Okay, okay. So, I'm taking a long time to get each day posted of our great Danish trip. Let's just say that I'm a bit detail-oriented and each blog entry seems to take me hours longer than I expected.
In an effort to ease that pain and to give those of you who are only interested in a more cursory overview of the trip a less laborious experience, I've pulled together a few pictures of the highlights. Or the highlights as I see them.
Hope you enjoy!
(Hint: You can click on the slideshow and open the album if you want to see larger photos or read the captions more easily.)
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Photos Courtesy of . . .
A word about the photos that will dot the travelogue entries.
They are not all mine.
Thanks to the invention--and luxury--of digital cameras we all were snapping pictures on this trip: Ric and Tami, Rus and Jenny, Adam and Michelle, me, Matt and Cissy, Megan and Spencer, Brock and Julie, and Cassie. That's at least 8 digital cameras that were capturing our trip and some couples had more than one camera going at a time.
Several times throughout the trip each person would take the memory card on his or her camera to Rus. Bless Rus's techie little heart, he had brought an external hard drive with tons of space where he deposited all of our pictures. And at the end of the trip, he gave us each a copy of all the photos organized by our names.
So, I've got access to everyone's photos. Which makes finding material for each post very, very easy because I've got more than 4,000 photos to choose from!
I mentioned before I'm operating under a new theory regarding picture taking and how to get a great shot. I figure I just snap as many pictures as possible in the shortest amount of time and hope that one of them turns out really well. Let's just say that while my idea is great in theory, it really didn't develop well in practice. What I ended up with was over 1,000 photos on this trip. Of the lot, I'm not sure there are many that are truly spectacular. I learned a lot though sifting through the pictures from everyone else's perspectives.
I learned that one person is really good at sitting still and waiting for the great shot to come to her, someone else is great at manipulating light and exposure for a good shot. Another person is aware enough to pull back and give an overview shot of the entire group or the most mundane activity which proves invaluable later on. Someone else sees artistry in simple things and captures details I never would have imagined. And still another person remembers to convey information with each photo and another captures clearly the beauty of the countryside.
All of that is to say that many of the photos you see are not from my camera but that of a family member. In the process of picking my favorite photos from each person and loading them into Picasa and then Flickr and then this blog, I have a hard time tracing the origins of every single shot.
So, in an effort to ease my mind just a little and still pick and choose which shots I'm going to use, I want to acknowledge each and every photographer on the trip--Ric, Tami, Rus, Jenny, Adam, Michelle, Matt, Cissy, Megan, Spencer, Brock, Julie and Cassie.
Thank you! I'm going to use your very good work with pleasure. :)
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Denmark Day 1: Traveling to Copenhagen
Leaving town on Day 1 took a little more effort than I planned. I had been working on my packing for DAYS and DAYS. I just hadn't done anything about it. In other words, all the hard work came the night before we left town.
And, as usual, my packing turned into an all nighter. When I do something right, I like to do it really, really right and for me this meant packing 12 hours before we departed AND not sleeping the entire night.
You cower at the genius I display, don't you? I mean it wasn't like I had 17 hours of nonstop travel ahead of me or that I was jumping into a time zone 8 hours ahead of my own with no chance of sleeping horizontally for 36 hours straight. Ooops, I guess actually that was exactly what I was headed into.
Surprisingly, for not sleeping from Tuesday night until Friday night, I was more chipper than I expected for the first days of our trip. European travel does that to me. It makes me smile.
And this trip was a real keeper. I knew it was beginning well when I touched down at my parents' house at 10:30AM sharp and was the first sibling present for the round up. Auspicious, auspicious beginnings for one such as me.
And then I walked in to find my mother not only packed and ready but undertaking the tiny little task of prepping food for a whole crew.
Only a mother like ours would take the time before we head out on vacation to make sack lunches for ALL SIXTEEN people. It was a true act of love. This was the line up of sandwiches. You had your choice: turkey and cheese, egg salad or tuna fish. Then there were chips, grapes, apples, 2 little candy bars and chocolate chip cookies.
She was in flawless hair and make up as well. I forgot to put on any make up this morning until several hours later I reacted badly after seeing my face in a mirror. I also was in "wet head" mode.
