THREE GENERATIONS IN DENMARK

THREE GENERATIONS IN DENMARK

Home exchanges require a suspension of distrust - how else can you turn over your house and its contents, as well as, perhaps, your car, to a family you know only by name and address, plus the sparse details that come through on the International Vacations website (www.intervac.com)?
But urged by friends who have had a number of exchanges, and buoyed by the thought of being able to spend enough time in one place to begin to understand it, we embarked on our Danish adventure on July 2, 2003.
Having been incautious enough to promise my granddaughter a trip to Europe upon high school graduation, when time came to make good on the promise, a house exchange to Italy appeared to satisfy the spirit and the letter of the commitment.
Alas, as I sifted through the Italian exchanges offered, Bush’s Iraqi misadventure was in the offing. Italians appeared to want nothing to do with America, and a number of inquiries produced no results.
But from the listing on-line of my own house, I began to get e-mails from Ireland, England and Scandinavia. Northern Europe evidently didn’t share Southern Europe’s distaste for America and its foreign policy.
Denmark won out over the others - it would be a little more foreign, but we heard that virtually everyone spoke English (which turned out to be accurate) - and Copenhagen, where we would be living, was very high on the list of “best places” of most people we talked with about the trip.
So, the trip began to take on a life of its own. Both ourselves - me, my daughter Jo Hannah, my granddaughter Stanzie, and my friend Carol Miller - and the exchanging family would fly Iceland Air via Reykjavik, arriving in each other’s communities on the same day.

Iceland Air has a single gate at the Copenhagen Airport, and we were able to spend a brief time after our arrival with the departing family that would be coming to Lexington. Given the six hour time difference between Boston and Copenhagen, they still got to Lexington on the 3rd.
Denmark has, so far, refused to adopt the euro, the new currency which is supposed to replace all the traditional European marks, and pounds, and pesetas, and lire. Kroner (crown) is used in all the Scandinavian countries - but to make life as complicated as possible, each kroner has a different value, both against the dollar and against each other.
The taxi ride into the Bronsjoi (pronounced approximately ‘brounshoy’)
section of Copenhagen, our new home, confirmed Denmark’s reputation as one of the most expensive countries in Europe.

But we were there at last, and the house was very much as our hosts had described it in the e-mails we had exchanged - three bedrooms, one bath with a second lavatory in the finished basement, a kitchen/dining room, living room, and the prize: a garden with a covered patio off the kitchen where we often ate.
Lots in Bronsjoi are small by our standards, but virtually every one is alive with flowers, small trees, bushes, and shrubs. Sitting in our garden, we could see only the roofs of neighboring houses, despite their nearness.
The surrounding streets were quiet, with little through traffic and few pedestrians - but many bicycles, about which I will have more to say.
Streets are narrow and not generally laid out in easy-to-understand patterns. Our first venture to the food markets recommended by our hosts resulted in our getting lost, despite the excellent maps we were left. Getting lost became the norm, at least in part because the street names were so unfamiliar.
Copenhagen, and most of Denmark, is much farther north than Boston, and we were blessed with light until after ten o’clock in the evening in July. Unfortunately for the Danes, in winter the day ends before four o’clock in the afternoon, the other half of the cycle.

Our marketing venture that first day brought us our initial instance of Danes going far beyond the norm to help us out. As we wandered the unfamiliar aisles of the small supermarket, trying to understand kilos and liters amid the array of never-before-seen labels, another customer became our guardian, with advice and comments that were very helpful. That experience was replicated with almost no exceptions throughout our stay.

Unlike many major cities in the United States, Copenhagen has a superb transportation system, with buses everywhere. Between excellent public transit service, the nearly universal use of bicycles, and gasoline priced at nearly $5 a gallon, the automobile is not nearly as ubiquitous as here.
Housewives carrying their groceries home from the market, businessmen in suits and ties, children of all ages, grandfathers and grandmothers on errands - all ride bikes. With the country predominantly flat - the highest point in Denmark is just over 500 feet above sea level - highly geared bikes are a novelty, and many looked very much like the single speed balloon-tired affairs I learned to ride on seventy years ago.
Major streets are laid out with sidewalks for pedestrians, then a parking lane for cars, next a bicycle lane and finally two or four traffic lanes. A driver from the U.S. finds it unnerving to need to watch for the thousands of bikes that are running along on his right. (They do drive on the right side of the road, however, so we avoided the learning curve needed in some other countries with a different orientation.)
Stanzie was fascinated by the variety of automobiles - Russian,
Spanish, Czech among other imports - many with brand names we knew but models we had never seen in America. As a corollary to the price of gasoline, most cars are small by American standards, which may be why so many were new to us.

When we arrived back in Lexington, we learned that the exchange family rested and relaxed for two or three days before venturing out into the wilds of New England. But that is not the mode of Americans in Europe, even those like us with four weeks ahead of us.
Making the most of every day and opportunity seems to me peculiarly American. Perhaps it is just a carryover from the felt need of immigrants and children of immigrants, like my parents and myself, to work extra hard to gain recognition and acceptance.
From my experience traveling a month in New Zealand, ‘time out’ becomes a necessity after a while. But we wanted to waste no time getting into the experience of living in Denmark. Although we all tended to sleep later in the morning than was our habit at home, our first full day included shopping for food, and a trip south of Copenhagen to a contemporary museum, at Arkan on the beach. The building was memorable - the collection was not - and we had accomplished something on our first day! (There were few people in the museum, and when we later told Danish acquaintances that we had been there, some expressed surprise - it evidently doesn’t rank very high on the ‘must see’ list. For us, finding it was a rite of passage which somehow gave us confidence for more complicated expeditions.)

