M is for...

Mermaid

The mermaid in Copenhagen harbour to be exact! When I was in Denmark in July of 2011, the statue of the mermaid was really the only thing I wanted to see. Everything else would be good, but the mermaid was top of the list. Despite the heavy rain of that day, me and two colleagues made our way towards the harbour, by bus and on foot. By the time we arrived at the harbour, the rain had almost let up and when I got my first glance of the mermaid it was dry. The sun even came out for a minute!

I had been told in advance that the mermaid wasn't very big and I must admit, I expected something the size of 'Manneken Pis' in Brussels, but I was happily surprised when it was a good deal bigger than that. The mermaid is sculpted by Edvard Eriksen and his wife Eline was the model. And before you ask: yes, the statue is based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen!

This is the letter M for ABC Wednesday. Why not join?

Random photos

I thought I would include some random photos of things I saw during my week in Denmark. At first I didn't really understand the first photo. Or why it was placed in the toilet (bathroom for you overseaers), but a closer look revealed all. This little box is meant for needles, razor blades and safety pins. Now I can understand the needles (drugs, either prescription or not) and the safety pins, but the razor blades were a bit of a mystery. Unless someone wants to kill themselves inside the toilet and I doubt very much they would then throw the blade in the little box!

The second photo was taken on our way back from Sweden. I had seen this sign for a while already, but it didn't quite dawn on me what it meant. Let me explain. The Dutch name of the capital of Denmark is Kopenhagen and the English name is Copenhagen. However, in Danish it's København. And for some reason I just didn't get the fact that in Sweden they use the Swedish name: Köpenhamn!

Photo number three was taken in Copenhagen (let's just use the English spelling) and is of a thermometer. When you look closely you can also see the weather woman at the top: ready to come out with her bicycle, of which there were plenty around. As you can see it's about 18 degrees Celsius at the moment I took the photo.

And the last photo is of something we could see both on the crossing from Sweden to Denmark and from Denmark to Germany: wind turbines in the sea. There were lots and lots of them! They do like green energy a lot in those countries.

Home again!

Did I ever tell you I hate traveling on a coach? When I'm not driving that is? Well, I do. Just so you know!

The floor in the bus!

Yesterday morning I was in the first of four groups to pick up the Dutch scout troops to take to Sweden. I left on time at 08.30am and arrived at the World Jamboree at 12.15pm. Everything was so well coordinated we only had to wait for two minutes before I was able to drop them off. They left my coach in a right state, but with all the rain and muck and mud of the past week, I was prepared. And since I was in the first group, I had a lot of time before the last ones would be there to actually clean the coach. At least brush the dirt out and make it look presentable again.

The toll bridge from Sweden to Denmark

We then had to wait for all the coaches to arrive, which took about four hours and finally at a quarter past four, all the drivers (bar two who were staying behind to look after the coaches) piled on one coach and left for the Netherlands. We passed through Sweden at a good pace, seeing coach after coach filled with scouts from all over the world. We then had to cross the toll bridge and tunnel to Denmark and came back to familiar territory again.

There was a train on the ferry!

We kept driving through Denmark until we reached the ferryport of Rodby (with the diagonal line again). We knew we were late for our ferry (it had left twenty minutes earlier), but managed to catch the next one, so we only lost half an hour. From Puttgarden (the German side of the ferry), we drove towards Hamburg, which I completely missed, since I slept my way to Bremen. We had a short stop to switch drivers and then drove on towards home. Our pick-up driver had to wake up extra early, because according to the planners we were about 2-3 hours early! We just thought there was no point hanging around for nothing!

I made it home at five in the morning and was in bed half an hour later. My own bed...

The White Cliffs of Mon?

Mon should be written with a diagonal line through its o, but since I can't be bothered to find it on my computer you will have to do without. Anyhoo...

Today we had a lovely sunny day and we dropped off 1,000 scouts at the geocenter on Mon (with the line). While we were waiting for them to do their things we were parked about 3 miles further at a great looking farm. But I wanted to see the cliffs and so did some of the others, so we got on the coach and headed towards the center. After parking me and my colleague needed to decide from what angle to watch the cliffs: from the bottom or the top.