We packed up all the lunches and headed over to meet the rest of the group at Rus and Jenny's house. This is the crew gathered for prayer before we depart. There were 12 of us driving up together in two vans. We are waiting on one family member to show up. Any guess who it is?
Brandon was one of our very kind drivers and he hammed it up with Spencer and Megan. I think the theme music playing in the car at this point was "Let's get this show on the road."
The drive was uneventful and we arrived in record time at the ticket desk and checked in for our flight. It takes a very long time to process this many people. And we only checked 2 bags!
Meanwhile Adam and Michelle were already inside the airport saying goodbye to Elle who was leaving with Grandma Mellor on an earlier flight. Elle was staying with Michelle's family for two weeks and her daddy had a very hard time saying goodbye. I would too if somebody this cute lived at my residence.
Heroically, they survived the parting and were actually smiling when we met them on the other side of the security line. Our group was now 14.
At this point--far too early in the journey--Spencer's carryon bag bit the dust in a final last gasp. His zipper had broken at the ticket desk and Mom pulled duct tape out of her bag. She said she brought it because just the morning before she woke up with a start thinking "Take a roll of a duct tape with you." So, we duct taped Spencer's bag but it caused an alarm to go off in the security line. They opened his bag and inspected its entire contents and broke the zipper even further. Now the duct tape was the only thing holding the bag together.
Poor Spencer. His trip was just beginning and all ready he was going to have to lay out some cash just to continue it.
Dad made it through security without a hitch. He was our tour leader on this trip and did an incredible job. And I will point out in the future where his preparation and foresight saved us alot of money.
Rus and Jenny saying hello to Adam and Michelle. Rus just kept the jokes coming throughout the trip and you can see in his face that he is about to lay his first one on Adam.
We made it to our gate and opened the lunch bags. Yummo!
Spencer couldn't sit down and really enjoy himself though until he had said goodbye to his old bag,
And hello to a fancy, new silver hardcase. Sadly, his relationship with this bag would be suspended in just a few short minutes. Look at what is in his hand. See the duct tape? This would be an important piece of evidence that would assist us in reuniting Spencer with his new luggage.
Here is some of the crew loaded on the plane. The gate agent had just taken my bag and Spencer's bag because there was no room left in the overhead compartments of the very full plane. That look of concern on Spencer's face reads something like this: "Why did that NORTHWEST gate agent not give me a claim ticket for my bag? Why do they insist that they CAN'T gate check my bag? How is my bag supposed to arrive in Copenhagen when the gate agent (read: wing nut) ripped the bags out of my hands without so much as asking my name? Why don't I have a claim ticket again?" (read: someone didn't do HIS job. Same someone who will insist 14 days later that it was EVERYONE else's fault but his that our luggage takes nearly 10 days to be located. Same someone who will not answer our very expensive international calls until we have called him a total of 23 times. Yep, just remember. Don't ever let a NORTHWEST gate agent take your bags from you. They will fall into a dark abyss that only said wing nut will be able to locate. Because he is the ONLY ONE in the UNIVERSE who knows the claim ticket number. And no airline, airport, or lost luggage agent will begin to assist you without first asking, "What is your claim ticket number?" You mean the one I NEVER RECEIVED?)
Rus at least could keep us in laughter if we couldn't be kept in luggage. He and Jenny are showing their "we just love to have our picture taken" faces.
We arrive in Minneapolis. I think the journey took a little more out of Matt than he expected so he is off on a little snooze.
Except when you have narcolepsy sometimes that snooze extends to the time when you have to make the next plane. This is the wheelchair assist for him. Could I get one of those?
Ric and Tami are running through the Minneapolis airport with Megan, Spencer and I hoping against hope that our luggage can be located at the luggage terminal. It was a good hope, but a vain one.
Spencer putting on a brave face.
After our attempt, we get to the Icelandic Air ticket desk and see Brock and Julie! Now our group is complete with all 16 people. And yes, Mom gave them the sack lunches she had packed for them several hours before.
What we didn't know about Icelandic Air is they don't allow bags over 13 pounds in their cabin. We had to gate check every carryon because, let me tell you, all of them exceeded that weight limit.