The above was written shortly after our return, but left unfinished.
Rather than try to recapture the impressions and emotions that were fresh in 2003, I decided to finish the story by transcribing my journal notes.

Wednesday, July 3, 2003 - A heavy, steady rain is falling at 7:30 p.m. on our first day in Bronsjoi, a Copenhagen neighborhood west of downtown.
We overlapped for an hour at the airport with our Danish hosts, who were flying out of the same gate we came in on. They have two very attractive adopted Korean daughters, and the couple themselves seem very pleasant.
The taxi ride in from the airport was uneventful - we saw some of the city but had no idea what we were seeing!

Saturday and Monday, July 5 and 7 - I’m having trouble finding the time and energy to write. Without a set schedule, we have been staying in bed until nine - it is now 9:40. Stanzie has not yet emerged, JH is reading more
travel brochures and Carol is making breakfast.
We were fortunate to contact Sam Berman’s first cousin, Paul Bergmann, the day after we arrived on Friday. An invitation to his daughter’s summer home for Saturday turned into a sumptuous Danish lunch for nine: smoked herring, smoked halibut, smoked salmon in phyllo dough, potato salad, egg salad, wonderful bread and SCHNAPPS and beer.
We stayed until seven in the evening!
Friday, we had shopped for food and visited a contemporary art museum at Arkan on the beach south of Copenhagen. Food prices seem high, mostly due to the 25% VAT (Value Added Tax) which is tacked on to virtually everything.
There were showers on and off on Friday, but Saturday was a gorgeous summer day. Before going north to the Bergmann’s home in Dronningsmolle, a resort town north of Copenhagen on the Kattegat, the bay separates Denmark from Sweden, we spent a couple of hours at a craft fair in downtown Copenhagen, navigating the streets and figuring out the parking issues.
Virtually everyone we met in Copenhagen speaks English and we have encountered nothing but help. Yesterday, Sunday, a friend of the Schultzes (our hosts) came by. He is a journalist who has been working for one of the political parties, but has quit to become a full time freelancer. He will take us on a tour of Parliament later in the trip.
His take on Danish society: not much “vertical space”. People tend to all reach about the same level, and the very high taxes, and the socialistic society keeps ambition at bay, since accumulating capital is very difficult with the high tax level.
We have met part of the Bergmann family - two of Paul’s daughters were at the Saturday luncheon, along with his wife and one son-in-law, and eventually two grandsons turned up, alas, a little too old for Stanzie.
I had forgotten how many people smoke in Europe, including Paul’s daughters and son-in-law - but at least they do so outside the house, but not quite far enough away.
Everyone was most hospitable - Paul seemed to welcome the diversion of having Americans around to show off his family and city to.
He is coming in half an hour to take us on a tour of the town.

Tuesday, July 8th, 4 p.m. - I write sitting at a table outdoors in a square in downtown Copenhagen near the canal and Parliament buildings. The ladies have gone off shopping, leaving me half an hour to myself. The sun has been out and is still - not always the case. But there is a breeze off the water which keeps the temperature in the low 60’s.
To get downtown, we took a bus this morning, walking half a mile to reach the stop in the shopping street nearest the house. The initial day’s object was the Round Tower -one of the taller buildings in a city where there are no skyscrapers and four or five stories is the norm.
Rundetaarn (The Round Tower) was built on the initiative of King
Christian IV (1588-1648) with Hans Steenwinkel the Younger as the architect. On July 7th -1637, the foundation stone for Rundetaarn was laid. The tower was the first stage of the Trinitatis complex, which was to gather three important facilities for the scholars of the seventeenth century: an astronomical observatory, a student church and a university library.
  The internal spiral walk is reportedly unique in European architecture. The more than 600 foot long spiral ramp winds itself 7.5 times round the hollow core of the tower, forming the only connection between the individual parts of the building complex.
From the platform, more than 110 feet above the street, we had a magnificent view of the old part of Copenhagen.  Rundetaarn is the oldest functioning observatory in Europe. Until 1861 it was used by the University of Copenhagen, but today, anyone can observe the night sky through the fine astronomical telescope of the tower in the winter period.
A gallery in the building featured paper art, some of which was quite lovely and some I found indecipherable. Lunch was atop the Post and Telegraph Museum outdoors - a great view but pricey, as is almost everything we do.
Yesterday, Paul and Gerda came to pick up us - in two cars we drove north to Hillebro to the Fredensborg Slot (castle) in the town of Fredensborg on the river Esrumo. We toured the castle, the spring and summer home of the Danish Royal Family, and the magnificent surrounding grounds, and had a lovely lunch with the Bergmanns.
On the way back, we stopped for coffee at the home of the Bergmann’s third daughter, in Rungsted. She and her family were in France on holiday. Paul proudly showed us the masonry and carpentry he had performed on the place. He is quite skilled with his hands, and appears to have much more energy than I do.
We got home about nine, completely exhausted after taking a couple of wrong turns on the way. I’m learning my way about Copenhagen, but the road system outside the city is still baffling at times. Street signs are on buildings, not freestanding, and difficult to make out in many cases.
JH, the designated driver in most circumstances, is not always willing to take direction.
I have had my free half hour - time to join the ladies if I can find them.

