OKAY! So. We started off on this bus. Our bus has a beer tap.
We drove to the Ferry in Helsingor. That's the Danish word for it. In English... its Elsinore. There's a castle! Its kinda far off in the mist in my picture though...
Its the blurry yellowish? thing in the middle. Its also known as... HAMLET'S CASTLE. Its the castle Shakespear wrote about :) Isn't that nifty?!
The ferries here are awesome. So much better/nicer/more efficient than the Washington State Ferries. Like... it looks like a boat and then the front is on hinges and just opens up like a giant mouth and the cars come out. And theres a restaurant and a cafe and a duty free shop and artwork... Its kinda really ritzy. No pictures though. Camera stayed on bus.
Anyway. We then got to Sweden! Sweden looks a lot like Denmark. Except all the signs have two dots over most vowels instead of the o with the slash or the ae thing and the a with the one circle over it. We drove for like an hour... Here are some things we passed!!!
WINDMILLS!!!
Anyway. We finally got to our hostel. It was really nice and it used to be an Old Folks Home.
It was a VERY NICE hostel.
Me in the window of our room at the hostel.
We had a half hour to unpack and get ready... Before they handed out the worst maps I've ever seen and gave us these horrible bikes. They point to where Nimis is... and where we are... and we head out and see BEAUTIFUL views in the really cute little harbor village. There were even thatched roofs!!!
Anyway. We then got to Sweden! Sweden looks a lot like Denmark. Except all the signs have two dots over most vowels instead of the o with the slash or the ae thing and the a with the one circle over it. We drove for like an hour... Here are some things we passed!!!
Downtown. Its cute. We only drove past it...
WINDMILLS!!!
Anyway. We finally got to our hostel. It was really nice and it used to be an Old Folks Home.
It was a VERY NICE hostel.
Me in the window of our room at the hostel.
We had a half hour to unpack and get ready... Before they handed out the worst maps I've ever seen and gave us these horrible bikes. They point to where Nimis is... and where we are... and we head out and see BEAUTIFUL views in the really cute little harbor village. There were even thatched roofs!!!
The view.
The sea view.
Homes in the cute town.
Nice hotel in the cute town. I think its name was Arild?
Yay views.
However, when we got down to the nice views from the little town, we realized we had no idea where to go from there. So we asked friendly Swede #1. She was a nice old lady who's very specific directions said "go out of the town, turn right, turn right, then when you get to Himmelstorp turn right." Awesome. Off we go.
But first... Up a GIANT hill. Sweden is VERY hilly. We get to the top... and see that the next place we go is also a hill. Ouch. So up we go. We're riding along... when the road just ends. It just turns into a dirt road. Megan and I just look at eachother all confused like and ask friendly Swede #2 for directions. He says "Its very close! That dirt road might lead to it, but I think its a dead end. So turn right, then turn right and when you get to Himmlestorp, turn right." Awesome. We got this... Again. So, we follow his directions... and they send us down the giant hill and back into the town. So we ride around a bit, wondering if we missed a turn. We end up by a bus stop and ask friendly Swede #3 where to go. She points to a giant hill and tells us to go up there and ask in the store... Only... that was the hill that we came down to get INTO the little village in the beginning. We heed her advice... and up the hill we went. By now, we're quite sore. And kind of frustrated at the map... and the lack of proper directions. We get to the top and realize that we're going in completely the wrong direction. Crap. All the way up that hill for nothing! Sooo... back down we go. We stop to eat in the nice little villiage...
When we're done, we ask more people for directions, but they're friendly Danes on holiday that don't know where anything is... So we just go into the ritzy 4 star hotel and ask. She gives us great directions, using a GOOD map and tell us to follow the red dots. And warn us about this dirt road...
So we go back to the dirt road we were at 2 hours earlier. Thats right, it took us 2 hours to find our way. Anyway, we take a couple wrong turns on the trail as well... but end up in the Kullaburg Nature Reserve. We follow some nice trails (again, mostly up hill...) and end up on some super rocky trail. So... we ditched our bikes and decided to foot it the rest of the way. Good decision.