And we fly to Iceland. This is us arriving. It was a bit chilly but oh-so-welcome. This is the flight where the flight crew decided to trick us into believing we were flying to the Carribbean rather than an island that is an ICEBERG. They did this by notching up the temperature in the cabin a few degrees every hour until we reached 98 degrees Farenheit. It was HOT. We finally started requesting they cool the cabin as we were all sweating like crazy and people were dropping like flies around us. Thank you for fresh, cool air!
And we make our flight to Copenhagen. This is Megan sharing her "I'm a little queasy and I may throw up on you" face. Lovely, lovely motion sickness. My mother has it in abundance and NOT one of her eight children escaped that particular gene. It resides in all of us in varying degrees of severity.
And we have ARRIVED! Patiently waiting through our first international bathroom break. We are in Copenhagen, the location we've been dreaming and planning and scraping and saving for these last few years. Yeah! Let the party begin.
Just as soon as everyone gets out of the bathroom.
We don't have any photos of the next two hours. These were spent collecting luggage, filing lost luggage claims, calling NORTHWEST three times trying to find our luggage and finding the rental car place. I wish I had a great photos of Michelle on the phone (very expensive phone calls) with NORTHWEST (I can only use capital letters to describe them from now on. You know, for emphasis. As in DON'T EVER LET THEM TAKE YOUR LUGGAGE FROM YOU). She is one tiny little person with a whole lot of savvy. She spoke to three different customer service agents and two of them HUNG UP ON HER. This is not a woman who employs swear words or a nasty attitude when talking to people. She is simply persistent, professional and unwilling to listen to a bogus no. After thoroughly explaining our luggage situation to three different customer service representatives and being told that it wasn't NORTHWEST's problem (whose problem is it then?), Michelle asked to speak to a supervisor. This must be some unspeakable offense in NORTHWEST language. When she asked that question, the customer service representative would hang up on her. Pretty great customer service, wouldn't you say?
Finally, we leave the insanity behind us and head to our rental cars. Here are most of the guys (and me) huddled around the rental car representative listening to him explain our rental agreement. At least the guys were listening. I was just enjoying the first pretty sight in Denmark.
Check out the vans we get to drive! These babies seat 9 people and were true road warriors and escorted us around lovely, lovely Denmark for the rest of our trip.
We were trying to get situated. Who is riding in which car? Who is driving? How does this gear shift work? Which side of the road am I driving on?
And then a quick 20-30 minute drive to downtown Copenhagen and our beautiful hotel, the Kong Arthur. Or as Mom called it in one bleary-eyed moment "the King Kong Arthur." It is about 3:00PM on Friday in Copenhagen time and about 7:00AM in Utah time. We made it!
And, as usual, my packing turned into an all nighter. When I do something right, I like to do it really, really right and for me this meant packing 12 hours before we departed AND not sleeping the entire night.
You cower at the genius I display, don't you? I mean it wasn't like I had 17 hours of nonstop travel ahead of me or that I was jumping into a time zone 8 hours ahead of my own with no chance of sleeping horizontally for 36 hours straight. Ooops, I guess actually that was exactly what I was headed into.
Surprisingly, for not sleeping from Tuesday night until Friday night, I was more chipper than I expected for the first days of our trip. European travel does that to me. It makes me smile.
And this trip was a real keeper. I knew it was beginning well when I touched down at my parents' house at 10:30AM sharp and was the first sibling present for the round up. Auspicious, auspicious beginnings for one such as me.
And then I walked in to find my mother not only packed and ready but undertaking the tiny little task of prepping food for a whole crew.
Only a mother like ours would take the time before we head out on vacation to make sack lunches for ALL SIXTEEN people. It was a true act of love. This was the line up of sandwiches. You had your choice: turkey and cheese, egg salad or tuna fish. Then there were chips, grapes, apples, 2 little candy bars and chocolate chip cookies.
She was in flawless hair and make up as well. I forgot to put on any make up this morning until several hours later I reacted badly after seeing my face in a mirror. I also was in "wet head" mode.
We packed up all the lunches and headed over to meet the rest of the group at Rus and Jenny's house. This is the crew gathered for prayer before we depart. There were 12 of us driving up together in two vans. We are waiting on one family member to show up. Any guess who it is?
Brandon was one of our very kind drivers and he hammed it up with Spencer and Megan. I think the theme music playing in the car at this point was "Let's get this show on the road."