A long discussion took place today on when and how to go to Sweden, just across the water by either bridge or twenty-minute ferry. The plan originally was to drive to Stockholm in two days, stay there for two days and drive back, again in two days.
We looked at taking the train - but the fare turned out to be $200 each for the round trip. That put a crimp in the plans to take the train -
and then we learned that John Godoy (who grew up in Lexington and played soccer with Harry) lives about 2 1/2 hours southwest of Stockholm.
JoHannah dispatched an e-mail to him tonight to see if he is available to see us either coming or going to Stockholm. That will determine the travel mode.

I am having trouble with how expensive this trip has become, and I guess it is showing to JH and Carol as well. Although I was aware that Denmark was going to be costly, the exchange rate has worsened in the past six months.
But the real culprit is the VAT (value added tax) of 25% and which is tacked onto virtually everything we buy.

In contrast to New Zealand where we were interacting with the local people continually, our contacts so far have been only with the Bergmanns, and with our host’s friend Ebbe, a journalist who escorted us through Parliament. It has been difficult for us to grasp the essential elements of Danish society and culture.

The number of museums and castle is overwhelming - we will never cover half the things we would like to see, even in a month here.

July 9, 2003 - 6:05 p.m. A sunny but breezy day - Carol freezing one minute when the clouds obscured the sun and taking off her sweater the next. But it has been a lovely day anyway.
We got a very late start for Roskilde, a very ancient town just 25 kilometers west of here; it took just a half hour. There was a grand cathedral we chose to ignore to concentrate on the Viking Ship Museum, containing the reconstructed remains of five Viking ships dating from 1000 to 1050, which had been sunk in the harbor of Roskilde to deter invaders.
In 1960, the what remained of the ships was dredged up and the boats put together from hundreds of pieces. Shipwrights employed by the Museum are also building new ships, using the same types of materials and same tools and methods employed a thousand years ago.
The highlight of the day for me was a visit to a summer home/palace built 250 years ago and still lived in and owned by the same family. There were few visitors around, plenty of space and a sense of human scale in both the building and grounds surrounding it.
Totally relaxed, I even sacked out for twenty minutes on the soft grass in the garden. (For some reason, I neglected to record the name of the place, possibly the result of too much relaxation.)
We chatted briefly with a Danish couple who had a child who looked like my great nephew, Eli, but who turned out to be Filipino rather than
Guatemalan like Eli. Adoption of children from the Far East is apparently as
prevalent in Denmark as in the States.

STOCKHOLM

July 12/03 Saturday 3:35 p.m. I am sitting on a bench, drinking coffee, in the square in front of the Nobel Museum. I have a blessed half hour to myself with everyone else off shopping - the same thing we have been doing since ten this morning.
We arrived in Stockholm yesterday afternoon after shopping at the IKEA superstore in Linkoping with John and Marita Godoy. It is an amazing store - capable of furnishing and entire home - as well as providing the lumber to build it with.
Even I succumbed to temptation and bought a cheese slicer, pot holders and rubber gloves! A real shopping spree, for me. JH spent serious money.
After a battle with the directions from Linkoping to Stockholm, we found the hotel at which we had made reservations. It was adequate, with its prime attraction being situated on a quiet square where we were able to leave the car safely on the street.’
A half hour walk down hill brought us to the harbor for a two hour cruise around the islands which make up Stockholm. Lovely evening, good commentary during the ride with much history, well edited.
A poor choice of restaurants for a cheap dinner and back to the hotel about ten - a shower and oblivion.

Here in the square as I write, a Japanese tour group has raised their umbrellas - against the sun, which has finally come out after a day of clouds and showers.
Most of today we have been in Old Town, an island which was the original site of the city. We lucked out and happened on the changing of the guard at the royal Palace, complete with a band concert by a wonderfully professional band.
This is an area of very narrow streets and four and five story buildings, with the town hall at one end and the Royal Palace at the other. Thousands of shops with some great values - prices are lower than in Denmark and the exchange rate is 10% better. Carol is having a wonderful time shopping.

CONTRAST: Stockholm is much larger, noisier and dirtier than Copenhagen, but less accessible in of a feeling of community. Our impression is that Danes are friendlier, but that is based on very short observation.
Lots to see and do but we won’t get more than a brief sample. We leave late tomorrow to spend Sunday night with the Godoys, displacing their children once again.

