Denmark

August 9 – 15, 2016

The best thing about this week was Merete and John’s summer home on a fjord in Jaegerspris.  We arrived in a storm of wind that threatened to rip the clothes right off of my body.

Undeterred, they welcomed us with a Danish luncheon of mushroom casserole, onion tarte, crème fraiche cucumber, and the tiniest shrimp you’ve ever seen heaped on Danish brown bread. The shrimp are a delicacy, harvested right out of the waters in front of the house by John himself.

Then, off they went to take care of the grandchildren for the rest of the week. We then set about learning new routines of housekeeping. We washed our clothes in the kitchen sink, hung them out to dry until it rained, then decorated the entire house with socks, pants and shirts attached cleverly to anything that protruded from the wall. We lit the wood stove in the afternoon after walking in the rain—so cozy – and then when it turned into a sauna we got on our shorts and flung open everything that had a hinge. At night, we slept under fluffy down comforters — with the windows still wide open. The Danes sleep under down through all the seasons, and we were going Danish all the way. It was a struggle to keep our cool. At dawn, 5:30, the sun streamed in and greeted us, ready or not.

Every morning required a stroll down the vast green lawn to the quiet waters of the fjord. Along the way, we gathered raspberries and blackberries. We must have consumed the equivalence of $60 US Dollars in berries – growing in huge hedges that went all the way down to the sea.

We wasted a lot of US minutes staring at the sky.  The home was blessed with a wall full of windows and doors going out to the sea.  The island is blessed with wind, rain, sun, rainbows and the most astounding clouds.

At any time of the day, you can look out over the fjord and watch the show.  A stately parade of clouds passes by over the water, always progressing from west to east.  Great white, gray and black shape shifters move in stately procession.  Whales, giraffes, bunnies, witches, mountains, tarantulas, you name it.  Time and space loses meaning.  You forget where you came from and where you were trying to go.

Then, one night, after we had thoroughly marauded all of Merete’s delicious leftovers, we got a little hankering.  Was that ice cream I saw in the freezer?  I explored.  I found.  I produced the most delightful desert and I proudly presented it to my husband.  Creamy vanilla ice cream, dark chocolaty drizzle, almond biscuit garnish.  Am I The Gourmet, or what?  My husband, takes a few bites and remarks, “This is . . . exotic.” I’ve really proven my culinary ingenuity now.  I taste it.  A salty, almost coffee flavor graces the cream.  Hmm. . .  The bottle certainly looked like chocolate sauce.  (Granted, I wasn’t quite sure of the contents, since they were labeled in Danish.)  Oh . . . Not quite chocolate sauce.  Oh no, I do think it is . . .  meat sauce.  OMG, I just had just served meat sauce over my ice cream.  When I told Merete about our faulty marauding, I think I gave her an American–in-Denmark story that will receive uproarious laughter at many a dinner table throughout Jaegerspris.

August 12, 2016

Today we took the fairy across Isefjorde, which is the fjord we see from Merete’s summer home.  The custom for summoning the fairy is to turn a paddle that reached high on a pole, so that the orange side faces across the water.  If the captain sees the sign, if he wants to, he comes to the landing.

We were lucky.  So off we went, in the midst of yet another rain shower.  We were invited up to the captain’s bridge, where we got a firsthand tutorial on the winds and the currents. When asked if the seas got rougher than this, the captain laughed heartily.

We walked two kilometers in the rain to the little harbor of Lynnaes.  Our reward at the destination was a steaming cup of coffee.  More rewarding than destination was the process.

On this side of the fjord, thatch-roofed homes abounded.  I have a “thing” for thatch-roofed cottages, so I reveled in each glimpse.

By the time we returned home, the rain of course had cleared.  We made our first home-cooked dinner, with ingredients we had fetched this morning on foot at the local market.

August 10, 2016

All of my life I have stipulated my last name as ‘Petersen … spelled with an ‘sen’.’  That technique works much of the time, but I eventually adapted to the reality that spelling surprises happen when you are a Petersen.  Like the time when a new Avalon lease was acquired and our paperwork person managed to get the lease contract correct, but the DMV name incorrect.  Petersen/Peterson.

The new Ms. Petersen is as baffled as me about root cases for these anomalies, so we decided to return to the source: a Viking Shipbuilding Museum, at Roskilde.

This is a museum full of wonder.  A very active team of employees and volunteers are busy explaining what is known about Viking shipbuilding and what is not known.  Essentially, there are no ‘instructions’ for Viking shipbuilding.  This means that all participants attempt to reverse engineer how boats were crafted and, actually, what they looked like.  Historians only know what tools the Vikings had to work with, and what materials existed at the time.  This information, plus a few examples of discovered boats and rough drawings, is all they have to build their working models.

The process is trial and error.  Reconstructions are built, then taken out to sea for trial, then modified and adjusted, then taken thorough that cycle all over again.

Pat and I sailed on one for a short time and were able to see first hand how the ships are believed to be constructed, and how they would then be taken to sea.  We did just fine on the short excursion.  No one got wet and everyone else in the boat passed the rowing test.

Detailed presentations about building techniques were also explained and demonstrated.  I never expected that Rope Maker was a viable trade, today or in yesteryear.  But in fact, there are artisans who today make rope by hand and, of course, in years gone bye.  The process of winding various materials into a usable rope is best left for the expert.  Eg, someone willing to callous their hands after infinite hours of twisting various fibrous materials into a strong and useful cord.

The day was fun and informational.  All of the staff was highly informed, friendly, and eager to answer questions.

Thumbs up and recommended for all!

Danes themselves have no problem with our ‘Petersen,’ but at end of day we were no more informed as to American mis-spellings as when we started.

August 10, 2016

The best thing today was a rainy walk in the forest of Nordskoven.  We walked through sunshine, mists that glistened the ferns, rain drops as big as dimes — three rain showers.

Even after the clouds cleared, down came a shimmering tree shower.  When the wind gusted through the tall forest canopy,  with layers upon layers of leaves, each small leaf vessel tipped its cache of water, and down came the droplets through the dappled sunlight.

Luxuriant ferns graced the forest floor.

Delicate wildflowers — purple, rose and bright yellow — danced across the meadows and skipped along our path.  We were drenched in the fresh scent of grasses, woodland herbs, blossoms and loamy soil.

The king of the forest is Kongeegen.  He is an ancient oak tree, between 1,500 and 2,ooo years old — and still living.  Small underlings crowd around his massive trunk — probably his progeny, eager to reign, but without a chance.  In a ring around the “konge”, the king of oaks, loyal guardsmen hold back the forest growth and preserve the elder’s right to the sun.

He alone lives on, longer and luckier than Storkeegen, the revered oak  a short ways away in the same forest.  Storkeegen is only about 800 years old, and ceased producing leaves a few decades ago.

We were alone in the wet woods, paying homage to this marvel.  In contrast,  busloads of people file into Roskilde Domkirke to view the elaborate sepulchral monuments of 39 generations of Danish kings.  One looks at those lifelike marble carvings of the kings lying in stately, dead repose, amidst lavishly ornate displays of wealth and power.  Perhaps each king’s greatest wish was to live on in immortal glory.

Kongeegen simply grows  —  majestically — and outlives the lifetimes of 39 kings.