The first half of the trail to Nimis wasn't bad. AND guess what we found?!
But first... Up a GIANT hill. Sweden is VERY hilly. We get to the top... and see that the next place we go is also a hill. Ouch. So up we go. We're riding along... when the road just ends. It just turns into a dirt road. Megan and I just look at eachother all confused like and ask friendly Swede #2 for directions. He says "Its very close! That dirt road might lead to it, but I think its a dead end. So turn right, then turn right and when you get to Himmlestorp, turn right." Awesome. We got this... Again. So, we follow his directions... and they send us down the giant hill and back into the town. So we ride around a bit, wondering if we missed a turn. We end up by a bus stop and ask friendly Swede #3 where to go. She points to a giant hill and tells us to go up there and ask in the store... Only... that was the hill that we came down to get INTO the little village in the beginning. We heed her advice... and up the hill we went. By now, we're quite sore. And kind of frustrated at the map... and the lack of proper directions. We get to the top and realize that we're going in completely the wrong direction. Crap. All the way up that hill for nothing! Sooo... back down we go. We stop to eat in the nice little villiage...
When we're done, we ask more people for directions, but they're friendly Danes on holiday that don't know where anything is... So we just go into the ritzy 4 star hotel and ask. She gives us great directions, using a GOOD map and tell us to follow the red dots. And warn us about this dirt road...
So we go back to the dirt road we were at 2 hours earlier. Thats right, it took us 2 hours to find our way. Anyway, we take a couple wrong turns on the trail as well... but end up in the Kullaburg Nature Reserve. We follow some nice trails (again, mostly up hill...) and end up on some super rocky trail. So... we ditched our bikes and decided to foot it the rest of the way. Good decision.
The first half of the trail to Nimis wasn't bad. AND guess what we found?!
HIMMELSTORP!!!
So, we turned right at Himmelstorp. And ended up by these nifty tikis... AND there were some yellow 'N's on trees to mark the trail...
Aren't they cool? I thought so.
Note: its a clearly marked, normal looking trail through beautiful wilderness! This was soon to change.
Soon, this trail seemed to cease to exist. It became a ridiculous, slightly damp, mess. The following pictures are of our 'trail.'
In these pictures, please remember that this is all on a slightly slimy, steep down hill.
Arrow! It helped. Especially since it pointed away from the nicely tread trail...
None of these pictures capture how treacherous this 'trail' really was.
Do you see a trail? I don't...
That's Megan! She looks scared. It was scary. I don't blame her.
In these pictures, please remember that this is all on a slightly slimy, steep down hill.
Anyway, then, we made it to Nimis! And, for hour 3+ hours of work, it was COMPLETELY worth it. 200%. Like, I'd pay admission into this place. Click here for the wikipedia article. Its super interesting! For a little bit of background: This guy somehow ended up in the woods and he decided to make his own 'Nation' of driftwood towers that you can crawl all over. They're amazingly sturdy. Here are pictures of the entrance! I'm in most of them :)
We found it! The entrance! Note that I am here navigating over large, slipperly boulders with holes between them.
I'm there, in the entrance to Ladonia!
Yeah... He built a nice wooden sculpture trail down. It was steep. And slippery. Make sure you get a good grip!
Better view looking down the wooden entrance. He built all this. Isn't that CRAZY?
Here you can kinda see the entrance tunnel snake around and such... Its pretty much massive.
Yeah... So he build all of this. With drift wood and nails. All by himself... (I took LOTS of pictures of it. Like... over a hundred. They don't get comments anymore.)
Looking down...
MOST of the towers...
There is a stone castle too!!!
Looking down...
Too narrow... We couldn't get through :(
Looking UP!
Yes, they let any child older than 4 climb ALL OVER these things. Its a scandinavian thing. They let their kids teach themselves through trial and error.
Books... nailed to a board?!
Crocodile rock!
We made sure to touch the Baltic before we left!