Our visit with the Godoys on Thursday and Friday was very warm and comfortable. John and Marita have two daughters and a son - 19, 17, 15. We were late getting in on Thursday because of a screw-up at the ferry from Helsingfor (Denmark) to Helsingbor (Sweden). The ferry ride is only twenty minutes, but the attendant put us in the wrong line and we missed getting on the proper boat .
The Godoys live in a small town called Ljungsbro near a small city called Linkoping, about 200 kilometers from Stockholm, and a four to five hour ride from the ferry.
A barbecue awaited us, with Peruvian rice and Guatemalan schnapps and Spanish wine in a box. Grilled steak, grilled chicken to go with the rice and salad and great bread.
The children stayed elsewhere with friends to make room for us.
Marita is a district nurse, working nights and weekends. John multitasks - he teaches optometry at Kalmar University, four hours away by train, and works at an eye clinic two hours away. In his spare time, he founded Vision For All, a non-governmental organization which provides eyeglasses for unserved poor populations in various places around the world.
He was just back from a stay in Guatemala, where Marita worked with him. His work has taken him to other countries in South America and in Africa. He is particularly interested in Eritrea, where he hopes to establish a school for optometrists.
In his garage are not automobiles but thousands of pairs of donated eye glasses, which are carefully cleaned and labeled - John has a portable device which determines the diopters of each lens, and his train time is often spent testing and labeling the glasses.
He and the other volunteers - opticians, optometrists, and opthamologists - take the glasses along in large, hard-sided suitcases when they make their trips abroad.

A walking tour began our short stay in Stockholm, covering both the main city and Old Town, situated on another of the islands that make up the capital.
Saturday was walking, walking, and drinking coffee. Dinner was in a small restaurant near the hotel. The hotel itself was on a quiet, garden square on the north side of the city.
Breakfast was very generous and included in the price of the room - hard and soft boiled eggs,a dozen kinds of bread,meat , cheeses, cereals, fruit juices and coffee, tea and breakfast] pastries. On Sunday morning, we walked away with the basics for lunch, which no one seemed to mind.
With too many choices and only a day to see the rest of what the
town had to offer, we chose the VASA ship museum and the
Dronninghom Castle.
The VASA was a great war vessel which was built - overbuilt, actually, because the king of Sweden overruled the naval architect and added upper decks that could not be supported. She was launched in 1628, and sank in the outer harbor of Stockholm after sailing just over a mile.
The vessel was raised from the bottom in 1961, virtually intact, and is now housed in a permanent museum on the waterfront. The ship is spectacular, and certainly rank as one of most memorable sights of the trip for me.
I succumbed to the blandishments of the rest of the party, and let them buy me a baseball cap and a tee shirt celebrating the great vessel.
The palace grounds were equally spectacular, and then it was two hours on the road back to Ljungsbro, where John and family had prepared an outdoor dinner party for seven or eight friends, mostly people involved with his Vision foundation.
Among them were Jane and Frederick Bernhardt, their closest friends. She grew up in Connecticut and is a professor of environmental studies at the local university at Linkoping. Her husband is an architect.
As with the Bergmanns, alcohol is a very important part of any festivities. In the case of the Godoys, Guatemalan run was the drink of choice, along with wine and beer.
Since daylight continues until almost eleven at that latitude, we all sat outdoors until late, in an astonishingly bug free atmosphere - so much so that most windows don’t have screens.
After a breakfast of muesli, strawberries and yogurt - which is standard for many Scandinavians, we were told - we walked to the Bernhardt’s home, about 2 1/2 miles away. The route lay along a canal which forms part of the waterway that extends from Stockholm on the east coast to Gothenburg on the west.
The canal was dug by Russian prisoners of war in the early 19th century, for boats carrying freight from one side of the country to the other. It is maintained now for pleasure boats and swimmers, with paths for walkers and bicycles lining both sides of the canal.
The path led us by a series of locks to the tiny town of Berg, and from there to a large lake with a series of seven locks stepping the water down. There were lots of sailboats, including a Hallberg-Rassy hull similar to the Weiss’ craft.
The lock keepers were teenagers, and the canal was full of swimmers of all ages.
Another outdoor lunch, this time at the Bernhardts, who live in a 1911 home which they have added to and updated, but kept the the porcelain fireplaces, five in all - that were torn out and discarded from many homes in the past.
It is bright airy house with wonderfully proportioned rooms and a small outside deck on the second floor facing the lake.
Visiting the Bernhardts was a wonderful coda to our Swedish excursion.

Thursday, July 17, 2003 - We drove back Monday afternoon from the Godoys, catching the Scanlines ferry to Helsingfors from Helsingborg, across the narrow strait separating the two cities. We avoided the H and H Line on which we had had such a poor experience on our way to Sweden
(Despite our having had a reservation for the trip to Sweden, the clerk at the loading kiosk sent us to the unreserved lane - unknown to us - and we were the first car not to get on the next ferry, which was already half an hour late.
To add to my frustration, the clerk was quite rude when we remonstrated with her. Clearly, I was very annoyed, still steaming a week or more after the event.)
Scanlines did a much better job - at a 20% higher price - and we were home by 9:30 p.m.

Tuesday was a layday (the term is used primarily in series yacht racing like the America’s Cup to indicate a day with no racing - but it seems to fit here) - laundry, walking the neighborhood, a little shopping, catching our breath. The side mirror on the car was hit in Stockholm and needed replacement. The mechanic Ebbe suggested came through and will replace it.

Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 7:30 p.m. The storm that hit Texas some days ago has landed in Denmark, and the warm sunny day we have been enjoying is about to disappear as the storm comes in.
I am having trouble keeping this journal up-to-date, because I don’t seem to be able to leave time to do so. I keep starting the write and then I get pulled away onto something else that seems to have a higher priority.

