Friday, April 25, 2014

Easter in Arhus

 Well let the good times keep rolling... Like I said in my previous post, although traveling has its ups and downs, the ups far outweigh the downs. The people you meet, the sights you see, the history you discover and the memories you create are life changing.

Cam, Etta and I decided to retrace some of Dad Mang and Uncle Ron's footsteps. We headed to beautiful Aarhus, Denmark for the Easter long weekend to meet some of the people they knew back in the 'ol' days' when travelling throughout Denmark.

When we arrived we were greeted by Anne (pronounced Anna) and Claus. They helped us find our apartment and invited us for dinner after we felt settled. Dinner was fantastic!! It was a very delicious rice dish along with fresh fruits. It was also so nice to have a meal that I did not have to cook and was not lentils! Etta was definitely tuckered out and near the end of our visit was ready to head back to where we were staying and go to bed. She let out a few hollers to let everyone
know :) She did become enchanted by Anne's beautiful Danish accent as she spoke soft words to Etta. Anne even managed to get a few smiles out of Etta right during her fussy time.

It was very important that we brought a good supply of lentils, potatoes and onion along with Etta's food to eat. A lot of stores were closed this weekend because of Easter, which made finding food very tricky but was nice to see that the Danes are able to take a break. I think this is all part of the 'Hygge' mentality. It is very important to note that if you are ever traveling through Europe during a holiday to make sure you are prepared if nothing is open. Last thing you want is to be stuck exploring a city and being 'Hangry' the whole time. Everything in Aarhus opened on Saturday which allowed us to stock up on food and browse the shops. Here is our weekend in a nutshell...

Thursday was a travel day : our travel day was amazing thanks to Husk! Check out our 'shout out to Husk' blog post if you want to know how our travel day on the train went!

Friday: We went to check out Den Gamle By (pronounced Bu) which is a historic outdoor museum that showcases what Denmark would have been like in the 1700-1800 to around 1970. It is the same sort of idea as Fort Edmonton. Great for kids with lots to see and do!
Spent a good 15 minutes on these stilts. Had a good laugh!


Forgot Etta's toque which led her to wear my Canada toque making her resemble the mushrooms off the Mario brothers  video game. Kept the mood light throughout the day!

Some 'uphill' bowling. Brought me back to the competitive physical education days at university. I schooled Cam :)

Some old school brewing. You could actually buy taste testers of the brew as there were 3 men working on the brew.

Eating some danishes. We got the pink pop tart looking danish primarily because I saw 10 different people order it and assumed it was a danish favourite. It was delicious. After googling danish pop tarts I am starting to think that pop tarts were modeled after this type of Denmark danish.

Walking the ol' Danish streets. The cobblestones gave Etta a bumpy ride but she still managed a nap!
Saturday: We checked out Sondergade which is a huge walking shopping street. It always amazes me the amount of places to see and things to do in cities such as Aarhus that is home to only ~300,000 people and Copenhagen with only ~600,000 people. To put this into perspective Saskatoon has ~200,000 people and Edmonton has ~730,000.

Saturday proved to be a very long day. Etta woke up to the sunrise at 6 am. I was a little delirious as I was walking into walls saying "why did we not cover the window a little bit to get her to sleep longer." Once I snapped out of this delirium we decided  that since we were up and it was a beautiful day that we would go for a run. 7 am we were out the door. We came back for breakfast around 8 am and Etta had a nap at 9 am. From when she woke up at 10 am we went exploring. Our plan was to get back for Etta's nap at 1 pm. She ended up falling asleep in the baby carrier earlier which made for an interesting day and we ended up staying out from 10 am until 5 pm with a run at 7 am! Cam and I were both happy to put Etta to bed by 7 pm and enjoyed putting up our feet.
Recommended by Rough Guides Travel book we started our day by having delicious coffees at Emmery's which is an organic coffee/bakery. I had a mocha and one of my favourite things about Denmark is that the really good coffee shops put real chocolate attached to a stir stick into your mocha or hot chocolate. You then have to stir the chocolate yourself which adds to the decadence of the hot chocolates/mochas as you watch the chocolate melt
flavour throughout the drink.... mmmmmm!  

Although my heart is in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, (sorry Cam's family), Regina, Saskatchewan is home to a lot of Cam's family and the famous football team the 'Roughriders'. Clearly we had to take a picture of the word Regina in Aarhus.

Resting on the sidewalk and feeding Etta after a mini meltdown. Currently enjoying the calm after the storm. 
Sunday:
Sunday we celebrated Easter!!! Here is our Easter Sunday in pictures!
Etta just found her Easter postcard after a long Easter hunt. This was bought at Dem Gamle By and will go into her baby book at home. Check out the easy chair painting behind Cam :)

Following the hunt and Etta's morning nap,  we went to an Easter service at St. Paul's Church in Arhus. St. abbreviation is actually abbreviated Skt. in Danish. We are pretty sure it was either an Anglican or a Lutheran church. It was a very nice service and Etta really enjoyed the organ and the singing. 
After church we celebrated by eating the famous Danish Hot Dogs which we were holding out on. Best hot dog and worth the long wait to get one! It is all and more than what  the travel books said about them. They were delicious with the different sauces like curry and chili that you could add instead of the standard ketchup (which of course we also added the ketchup!) It is also alot easier to eat than the hot dogs back home because of the shape of the bun. After enjoying the hotdogs, Etta played on the swings before heading back home for her afternoon nap.

After Etta's nap we decided to have one last visit for tea, buns and cake at Anne and Claus's garden house. Afternoon tea/Danish is popular in Denmark. There garden house/cottage was a 30 minute walk from where we were staying. On our way to their garden house we walked through the forest, along the ocean and stumbled upon the palace where the Queen was staying. SAY WHAT?!

 Enjoying the sunny 18 degrees celsius weather in Aarhus at the garden house! 

Back home, after a long day and Etta is fast asleep in bed we ate dinner. Enjoying a taste of home. A very delicious Burger King burger to celebrate Easter for dinner!




1 comment:

  1. For the record everyone, the only one who did the schooling in bowling was Cam. Can you say 'Turkey!'?

    ReplyDelete