A few of my favourite things (in Denmark)

I'm a bit behind with my blogging, but I'm sure you can still notice that we've spent a lot of time in Denmark.  Probably around 6 weeks over 3 separate visits.  So the question is what is so special about Denmark.  In no particular order:

1) The people.  They really are wonderfully kind, interesting and helpful.  Big thanks to Regnar and Eva; Birgitte and Morten; Lars, Catrine and of course Mercedes; Rune; Aasbjoern; Patrick and the many others who have helped make our trip so much fun.

and how could I leave out Legoland???

I could add a lot about the society here, but will attempt to keep it brief.  Kids are treated as humans, and have a lot of fun at school.  They often spend a year at a special school like the one we visited with Rune on Samso where they stay as boarders and get to do lots of really fun courses (parachuting anyone?).  The community looks after its kids with all adults keeping an eye out for the young and provides several great services including areas where youth can hang out with adult supervision with computers for gaming, pool and table tennis tables and karaoke machines.  Most of the local youth seems to spend time at such youth centres and to develop a positive relationship with adults not their own parents.  There are also special morning screenings at the cinema for mothers: the babies are left in their prams outside the cinema with half a ticket stub on them and if they start screaming and staff or other adults can't calm them, the mother will then be found.

6 weeks a year holidays in the public service, plus 2 days per child off to look after them when they are sick.  Fabulous.

2)  Paalaegschokolade.  Really thin slices of chocolate that are eaten on white bread for breakfast.  Nicer than nutella and definitely a smaller portion than what I end up spreading.

3)  Concentrated fruit juice.  You can buy the concentrate and reconstitute it yourself, saving on packaging and transport, brilliant!

This is just the one glass variety you get at conferences, but the same 1:4 principle applies!

4)  The fish.

Julian about to enjoy his platter

5)  The chairs.   We went to some fabulous shops and design museums in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Kolding and discovered that what I have previously found so elusive; furniture that is comfortable, is a given in Denmark and also looks good.  Of course it has an associated price tag, but considering how much time you spend at the dinner table or on the sofa, how could it not be worth it!  I would love to hear your thoughts and inspirations on good and bad furniture buys.

This is not in a design shop, but someone's home.  These fabulous chairs are comfortable sitting up straight or sitting sideways with your legs across the arm.

Comfortable dining chairs, who would have thought of it?

Note the fabulous cast concrete design museum.  Pity the roof leaks!

6)  There are many other great building design elements that I love, but of course I'm looking with the eyes of someone about to build.

Note double sided stove, light shades and my favourite roofing: a mix of saw offcuts and concrete that looks great and absorbs a huge amount of sound.

No more mucky cleaning around the base of the tap and mouldy silicon when your tap comes out of the wall.  The drawers also open themselves when you push against them, great for when you are cooking.

Aarhus: vikings and bog bodies

Aarhus was more challenging from an airfield finding perspective, as all the airfields are quite a way from town.  Luckily we managed to get in contact with the owner of a private strip (Hardy) who very kindly allowed us to land on his strip.  But we were a bit concerned when we flew over to discover a Piper in the middle of the runway!

and evidently it's normally there, since it's been mown around!

Luckily there was another runway across alongside the lake, so we took that instead and landed just as it was starting to rain.  Hardy & his wife soon arrived in a little SLK, saying that they'd been waiting for us.  Oops, that was a miscommunication, we try to tell people when we expect to arrive, but didn't think they'd be kind enough to wait around to drive us in to town too.  Unfortunately our bicycles, stuff and ourselves were a little large for the SLK's back seat / boot.  So we went to the garage to see if we could jump start the Rolls that had had its lights left on recently.  No luck.  Frankly I was pretty worried about my tires getting anywhere near that cream upholstery, so back to plan c, a few minutes later Hardy came back with a big trailer hitched to the back of the SLK, bikes in and off we went in the by now heavy rain.

Hardy & Lars with another of Hardy's toys

We were very lucky that Rune from Samso's friend Asbjoern had offered to host us for a few nights in Aarhus.  He has a quite amazing apartment in the centre of Aarhus with some really lovely features, including some very old tall succulents / cacti.  Asbjoern lives an enviable alternative lifestyle, that involves working on projects as architect / builder, sailing, and travelling the world.  He has developed a new interpretation of rune stones, which gives meaning to some of the more abstruse messages, but I won't tell you too much, as there will be a book.  A great thing about this trip has been meeting all the different people and seeing how many different ways there are of leading a fulfilling life.

I love the peacefulness of this space (and in fact the entire flat)

We did a lot of bumbling around Aarhus with the bikes, and saw some really lovely buildings.  Aarhus has 250K - 350K inhabitants depending on who you speak to, so it's easy to live close to the centre and there are so many fabulous major city touches, like the city centre, first inhabited by the vikings, with remnants of viking houses found under the recently built bank now on display downstairs in the bank.  That inspired us to go a bit out of town to see the Mosegaard museum, which has the best preserved peat bog body in the world.  It is really amazing, as the peat has tanned the skin so it looks like an incredibly well sculpted piece of ebony.  We also saw the oldest glass bead in the world, from Bahrain, which didn't look like much but was pretty interesting.  ARoS art museum is really world class, and being a little smaller than the Tate Modern, has a really good scale to look around in one day.

ARoS

Right before leaving Lars took us to Friland, quite a large area devoted to straw bale houses.  We got shown through the guy who organised the area's house, which really impressed me, especially the good insulation and central wood oven that burns one small briquette a day to heat the entire house in winter, as there are pipes taking the heat all around the walls.  It even has a spot where you could bake bread if you were so inclined.

how beautiful does this one look!  I'm not sure if there's a practical purpose for the towers - maybe for water pressure?  Ideas anyone?

isn't this stove amazing

This diaphragm styled roof on the above building looks stunning

The road to Aarhus, running from the rain.

The forecast weather was rain, rain and more rain.  We'd forgotten Julian's sandals on Morsoe and we wanted to see Orla and his lovingly restored Stinson in Viborg on the way through to Aarhus.  The met office said the weather would set in around midday.  So it was a rush. 

land and dash action

By dint of hurrying a lot were were hardly late at all on our schedule and landed on one of Viborg's two excellently tended grass runways by 10.15am.  The Danes are very hospitable and Orla brought bread rolls and jam (typical Danish breakfast) as well as, you guessed it, a Danish, mmmmm.  Lars and Mercedes made it too.  Lars often looks at Mercedes in conversation and says 'Eh Mercedes' for confirmation and after a while I found myself doing the same, at which Lars looked quizzical, but didn't disturb Mercedes in the slightest.  Due to the weather there was only time for a short chat and a quick trip in each plane.  We now know what they called the Stinson the cadillac of the skies, it hugely comfortable with great controls and even a good view out (unusual for a tail dragger).  Lars' plane is one he built himself out of metal and is a STOL, so it takes off from very little runway, not too fast but fabulous for photography.  Mercedes has her own dog earphones, which she doesn't really like and keeps pulling off.

kawaii