Wednesday, we headed west a short ride to Trelleborg, Zealand, A preserved fortress from the reign of Harald Bluetooth. Trelleborg was probably built around 980. The circular compound is remarkable for the mathematical precision of its construction.
The ramparts of the compound have been preserved. They originally enclosed a military base from the end of the first millennium, and now have enclose a sheep pasture with the concomitant dung spread far and wide.
A small stream evidently served as a means of provisioning the soldiers stationed at the site. There were some rudimentary reenactments of Viking activities, not done very realistically - but it was pleasant couple of hours.
Trelleborg is not very high on the to-do list, but it does give a sense of how long people with well-defined skills have been living in Denmark.

From Trelleborg to a nearby glass artifacts factory, where I made one of my few purchases: a pair of blown glass salt and pepper shakers, with the artisan who created them sitting nearby.
Finally, we headed south in the afternoon to the island of Mons, due south of Copenhagen. Our destination was the tall chalk cliffs - calcenious deposits from eons of clam shells, lifted high in the air when the earth’s crust shifted.
They rise nearly 200 meters in the air from the edge of the sea, and a 497 step stairway has been built from the top down to the beach. It is an extremely popular attraction - more people than we had seen anywhere along the way.
I made it back up the stairs after deciding a lengthy walk along the beach and a steep trail up - the only alternative to the parking lot - was the greater of two evils. With moral support from Carol, and lots of rest stops, I made it to the top without incident, but my right knee feels it today, two days after the climb. particular attraction of the cliffs is finding sea fossils in the chalk. (I think we pried some loose, but if we did, they have disappeared.)
With distances much shorter in Denmark, we did all that and were back in Bronsjoi by 9:30 in the evening.

On Wednesday, Paul called just at 8 in the morning, and invited us to their summer house for a swim - our first, a lovely, wide, fine grained sand beach and cool water - 17 to 18 degrees Centigrade (62-64 F).
Not unexpectedly, there was a certain amount of toplessness among the bathers. But I guess I am getting old - no turn on.
We would have stayed longer in the water, but Paul was impatient for lunch. Back to the house we went, for a long, wet lunch with a wine I had not had before, “Vino Frisante”, a light Italian white with a mild amount of bubbles.
It began with herring, of course, - three kinds, now that the Bergmanns know we like herring. In addition, there was salad nicoise, cheese, quiche,and the usual wonderful bread.
They would have kept us all day, but JH was a little restless and we left about four for a quiet evening. Carol and I watched an old Western - “For Few Dollars More”, we think, but we never saw the title. Clint Eastwood starred, in a bloody opus that would be laughed at today, but it still gripped our attention.

This morning, rain. The car was repaired in quick order and we were on the road to the west a little after nine, for a more extended trip, Odense the first stop. A couple of museums which were not particularly interesting .
My impression is that there are too many museums with not enough material to keep them all in business. Carol suggested they are started to attract tourists rather than to fill a real need. We seem to be a little museumed-out at this point. The smaller museums have very little English on
their placards and often don’t have adequate English printed materials, despite the fact that the overwhelming number of visitors are much more likely to speak English than Danish.;
Tonight, we are in a five star hotel in Valje we found through the local tourist office. JH is delighted, as I think the rest of us are. Dinner shortly.

We are having problems setting daily agenda, mostly because everyone makes way for the others. which makes decision making difficult. Out in the countryside, it isn’t as clear as it is in Copenhagen what the priorities ought to be, so we waste some time trying to figure out what to do each day.
After the weekend our days are numbered. We go to Oslo, Norway, Monday night, returning Wednesday morning. We then have Thursday and Friday to see what else we want to see, and then fly out Sunday to Iceland.
Paul wants to see us again, Carol has a friend she wants to have lunch with, and the time is almost gone. Stanzie has been quite willful and moody at times, creating a certain amount of tension. I am sure it is difficult to be without someone her own age to interact with, for this long a time.

Monday morning, 7/21/03. It is cloudy with light showers. A minor problem with the left car door was fixed without incident by the family mechanic, and JH and I went off to do some interim food shopping.

OBSERVATIONS: (1) Danes almost never jaywalk - all the corners with lights have audible signals for pedestrians.
(2) As drivers in the open countryside, Danes leave much to be desired. As with other Europeans, they tend to rush up from the rear, well over the speed limit, and pass as quickly as possible, often honking in the process, impatient on the road generally.
(3) Bicycles are everywhere and there are bike lanes not only in the cities and towns, but in the countryside as well. National bike routes are shown prominently on road maps. There is no age limits on riders - we saw people who appeared well into their 70s and 80s, riding sedately with groceries in the front basket. With the terrain essentially flat, many bikes are gearless or of the three-sped variety now obsolete in the US. But there are plenty of racers on the road as well.
Bikers are generally very well mannered and riding appears much safer than in the US, with more space for the bikes and more attention paid by motorists.

We are now sitting down to lunch at a Danish IKEA, a second visit which resulted in a hugh purchase by JH . (I found a garlic press I like better than the one I have.) It is an amazing store. (At the time, IKEA had only a single store in the US, in Maryland, as I recall, so none of us had been exposed to the IKEA experience.)
At five this afternoon, we will set sail for Oslo, Norway, to spend 16 hours at sea - with all four of us in one cabin. It should be interesting. We will have 8 hours in Oslo, using the boat as our hotel. We have been told we can leave our belongings aboard.
I would not have chosen to add Oslo to the trip but JH had her heart set on the visit. In doing so, we will have bagged the capitals of Denmark, Norway and Sweden - only Finland remains to be conquered.