Back up the steep... thing!
Back up the steep... trail!
Wait! Where'd the trail go? Oh yeah... It never existed...
Anyway, we made it back only 15 minutes late! And then they bbq'd for us and gave us beers. Which I didn't drink. They weren't good beers. And we played cards for a bit... Before going and crashing into our very comfortable beds.
The next day we woke up, cleaned up our rooms and went... CANOEING! It was much more relaxing AND we didn't get lost! Always a plus. The guy said it would take 3 hours... It only took megan and I 2! HAHA! Take that... RIVER!
The next day we woke up, cleaned up our rooms and went... CANOEING! It was much more relaxing AND we didn't get lost! Always a plus. The guy said it would take 3 hours... It only took megan and I 2! HAHA! Take that... RIVER!
It was a nice river.
After we stopped canoeing, we ate a quick lunch, which included the tasty...
Orange juice (made my coca-cola!) and digestive chocolate!
After that, we got caught up on our weekend theme: lost in Sweden. We were told that when we were done, we'd be in a cute little town that we could wander around in... Only... we couldn't find it. Megan, me and 8 other people wandered aimlessly through residential and creepy industrial area... then Megan and I turned back to ask directions a the boat house while everyone else kept walking...
As we got back, we saw the other half of our group! Including group leader. So we followed them down the dirt road we'd decided not to take (always take the dirt road. This is what Sweden taught me.) And ended up in a really cute... something. Its kind of like a farmers market meets a plant show... meets farm animals... with windmills and a playground. We got ice cream there and wandered around...
As we got back, we saw the other half of our group! Including group leader. So we followed them down the dirt road we'd decided not to take (always take the dirt road. This is what Sweden taught me.) And ended up in a really cute... something. Its kind of like a farmers market meets a plant show... meets farm animals... with windmills and a playground. We got ice cream there and wandered around...
MINI HORSES! They were adorable.
Best. Playground. Toy. Ever. Its a tireswing zip line thing. Its amazing. And would be banned in the US :(
No clue what this is. But it was in the middle of the park...
After the ice cream, we heded back and found the other 8 people, who were upset they didn't get ice cream. So they got candy on the ferry. The rest of the ride home was uneventful. So I'll skip it so I can get to today's guest lecture!!!
Heres a SUPER quick overview since I'm really sleepy:
he was an AWESOME lecturer. He is part of the German Minority here in Denmark (Relevant because we're going to the Danish/German border region this weekend to study how people form their identities there) He started by asking us what we thought of when we thought of Germany... To which we all answered "hitler" "sausage" "cars" and "nazis" ...of course. Then he asked us how we delt with the bad stuff from our pasts (slavery, only atom bombs, japanese internment camps, and what we did to the Natives (which apperently some scholars classify as genocide...)) which was just us being like "Yeah... long time ago... We look to the FUTURE." After that, he told us lots about the holocust... Like how Lithuania used to be 45% jewish... then the Nazis came and killed 95% of them and how 2 million Soviet Captives were killed too. He didn't try to justify any of it, of course just mention how Germany has done many things to try to rectify the past like how they built all these giant monuments (pointing out we didn't have giant momuments to our 'dark spots') and how germans were scared to reunite East and West Germany because it might cause more nationalism... and even 10 years ago no one would show the flag or sing the national anthem because of the negative associations with nationalism (Hitler and the Nazis were all about nationalism) Germany even changed their flag and the national anthem (they got rid of 2 of the verses of the national anthem.) Then world cup came and everyone was so proud to be German again finally... but all the old people who were around for everything (since it was only 60 years ago) got scared that the nationalism was going to send them down the wrong path again. And now apperently germany is one of the biggest proponents of the EU because they like the idea of a supernational body that keeps peace... and they're VERY weary of war now.... for obvious reasons. He also kind of touched on how once Germans started publishing books, some of the people in the government started to feel like they were trying to switch the victimization and drop the responsibility of what happened, which they're trying not to do. They now accept this part of their history and are trying to behave and get everyone else to behave too.
