Christmas in Denmark

Hi there! Picking up where we left off, I met Kimmy & Kenny in Brussels and flew to Copenhagen to spend the holidays but that's just the start of it!

Saturday, December 23rd, 2023

Brussels to Copenhagen is an easy 1.5-hour flight so we were in Denmark before we knew it! We picked up our bags (twice!), got our rental car then drove into the city of Copenhagen. We spent the first day right in Copenhagen at a hotel right on the main canal. Kimmy and Kenny were definitely feeling the time zone change so we had a pretty mellow day, walking around the city centre and having some really tasty pizza. We walked around Nyhavn, the picturesque neighbourhood that still had its Christmas market and drank some yummy hot chocolate. Kenny was feeling the time zone so much that he fell asleep at 5 PM so Kimmy and I hung out in the sauna before also going to bed quite early.

Sunday, December 24th, 2023

We had a nice sleep-in then started our Danish road trip! We picked up some lattes & tea then started to drive east! Here is a visual of the miles we did in our short Christmas vacation!

It was a big trip with lots of driving and lots of cool things to see! So let's get into it!

The first destination was Rosklid where we drove right into the Danish culture and we went to the Viking ship museum! This is where my high thought of the Vikings was kinda ruined. In my mind (which I will admit I guess is uneducated when it comes to Vikings), thought they were really cool warriors that wore cool helmets with horns and had massive swords and did all kinds of cool things. And apparently, that's all myths. Vikings were kind of like Scandinavian pirates that ransacked lots of little towns and they didn't colonize or expand or anything like that, they just did trips all over Scandinavia and even came as far as Canada. Apparently being a Viking isn't like a warrior but it was really just a profession that about 3000 people had that meant they were brave enough to go out in boats. So I guess they are still cool but definitely not as cool as they are portrayed in movies.

BUT a really cool thing they did was figure out how to make boats that were strong and light enough to cross the Atlantic without any technology. This museum was focused just on their boats and they have 5 boats that were recovered from shallow fjords in Denmark. It turns out that the Vikings sunk some of their ships in channels to defend against incoming enemies. The enemies would not know the correct channel to come into Rosklid so they would run aground of the ships and be stranded. Pretty smart move by the Vikings.

These ships were built in the 1000s (as in over 1000 years ago) and they were excavated and rebuilt here in the museum.

Rosklid also has a really cool church but there were Christmas services going on (and only in Danish) so we had to settle with only getting to see the outside of it.

On our way out of town, we were a little hungry but it was Christmas Eve and everything was closed so we went to the only place open for a snack: McDonald's! This quickly became a part of our daily routine as it was often the only thing open in each of the little towns we went to.

Then we continued on to Odense. Here we checked in to our hotel and then quickly left for our traditional Danish Christmas Even dinner.

A traditional Danish Christmas dinner happens on Christmas Eve and it seems to be quite the social event. There was a 15-minute speech about the traditions and what they are serving and lots of other details (from what I can imagine) but this whole speech was in Danish so we didn't understand a word of it! One waitress was nice enough to come translate it for us but somehow this speech only lasted about 30 seconds so I think some details might have been lost in translation!

The meal was really good and started with an appetizer of smoked salmon and caviar on homemade focaccia, then the main was two types of potatoes, pork, duck, apples, gravy and pickled cabbage. Interesting items but they were all very good! Dessert was a traditional rice pudding with a cherry sauce! Also very good! We unfortunately didn't find the prize-winning full almond but maybe next time!!!

We headed back to our hotel, put on our magic pyjamas and watched National Lampoon's Christmas vacation before falling asleep :)

Monday, December 25th, 2023

Merry Christmas from the 3 "K" Morrisons!

This Christmas morning may not be the most typical Christmas morning, as I don't think most families unfolded their tissue paper tree like we did but it was a magical Christmas nonetheless! This morning I was very happy that my parents came over and that we got to spend this morning together because it doesn't feel like Christmas without them!

We unwrapped our stockings and had a tasty hotel buffet breakfast then we continued on our Danish road trip!