ASIDE: I have learned almost nothing of spoken Danish, but I can now recognize many words and can decode most signs. It doesn't appear to be an extraordinarily difficult language to learn, once the pronunciations have been sorted out. The Danish tend to slur their words, which doesn’t help.
Fortunately, as we have learned, almost everyone in Copenhagen speaks English - and people is shops and service positions often speak quite good, even colloquial language.

Tuesday evening - 7/22/03. Catching up seems unlikely. We spent 8 hours in Oslo, and as much as I was doubtful about the utility of this three-day mini-cruise, the sculptures at The Vigeland Sculpture Park absolutely floored me.
The 80 acre park in which the sculptures are placed was secured by the city and given over to Vigeland’s work. Vigeland entered into an agreement with the Oslo City Council in 1921. He made over to the city all his sculptures, drawings and woodcuts as well as the original models of all future works. In return, the council agreed to build him a studio and support his work.
In 1924 Vigeland moved into his new studio which included living quarters above. This was his home until his death in 1943. According to his own wish, his ashes are kept in the tower of the building.
The more than 200 full size works are stunningly life-affirming, focused as they are on all the stages of man’s existence, from babyhood top the decrepitude of old age.
Our city tour by bus included a visit to the Folk Museum - with its ancient buildings brought from all over Norway to be re-erected. We ended the day walking from the center of the city back to the boat, where we had left our belongings.
I haven’t paced it off, but our cabin measures no more than 8 feet in width and 9 feet in length, with a bath atone end. It is an inside state room but the air conditioning is excellent.
The whole tab was DK 1914, a bargain in Danish terms, about $300, but eating aboard the ferry was very expensive. We managed to have
dinner from the bread, cheese, and fruit we brought aboard, replenishing the fruit at a stand near the Folk Museum.
There was lots of drinking and lots of drunks, and lots of families with shrieking kids. Danish laws on alcohol consumption are much looser than the rest of Scandinavian countries and the Swedes and Norwegians stock up on a Danish boat.

ASIDE: There are museums everywhere in Denmark, - even the little suburb of Bronsjoi where we are staying has a little three-room museum into which Carol and I poked our noses in Monday.
Many are poorly maintained, with signage in English on a hit or miss basis, in most cases. Many of the sites we have visited seem to suffer from a lack of money or indifferent management or both.
Given how few visitors speak the native languages in Scandinavia, and the universality of English in the world, it is odd that more effort isn’t put into rending at least minimal information for those us unversed in the local languages.

On the return voyage, we again passed through the fjord of Oslo, and then out into the Skaggerat with a lighthouse to starboard. The wind is very strong out of the west, but the ferry, at 500 plus feet in length, doesn't feel the motion.
Only the muted throb of the engines can be felt away from the open decks. “Ferry” is a bit of a misnomer. With nearly a dozen decks, three or four different dining areas, and hundreds of cabins, it is very much an ocean liner.

OSLO IMPRESSIONS: Looks like wonderful public transit. Lots of impressive public buildings. A summer palace that is a working farm as well as a royal residence. Lots of greenery in Oslo - and easy to get out of the city.

I’ve been getting lots of walking exercise, and despite the bread, which is so good I eat more than I should, I don’t think I have gained much weight.
Often there have been stairs to climb, starting with 500+ at Mons Klint. That wa followed by by 200+ at the hotel at Valje. Today, there were many at the sculpture park, as well as up and down to the top boat decks.
The ferry has eleven decks in all with elevators that take one to the point where two fairly steep outdoor flights of stairs lead to the top sun decks.

OBSERVATION: We have heard a lot of American speech on the boat, and we have noted Americans in Copenhagen and Stockholm. But once we leave the major cities, the tourists are from Scandinavia or Europe, not the US or England.

I have managed a lot of walking and my hip has not felt this good in a long time. I’ve been taking my medications regularly, for a change, and perhaps that is making the difference.

OBSERVATION: The tall handsome women of Sweden made me feel short for the first time in my life. Stockholm was a sea of shapely blonde goddesses, each more comely than the last.

Copenhagen is in Denmark’s easternmost province, on the island of Zealand, and the early part of our stay was occupied with day trips around Zealand. To reach the other provinces required longer journeys, complete with relatively short ferry trips from island to island, and finally to the western peninsular of Jutland, an extension north of the European mainland.

I left out the details of the trip beyond Odense (the major city of the island of Fyn) to Jutland. Our first night was at a great hotel in Vejle, which we stumbled across by calling the local tourist bureau.
It was situated high above an arm of the sea, with 200 or more steps leading down to a trail which ends up on the beach. Then in the morning, we were off to Legoland, which is an amusement park promoting Legos, and catering to hordes of children.
But for adults, there were fascinating miniature representations of Copenhagen harbor, Amsterdam, complete with canals and Copenhagen airport.
That evening, we found a hotel in Arhus, the second largest city in Denmark. It was a lovely old building, but situated on ab busy street and an all night party across the street woke us at various times during the night.
I managed to spill beer on JoHannah’s clothes bag, which rightfully infuriated her.

