trip to denmark

mike

pew carving in danish church

danish street

lunch at the guildhall

lübeck main square

heiligen geiste hospital

k. playing the cello after 12 + years

last night in AC at the pub


allo allo -

so day 4 in deutschland, having had a lovely lovely three day weekend with K. sunday we drove to lübeck, which is a very pretty old town up in the north, and swanned around there for the day - highlight being a raspberry marzipan cake at THE marzipan shop of northern germany ooh la la. (we also had lunch at the old seamen´s guildhall, which was fun: you can´t really see from the pic, but it is an old room that does not appear to have changed at _all_ since, oh, 1400, except for the model ships that they have hung from the ceiling. long intricately carved wooden benches and trestle tables that you sit at to eat your potato soup and liverwurst, painted murals of the hazards of sea-going life on the walls, chandeliers, dim light. very atmospheric.)

yesterday (monday) we drove to the west coast of denmark, which is like another planet. nobody lives there, and the people who do are apparently all completely inbred, the landscape is really spooky, all flat marshy misty with dikes and canals everywhere, and then when you hit the actual coast there is grey sea and grey sky as far as you can see, except for the occasional boat (either medium size fishing boats or MASSIVE princess-cruise-size ferries to norway or sweden or somewhere). we came back via toldern, which is a bit of denmark which used to be german where M´s family is from, and walked around there for a bit, and it reinforces the feeling of total insularity. everyone looks the same, and although it is cute and picturesque, cobblestoned streets and thatched rooves and the whole bit, it is quite clearly a question of nobody having bothered to change anything since the 17th century rather than purposely preserved for touristic opportunism.

Last night K´s friend Gunter came over for dinner which was great; his English is slightly more limited than M´s (although still impressively good - everyone i have met here so far seems to be able to carry on a basic conversation in English), so by necessity more of the talk happened in german and i am amassing new words at a fast and furious pace. i can discuss apples, potatoes, broccoli, lead-free gasoline, gewurstraminer, mushrooms, nipples, sugar, quantum physics, driveways, cheese, furniture, dogs, water, snow, marzipan, colours, days of the week, and numbers up to 8 (for some reason i find nine and ten impossible to remember). lots of progress. by the end of my stay i should be fluent, i think :)

anyway. today is tuesday; K is at work, and Mike is at home studying for his board exam and letting heating repairmen in, so i am on my own for the day. i am going to go for a run, and then see what downtown Kiel has to offer, as i actually haven´t spent that much time in Kiel proper. this house is difficult to escape from, as it is crammed to the gills with books and pictures and and random things to look at (representative sample: a plastic R2D2 robot, four feet high, whose head opens up so you can fill him with ice and store beers in him during parties, a set of acupuncture needles and a fake silicone ear on which to practice, an extensive antique model train set, a wooden dinosaur model kit that kate is putting together to send to her niece, two motorcycles from (i am guessing from their appearance) the 1930´s, a sauna... etc.)

tomorrow i am going to take the train to hambourg and check that out as well, i think. fun fun.

okay, well, love to all, and fingers crossed for the election results.