot, put out a fire, and return to the starting position in the fastest time. Can you say, 'take down?' Ya. The Americans represented. (Unfortunately Trav, our key muscle man for pumping the truck
across the lot, is taking the picture and not in it!)

LEGOLAND mini-land: 

(I wish the pictures could do justice to the detail!)

Hoping no caption is needed for this one!

Amalienborg Palace--where the Danish royal family lives.
 Can you tell my family is getting tired of pictures? ;)

Even the White House made it into mini-land!

All out of Lego, and windmills and boats fully functional. So cool!

The famous "Nyhavn" street in Copenhagen.

 A real-animal aquarium was something we weren't expecting to see at Legoland, but it was a fun surprise.

This is one big-daddy crab. For relative size, notice Ben's head on the right and Jared on the left.

Walking through the aquarium tunnel was awesome! Sharks and sting rays were all around.

 LEGOLAND driving school:

Exiting the carwash.

Fill 'er up! 

Smug look raises suspicion about Jared's driving...



All over LEGOLAND are building tables. Anytime we needed a rest we could

just sit and build for a while. This table had motors to build cars so it was especially fun!



Why does it always rain when the Roths go to an amusement park?

Halloween decorations were all over the park. Can you spot the spider webs and over-sized Lego spiders on the castle?

After our fun stay at LEGOLAND, we traveled back to the island of Fyn to stay the night in Nyborg. Of course, we had to stop and take a picture of this sign. The boys thought this city named Middelfart was the greatest thing they've seen in Denmark. :)

Nyborg Slot. Established around 1170. Danish kings ruled the country from
here for centuries, and the first Danish parliament met here.

We had planned to simply stay the night in Nyborg but spend most of our last day in Odense, birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. Instead, Nyborg turned out to be a surprising highlight of our day. The Nyborg Slot (castle) was very kid-friendly with real chainmail armor to try on, a throne to sit in, a small armory museum, a lance for jousting, and stilts to try out (although I'm not sure what stilts had to do with the medieval castle). We had a great time exploring this castle and may even return this summer as we learned they have a knights' tournament every July--with jousting, archery, and sword fighting.

Grant couldn't believe how heavy this armor was!
He could barely walk!

Ready for the tournament!

Nyborg was a charming little city. We'd love to go back again.

Vikings in training.
 

 

Getting a free ride around the museum.

Our second stop of the day was to a city called Ladby, where there is a small Viking museum. This was interesting because it houses the only Viking ship still in it's original resting place. This ship had been a burial site for a Viking prince. He was placed in his ship around 900a.d., with 17 horses and a few other possessions. The ship was then buried by a large mound of dirt. Gravediggers raided the ship just five years later, but the ship remains in its original location. I wasn't able to take a picture of the ship as it is still under the mound, in a very dark space. However, here are a few pictures of the other fun activities:



We finished our day of exploration in the city of Odense. Hans Christian Andersen is the most world-renowned Danish author, so much of this city is built around his history. Most of his fame comes from his fairytales. He wrote "The Little Mermaid," "The Princess and the Pea," "The Emperor's New Clothes," and many others. We enjoyed seeing the Hans Christian Andersen museum and his childhood home. 

At the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen





Inspired thought.

So our first, and I guess only, week 42 was a success! We played, learned a little more Danish history, paid something of an homage to a little-known Viking prince, and visited the old stomping grounds of a great storyteller. It rained on us tons, and it was mostly cold, but we had a great time! I think we felt a bit of a relief...like we were celebrating having made it this far. We love being here--having these once-in-a-lifetime experiences and meeting such remarkable, wonderful people--but we can't help but miss home. Soon enough, though, I'm sure we'll be home and missing Denmark. :)

APPLE DAYS

A few of our freshly picked apples :)
Danish flags are always used to decorate on special days. This time
they were displayed throughout the garden (yard) to celebrate apple festivities.

This was such a fun time! Thanks to some new friends, the Lindberg and McConchie families, we were invited to join in what is becoming a very popular fall activity here in Denmark: Apple Day. 

The first of the two apple Saturdays was apple picking day. Unlike similar experiences in the States where you might go to a U-pick orchard and pay by the bushel for your apples, here we drove to open, public land and picked apples for free. The trees are not cultivated like in an orchard, and they've just volunteered themselves in random places in public land along the roads and in parks. As 'wild' trees, they're rather gnarly looking and grow similar looking fruit. But all of this added to the authentic feeling of the experience. 

See if you can spot Ben, Jared, and Maurie

The kids loved this day because they were the climbers! They had a blast climbing as high as they could and tossing down apples. They picked everything they could reach and would then shake the branches so the rest of the apples would fall and be collected from the ground. We managed to pick around 70 kilos of apples that day! 

Grant in the leafy treetops.

Cute Maurie :)

Happy to be monkey for a day!

Gathering all the shaken apples from the ground.

Grant and Mats Lindberg loading another crate of apples

Jared picking and tossing apples down to Trav.

Following an afternoon of climbing trees and picking apples, we enjoyed walking through the 'deer park.' This is the area that, for centuries, was stocked for the royal hunting grounds. Today it is open for the public to enjoy. We heard this beautiful bull deer bugle, as it is now mating season. It was neat to be so close to him! We also saw a rare white deer. 

We finished the day with a nice chili dinner at the McConchie's home. 

Washing and cutting.

The second of the two apple days was the tastiest! For this, we all went to the Lindberg's home to press the apples into apple juice and to make apple butter. It was quite an undertaking! People were cooking apples in the kitchen, making apple butter--which is quite like apple sauce. (They spread it on fresh rolls. It's very good.) Out in the yard, we washed and cut apples into quarters, then ground the quartered apples into mash, and finally pressed the mash into delicious juice. It was so fun to be part of this process! The apple juice was surprisingly sweet, considering how tart the apples were. The quantity of apples to get through this process was staggering, but it was a perfect fall day to sit outside and work together. Conversation was fun, kids helped sometimes and had a slamdunk contest on the trampoline other times, and it was great to take fresh pressed apple juice home to the fridge and freezer. 

Grinding

 

Pressing into juice

Slamdunk competition :)

Our perfect end to this day was a nice dinner with the Lindbergs and all the other friends who had picked and pressed apples together. Our dinner was a potluck with only dishes made of apple being allowed. We had some pretty yummy, creative food! (Pinterest is quite popular here, too.) After our meal we sat and visited around a fire in the garden until late in the evening, enjoying some Danish hygge. It continues to surprise me how often it feels like home here. This was one of those times.