Fourth of July, Abroad

As I sit here, after an unusually busy and sweaty day in the office, I finally have time to reflect on how weird it feels not to be celebrating the Fourth of July. Sure, I can (and did) blast the most American of music at my desk today- Bruce Springsteen, Creedence, John Mellencamp, Zac Brown Band- you know the deal. And sure, us American (and honorary Americans) can get together and celebrate. I've worked on a few Independence Days in my time. But there's a very big difference between working at Fayson Lakes and working IT support in Copenhagen.
It's also very strange to, for the first time in my life, not be spending this day outside, surrounded by the people I grew up with: family, friends and neighbors. This blog is primarily a place of glorifying travel and exploration and bursting out of comfort zones, of reveling in the semi-nomadic lifestyle. But there are times like today that I'm reminded why there are such things as comfort zones.

New Jersey can be beautiful.

And serene.

I miss the times when this was my office, and the guard chair was my desk.When the soundtrack to my day was the clack of knock-hockey pucks and shouts of 'Dibbles' rather than internet radio. When the most common question in my day was 'Can I get the ball?' not, 'What's the wifi password?' When a rumble of thunder meant a free half hour break. When days started with a swim to Sabeys and ended with swim out to the island  rather than a few laps in a pool and a trip to the gym.

When the end of the work day was signaled by the sunset.

This was a truly wonderful place to be a kid, and, for that matter, an adult- though I certainly don't think of myself as such. This will be the first summer I've spent fully away from the lake where I learned to swim, taught myself to do a backflip, worked my way back to full strength after two knee surgeries and spent innumerable fantastic days and nights with friends and family. 

Sunset is a particularly magical time.

Fayson leaves its mark on you. To this day I can't hear an airhorn without my stomach doing somersaults and my heartbeat increasing. Again and again I find myself wondering why cornhole isn't a thing in Europe. I still think Dibbles is the best water game ever and have tried unsuccessfully to convince my friends here that it will be awesome to play in the harbor. I wow strangers with the diving skills I honed at the dock. As far as I'm concerned, the best way to spend a Friday night will always be sitting around a bonfire or hanging out in the woods. And when I'm swimming in open water, there's always the thought in the back of my mind that there could be a turtle behind me.

So, to everyone back home, I wish you the best of summers. Live it up, and take full advantage of this beautiful place that I'm honored to call my home. Cheers to you all.

It is now approximately 8:00pm, lifeguards are off duty. Swim at your own risk.

Copenhagen Botanical Garden

I have a shameful confession to make: in the approximately ten months I have lived in my current apartment, I have never once visited the Copenhagen Botanical Garden. Oh yeah- I live two blocks from it. And after my visit to it today, I very much regret having squandered all that time. Simply put, the place is beautiful.

Waving grass, city skyline in the background.

Real trees, and undergrowth? In Copenhagen?

Especially for someone like me, who has never lived in a city before, and who is seriously jonesing for a taste of nature, this place is a godsend. It's bigger than it looks from outside, and much more full of trees. There's basically a small, if very well-kempt forest. I love it there.

It has a small lake, complete with fish.

A lake, and trees. It practically feels like home.

That statue doesn't look like New Jersey though. Ah well.

I saw my first Copenhagen squirrel today. He was adorable.

In among the trees, you find the more traditional features of a botanical garden- neatly planted beds of well manicured, well tended plants, complete with tidy little identification tags. Unfortunately, the tags only contained the scientific Latin names and their Danish vernacular names, so I'm not entirely sure what many of the plants I was looking at were. But I'm sure some of the master gardeners I know could...

Danish order.

I don't know what these are, but they were pretty.

I'm pretty sure this is a foxglove.

I know this one. It's a rose.

Again, I have no idea. But really cool looking.

Look forward to the next installment, in which I return during the opening hours of the cactus and orchid houses. Should be a rollicking adventure.

Sankt Hans Aften

June 24th is known as Sankt Hans Aften in Denmark, or St. John's night. In other places, it is celebrated as the feast of St. John the Baptist who, according to the Bible, was born six months before Jesus. Here in lovely Denmark, it is celebrated not with mass baptisms, but with mass burnings of witch effigies. It's festive.

Behold, the pyre in the background.

Prior to the fires, we had a barbecue on Amager Strand. Despite the spells of rain, and a relatively brief, yet dense and terribly annoying infestation of gnats, it was a great time.We then wandered down the beach, looking for the biggest pile of brush. When we came upon it, it was surrounded by a rather older looking crowd, all listening to a rather boring sounding speaker. As we rather quickly found out, we had stumbled upon the witch burning being held by the Danish Communist Party. We may all be on a government watchlist, but they were nice enough, and their bonfire was large, so we stuck around and their band played a medley of Beatles songs while the witch went up in flames. A nice extra touch were the noisy fireworks added to the fire for semi-realistic sounding screams.

The lighting in this country will never cease to amaze me.

As a celestial preamble to the bonfire, the sky decided to grace us with not one but two very vivid rainbows. After experiencing a double rainbow in real life, I now understand how that guy on YouTube got so excited about it. Unfortunately I was only able to get a good picture of one of them with the camera on my phone.

The evening was graced with rainbows.

A very vibrant rainbow.

Apparently Danes are the treasure at the 
end of the rainbow.

Burn witch, burn.

That's the ticket.