The drive was uneventful and we arrived in record time at the ticket desk and checked in for our flight. It takes a very long time to process this many people. And we only checked 2 bags!
Meanwhile Adam and Michelle were already inside the airport saying goodbye to Elle who was leaving with Grandma Mellor on an earlier flight. Elle was staying with Michelle's family for two weeks and her daddy had a very hard time saying goodbye. I would too if somebody this cute lived at my residence.
Heroically, they survived the parting and were actually smiling when we met them on the other side of the security line. Our group was now 14.
At this point--far too early in the journey--Spencer's carryon bag bit the dust in a final last gasp. His zipper had broken at the ticket desk and Mom pulled duct tape out of her bag. She said she brought it because just the morning before she woke up with a start thinking "Take a roll of a duct tape with you." So, we duct taped Spencer's bag but it caused an alarm to go off in the security line. They opened his bag and inspected its entire contents and broke the zipper even further. Now the duct tape was the only thing holding the bag together.
Poor Spencer. His trip was just beginning and all ready he was going to have to lay out some cash just to continue it.
Dad made it through security without a hitch. He was our tour leader on this trip and did an incredible job. And I will point out in the future where his preparation and foresight saved us alot of money.
Rus and Jenny saying hello to Adam and Michelle. Rus just kept the jokes coming throughout the trip and you can see in his face that he is about to lay his first one on Adam.
We made it to our gate and opened the lunch bags. Yummo!
Spencer couldn't sit down and really enjoy himself though until he had said goodbye to his old bag,
And hello to a fancy, new silver hardcase. Sadly, his relationship with this bag would be suspended in just a few short minutes. Look at what is in his hand. See the duct tape? This would be an important piece of evidence that would assist us in reuniting Spencer with his new luggage.
Here is some of the crew loaded on the plane. The gate agent had just taken my bag and Spencer's bag because there was no room left in the overhead compartments of the very full plane. That look of concern on Spencer's face reads something like this: "Why did that NORTHWEST gate agent not give me a claim ticket for my bag? Why do they insist that they CAN'T gate check my bag? How is my bag supposed to arrive in Copenhagen when the gate agent (read: wing nut) ripped the bags out of my hands without so much as asking my name? Why don't I have a claim ticket again?" (read: someone didn't do HIS job. Same someone who will insist 14 days later that it was EVERYONE else's fault but his that our luggage takes nearly 10 days to be located. Same someone who will not answer our very expensive international calls until we have called him a total of 23 times. Yep, just remember. Don't ever let a NORTHWEST gate agent take your bags from you. They will fall into a dark abyss that only said wing nut will be able to locate. Because he is the ONLY ONE in the UNIVERSE who knows the claim ticket number. And no airline, airport, or lost luggage agent will begin to assist you without first asking, "What is your claim ticket number?" You mean the one I NEVER RECEIVED?)
Rus at least could keep us in laughter if we couldn't be kept in luggage. He and Jenny are showing their "we just love to have our picture taken" faces.
We arrive in Minneapolis. I think the journey took a little more out of Matt than he expected so he is off on a little snooze.
Except when you have narcolepsy sometimes that snooze extends to the time when you have to make the next plane. This is the wheelchair assist for him. Could I get one of those?
Ric and Tami are running through the Minneapolis airport with Megan, Spencer and I hoping against hope that our luggage can be located at the luggage terminal. It was a good hope, but a vain one.
Spencer putting on a brave face.
After our attempt, we get to the Icelandic Air ticket desk and see Brock and Julie! Now our group is complete with all 16 people. And yes, Mom gave them the sack lunches she had packed for them several hours before.
What we didn't know about Icelandic Air is they don't allow bags over 13 pounds in their cabin. We had to gate check every carryon because, let me tell you, all of them exceeded that weight limit.
And we fly to Iceland. This is us arriving. It was a bit chilly but oh-so-welcome. This is the flight where the flight crew decided to trick us into believing we were flying to the Carribbean rather than an island that is an ICEBERG. They did this by notching up the temperature in the cabin a few degrees every hour until we reached 98 degrees Farenheit. It was HOT. We finally started requesting they cool the cabin as we were all sweating like crazy and people were dropping like flies around us. Thank you for fresh, cool air!
