Denmark: Land of the Vikings

Everyone thinks Vikings are cool. Everyone. Being in their homeland is really interesting, for the Danes it's not some far off ancient peoples; it's their ancestors and their history. My Nordic Mythology class is probably the most interesting and fun class I've ever taken, I actually enjoy all of the readings. We've had two field studies so far, one to the National Museum which has the largest collection of Viking Age artifacts in the world, and another one around Zealand, looking at a bunch of different things from the Viking Age and before.

On our Zealand trip yesterday we first went to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. Roskilde was the main port before Copenhagen existed and 50 years ago they found 5 ships underneath the fjord there. They took the pieces and put them back together to get an idea of what the ships were like. Some were large and built for trading, others were small and meant for the warriors.

Burial mounds are all over Scandinavia and only a small number of them have been excavated. This one is from the Stone Age and it's about 5000 years old. Oh yeah, we got attacked by a bat.

Heorot hall, also known as Hleiðargarðr, is the biggest and most famous hall of Viking times. It's the main hall in Beowulf and it's what Tolkien modeled Meduseld (Theoden's hall in Edoras) after. Not much to see now mostly just the ridgeline of the foundation, but still interesting. My teacher is pretty much a Viking.

Probably looked like this at one point:

This is a round fort which was a base for a few hundred Vikings. They would carry out raids and then return here to the barricaded walls. The original mounds for the walls are still in tact and the foundations for the building have all been recreated.

Runic stone at a Christian church. They still used runes after the Viking age, as it was part of their tradition.

Pretty cool.

Bornholm

Saturday

Well, technically the ferry left Friday night, but close enough. 6 hour ferry ride from Copenhagen to Bornholm, nothing too exciting.

Arrived in Bornholm at 6am and drove to our town. The island is fairly small, you can get from one end to the next in about 30 minutes by car. We stayed in a town called Gudhjem, a little fishing village on the central northern coast. It was really quaint, but way too quite for a group of 100 college students.

We settled in around 7 and hopped on our bikes at 8:30. The map they gave us had almost no details and only very general routes to follow. There were four of us in our group and we decided to do the Cultural Tour. This consisted of the towns along the north coast, some ruins, and one of the island's round churches.

First we arrived at Allinge, a town on the Northwest tip of the island. Nothing special, just a nice place to take a break and soak up the local culture...which is surprisingly lacking for a warmish Saturday.

Next up were the ruins of Hammershus, the largest medieval fort in Northern Europe. They were spectacular. There was almost no history of the place but we found out it was built in 1250 and was attacked multiple times by both Germans and Swedes.

There was a restaurant just outside the ruins where we decided to stop for lunch. One of the things Bornholm is famous for is their smoked herring. It was probably the saltiest thing I have ever tasted but was delicious nonetheless.

The route we were told to take recommended that we ride along the coast on the way home but we did that on the way there so decided to go inland and make out way paste the round church. The church was really cool and this round style only exists on this island and a few random places in Sweden.

We were supposed to backtrack to get on the main path but we felt adventurous and wanted to find our own way home. This consisted of farmland and trees. Nothing else. Along the way we saw a sign to the round church where we just came from and decided it was time to ask for directions. We talked to one of the farmers and he pointed in the right direction. After getting split up at a fork, attempting to get cell reception, more backtracking and lots of hills, we got back to the hostel at 5:30.

Total trip: 9 hours, ~55-60km.

Sunday

On the southern tip of Bornholm is a sandy beach which is said to have the finest sand in the world. Everyone else said it was amazing so we really wanted to get there. But it was 30km each way and we were tired from yesterday so we decided to take the bus. The receptionist at the hostel gave us the bus schedule and we were on our way.The local glass museum was on the way so we decided to walk there and then find a bus stop.

After 45 minutes of waiting, a local told us that Sunday busses only run in the Summer, which technically ended 2 weeks ago. Great.

We had lunch and then tried to figure out what to do. There was still 4 hours left and we didn't want waste it. The center of the island is home to the third largest forest in Denmark-which really isn't saying much-so we headed there. It was a nice ride and we saw another round church, but it was a carbon copy of the other one. The rest was again, farmland.

In the center of the forest is an old lookout tower. Wasn't extremely tall or exciting, but it was a great place to take a break and see a nice view of the island.

The ride back was painful. Strong winds, on and off rain, and less light by the minute. Around 7pm we finally made it back to the hostel exhausted and ready to go home.

Total trip: 4 hours. ~40km

For the ferry back, I booked a cabin so I was able to get a decent 5 hours rest before a full Monday of classes and homework. Overall it was a great weekend. No matter what city you are in, it's always good to get away and I'll be doing that every weekend until November! It was probably more physical exercise than I have ever gotten in my life but I survived. I've now been awake for 17 hours. Life is good.

Heavy Metal as a Community

An interesting thing happened today. As I was walking around the DIS building between classes I saw someone with a sticker reading Arsis. Arsis is a technical melo-death band that I only recently discovered and happened to be listening to only hours prior. I pointed it out to him, and we talked for 10 minutes about what bands we listen to and what shows we want to see while in Copenhagen. A simple sticker lead to a new friend.

