Vordingborg

Sunday:

We had breakfast outside, finished packing up, and hit the road. While I didn't fall asleep like nearly every other road trip in Denmark so far, I got a headache. Bella was in the middle seat, so she of course, wasn't the most happy, but I ended up playing different songs on my ipod for her, having her wear my headphones, rather than listening to my music myself. I was impressed by how much she liked some of my stuff. Can I be the cool older sister who listens to strange but awesome music and goes to concerts and things? Can I have that label? I think I'd like that. Anyways, we were still having a bit of some gps difficulties, so at one point, we ended up going around a round-a-bout at least 3 times. Also, when you're driving around Denmark, you see a certain word a lot. And that word is Fart. It was quite baffling, but Ida finally cleared it up. Fart means speed. Well. Who knew. I thought Denmark was windy, but geez.

We eventually reached our destination which was actually a grocery store. Netto. We found bread and applesin (orange juice, actually. Apple does not look like apple) and eggs and Danish One Direction books (why? Idk.) and we met Trine. We did not buy any books, but we all got our groceries and headed out to "the summer house."   

Hooray! Home at last. Our two families met, we checked out this house, & we ate some food. The summer house is cool in many different ways, but one of the things that stick out to me is the pinups. There's a bunch of vintage drawings of pinup girls, which is already neat in their vintage, but the scenarios are pretty odd sometimes.

The girl in the bathroom is cuddling with a snowman. Another girl may have been a mermaid, because a sleeve of scales are peeling off her legs (and there's a random fish). And the one above the couch seems vaguely racist because she's holding a black babydoll but it's just so odd you're not really sure about it all. Also, a pinup can be scandalous, but in this house, they are often found to be in long sleeve shirts and pants. They're going with the "leaving more up to the imagination" philosophy. But anyhow, I especially like the mermaid/fish girl, and the whole house is really adorable.

There is no wifi, very sparse phone signal, and the TV was questionable, so we are pretty secluded, but we basically just went to bed as soon as Trine and family left and we had taken showers. 11:30. I was out pretty quick.

Monday:

I may not care a whit about March Madness or NFL Draft or the Major Leagues (or most sports movies), but let me tell ya, I am hooked to the World Cup. I care more about Costa Rica than US, but I even found myself watching the Argentina/Iran game. Idk what it is with Americans, but I find this sport way easier to follow and more interesting to watch. Also, somehow I got used to calling it "futbol" so whenever my siblings call it soccer I'm like "right... it's called that." Let me blow your mind with something.

English: soccer German: fußball   
English: foosball table German: tisch fußball It doesn't work as well in writing as it does verbally, but it sounds like EXACTLY the same thing. (Also, Dansk: fodbold) Whaaaat. Yeah. Education.  

We missed the US/Portugal game Sunday night, and had no way to know how it went. So we had breakfast, & got ready to go. We went into the town of Vordingborg to see the Goose Tower. On the way, we stopped by a gas station to see if we could get me a cheap sim card so my phone could work, but that didn't work out.
 
One of the neat things about some of these Danish towns (at least in this southern area) is that each includes a "walking street." It's simple. The street is blocked off, no cars, no motorized vehicles, most people walk their bikes (but some still ride), and you can walk along the shops and everything. I may be learning an inordinate amount of Danish traffic laws, but it's really interesting to compare them to American laws. I like the less-strict aspect of the US, but I gotta say, the bike lanes and walking streets in Denmark are pretty sweet. I haven't even ridden a single bike, but I feel like I'm gonna miss this when I get home. They have freakin traffic lights for the bike lane. Isn't that incredible?

Anyways, we walked the walking street, checked out a phone place (need a contract for them!) And ended up at the Goose Tower. They have this museum (that we didn't go in) and you can get an iPad and walk around the grounds, and it will basically be your guided tour. There's also medieval type stuff to play with (swords, stilts, etc), so the younger too really got into that stuff. And I am terrible on stilts. Then a lady came up and told us that she had to pack the stuff up, and that's how we found out about the museum. Also, in Denmark (at least in the smaller towns), things close really early. Like, most stuff closes at five. We looked at the Tower, and then went on back to the car.       

We actually went to 2 grocery stores before heading back for dinner. Kvickly to check out sim cards (for sure, we're done now, I don't need to text!), and Netto to actually buy food.

