Denmark

I forgot to mention that in my hostel in Odense there was an ice cream parlor and as there were so few people the lady behind the counter asked if I'd like to do a taste test. Well what would you have me do? Dissapoint her??? In the end I settled on a scoop of this basil sorbet which sounds incredibly odd but was actually very refreshing and good, probably enhanced by the fact that she said most of the ingredients for the ice cream were grown locally and some even in the hostel gardens! So ANYWAY...next day I went to Helsingor aka Elsinore which was pretty good though I must admit Rosenburg in Copenhagen was better with the crown jewels but anyway...! Um, the casemates (beneath the castle) were probably not for the afraid of dark or claustrophobic as they only lit every fourth room or so and there was a quite horrific modern art exhibit in the torture chamber -a perfect place to take your children for hallowe'en though! Also an interesting story with the statue of a viking that in time of need will come awake and save Denmark. (You know a bit like those King Arthur stories) Anyway, it was quite nice to see another town in Denmark particularly as this was right on the Baltic and so beautiful if very very windy. I hadn't anticipated I was oing to the seaside! Little fishing shacks and so on. Actually that said, if you couldn't feel the temperature even though it sounds crazy Denmark looks sort of like the Italian countryside did. Lots of green and beautiful blue skies as a backdrop to yellow and red houses with terracotta rooves. Lovely. And I'm sure you now all think I'm crazy but nevermind!

I got the train to Malmo Sweden today and so I'm off to explore a new country. There is a saying: "Haur du sitt Malmo, haur du sitt varden" which apparantly means if you've seen Malmo, you've seen the world so we shall see!

So to make you all happy, here's my itinerary as it stands at the moment.
23-24/06: Copenhaguen
25: Malmo, Sweden
26-27: Ystad
28-29: Gothenburg
30-2/07: Oslo, Norway
3: Bergen
4: Oslo
5-8: Stockholm, Sweden
9: night ferry yay!
10-11: Turku, Finland
12: Tampere
13-15: Helsinki

Nothing else booked beyond this point. Am having a lot of trouble even getting hold of a letter of invitation to Russia so it's looking a little like that isn't going to be happening atm. I'm going to keep evaluating my bank balance and I think possibly I might like to go back to the Netherlands for a bit longer but I haven't decided about that so who knows? I change my mind all the time so...! Anyway just to keep you updated! Went to Odense yesterday which is Hans Christian Andersen's home town and so old and quaint -or at least some of it was-! I was pretty impressed by the museum too which had all the info you could ever possibly want on him and then some, including his dentures in case you were interested! Anyway I had fun as you all know how much I love fairytales! And to be frank I haven't felt any signs of growing out of that anytime soon. Anyway Helsingor tomorrow -a place you may know better as Elsinor. Still not ringing any bells? Hamlet my dear, Hamlet. Oh btw I think I forgot to tell you -I booked a bed in a large dorm in Copenhaguen as my guidebook said about 30 beds which was a little unpleasant to think about but I decided to just suck it up and save the money. Then I got here and he was like: you're in number 54. 54!!! How many are there??? 64. Yay!!!!!! (I guess it meant 30 ish bunks, 2 to a bunk) Ah can you just imagine how happy I was at this news? That said, it was only 110 ddkk -about 12 pounds- and I slept like a baby. So why complain really?

There was one quote at Hans Christien Anderson's hous I want to put:

"To travel is to live."

Enough said really.

So did a self-guided walking tour yesterday that was supposed to be 3 hrs long. Well. Maybe if you ran the whole way and never stopped to take pictures or as it went to wait out the occassional thunder storm. Anyway I saw a huge swathe of the city but to summarise: some cool little alleyways, Nyhavn (which was pretty much what people think of when they think of Denmark), Little Mermaid statue, Changing of the Guard at the winter palace, Christianborg Slot -home of parliament-, citadel complete with windmill, outside of Rosenburg Slot, Round Tower...as you can see I was pretty busy! For today: Christiana -you know the 'you are now leaving the eu' free town where everything is so green because a sewage pipe broke and ran into the water hence lots of nutrition in case you wanted to know! And maybe Rosenburg Slot I think. Tommorrow; Odense then back to Copenhaguen for a couple of days before on to Sweden.