Seeing Friends a Second Time

Last Monday I got to see Marianne, Viggo and Nis again. Nis had some stuff to do in the city and so I spent the afternoon with Marianne and little Viggo. We walked around RAINY Copenhagen and ate lunch. We ate at the top of Magasin which is a big department store. They had a great little children's area. Viggo had fun :)


Last night we had Kelli and Mads over as Kelli is visiting Denmark right now, and they happened to be in Lyngby for their nephews Christening. We had fun talking about Denmark and the things we have and she has started to get use to that are different here. There is something so comfortable about spending time with other Americans living in Denmark or in Kelli's case, getting ready to move to Denmark.

Just a sunset from the other evening

Odense Pt. 2

Sunday morning we woke up and Marianne went to get us some delicious 7 grain bread from the bakery. After filling our tummy's Michael and I left for the day leaving Nis, Marianne and Viggo to rest and nap.

The first place we went to was Skt. Knuds Kirke(St. Knuds Church). The church is Protestant, but was formally Catholic. It was named after St. Knud who was a former king of Denmark from 1080-1086. We got there just as the visiting hours started at noon and we had the church to ourselves. By the time we were walking out we were far from alone. I was glad we got there when we did!

Skt. Knuds Kirke

Looking Towards the Alter

H.C. Andersen plaque on the church wall saying he was confirmed here

The reason we wanted to visit here was because of something I knew we would find in the crypt. Behind the alter we found the steps to take us down where we found some old books and two cases that contain the remains of two men. The first case contained St. Knud, former King of Denmark. The second contained his brother, Bendick. They were killed while kneeling at the alter inside the church down the street during a peasant rebellion, where they had taken shelter. Apparently St. Knuds death is said to have been the end of the Viking Era!

Michael looking at St. Knud St. Knuds Remains

St. Knuds Remains

Writing about Benedikt

Benedikt

Literally down the street sits St. Alban's Church, which is Catholic. We thought about going in, but they had masses going on all day, so one church was enough for us. But it was pretty from the outside.

St. Alban's Church

The two chuches covered in trees

From the Church we walked around, looked in stores and window shopped. There is an obscene about of amazing looking wine and whiskey stores in Odense. We were in awe and wondered why we haven't found that many that were that big and so incredible looking in Copenhagen!! We also looking at housing prices and realized that if were were to ever buy a house in Denmark, we would have to move to Odense. The prices were so much more reasonable! We found lunch in a cute cafe where we had some nice warm coffee and tapas. YUM.

Cute Street

My Favorite Little Street in Odense
Notice all the lights in the air

Al Pacino's Pizza and Grill - This made us laugh.

Lovely Danish Buildings

Park in Odense

Cafe where we ate

Our train didn't leave until 9PM so after spending the day exploring we went back to Nis and Mariannes and talked for a little while before we packed up everything and left to do a little more walking, find some dinner and make it to the train station for our train ride home.

Marianne and Me

Nis Marianne and Viggo
Such a good looking family!

Pedestrian Street at Night

Odense at Night

We ate dinner at "El Torito" which was pretty good, the atmosphere made the restaurant. We had some Negra Modelas and tacos and sat for a long time to keep us warm and to pass the time. Our train ride home was pretty uneventful. It was dark but it was fast. We made back to Lyngby about 11pm and went straight to bed!

Odense was a cool town. It wasn't big, it wasn't small either. The perfect size actually. It was fairy tale saturated, but if you don't live there, it is pretty cute. I can see how it might get old after awhile though. Even a lot of the bars and restaurants are named after something of H.C. Andersens. Most of the time I forgot I was still in Denmark even though it seemed so very Danish and everything was written in Danish and people were speaking Danish. As we were leaving to come home Michael was talking and said, "When we get back to Denmark...." We laughed, and about 10 minutes later, he did it again.

Thanks again Marianne and Nis for letting us stay with you and showing us around town! We had a great time!

Meeting Old Friends

Five years ago while planning our wedding I stumbled across a website that made planning our wedding 1,000 times less stressful. It was a forum style website that was very active and I met lots of friends on there that were all planning their weddings at the same time as I was. One girl I met, AnnMarie, is responsible for this blog. She started a blog a couple years before I did and it was easy to keep up with her. She told me a few times I needed to start one, and finally one day I did. I think everyone that has ever read this blog has asked me, "Who's AnnMarie?". Especially when for a year or so she was one of the only ones that ever left me comments. :) She lives in Florida, and unfortunately, we have never been out there so I've never met her. But fingers crossed, one day we will!

Another girl I met on UW is, Marianne (Pronounced: Mar-yanna) is Danish. Her and her family were living in New York for the past few months and just got back in December. This past weekend we finally got to meet in person. Marianne, Nis and Viggo live in on the island of Fyn in the town of Odense. It is the 3rd largest town in Denmark but only has a population of around 150,000. Odense is on the island just west of the island Copenhagen is on and it only took 1.5 hour by train to get there.

Our train departed Copenhagen Central Station at 7:00AM. We left Lyngby on the 6:00 train. and we were up about 5:00AM. When we arrived we stopped for some breakfast and found our way to Nis and Mariannes house. Before arriving they offered to let us stay the night with them, but warned us we would be sleeping in the basement with the spiders their storage and the laundry. We were SHOCKED when we saw such a nice little guest room space set up.

Nis and Marianne's adorable house

The Guest Room

We warmed up (which would become a common theme for the weekend) and all went to a little market set up with flowers and fruits and vegetables.

Market

Odense is the hometown of the famous Dane, Hans Christian Andersen, or as he is known in Denmark, "H.C. Andersen". He is best known for "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", "Thumbelina", "The Emperors New Clothes" and many many more. All around town there were statues and plaques of and about H.C. Andersen, and his fairy tales. I thought it was quite funny to see so much about one person in one town. Nis mentioned that there are only a couple statues in town that have nothing to do with him and I assure you there were a whole lot of statues.

The yellow house on the right is where H.C. Andersen was born.
It is now a museum of his life and works.

Steadfast Tin Soldier

This is the stream that H.C. A's mom did laundry in as her job.

The Emperors New Clothes

The Boat from "The Steadfast Tin Soldier"

Marianne and me with a H.C.A statue behind us

Even the street lights for the cross walk were H.C.A.
See his little top hat and cane?

After walking around a bit it was time to go get little Viggo. He had stayed the night with Nis's mom. We picked him up and headed back home to warm up. He was just as adorable looking in person as he is in pictures. After warming up we ate brunch at a really yummy restaurant, walked around the shopping streets, and went home again to warm up...again. Michael and I left after it got dark to see the city all lit up with Christmas lights, then came back we watched Marianne clean the oven (very well too might I add) and Nis fixed us a wonderful dinner. We stayed up talking for quite a while and then we both passed out and had a spider free, wonderful nights sleep.