And we make our flight to Copenhagen. This is Megan sharing her "I'm a little queasy and I may throw up on you" face. Lovely, lovely motion sickness. My mother has it in abundance and NOT one of her eight children escaped that particular gene. It resides in all of us in varying degrees of severity.
And we have ARRIVED! Patiently waiting through our first international bathroom break. We are in Copenhagen, the location we've been dreaming and planning and scraping and saving for these last few years. Yeah! Let the party begin.
Just as soon as everyone gets out of the bathroom.
We don't have any photos of the next two hours. These were spent collecting luggage, filing lost luggage claims, calling NORTHWEST three times trying to find our luggage and finding the rental car place. I wish I had a great photos of Michelle on the phone (very expensive phone calls) with NORTHWEST (I can only use capital letters to describe them from now on. You know, for emphasis. As in DON'T EVER LET THEM TAKE YOUR LUGGAGE FROM YOU). She is one tiny little person with a whole lot of savvy. She spoke to three different customer service agents and two of them HUNG UP ON HER. This is not a woman who employs swear words or a nasty attitude when talking to people. She is simply persistent, professional and unwilling to listen to a bogus no. After thoroughly explaining our luggage situation to three different customer service representatives and being told that it wasn't NORTHWEST's problem (whose problem is it then?), Michelle asked to speak to a supervisor. This must be some unspeakable offense in NORTHWEST language. When she asked that question, the customer service representative would hang up on her. Pretty great customer service, wouldn't you say?
Finally, we leave the insanity behind us and head to our rental cars. Here are most of the guys (and me) huddled around the rental car representative listening to him explain our rental agreement. At least the guys were listening. I was just enjoying the first pretty sight in Denmark.
Check out the vans we get to drive! These babies seat 9 people and were true road warriors and escorted us around lovely, lovely Denmark for the rest of our trip.
We were trying to get situated. Who is riding in which car? Who is driving? How does this gear shift work? Which side of the road am I driving on?
And then a quick 20-30 minute drive to downtown Copenhagen and our beautiful hotel, the Kong Arthur. Or as Mom called it in one bleary-eyed moment "the King Kong Arthur." It is about 3:00PM on Friday in Copenhagen time and about 7:00AM in Utah time. We made it!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Denmark: The Overview
Fanefjord Kirke on the island of Mon where Hans Jorgen was christened in the 1800s.
I kept a travel journal while I was away and I'm detailed if I'm anything so that travel journal is not yet completed. I have notes for every day that we were in Denmark and I've almost completed writing about each day. I wanted this journal to be more detailed than the journal I kept on our trip to England and France in 2004. When I reread that journal I was happy that I kept a detailed schedule of what we did, but I wanted even more regarding my reactions to certain places or events. What I've found with this journal is that there may be such a thing as too much detail.
I've already started writing about this trip by the day, so I'm going to continue to do that. Be warned there are 12 days of our vacation and I've got information on ALL OF THEM. It's going to be a Denmark-palooza around here, so if you must, don't return for a week or two until I get over my fondness for this subject. Mostly, I plan to stick to highlights, but don't be surprised if I go off on a tangent or two.
There are stories of:
lost luggage and the importance of duct tape,
the beauty of Denmark's breakfasts and their relationship to Dad saving each of us HUNDREDS of dollars,
Dad, Mom, Cissy breakfasting at the Kong Arthur in Copenhagen
how utterly, incredibly gorgeous the architecture is in Denmark,
our bus tour in the New Haven area of Copenhagenwhere my dad's family came from
where my mom's family came from
the scary ability of one little word to provide hours and hours and hours of entertainment,
where my mom's family came from
the scary ability of one little word to provide hours and hours and hours of entertainment,
who really was our Comedy Central time and time again
whose personality really came flying out,
the enormous fun it was to see where my dad had actually preached the gospel
and the growth of the church in the land of the Danes,
who did the most kissing on this trip,
and who did the most sleeping, naturally,
and why I already miss the beauty of all of it.
It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that wouldn't have been the same without all 16 of us present.
In front of the chapel in Roskilde on Sunday, June 1st. This is the all 16 of us on the trip. This is also the day before we left Denmark.
All I can say is "tak for mad," which in my very poor translation means
THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH.
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