In the end we decided on the top: that way we were going up first and down later instead of the other way around. It was a big climb and since I have the condition of a hibernating sloth, I was panting my way up! I did make it though, because I didn't want to miss out on the view. It didn't disappoint: it was gorgeous! I took lots of photos, my colleague took a few of me and we treated ourselves to an icecream when we got back down again.

Tonight we dined with all the colleagues that are here now: 27, plus the wife of the coordinator. We had a nice dinner, good company and we found out what is going to happen tomorrow. I have to leave in the first group at 8.30am, completely loaded to the rafters with camping gear, luggage and of course scouts. We hope to arrive in Sweden a few hours later (it's not that far from here) and make it through check-in at a reasonable pace. Yesterday it apparently took over 3 hours for one coach to get checked in and shown to their site. Tomorrow there will probably be hundreds of buses arriving! The horror.

I will be off to bed now, but I have included a few photos I took today (or were taken of me today). By the way, the photo I showed yesterday was taken in Copenhagen which has a big elephant herd roaming the city in aid of the Asian elephant. How could I resist?

The big event!

Today was the day of the big event. We had been awaiting it for some days now and today it finally happened: it stopped raining and the sun came out! Hesitatingly at first but at the end of the day the temperature was a bit more summer-like than the past few days (it was 11 degrees Celsius yesterday). Of course this sun immediately took my mind of the road and I got on the motorway going west. I needed to go east!

Other things happening today were very few. I finished my book, took only three photos and chatted to my colleagues. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be good again and we're going to some cliffs. I am hoping for some nice photos there.

Rain

The path was like this all throughout the museum!!!

It rained almost full stop today and I must say, even I got a bit fed up with all that wetness. According to the weather people, the rain should stop tomorrow or the day after (see how exact they are?) and that is very much wanted by every scout on board. They are nearly always wet and cold now and the only time they are drying out are spent on the bus! Where they sit with muddy boots and shoes, making a mess of it all.

Add to all that mud from the camp ground more mud. This time from the medieval open air museum! Since I don't travel to Denmark on a weekly basis, I had decided I wanted to see it as well and it didn't take long before I was covered in mud as well! I nearly slipped on two occasions, but fortunately I managed to grab hold of some colleague or other. It would have been a right sight if I had fallen flat on my face there!!

Where are the other four?

The medieval museum was quite good fun, despite all the mud and goo and what have you. They had a huge katapult they used and which I missed of course, a lot of different houses where you could go in and touch things and there was a small wooded area with vampyres, werewolfs, goblins, pixies, elves, hell horses, three legged sheep and other weird and dangerous creatures that were out to snatch you. And before you ask: no, there wasn't a viking in the whole museum!

A new day

Up the road without a paddle

The new day came with fresh rain. Which we were very happy about of course (not)! But today it was dry more often than wet and anyway, those children didn't mind anyway: they were out in the water all day! In the mean time my colleagues and I went to the center of the town and looked at some shops and had a coffee.

After our coffees my colleague A and I went out shopping and already in the first shop I found the perfect little statuette: a frog that had been kissed! It was quite dear, but it was made by Royal Kopenhagen (a china manufacturer), so I decided to go for it anyway. But when the salesman took it down I found it had been reduced in price! So, not only did I get the perfect frog, I also got a better deal: I was a happy girl!

When we got back to the coach I set about repairing the broken microphone system and by accidently breaking something I managed to do just that: I fixed the problem. I may not be a technically minded person, but sometimes the luck is with the dumb (as a Dutch saying goes)...

Tomorrow we are going to a Medieval museum with knights and joustings and a lot more. I am really looking forward to it, but I do hope that infernal rain will stop!

Dora in the rain

The little mermaid

For some strange reason part of the kids on board has decided to call me Dora. Either because they couldn't remember my real name, or because they think it's a better name (which I don't agree with by the by). Anyway...

