Au revoir à mes parents

Andrew and I dropped my parents at the airport in Copenhagen on Sunday, so they're in Paris now (wearing scarves and berets and eating baguettes, I'm sure), but not before spending a wonderful weekend in Copenhagen. Friday morning we woke up early and hit the road to Hov, which is where the ferry to Samsø left from. We spent a few hours on Samsø, a beautiful little island that would probably make a wonderful place to have a summer home or a weekend getaway. We drove up to Nordby, the town where my mom's family originally came from, for lunch, and then down to the southern point of the island to catch our ferry off the island to head to Copenhagen.

Beach at Nordby

Samsø windmill

On Saturday, we toured Copenhagen by boat. The city has many canals and we hopped on a canal tour to see the big sights before spending the afternoon on the Strøget (the main shopping area in the city and the longest pedestrian shopping area in Europe). After shopping, we went to Tivoli and then back to our hotel for a lovely dinner. All in all, it was a great weekend and wonderful to have some visitors! More photos on our flickr page.

Andrew in front of the library fountain

The Bernski hits Aalborg

Mom and Dad arrived in Aalborg late Tuesday. Andrew and I were at the airport twice that night, once to pick up the rental car at 10:30pm (right before their flight was SUPPOSED to arrive) and again at 2:00am (when their flight ACTUALLY arrived). But, they made it and we've been having a good time showing them around town (and around northern Denmark).

On Wednesday, we spent the day touring the Aalborg old town, shopping, and making friends with the locals while Andrew was at work - Mom met a nice lady who owns a shop where I might take knitting lessons, and Dad made friends with the owner of the local Irish pub. We also went to an underground history museum that's right underneath the main shopping strip. Andrew and I cooked them dinner at our apartment and then we all went for a drive to find a river nearby where Dad was going to go fishing at the crack of dawn this morning. (He found out about the river from another new friend he met at the local fishing store - the kid offered to go fishing with him, and even gave him his phone number!) After finding his river, we all came home and went to bed, tired out after our busy first day.

Today, Mom and Dad woke up early to go fishing, but it was a bit too wet, and he didn't even get to use his new fishing gear. At around nine, I met them at their hotel and we took off for Skagen, a beachy tourist town at the very tip of Denmark, where the North and Baltic Seas meet. Very nice, but we didn't go in the water until we got to Tversted, where we had some ice cream (at the recommendation of another one of my father's new friends) and stepped into the North Sea. Here's Dad, first at Skagen and then in the North Sea at Tversted.

We continued on our way to Løkken, which we all agreed was the nicest place we stopped all day. Here, we met some more new friends (also the nicest, by far), had lunch, did some shopping, and then drove on the beach about 15 kilometers to the next town, Blokhus. According to our new friends, this is the only place in the world where you can drive on the beach for such a long distance - it was very cool and quite beautiful.

Tonight, Andrew and I took my parents to the first restaurant that we ever ate at in Aalborg for a nice dinner out, before coming home to pack for the weekend. We leave early tomorrow morning for a weekend in Copenhagen with my parents before they head off to Paris. Our route to the big city tomorrow includes a stop on the island of Samsø, where my mom's family came from (way back when), so expect many pictures to come. Until then!

Out and About in Aalborg

Andrew and I have spent the past two weekends in Aalborg, exploring our new city and savoring what warm weather is left in the year. Already the temperatures are starting to drop from the sweltering summer highs (mid-seventies) to the sixties. Maybe that sounds nice to all of you suffering from the heat wave that's been hitting America all summer, but I would have liked at least one day this summer to have broken eighty!

Last weekend, Andrew found a lovely park for us to bike to on the other side of the Limfjord. It had a few historical buildings that were open to visitors, as well as a large garden with various plant varieties, including herbs and flowers and fruit trees to explore.

 

Today, we walked to the Kunsten modern art museum. One of the first things we encountered was a motorized couch that took off when Andrew sat on it. He wants to build one for our home to surprise guests when they come over:

The next room we entered was probably the best in the whole museum. It contained a smaller room lined entirely with mirrors (on the inside and out), which patrons are allowed to enter, one at a time, in their socks, for a period of about five minutes. (Andrew and I both went in twice.)

The room has only a swing inside and was both scary and beautiful.

In addition to their normal collection, they also had a special sculptural exhibit on wax, an exhibit exploring the themes ugly/beautiful, and a large sculpture garden outside that several children were enjoying in their underwear (they were playing in a large fountain designed by the same artist who created Andrew's moving couch). We are excited to go back with the yearly pass I got (which allows me one free guest) as they get new exhibits every few months.

(We aren't all high-brow... we also saw Bridesmaids in theaters yesterday but our pictures from that aren't as good!). Feel free to check out our flickr page for more pictures.