UMTravels

I guess I should explain who Hans (and his wife Aase) is – Hans was our American Field Service foreign exchange service student when I was in junior high. We’ve (as a family) kept in touch all these years. As a funny coincidence, my sister and brother-in-law were here just a couple of weeks ago.

They live is Esbjerg, which is on the western Jutland coast, and home to plenty of wind turbines, and is the base for Denmark’s North Sea oil business, so you’ll see lots of rigs in for maintenance and repair. More on those later. They’ve a lovely Danish Modern house with a view of the sea:

As is my usual way, I’ve slept through breakfast, but am definitely alive for brunch:

My sister-in-law explained the routine when they were here.

• Up for breakfast
• Explore the neighborhood and sea coast
• Lunch
• Hour nap
• Go off and do “the thing” for the day.

I’ve just truncated the schedule a little as I stay up later and get work done with its normal West Coast hours, then sleep through breakfast.

Today’s “thing” started with a modern church, built around 25 years ago:

And very modern bell tower:

Very light and airy inside:

With a massive freestanding organ:

So, the Lutherans church (Hjerting Kirke or the Church of Hjerting) was designed by Alan Havsteen-Mikkelsen in close cooperation with engineer Soeren Abrahamsen. THANKS, Hans, for the correction.

So, those were the Lutherans, next up, the Catholics:

The Catholic Church was designed by Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, who also designed the  Grande Arche of La Défense in Paris that the Arc de Triomphe was the inspiration for his modernist design. He got the commission with only the Esbjerg church in his portfolio, and he used the same “aeriated concrete” material used in the Esbjerg church.

Next up on the town tour is the Esbjerg Performing Arts Centre was completed in 1997 to designs by Jørn Utzon and execution by Jan Utzon.

None of the venues were open, but the lobby was stunning, and it is in the same complex as the Esbjerg Art Museum, possibly to “oddest” museum I’ve ever been to considering you had to thread your way through the building, only being able to access the first floor wing by going up and crossing over, and going back down.

One interesting feature to make more of the collection available was walls of art that you could pull out:

There were some pieces in the temporary galleries that were…visually disturbing, not in content, but physically. Spaces that were violently white that altered your depth perception as you got used to the light, forms appearing where there had just be blinding white.

It being a port town, there has to be a water tower (which is next to the performing arts hall):

Quaint city center:

A tall ship in the harbor:

The boat still trains Danish Navy cadets, though most of the harbor is now devoted to refurbishing North Sea drilling rigs, which I’m surprised I don’t have a picture of as there were dozens – you can see a couple of the upper bits back behind the tall ship.

Back to the house for what would turn out to be a stunning series of meals. This one if a free-form bacon-wrapped meatloaf – too funny as I do these at home, but in a loaf pan (I might have to reconsider by forming):

With sides of potatoes, gravy, broccoli…I am being spoiled!

Several bottles of wine and we retire upstairs to chat into the evening – though to bed MUCH earlier than last night for my hosts (closer to their usual bedtime). This was taken well past 10PM:

Not as light late as Iceland, but later than Seattle at the same local time.

One of the things that came up in late night chat is that Hans has a picture of him in the mid-60’s with Oscar Peterson in a trio performing:

That is a YOUNG Hans in the upper right-hand side of the photograph. Hans is quite the collector of Jazz music.

Off to bed, we have another adventure tomorrow!

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Today is my final day of being a tourist in Western Jutland, Denmark. No nightlife, other than my own, but I doubt I’d have seeked it out if there were.

Hans is an amazing archivist – he was able to easily pull out a photo of the Fourth of July that he, Aase, and Jonas (their son) were in Santa Fe, and I’d driven down to see them while they were visiting my parents.

That would have been Miata number two – the Black and Tan model. Since I didn’t have much time off from Microsoft, we drove straight through from Seattle to Santa Fe in 26 hours. I think it took 30 hours to drive home at a more “leisurely” pace.

But enough about the past!

Today’s big adventure is to the just opened (10 days ago) Tirpitz Museum which the main exhibit (they have three, plus a rotating one) is on the Nazi’s Atlantic Wall – a series of bunkers and tank traps that was supposed to stretch from the top of Norway all the way to Spain.

The bunker has always been exposed, but the new museum was hollowed out from the sand dune so that from a distance, you don’t really see it:

That would be the museum on the right.

And there are slits, reminiscent of anti-tank traps for the entrance.

As you can tell, it was a gorgeous day, neither of us in jacket or sweater. A bit of an odd queue to get our tickets – you could buy your entrance or your beer from the same person. Some rope stanchions would have been helpful.

Since there is a LOT of material to cover, EVERYONE is given a listening device to point at the RFID enabled plaque, and get the story behind the exhibit.

Since it had just opening, it was a little on the crowded side (and, it was also a Sunday).

