Odense

(Strangely, Firefox seems to like Blogger better than Google Chrome does. Interesting...)

Wednesday

Elyse, Theresa, and I set off early in the morning. The train ride was so pretty as outside it was snowing.

Odense is the cutest city. Well, town, I suppose. The map was very misleading because the scale was so small. 1 cm was 300m or something like that. What looked like it should have bee na 10 minute walk was one minute, so we missed some turns every once in a while, but everything is in the center of the city. We also walked around the same square at least five times.

There was modern art everywhere.

We went to the Hans Christian Andersen museum, which is nestled right in the midst of the cutest neighborhood with houses that look too small to live in.

Some really neat murals based on photographs of H.C. Andersen's life.

I learned a lot about his life – turns out it was horribly depressing. That explains a lot. And The Ugly Duckling was a metaphor for his life. And yet, his outlook was always so positive.

A sketch he made of himself, trying to audition for a dance role in the theatre.

Now on my list of things to do if I find a time machine and/or become the Doctor’s companion: hug Hans Christian Andersen, and slap Charles Dickens for being really rude to the poor guy.

And, perhaps, ask to have his hat.

For the first time, I had multiple people speak Danish to me, and it always felt weird having to apologize and say I didn’t speak Danish. Also for the first time, more of the people didn’t speak English.

The hostel was really nice, except for the fact that the heater in the bathroom didn’t work, and the one in our room did not heat up our room. But under the duvets it was cozy and warm.

Elyse had never had quesadillas so we made some for dinner. She was weird out by the orange cheddar cheese, and it took her several reassurances that the cheese was not harmful. All the cheddar here is sharp, though, so it was a little different. Still, I think we introduced passed on the American college staple to the Australian.

Thursday

Today was such a beautiful day. No wind, no rain, no snow but bright sunshine! I could take photos without freezing my fingers!

We had the most delicious apple pastries this morning, and I had the first high-pressure shower in a month. So amazing. Seriously, the hostel was so nice…I want to stay there. Actually, I just want to live in Odense.

Today we went to the zoo. Perhaps being in another country you should not go somewhere as normal as a zoo, you say, but this place was so worth it. As zoos go, there were some depressing small-enclosure moments, but it seemed to be a decent zoo.

Red panda - I think it's cuter than a giant panda!

Manatee!

And they had really close-up encounters. I’m pretty sure the giraffes were close enough to lick us,

and we watched the cutest lion cubs only separated by a glass panel.

It was adorable until the mom sat RIGHT in front of the glass and gave us death glares. Then it was kind of terrifying.

There was also a rather epic playground with the steepest slide. I attempted to go down it, but then it wasn’t slippery at all, and I ended up pushing myself down. Ah, well.

After, we went to Skt. Knud’s Kirke, a beautiful church with the bones of St./King Knud from 1086. Gotta love Europe.

The train to Århus was crowded, we couldn’t get a seat for the first half hour. I didn’t think it was a big deal – it made sense – the tickets weren’t for specific times or seats, it was peak time…but Elyse wasn’t too happy about it. I think the lady standing next to us was very interested in our English conversation about whether or not it was wrong of Elyse to expect Australian standards in Denmark.