Sunset at 11:00pm. Or as we locals like to say, 23:00/

Yup, that'll do. The cherry on top of a great week.

Møns Klint

Møns Klint is a chalk cliff in southern Sealand, about an hour and a half drive south from Copenhagen. It's accessible by public transportation, but not easily, so we were all quite pleased when our lovely intern reps revealed that we'd be making an all expenses paid trip down to Møns. The cliff itself is about 6km long. The highest points along its length are about 120 meters, making it one of the highest points in the legendarily high-altitude country of Denmark.
Due to the chalk composition of the area, fossils are plentiful. The very white chalk and turquoise water also give it an almost otherworldly appearance.

Majestic.

The region surrounding Møns Klint was heavily affected by glacial activity. The chalk formed from tiny prehistoric creatures on the seabed, which was then pushed up by the pressure of huge glaciers moving westward. As a result, there are many folds in the composition of the cliffs, made very visible by the flint that the chalk is studded with.

Just look at that curvature.

More cliffs.

Interns, captivated by the scenery.

Looking down the very white beach.

Lukas, bringing art to the uncivilized wilderness.

James and Adam, skipping rocks. Zoe captures the moment.

A tree in the wilderness.

The beach below the cliffs can be reached from any of four staircases, all of which are close to 500 stairs high. Better make sure you're in pretty good shape before making the trip down, otherwise you may get stranded... Jokes.

But seriously, we were panting after reaching the top. But the view was well worth it. Plus we all got our exercise for the day and felt a lot better about spending a combined three hours on a bus.

Samer, Greta, Lukas and John, admiring the view.

Exploring and hunting for fossils and skipping stones. Credit to Adam Fishman.

The whole motley crew. Credit to David Gwynn.

Biking Bornholm: Day 2

On our second day in Bornholm, I took a little time to admire the beauty of the little town of Gudhjem where we were staying. 

Some picturesque rocks near our hostel.

A very intrepid family of ducks braving the surf.

For our adventure of the day we decided to bike up to the northern tip of the island, to the ruins of a castle called Hammershus. It is the remains of the largest medieval fortification in northern Europe. So that's pretty cool. It was built in the 13th century, and was long believed to have been constructed as a residence for the archbishop of Lund. However new evidence suggests it may instead have been built for the Danish King Valdemar II for use as both as a residence and a base for the Danish crusades. Which I didn't know were a thing.

Some quick research reveals that the Danish crusades were part of the larger Northern Crusades, a series of wars by Danish and Swedish kings against the pagans of norther Europe. Apparently a group called The Sword Brothers was also involved, which is a pretty sweet name. If my memory serves me correctly, this was the same group that built the fortress I stumbled upon in Sigulda, Latvia. Pretty sure they were a Latvian group. Fun connections!

Check out this here fortification.

The keep.

Some walls.

On the way back down to Gudhjem we stopped off at a fish restaurant that had been recommended to us. I had chicken. We also made a brief pit-stop at a cave on the coast, known as the Black Cauldron.

There were come cows near it.

Cliffs.

Inside the cave. It was uncomfortably narrow. And damp, 
due to the ocean being right outside of it. Slightly creepy, 
but really cool.

Biking Bornholm: Day 1

Bornhom is the second easternmost point in Denmark. The farthest east is Christiansø, a small archipelago about 18 km northeast of Bornholm. It boasts an impressive year round population of 96 people. 

The population of Bornholm is slightly higher, ringing in at approximately 41,000 people. Bornholm is a roughly rhomboid island in the Baltic sea with an area of 588 sq km (227 sq mi). With such a small size, it's an ideal place for a weekend of biking. It's famous for its beer, ice cream, smoked herring and glass.

Bonus: it's beautiful enough that even grey and rainy weather can't ruin the experience.

There are hills. More than I've ever encountered in a day of biking in Denmark in my life.

A field of rape. 

Picturesque horses.

A tree full of ladders. Normal. Located on the outskirts of Nexø.

For our first excursion we decided to bike down to the southernmost tip of the island- a 60-something km round trip. This end of the island is somewhat famous for Dueodde beach. (Don't ask- I have no idea how to pronounce that.)

The reason for all the fuss about this unpronounceable beach is it's sand. Apparently some of, if not the finest sand in the world, Dueodde sand is used in hourglasses. It's also quite the tourist draw in the summer it seems. The area around it was filled with cute little beach houses, reminiscent of Maine or Massachusetts, and of course, kitschy eateries.

It is a really nice beach. Very white sand, light turquoise water. Waling on the famous Dueodde sand is one of the strangest feelings ever. The closest thing I can liken it is walking on cornstarch, not that that's something I've done. But it squeaks and shifts like cornstarch, so I'm comfortable with the analogy.

One of the restaurants had a camel out front. Samer went for a ride.

The beach. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but alas my camera decided to die there. 

On our way back north to our hostel in Gudhjem we stopped in Sveneke and lunched at the Sveneke Bryghus. Much sampling of brews was done, and my illustrious co-leaders Samer and Frazer enjoyed some herring, another of Bornholm's specialties. Unfortunately we were so weighed down by the gigantic lunch we consumed that the first few kilometers of the rest of the ride back were, shall we say, difficult. But, no regrets.

Samples. Delicious samples.

Apparently there is a Koch running a guest house in Gudhjem. I did not get to meet them.