We made a quick stop at Hans Christian Anderson's house. That's the guy who wrote famous fairytales like The Little Mermaid, The Princess & the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen (which became Frozen), and more! His house was a cute, yellow, typical, Danish house (except for the massive modern gift shop they built attached to it)!

The next stop was Egeskov Castle, but unfortunately, it was closed, since it was Christmas... But that didn't stop the Sköda! Our fearless driver Kenny decided that the Sköda was basically a horse and we could definitely just drive on the horse trails and across a bridge that barely looked like it could bear the weight of a horse. But we made it and got a really nice view of the castle!

Then we made a quick stop to go for a walk to a lighthouse (Kimmy loves her lighthouses) and continued on our way!

We made another brief stop at a closed Viking museum. It was closed so we couldn't see anything. Then we kept driving.

Another brief stop was at another nice church, this time in Sorø!

And our final stop was our hotel for the evening and this was not your typical hotel. This night we stayed in a castle! It was super cool! It was a massive estate with stables and a moat and land that goes on forever, there was even a creepy meeting room with dead foxes hanging up and a library with a pool table!

We had another Christmas dinner here, this time less traditional and more fancy with beautifully plated dishes. So beautiful that the waitress had to remind Kenny that the plates are not edible and there are components that are "only for your eyes, not your mouth".

We had some drinks, played some pool, ate lots of food, FaceTimed the rest of the family and celebrated Christmas together :)

Tuesday, December 26th

Continuing on our road trip, but this time with the car not moving, we took a ferry across a big fjord to Aarhus! I'd like to point out that I actually did about an hour of studying while on this ferry! I felt the need to point it out because this was basically the only studying I did over the break... whoops!

Then we arrived in Aarhus and had to check out the main attraction: a deer park! We stretched our legs and got to see lots of tourists feed the domesticated deer. We even got to see a mom freak out when her husband let their toddler out of his site when there were "PREDATORS" (the tame deer) around!

I wouldn't call these guys "predators"...

Next, we headed to a cool museum with exhibits all about Denmark's history through the Middle Ages, the Iron Age, the Viking Age and more, as well as an exhibit about Ancient Egypt!

A stop in a Danish city would be incomplete without a visit to a cool church so of course we did that then headed into the city to check into our hotel, watch some hockey on the iPad and find some dinner:)

Wednesday, December 27th, 2023

Being the last day of the Danish road trip, we needed to get ready for our group to join us. And what does that preparation look like? Well, it means driving to the German "Costco" and stocking up on alcohol as to avoid the crazy taxes in Denmark!

On the way to Germany, we stopped in Jelling, another famous Viking town. Here, the famous Rune stone of Denmark is raised. This is a massive stone symbolizing the origin of Denmark and the first king, Harold Bluetooth (and yes the Bluetooth function is actually named after this guy). This stone symbolized the coming together of all of the islands of Denmark and the Christian peoples of Denmark and now it is on the first page of every Danish passport. It's kind of a big deal. And it's pretty cool.

After the historical stop, we continued to Flensburg, Germany and stopped at the craziest store I've ever been to, equipped with walls of cases of pop and beer, wine tastings and bulk sizes of any product you could ever imagine. Just don't forget to fill out the export form or the cashier and the people in line behind you will be upset!

After stuffing the Sköda, we drove back into Denmark, stopping in Rige to see yet another cool church. We tried to go sea spotting but it was unfortunately too dark and we think the seals left to find warmer waters already :( so we headed to our final destination, Kolding.

We spent the night in Kolding before getting up nice and early to drive back to Copenhagen to meet up with our friends coming to watch the World Juniors!

As for the "K" Morrisons Danish Christmas road trip, thank you to our Sköda for making it all across Denmark, thank you to McDonald's for feeding us every day, thank you to the Tragically Hip for keeping Kenny happy while driving, and thank you Kimmy & Kenny for coming over early to spend Christmas here with me! I love you guys!

Merry Christmas!