Odense

In the morning before we left for Odense we had time to quickly stop by the Danish National Museum, which I like because it's freeee and they have a really great Danish pre-history exhibition with some of the famous bog bodies. Archaeological finds in this part of the world would barely exist if someone back in the day hadn't decided that the gods would be super happy if sacrifices were thrown into the bog. It preserves things (and people) so amazingly.

Me in the classical antiquity section.

Dadsily and a big rune stone.

As much as flying is convenient, I definitely prefer to catch the train, especially in Europe where things aren't very far away. It was a pretty train ride to Odense, despite the constant suspense of whether we were going to be kicked out of our 'possibly reserved' seats. It's a weird system, you can be sitting there for the first part of the ride but if someone reserves a seat after the trip has started they're allowed to boot you out. Cause they paid more for a reservation! Atleast the ticket lady was nice to me, I bought a student ticket without having the proper Danish card and she let me get away with it.

Our first impression of Odense was a very good one, we got a bit lost and stopped to ask a couple for directions. They told us to jump in their car (with our big backpacks and all) and they drove us around until they tracked down the street we were looking for. Lovely Danes. Odense was a nice change after being in Copenhagen, a very cosy little place with a good atmosphere. We spent a bit of time wandering around downtown looking at the shops and old buildings.

I think the most useful assignment I've ever done at uni was a retail analysis of Denmark to hypothetically launch Kmart there. It's nice to be familiar with all the shops and know where you're going to find some bargains after so much time wandering aimlessly and trying to gage the level of fanciness by looking in the window. Tiger is my favourite, it's like someone took a $2 shop, classed it up a lot, and filled it with everything I could ever want to buy.

Our main destination on this leg of the trip was Svendborg, a little town 45 minutes away from Odense where our family comes from. It had the cutest little houses, especially the ones with thatched roofs!

We trekked out to Valdemar's Slot, an old royal residence out of town, which was unfortunately closed but we got to wander around the gardens and even found a beach to eat our lunch on! A real live beach with sand and water and sun! And the wind didn't even put sand in our eyes. Lovely.

This bambi's antlers were the perfect height to lean on.

A gatehousey part of Valdemar's Slot.

Look at that sand!

We had plans to make the most of our last morning in Odense, but they were foiled by the torrential rain that attacked us when we had to go walking down the street looking for an ATM to get money to pay our stupid cash only accomodation. I've never been so furious and soggy at the same time, I'm surprised I wasn't steaming with anger. Nowhere in Europe has enough ATMs, they're on every street in Aus and here you have to embark on an epic quest to find them. The time we spent trying to not drown and then drying our clothes meant we had to go straight to the airport without stopping again in Copenhagen. Oh well! The flight was good and airberlin gave us a delicious heart shaped chocolate when we landed. I can't complain =)