Well... thats all I have for tonight. I'd love to talk more about this when I'm more awake. E-mail me if you have questions or comments or anything :)
OH! I'm pretty sure I have my travel plans all set up!!!
I'm going to lithuania with my program... then bussing up to latvia since their air port is the hub for air baltic. Then I'll fly to London and meet up with manda, zoe, james, and ryan. I'll spend some days there... and take the train over to brussels to see the EU buildings and such. Then train up to Amsterdam, then train over to Hamburg, Germany. Then train back to Copenhagen to meet up with my group for Czech Trek. The last day there is Thursday (in Prauge) so I'm going to chill there for an extra day and Amanda might(probably will) fly over and meet me... then we're going to go to Poland to visit Auschwitz. After than I head back to Copenhagen to start writing final papers... And this weekend I'm in the border region. Next weekend I want to go either to stockholm or oslo... and whichever I don't do I want to do the weekend after that since none of my weekends after that are free...and then Amanda, Zoe, James and Ryan are coming and visiting the 25th and 26th to visit And I'm SUPER excited about that...
Have a good night everyone! Miss you!
Heres a SUPER quick overview since I'm really sleepy:
he was an AWESOME lecturer. He is part of the German Minority here in Denmark (Relevant because we're going to the Danish/German border region this weekend to study how people form their identities there) He started by asking us what we thought of when we thought of Germany... To which we all answered "hitler" "sausage" "cars" and "nazis" ...of course. Then he asked us how we delt with the bad stuff from our pasts (slavery, only atom bombs, japanese internment camps, and what we did to the Natives (which apperently some scholars classify as genocide...)) which was just us being like "Yeah... long time ago... We look to the FUTURE." After that, he told us lots about the holocust... Like how Lithuania used to be 45% jewish... then the Nazis came and killed 95% of them and how 2 million Soviet Captives were killed too. He didn't try to justify any of it, of course just mention how Germany has done many things to try to rectify the past like how they built all these giant monuments (pointing out we didn't have giant momuments to our 'dark spots') and how germans were scared to reunite East and West Germany because it might cause more nationalism... and even 10 years ago no one would show the flag or sing the national anthem because of the negative associations with nationalism (Hitler and the Nazis were all about nationalism) Germany even changed their flag and the national anthem (they got rid of 2 of the verses of the national anthem.) Then world cup came and everyone was so proud to be German again finally... but all the old people who were around for everything (since it was only 60 years ago) got scared that the nationalism was going to send them down the wrong path again. And now apperently germany is one of the biggest proponents of the EU because they like the idea of a supernational body that keeps peace... and they're VERY weary of war now.... for obvious reasons. He also kind of touched on how once Germans started publishing books, some of the people in the government started to feel like they were trying to switch the victimization and drop the responsibility of what happened, which they're trying not to do. They now accept this part of their history and are trying to behave and get everyone else to behave too.
Well... thats all I have for tonight. I'd love to talk more about this when I'm more awake. E-mail me if you have questions or comments or anything :)
OH! I'm pretty sure I have my travel plans all set up!!!
I'm going to lithuania with my program... then bussing up to latvia since their air port is the hub for air baltic. Then I'll fly to London and meet up with manda, zoe, james, and ryan. I'll spend some days there... and take the train over to brussels to see the EU buildings and such. Then train up to Amsterdam, then train over to Hamburg, Germany. Then train back to Copenhagen to meet up with my group for Czech Trek. The last day there is Thursday (in Prauge) so I'm going to chill there for an extra day and Amanda might(probably will) fly over and meet me... then we're going to go to Poland to visit Auschwitz. After than I head back to Copenhagen to start writing final papers... And this weekend I'm in the border region. Next weekend I want to go either to stockholm or oslo... and whichever I don't do I want to do the weekend after that since none of my weekends after that are free...and then Amanda, Zoe, James and Ryan are coming and visiting the 25th and 26th to visit And I'm SUPER excited about that...
Have a good night everyone! Miss you!
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