OBSERVATION: As in most of Europe, breakfast is included in the price of the room., and depending on the hotel, it can be a great deal. At Vejle, the four-star hotel we were directed to apparently caters to businessmen. Faced with slow business on weekends, it offered a bargain - dinner and breakfast with a double room at DK975, which meant we paid the equivalent of about $5.00 for an enormous buffet dinner. I pigged out on dessert for the first time on the trip.

We wandered around Arhus, heard some jazz, had a good supper at a bar. The next day we split up. JH and Stanzie went off to see a nature park at Randers, a small town due north of Arhus, while Carol and I went sightseeing around the city.
After lunch, we found our way to a beach on Jutland’s east coast for a swim in water than seemed warmer - or perhaps less cold - than we had experienced at the Bergmanns on Zealand.
Finally, a ferry back to Zealand and 108 kilometers to Copenhagen.

On Wednesday, Paul called just at 8 in the morning and invited us up to the summer house for a swim. A lovely wide fine sand beach and cool water - 17-18 degrees Celsius. As expected there was a certain amount of toplessness. Most who went topless certainly did it for the sake of the sun on their skins - in most cases, I found it a turn off, not a turn on.
We were happy to stay for the day, but Paul was a little impatient for lunch. We returned to the house for a lazy, wet repast, featuring vino frisante, an Italian wine with a slight fizz I had not tasted before. Three kinds of herring, now that the Bergmann’s know we like herring, salad Nicoise, cheese, quiche, and the usual wonderful bread.
They would have liked to keep us all day, but by four, JH was getting nudgy - and we left. A quiet evening - Carol and I watched an old Western - “For Few Dollars”, I think - but we never saw the title. Clint Eastwood starred in a bloody opus that would be hooted at today, but gripped our attention anyway.
This morning, rain, but we had the car repaired with little difficulty and we were on the road to Odense a little after nine., to visit a couple of museums that were not particularly interesting.
My impression is there are too many museums with not enough material to keep them all in business. Carol suggested they are started to attract tourists rather than to fill a real need.
I think we are a little museumed out, at this point - particularly as the smaller museums have very little English in their placards and often don’t have adequate English printed materials.
We are having some problems setting daily agendas - mostly with everyone making way for others, which makes decisions slow to evolve. Out in the countryside, it isn’t as clear as in Copenhagen what the priorities should be. We spend time trying to get agreement on what to do each day.

After the weekend, our days here are numbered. We go to Oslo Monday night, and return on Wednesday. That leaves the rest of the week to do and see what else we want before flying out Iceland on Sunday.
Paul wants to see us again, Carol has a friend she wants to have lunch with, and the time is almost gone.

Monday morning, 7/21/03. (I suppose, since it is Denmark, I should be writing 21/7/03.) It is cloudy with light showers. A minor problem with a left passenger door, which the mechanic fixed without incident, while JH and I did some food shopping.

OBSERVATION: Danes almost never jaywalk. All the corners with traffic lights have audible signals for pedestrians. But as drivers in the open country, the Danes leave much to be desired. As with other Europeans, they tend to rush up from the rear, well over the speed limit,and pass as quickly as possible, often honking in the process - impatient on the road, generally.
Bicycles are everywhere, and there are special bike lanes not only in the cities and towns, but through the country, with the national bicycle routes shown prominently on road maps.
There is no age limit - we saw people who appeared well into their seventies and eighties riding sedately with groceries in the front basket. With the terrain essentially flat, many bikes are gearless or the now obsolete 3-speed variety that was the object of desire when I first learned to ride.
Bur racing is not neglected, and we saw many club riders on the roads.

I write this in an IKEA in Denmark, where we are having lunch, a second visit which resulted in another huge purchase by Jo Hannah. It is an amazing store.

One of the most moving experiences of the entire trip was a visit to the Resist Museum in Copenhagen, and I left wanting to know much more about Denmark’s role in World War II. Paul and his family escaped to Sweden in 1942 when someone in the German administration warned the small Jewish population of about 7000 that deportations were coming.
Most of the Jews got out - less than 500 ended in concentration camps. The Danes generally treated the Jews well but as always, there were those who collaborated and many of those were liquidated by the resistance movement.
In our last week, the weather continues warm and pleasant, and the vegetation is very lush here in the garden, where I am sitting and writing. We ate outdoors tonight as we have done on a number of occasions.
Although the homes in the area are built on what we would think of as small lots, they ten to be surrounded by hedges in addition or instead of fences in many cases, and most houses are surrounded by a variety of flowers and shrubbery - the gardens are very informal.

Saturday, 7/26/03 - 5:45 p.m. Stanzie has zonked out, holding our plans for dinner in downtown Copenhagen in abeyance. We may get there - but who knows?
Today was cleaning and packing day. We have ended up with three banana cartons, courtesy of John Godoy., who uses them to store his eyeglasses. Jo Hannah is using them to transport that fruit of her IKEA forays.
Hopefully, along with the rest of our luggage, everything will fit into the cab we will take to the airport in the morning. The other issue is whether we can check our luggage at there airport in Iceland, rather than take it into Reykjavik where we will spend a few days.
Since Icelandic Airlines doesn’t answer the phone on weekends, we were left without an answer.
We leave behind a house with lots of stuff - two desk top computers, at least three laptops, all connected to the Internet. A fax machine. TWo printers. A scanner.