From the history of the Danish Coast, a real liferaft which would be manned by 10 beefy sailors

And from Denmark’s largest display of amber (Gold from the Sea), we have a Sydney Opera House model (architect was Danish) done all in amber:

For me, it was the bunker that was the main draw. Seems that IKEA wasn’t the first to come up with standard components – the Germans had 400+ standard designed that you could mix/match depending on how big a bunker you were building. Standard designs that centered around everything being built using concrete. The Army of Concrete was the nickname.

Maybe that’s we the entrance bands were glow in the dark, as the bunker itself was dark by OSHA standards:

Having had our history dose for the day it was a little further down the road to the lighthouse:

When my sis and bro-in-law were here a couple of weeks ago (before the museum was open), they had gray skies and drizzle. I like my weather better. And so do the people on the beach and in the dunes.

In the distance, you can see Esbjerg and the wine turbines in the water.

And more bunkers…

The view back inland gives you a feel for how all of this is built on sand dunes:

Our afternoon complete, it was back to the house for a cocktail (for me):

Hans and Aase waited for the wine we had with a dinner out:

It was a quite drinkable Lodi Zinfandel, but notice line “Wine of the United States of America”. A look at the back label showed that it was imported AND BOTTLED in the EU by an Italian producer. Apparently, it’s quite common to bring wine in large container-size stainless steel vats and bottle it in Europe. Guessing that then they send Spanish and Italian wine back to the US.

We all had the Weiner schnitzel at the restaurant. It was good, but there was a lot of it!

I had pondered the Mussels and Chips, but it was pointed out that the mussels no longer came from Jutland because of over fishing/harvesting.

Another after dinner walk by the beach – where some hardy young men were swimming (think water the temperature of Puget Sound):

Back at the house, we opened a second bottle of wine for the evening – ANOTHER California Zinfandel – 7 Deadly Zins, one of my mother’s favorites while she was alive. He’s came from Trader Joes, Hans bought his from Trader Joes corporate overlord Aldi, who has stores in Denmark in addition to their massive holdings in Germany.

This shot also gives you a feel for the upstairs living room with a view to the sea.

Tomorrow I start the process of getting back home, with a couple of stops along the way.

Yes, it’s going to be a long, strange trip.

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For some reason, Hans was an hour early in our get out of bed and get to the station time. So I caught a train an hour earlier! Yes, me.

The return to Copenhagen and then on to Malmo, Sweden is a little simpler, but slower – direct to Copenhagen on the direct train with more stops. Get another ticket to Malmo and stay on seven more stops. It allowed me to restock liquor at the train station.

Hans drove me to the train station, helped me get my ticket and get settled in:

Aase made me sandwiches for the trip, and packed a couple of Diet Cokes:

I think that what I really needed was more sleep:

There was an odd announcement at the first stop in Sweden. If you were getting off here, please have your identification ready:

But, apparently for the rest of the stops in Sweden, you didn’t need to. Immigration control with a LARGE loophole?

Malmo is just an overnight stop for me, and it quickly becomes apparent that I should have maybe stayed a couple of days – for the hotel room, if nothing else:

The hotel was walkable (15 minutes) from the Central Station (once I got my bearings). And it was a pleasant walk through squares and parks:

Had dinner at the hotel because there was a note that if you signed up for their frequent stay program you got 20% off your food. SIGN ME UP!

A lovely burger, fries, and an Aperol spritz! Your basic $20 burger, $10 cocktail, and 20% off.

As far as breakfast was concerned, it was included. And it included LOTS of children – dozens of under 6. I’d noticed the buffet last night had a short buffet line for the kids – that should have tipped me off.

As I was checking out I did inquire about the large amount of children – the answer was, “yes, in summer, LOTS.”

A couple of stops on the train and I was to Copenhagen’s airport headed back to Iceland.

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I’ve gotten the question a couple of times – why not just do AirBnB and make some money off the place. I never really knew the answer to that (other than I’d have to move the printers into the garage and give up my closet) until I was chatting with a surfer who stayed with me who as a former AFS (American Field Service) exchange student in Buffalo during his school years. That is when it hit me – I have “hosting” in my blood. Growing up my parents took in strays over the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays – African students studying English in this small college that basically shut down the dorms assuming everyone had a place to go. A little hard for African students on scholarships to fly home for the holiday, hence my parents taking them in. We also hosted four school-year long AFS students:

• Hans from Denmark
• Reha from Turkey
• Obrad from Yugoslavia
• Isa from Germany

Still in contact with everyone except Isa. But I digress. Conti (short for Constantine) was the CouchSurfer I hosted from Germany. I finally remembered to get more pictures!

I prefer CouchSurfers that hang out for dinner.