Then, as I was leaving the building, I noticed someone else with a sticker on their laptop. This was a sticker for The White Stripes. As I walked by I realized something, this person has probably never made a friend because of this sticker. Why? Because The White Stripes are a household name that just about everyone knows and has heard, so there's really nothing special about liking them.

This made me realize that heavy metal is more than just a genre, it's a community. Because it has a relatively low number of listeners, we tend to stick together and befriend one another. I think it's because listening to metal is a hobby. You can't simply turn on the radio and hear it. You have to go out and search for it, and decipher what you like. Most people hear a pop song on the radio, think it sounds good, buy the cd and forget about the band in a few months. When we discover a metal band, we really have to pay attention. Metal is extremely complex, that's why it's such an acquired taste, so connoisseurs of the art-form don't take it quite as casually. I've never really asked someone who listens to pop why they like it but I would assume the answers would be "It's catchy" or "easy to sing along to." Ask a metalhead why he likes a band and he can talk for hours about their dueling-guitar solos, complex riffs or deep imagery. Metal is a passion that takes dedication.

So when two people meet who are into heavy metal, they immediately have A LOT in common. They understand each other and appreciate the fact that someone else listens to the music for the same reasons. I could go on and on about why I love heavy metal, but this is definitely the top reason.

Western Denmark

Struer

Struer is a small town on the western coast of Jutland. We went there to visit Bang & Olufsen, one of the world's pinnacle manufacturers of high end A/V equipment. It was an amazing place, and we saw lots of the internal workings of the company that most people never get to see. At one point we were asked to hand over all of our cameras and cell phones because some of the things they are working on in the factory are still 'top secret'. The best part of the trip was being given what they refer to as the ultimate home theatre experience. We watched a concert on a crystal clear 100" projection with 3,500 Watt speakers.

This is the world headquarter's, standing on the edge of town literally 100 yards from a farm. The closest city is Aarhus, a 2 hour drive. Kind of an odd choice for a company that caters primarily to multi-millionaires.

The 50" TV costs around $20,000, each speaker is $10,000 and the full setup will run about $150,000. That includes the lights, blinds and doors which are all powered by a single remote. The speakers each provide 360-degree sound and so much bass that that they have to be 150 pounds just to sit still on the floor. This was definitely the highlight of the trip.

Aarhus

Aarhus is on the opposite of Jutland, facing the east coast. It's the second biggest city in Denmark, and with a population the same as Seattle I was hoping it would be a really cool place. We arrived there Thursday night and the bar scene was pretty much nonexistent. Friday we went to visit a company that makes stylish futons, but it was really boring and we could tell that they are having a rough time making a profit. Friday night DIS decided to switch us to a hostel 2 miles north of town in the middle of the forest.

Friday night was pretty fun; we went to a couple bars but they were unfortunately the same price as Copenhagen but I still didn't spend TOO much. $40 for dinner and a night out is pretty cheap for Denmark, some people ended up paying $150 because they decided to go out for Mexican which in Denmark is considered a fancy exotic cuisine.

Odense

On Saturday the other groups all got to go to Lego-Land and we were stuck going to the third largest city to see HC Anderson's birthplace. It was a pretty nice city but really nothing special.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Botanical Gardens & Carlsberg Brewery

It's easy to complain about how expensive in Copenhagen is. The 25% sales tax is the highest in the world along with Sweden and Norway so literally everything is more costly than in the states. It's a rough transition but I've been trying to find things that are both unique to Copenhagen and relatively inexpensive. The 'dollar store' Tiger is so named because the 10 kroner coin has the same animal on it. Most things in the store cost 10-20DKK (2-4 dollars) and they have a pretty decent selection just like discount stores in the US. With nothing planned for Friday Michael and I decided to buy a 20DKK bottle of wine and sit in the botanical gardens in the middle of the city. It's basically an odd park with all sorts of strange plant life. Definitely something you don't expect for the middle of a city.

 

A surprising number of plants were poisonous

Saturday we went to the Carlsberg Brewery, which supposedly has the cheapest beer in Copenhagen. For $10, you get a tour of the museum and 2 beers of your choice. Very cool.

This is what 14,000 bottles of beer looks like

Turns out Master Brew has 11% alcohol. Not a wise choice in retrospect.

DR & Christiania

First thing today was to go to DR, the national TV and radio network for a field study with my Lost in Translation class. We went to see how the subtitle department works. It sounds exciting but was actually pretty mundane, especially since our tour guide was a 65 year old who is an 'expert' and 'only still working here because they can't find anyone else better than me.' At least the building was cool.

I've been wanting to go to Chrstiania for a while and it was well worth the wait. It's a freetown, basically a commune of hippies who wanted to live away from the modern materialistic society and set up their own way of life. They are famous for openly selling pot but that stopped in 2004 after the police raided it.

 

The graffiti there is actually art, not just random letterings or gang symbols.

We went to a famous restaurant that only serves one dish per day, and it's all vegetarian. It turned out to be one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, it was a homecooked tomato curry with some sort of fried tofu/chickpea 'meat.'

Unfortunately, we had to return to the European Union.