train trips and viking ships...

after another hotel breakfast: (ps- scandinavians drink more coffee than anywhere else in the world, and my favorite thing about copenhagen was the endless, endless pots of coffee....)

we went to roskilde, (pronounced ros-killa) which is about a 30 minute train ride. so we walked to the station: 

 and we passed tivoli gardens. i've been told that this is a very unique, not to mention old, amusement park. it'll open in april, so maybe someone else can let me know. 

we stopped by this men's store so ryan could try on a sweater (he didn't get it). have you ever seen a mannequin head with glued on facial hair? it's pretty gnarly. 

 this is the cutest dishwaher ever. gnome candles. i love it. 

uh.... what???

view from the steps of the roskilde cathedral, which has been on this site since 960 (no big deal). most of the kings of denmark had funerals and were entombed here. roskilde used to be the capital city of denmark. 

and here's the cathedral. can you see ryan?

some people build play sets....

and some work with what nature provides, ha ha.

ryan and danish ducks. 

finally we go to the viking ship museum. 

these boats were deliberately sunk in 1070 at fjord here to block the fairway and protect roskilde. they were discovered in 1962, excavated, and carefully reassembled. then, scientists use the clues they had uncovered to build a replica viking ship, and sailed it to dublin (which was founded by the vikings, in case you didn't know that.). 

the frozen fjord. 

ryan is being a viking, see his horned hat?

yup, people are ice skating. on the ocean. 

replica of what the smallest boat, a merchant's ship, would have looked like at harbor. 

ropes made of various materials. they even had one made of toilet paper, which was surprisingly strong! 

 sample cargo from a viking ship. 

weaving woolen sails as the vikings did. 

 and guess what else? you can dress up like a viking. see?

ryan would only try out the weaponry and armor, however:

here is some viking poetry. still applicable. 

okay, this is pretty awful. REALLY, IT'S AWFUL. DON'T READ IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR SOMETHING AWFUL. there is an account from around 970 of the funeral of a great man. they "found a slave girl willing to die with her master" (yeah, i'm already skeptical about the willingness), and then after a ceremony in which she is given 2 big goblets of alcohol, she is taken into a shack. the men outside begin beating their swords on their shields to cover her screams as 6 men rape her. then, the "corpse-maker", an old woman, puts a rope around her neck and gives each end of it to a man to pull it tight in opposite directions. meanwhile, another four men hold her limbs. then, as the men pull the rope to strangle her, the crone stabs her repeatedly. 

and also 6 horses and 4 dogs were killed violently to join their master. 

 remember that replica ship i was telling you about? where they sailed to dublin in the same manner that the vikings would have, in order to better understand viking life? this was the toilet. can you see the girl smiling in the second photo from the top? apparently, half the (volunteer) crew were so violently seasick that only the other half of the people on board could do any sort of work. 

lunch. falafel. again. 

ryan had fish and chips. he says it was ok. it was edible. not great. 

this is city shaker, the party maker. basically the same as four loco. you have to be 18 to get it. 

after we took the train back to copenhagen, we went back to the hotel, and actually, i wrote the previous 2 blogs. then we read, and went to sleep at 9:00. it's kind of boring here. and again, expensive and the food sucks. we're going back to holland 2 days early, yay!

a little bit of history...

it's still cold here. and i still wish it wasn't. but i'm trying to talk about more interesting subjects. so let's go to the danish resistance museum. ryan is going to go check out the casino and poker tournament, so it's just you and me. 

i began this part with a 3 paragraph history lesson, and then thought better of it. you probably have wikipedia on your computer too. so if you want to know the essentials of what i was going to tell you, click away:

Occupation_of_Denmark

Bulgaria

this is one the illegal printing presses that was used by the resistance to print: ration cards, pamphlets, flyers, anything illegal, really. 

okay, this was cool. this case was filled with items that danish people would wear/display to covertly display their Allied pride. this headband, for example, holds the music to "rule, brittanica"

these caps were very popular with patriotic Danes, who were fined when they wore them. and the bow tie is the american flag. 

okay, this is a terrible picture. but it's christian x, who was king during the nazi occupation. one week after they invaded, christian went out on his daily horseback ride through copenhagen... without a guard or escort. he did this nearly every day of the occupation. when a german soldier asked a civilian where his bodyguard was, the citizen allegedly replied, "All of Denmark is his bodyguard."

danish girls who went out with german soldiers were called "field mattresses". nice. 

this is a re-creation of how radio operators would use ordinary people's homes (a different one each night) to send out messages to the resistance. 

in 1943, the danish people went on a general strike in response to continued demands from the nazis. this is a picture of danish citizens attacking soldiers. 

and during these same strikes, in 1943 (the war was NOT over), this picture was taken. the woman in the middle had a nazi boyfriend. 

 if you had to read "number the stars" in sixth grade (and it's a great book, you should give it to a middle-schooler you know), then you might remember a little bit about the danish response to the nazi's treatment of the jews. and if you didn't, or you don't remember, click here.

this is a train ticket bought by a jewish man who fled to neutral sweden. it's a round trip ticket, so as not to be suspicious...

money from the theresienstadt "model" ghetto, where the few danish jews who did not evacuate were sent. 

this is powder that was used by boat captains to temporarily paralyze the noses of the dogs nazis used to sniff out escaping people. it is made of cocaine and dried blood and a few other pleasant things. 

during the last months of the war, attempts were made to stop arms production by pouring a stinking liquid onto the machines. the stench was intolerable, but only lasted a few hours' time. however, this method of sabotage was used at the end of the war, so as not to destroy machines that would be needed after.  smart!

self explanatory.

this rose was made out of chewed-up rye bread in ravensbruck, and given by a polish woman to a dane.

 then i went for a walk. it was gorgeous out: 

this is the copenhagen opera house. it cost 500 million dollars. most of it is actually underground. it was donated by Arnold Peter Møller, who's kind of a bossy pants.

that's amalienborg palace again. the queen lives in one mansion, and her son and his family live in another across the square. cozy. 

oh, yes-- our hotel is in the middle of the wedding dress district. ryan tried to convince me that someone might wear a big white dress for an occasion other than a wedding, but of course he is a boy, and foolish. this is my favorite name for a bridal store. 

thai food makes you warmer. scientific fact. and since the food here is herring, i've been doing a late breakfast and sort of a lunner thing. it's working out, no worries. 

tomorrow? VIKINGS! oh yes...