Today was Kopenhagen and it rained. All morning it came down, rain, rain and more rain. I was getting quite fed up with it all, but I wanted to see the town, so me and two colleagues hopped on one of those hop on/hop off buses and did the tour. We got off at a castle, walked around that for a while and then decided we would walk to the mermaid, since the bus was really hot and muggy and it had stopped raining. Well, for ten minutes anyway, because then it started again and we nearly got soaked. We sheltered somewhere and when I tried to take a photo of my two colleagues, I tripped and fell flat on my face. Fortunately the only thing that got bruised was my ego, but I felt quite silly with my face down in the street!

One of the many elephants dotted around town.

After about four more showers we finally managed to get to the mermaid and guess what: the sun came out for just a second! I took photos from nearly all angles (it's situated in the water, so I wasn't going in there to take more photos). We then hopped on the bus again and got off at the 'new harbour' which was basically one massive bar! It looked really festive and fun and by then the rain had ceased completely as well. A quick and very expensive drink later we hopped on again and took the last part of the tour.

I must say, Kopenhagen is a lovely town and I would love to go there again to see it properly. In the sun preferably! Another one on my list of 'must-sees'...

Yawn

View of the Baltic Sea at 5.25am

I started work last night at 8.45pm and finished this morning at 9am. In that time I picked up a lot of scouts, I drove through Germany, saw a lot of 'Baustellen' (roadworks), took a ferry, met up with colleagues and finally dropped the scouts off again.

It's the World Jamboree next month in Sweden and the Dutch contingent have decided that the jamboree wasn't long enough and have added a week in Denmark. Which is fine by me, since I haven't been to the part of Denmark we're in now. We're going to Kopenhagen, we will be visiting a medieval museum and we go to some cliffs. They will also do some geo-caching and something with water somewhere.

A non-pooping seagull flying overhead

This morning however we arrived an hour early which was good and after we had parked our coaches and had taken the luggage to our rooms, a colleague and I went in search of a bank to change our Euros into Danish Kroner, since they didn't join the Euro zone back in whenever. The first bank we got to opened at 10. It was 9.30! So we went to the next one. Which also opened at 10. After having seen a lot of banks which all opened at 10, we took out some money of our own and went back to the Konditorei to enjoy some Danish pastry and a cup of tea. When we finally went to the bank, we went to the only one that opened at: yes, you guessed it: 9.30!!

Right now it's time for bed though. It's nearly midday and I need to get some zzzzz's in before dinner tonight. So, I will say goodnight. Or goodday as the case may be...

Oink

Oink oink oink oink sow. Oink piglet oink oink oink. Oink oink boar oink. Oink oink oink oink swine. Oink oink oink piggery. Oink oink hogs oink oink oink oink oink. Oink sow oink oink oink. Piglet oink oink oink.

Do you get the drift of the conversation over the last three days yet? If not, let me enlighten you: I had eleven pigfarmers, two pig medication people and one pig vet on board. Conversation ranged from swine to sows to boars to piglets to medication. It was over five hundred kilometers on day one. We got stuck in traffic for four hours on our way there, so the day got even longer!

Now don't get me wrong! They were nice men and even though the topic got a bit boring after three days, it was not too bad. They did make a mess though! Only fourteen of them and still... It was like I had a coach load of 15-year olds.

Just to stay on the subject of pigs:

A lion, a tiger and a pig are talking about who is the scariest of the three. The lion says: if I roar, the whole of the savannah is cowering. Ah, says the tiger: if I roar, the whole of the jungle is cowering. Ah, says the pig: if I sneeze, the whole world is cowering!

Danish

Well, when this post posts (I've preposted it), I will be somewhere in Denmark trying to understand the signs. The picture signs are fine, it's the written ones that are the problem. But no point in getting all grrrr about it in advance (as I'm writing this on Tuesday and I may not have any problem with written signs at all).

I will be back on Friday. At first I was supposed to get back sometime after midnight (which would mean I would be back on Saturday really), but I've seen they already want to leave at midday! No argument from me, even though traffic will be a lot heavier then... Ah well, I will tell all about it asap and hopefully show some photos too! Probably of one of the companies we're visiting today...