Monday, 7/28/03 - The last leg - Reykjavik, Iceland. We have a very funky apartment close to the center of the city - one block from the main shopping street, Laugavegur.

Tuesday, 7/29/03 - Next to the last day. Iceland has ben a mixed bag. Stanzie has not been feeling well, and while we managed to get things done the day we arrived and yesterday, she has sp[ most of today sleeping or watching her DVD player, pretty much out of it.
Our first afternoon, we walked around the town center and got oriented. Reykjavik, in many ways, resembles an small American city in the West, with a facade of kept up buildings on the main shopping street and sleaze behind.
The older part of town is full of buildings built of vertical aluminum siding and stucco covered cement block. There is virtually no native lumber in Iceland - the standard joke: if you are lost in the woods, stand up!
The government buildings are in good shape, and the new industrial area and housing estates to the east of the older parts of town are very modern, attractive and well kept.
Prices are the highest I’ve every experienced, particularly for food and lodging, but for virtually everything else as well. The cab ride in from the airport, about 25 miles, was close to $100 - with the luggage we were carrying (we were unable to check anything at the airport) there was no practical alternative.
We had not planned to rent a car but it turned out to be the thing to do. Prices for rental cars have dropped recently. While daily tours for four people can easily run $200, we got a car for about $80 a day.
Yesterday, we took off midmorning for the so-called Golden Circle - a series of stops east of Reykavik. beginning with the site of Iceland’s first parliamentary, the Althing, nearly 1000 years ago, a place called Thingvellir.
Running through the area is the rift between the tectonic plates separating Europe from the Americas. The place is rife with Icelandic history, There were tourists galore, but we walked extensively over the area and happened on the Secretary General of NATO holding a meeting on his final visit to Iceland.
Stanzie and JH were thrilled when the Secretary of State of Iceland said hello to them! We talked at length with a helpful policeman who filled us in on some details.
At our next stop, a hot springs, there were a dozen “suits”, arriving and leaving by helicopter. The original GEYSER which lent its name to all subsequent geysers, is out of business, but a companion merrily spouts away.
Unfortunately, for Americans who have been to Yellowstone, Iceland’s area of hot spots is not impressive. A few miles away, the truly impressive double waterfalls at Gullfoss make up for it. Behind the falls was a a brief rainbow, which shown before the sun went behind the clouds.
Weather in Iceland can change from minute to minute. We have been lucky to have two comparatively mild days on Sunday and Monday, with lots of sunshine yesterday.
This morning, we awoke to drizzle that hung around until late morning. Since then, it has been cool and windy. Jacket weather for the first time on the trip. Now, about five in the afternoon, the sun has come out - but will disappear shortly, I am sure.

A highlight of yesterday was a visit to a contemporary church, built on a site where churches have stood since 1000 AD. Inside, a magnificent mosaic behind the altar and stained glass everywhere.
Serendipity: in the church, a string ensemble with harpsichord was rehearsing Beethoven under the direction of a Dutch musician in what is evidently a summer music school program. We sat for twenty minutes listening to the group of very talented musicians, entranced.
The place is called Skatholt. By arriving very late in the afternoon, we avoided the tour busses, which arrive in hordes to see the mosaic, and got the unexpected bonus of the music.
A long day - and we split up for dinner as Stanzie wanted lobster, expecting the Maine variety. Carol and I opted for a seafood buffet that was adequate, but no more. At $26, it was about double what we could expect to pay in the States.
Today has been walking and exploring Reykjavik, including the National Gallery with a few wonderful things by Icelandic artists, but not much else of note. A photo exhibit by a French-Vietnamese photographer featuring Icelandic scenes was better.
But one picture at the National Gallery struck me - it depicted Thingvellir in 1901 - and perfectly caught some of the landscape we had seen yesterday. I broke down and bought a poster.
Lots more walking today - my hip seems to be working fine.
On balance, perhaps adding Iceland for three days was overkill but the countryside has some wonderful vistas - including a huge ice field we saw from the road yesterday. - and we have seen only a tiny portion of this country.
Ideal would be a a week to ten day tour along Route 1, a ring road around the entire country. The interior is uninhabited and uninhabitable - and many roads need four wheel drive.
Probably, I will never make it back to Iceland. Too many other things to do. But the pictures in my mind from the day out on the land are very strong. Amazing how often I was reminded of sites in Montana.

Transcribing the notes I made four years ago reminded me of the superb hospitality of the Bergmanns. In so many ways, they were major contributors to my very positive impressions of Denmark. Paul is about my age and as Sam Bermans first cousin, brought with him much of Sam and Sam’s background.

Three generations traveling together worked pretty well I think it was hardest for Stanzie, with no one her own age around, but she handled it well.

Carol and I have done one more house exchange since 2003 woih great success, and would probablydo more, if the opportunity arose. Again, what made a huge differebce was a local family (in France this time) who adopted us for the time we were there, and provided the backbone of our experience.

Another trip to Scandanavia is not likely - but I still think about Iceland, and am still reading about the country and its history and its people. Perhaps ---