After dinner we took out kayaks and kayaked around in this lake that was less than a foot deep. You could literally walk across the whole lake. Bella and Alex raced halfway to a rock and back. It was that shallow. But hey, I have now kayaked in Denmark. That's pretty awesome. Kayaks are annoyingly heavy though, so lugging them down to the lake and back was kinda annoying. Still worth it for that one time.

Since we're in the middle of nowhere, not much comes through, but the TV WAS suppose to work, so we tried to figure it out so we could watch the World Cup. FIFA, yo. We finally got it on and connected to things, so we left my dad to find how to view channels while the rest of us took and walk and looked for bonfires. For some reason they celebrate the Summer Solstice after it already happens? I never quite figured out why. But that was the night there were to be bonfires. And..  we kinds saw some. Like, 3. But nobody was out where we were. Bella and I walked faster than my mom and Alex, so we got back slightly before. And lo and behold, a few minutes after we get back, Alex comes in with a hedgehog. Playing dead does NOT prevent you from being picked up.

So. Let me tell you about Danish night tv. They had news and local channels and all that, but 2 channels stood out. We know no Danish, so this is completely our interpretation, but there's only so many ways you can interpret something.    

1. Security Camera TV     
This is possibly a reality TV show, but it's so strange, who really knows. Basically, it's in this one building (we assume it's only one, but could be more) and it just switches between different security cameras. You'll be in an empty hallway, and then it'll switch to another empty hallway where it'll random zoom in on nothing or pan left into more hallway then it'll be in a bathroom where it sounds like somebody is throwing up in the hall, and then you get a hallway with a couple walking away from you and speaking in Danish but mostly just empty hallways 90% of the time. SO WEIRD. Who watches this? Except for us, confused Americans. It's mind numbingly boringly fascinating because you just want something to happen, even when it's as boring as somebody walking down the hall having a conversation in Danish. That show would NOT fly in the US. And it lasted forever, too. Some questions can never be answered. This show is one of them.

2. Cartoon Sleep Time
After explanation, this one made more sense. But without one, pfft, good luck. I actually took a couple pictures of the TV at this point. What is happening? People are sleeping. Like, real people are sleeping in the middle of the wilderness. In sleeping bags and next to fires and such. There was even a fisherman who was falling asleep while trying to fish in the middle of the night. AND THEN. It pans across the next set of sleeping people and these people aren't people. These people are muppets. Not the Muppets we would recognize, but muppets nonetheless. And they're sleeping too. And this bear character, and this bird character, and 2 with weird teeth. And there's a timer countdown for just under 8 hours. So, you get hours and hours and HOURS of people and muppets sleeping. Lol, what?

Here's what's up. This is the kid's channel and kids should not be staying up all night watching tv, so instead of doing whatever we do with our kids channels (honestly, I don't know. Shows just how much I watch TV. Netflix is my homie.), they just have hours of the cartoon characters from the day, sleeping through the night, because that's what you should be doing. I think that's kinda genius, actually. Probably also wouldn't fly in the US, but pretty nifty all the same.

After all that, World Cup is on a paid channel. Goshdarnit.

Tuesday:

We again got up fairly late. When you don't *have* to get up at a specific time while on vacation, it just doesn't happen.

We took the 40 min drive from the Summer House to Nykøbing Falster, or F (the F is important because there's 3 towns in Denmark called Nykøbing, meaning, new trading town).

I think I shall forever appreciate the size of American bathrooms. The house itself is tiny, which is ok, but the bathroom, my gosh. It's incredible that you can fit a toilet, sink, and shower in a space that's BARELY bigger than the bathroom on airplanes. The shower was like 1 ft by 3 ft. I was very impressed. Imagine living there year round. Hahahaha, I am American. Costa Rica may have "suicide showers," but Denmark has "closet showers." Don't be claustrophobic here. Also, she had not only a washer, but a dryer too. I can live without a dryer, but man, it is so nice to have both. So, laundry day.

The 2 families walked together into the town of Nykøbing itself. Here's where we got another of our questions answered. We'd been seeing a lot of people my age walking around in what looked like nautical caps. Some kind of fashion trend? We had no idea. The real answer is that they're basically like graduation caps. The last few weeks before the kids graduate the school, they wear their caps all the time, and there's a different colored band for the kind of high school they went. I want one. I'd trade my graduation cap for one of those anyways.

Nykøbing is a cute little town. We walked around for maybe 2 hours, and grabbed a small pizza on the way back home. Trine made us a great dinner, we had a lot of awesome Danish desserts, and we had great many fascinating conversations.

It was dark by the time we went home and got to bed. And for Denmark, that's saying something.