I could only host him for one night as I was headed to Walla Walla Wine Country the next morning. Here is a great shot of how much shit we got in the Miata besides ourselves:

It was simpler to take him with me to the off-airport parking lot since Light Rail is right across the street. Quicker to get into town that way – he was planning on spending his next two nights in one of the hostels downtown before hitting Portland, then onto California.

The other Surfer (actually before Conti, but Conti was relevant to the Couchsurfing/AirBnB discussion) was an English lad named Jon (from Newcastle):

He too was headed to Portland on the Blot Bus…

I’ve been keeping myself amused with travelers while I haven’t been travelling. That is coming to an end as I’ve got every week booked in September half of them in October, and am working on an international trip for January. Here is what is coming up that you’ll see reports on…

September

• Walla Walla Wine Country, WA
• Berkeley, CA
• Train to Vancouver, BC to catch the Ruby Princess to Los Angeles, CA, then flying home
• Fly to Denver, hang with Dan and Lisa for two nights, then get on a train (roomette) with Dan for Chicago and continuing to New Orleans for four days, flying home

October

• Berkeley, CA
• Boston, MA

January

• Vietnam hopefully with a couple of night cruise on the Mekong River

That’s it for today, folks. Check back early and often.

[213.4]

My overnight in Iceland has come to an end. Here is my example of the weather here. Damp and windy:

Shuttle was on time at 9:20, and I was SHOCKED that by 9:50:

1. Arrived at the airport
2. Checked my bag
3. Gotten through security
4. Bought Duty Free Bourbon
5. Arrived at the Saga Business Class Lounge

Really, in just 30 minutes.

And what a lounge it is – just opened in the spring:

Even has shower rooms:

Breakfast was out when I got there:

And then they put out lunch – I might not be hungry when they feed me on the plane!

Or thirsty…

This was about all I could handle for “lunch” after my breakfast:

Two meatballs, a fish cake, a samosa, some egg salad and a cocktail.

Even the rest of the airport has that cool Scandinavian feel to it:

Funny thing I found on my boarding pass – do the math:

Board at 12:50 for 13:00 departure – gate closed 15 minutes prior.

And my flight to Copenhagen is, once again, lightly populated with 4.5 people (.5 is a lap child) out of 16 available seats:

No amenity kit on this leg, but they still offered the nice noise cancelling headphones (not for taking home). The cocktail course:

Complete with a box of Vikur – a pretzel mix (that I stashed in my backpack for another time). And lunch:

That would be the cold lunch of reindeer sausage, reindeer pate, salmon, bread and pudding. And damned tasty!

Icelandic Air does have a sense of honor in their onboard product – the saying stitched into the blanket:

And pillow:

Got an OK shot of our approach:

Flight was almost an hour late leaving REF, made up a little time in the air, but not enough for me to catch the quick train connection from the airport (even though mine was the first bag off) to Esbjerg in the western part of Denmark.

Above: the airport station. Below: the central terminal.

And comfortably settled in for the final leg:

With a wonderful Danish sunset with wind turbines:

Hans was there to pick me up at the station – only 30 minutes past when I’d hoped to get there. I’d been sending him email updates on my progress, so no need to pick up the phone for 20 cents a minute. T-Mobile gives you free text and roaming in 140+ countries – and cheap minutes if you need to chat.

Even though it was after 11pm when I got to the house, the made a plate of sandwiches for us all, opened a bottle of wine (then another). What a wonderful greating!

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Woke up to a cup or two of coffee, followed shortly by the daily spread of meats, cheeses, bread…very civilized.

Today’s expedition is to a local Environmental Learning Center – at least, that’s what we would call them in the states. Very tranquil place…

The have a small unmanned museum that goes into the history, flora, and fauna of the refuge.

And some goats looking for a handout…

Winding our way back home we stopped at another park…that stretches from the sea for a mile or so, a greenbelt:

The white orbs of different sizes are the path lights (and things to jump on for the children).

The sun comes out for a bit when we return so that we can sit outside before dinner:

And another marvelous dinner it was – with a shrimp and avocado starter…

Followed by a pork tenderloin stroganoff…

After dinner, Hans suggested a walk the beach:

And a tour of the local architecture, including the “brutalist” style home and office:

And less brutal examples….

Detail of the thatching for the roof:

More examples on either side of the brutalist:

The ones above are just across the road from the beach, the ones below within a couple of blocks…

And even one property that was at the heart of a neighbor dispute over size, and had sat partially completed (with approved plans) for over eight years:

Guess that would be the payback for the complaining neighbor – a decade of an open sore next door.

It is the same neighborhood as yesterday’s first church.

It doesn’t get dark until after 10pm, and tonight we experienced a “close to” full moon – the before:

The after:

Another fun day in the less travelled (at least by Americans) part of Denmark.

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