Northern Jutland Trip

One of the coolest trips BY FAR I have taken was with my friend Anne. She is from a town about an hour and a half north of Aarhus called Aars. We went home to her parents house for the weekend. We had traditional Danish food every day, and would borrow their car for the day and travel around Northern Denmark (Jutland, the main piece of land).

Anne did a FANTASTIC job of planning the trip. Everything she chose to show me, I thought was the coolest thing ever, and would never have suspected to find these things in Denmark. We went to Aars and drove around. I saw her hometown and where she grew up, where she went to school, played tennis, etc. We drove up the Northwestern border of Jutland. We went to Blokhus, Løkken, Aalborg, Frederikshavn, Skagen and more!

Another interesting aspect of the trip was the car. Anne's parents have an Audi SUV, which you do NOT see in Denmark that often. It is a very nice car - the camping edition (think Ford Explorer Sport). The car is probably about $60-70k in the US. Because of the taxes and fees on cars in Denmark, the car was worth the equivalent of $100k USD!!! I could not believe that there were that many taxes! Yikes, no wonder why they all ride bikes!

Lincoln left me in the morning, and went and slept with Anne...traitor!

Jerry's is an American grill in Frederikshavn. It is owned by her cousin and her cousin's husband (who is an American). It was pretty cool to have dinner there

Den Tilsandede Kirk used to be the largest Danish church in medieval times but it had to be closed in 1795 because the dunes had reached the entrance-gates of that church and blocked it. The sand drift started around 1600 and reached the church at the end of the 18th century. The congregation had to dig their way into the church when they wanted to attend the services. The struggle against the sand continued until 1795 when the church was closed by royal decree. Today, only the tower is visible. The direct translation of this building is 'The Sanded Up Church.' It is a church near Skagen from the 14th century that over time, has been covered by sand, so now all that is visible is essentially the tower part of the church

WWII bunkers in Skagen - again, cool to actually see evidence of the war

Another bunker

Anne and I in Skagen

Skagen is the northernmost tip of Denmark. It is where the two seas meet (you can see the waves crashing against each other). The current is so strong here. This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life.

Where the seas meet

Beach up to the northernmost tip (look to the right)

A bunker in the water

The palm beach in Frederikshavn

You could see the island in the horizon

The windmills - still, a very weird sight to me

This was in Løkken and was again, one of the craziest things I have seen in Denmark!

The view on top of the sand dune

A lighthouse in the midst of the sand dune

Love this pic

Cool how the sand just stops and drops off to greenery

It was sooo windy!

Little houses on the beach in Blokhus

In the car driving on the sand

In Aalborg, the 3rd largest city in Denmark

There is a main street of bars, and AT LEAST every other bar had something to do with America!

Anne's neighbor had a dog like Lincoln

The view in Aars

The walk of fame in Aars - this person is related to Anne

Lincoln on her first train ride

Where the seas met in Skagen

Fanø Cup

This summer, I went to the island of Fanø off the southwest tip on Denmark to play in a soccer tournament called Fanø Cup. The tournament was a great time - but the sleeping in the tent and community shower thing was a little tough for me. I am more of a hotel girl, and not used to the nakedness that is required in Europe! I had to just bite the bullet and take my first shower in front of a bunch of strangers...yikes...but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

At any rate, it was a great weekend. The first day we were blessed with RAIN, but other than that, it was pretty blue and sunny.

I did not know what to expect at all from this tournament, but quickly found out!

Off the shore

This is one of my absolute favorite pictures because it represents me, and soccer girls in general. Just a love of the game, easy-going nature, sporty girls. This was the team I played on (left to right): Chanett, Ros, Madsen, Britt, me and Tess

There was a big tent nearby that hosted the after-party every night

My two favorite girls, Chanett and Madsen

We went out to dinner one night and walked to the beach.

This was the longest stretch of sand I have ever seen in my life leading up to the water. We seriously walked on sand for at least 10 minutes before we hit the water

Tents where we slept, and people just out playing soccer

Cute houses...loved them!

Love this look

a sand bank in the middle of the water

My idea to braid Madsen's hair. And so funny because very NOT fitting for her personality

Hanging out after the games for the day

Chanett got a ball to the face, and a fat lip immediately

Fat lip

This was the FIRST sight I saw when arriving at the tournament. I knew there would be costumes, but...

My first ferry ride

Am I Who I Used to Be?

So, time for some random deep thoughts...and the bolding of the word 'So' is a call-out to my great friend Susanne. She made me realize that whenever I am getting ready to talk about something kind of important to me, I always begin the sentence with 'so....'

It is interesting to realize that because of cultural differences, I can't be the person or friend here that I would be back home. For example, a good friend had some bad stuff happen to her a few days ago. She has been in my thoughts constantly, but because of who she is, and I don't know if it is the language barrier or the cultural differences, I haven't even seen her yet to even give her a hug. And the sad thing is, I won't until probably a few weeks from now. Rachel and I talked about it - if it was a friend back home, we would have stopped by their place and brought them flowers or brought them food, or just came over to watch a movie or something. But we definitely would have had more of a physical presence, letting them know that we were there for them. But I can't do it here, at least not with this friend, and it makes me sad to realize she will never know the kind of person and friend I can be.

And to add on to that - you can't just randomly stop by a friend's place to say hi. Danes are not really ok with that. I used to do that all the time back home, maybe stopping by Naz's on the way home from work or something like that, just to say hi. I miss that, because again, I think it shows a nice, caring side of Americans.

So in a way, I have changed. I am a little bit different. When I am in Europe, I miss people and things back in the US. When I am in the US, I now miss people and things back in Europe. It will be interesting to see what the future holds. But I can only hope I am a better version of 'me' now.