My trip to Jylland FT. Viggo

Friday, November 15th - Sunday, November 17th, 2019

Esbjerg, Denmark

I had the absolute privilege to spend the past weekend out in Esbjerg (pronounced Es-bia), Denmark with my host family at the kids' grandparents' house. If you remember, I am living in an apartment with 6 other American college students. But I have a visiting host family, that is a Danish family I go visit a few times a month. A few weeks ago I went with my host mom, Mette, to visit her English class (you can read about that in my post "Going Back to High School... In Denmark") and I Aaron and I went over to their house for dinner when he was here. They are so kind to me! (The two boys, in case you don't remember, are named Christian, age 15, and Viggo, age 12.) Viggo has kindly offered to help a little with this post, and has chimed in on a few topics! 

Viggo, Christian and I, in Ribe

So last weekend we loaded up and started the 3-hour drive to the West Coast. Mette grew up in Esbjerg, and her parents still live there. Our 3-hour drive quickly turned into 5, with traffic leaving Copenhagen. But that was okay because all of us kids snuck in a cat nap. And I got to see the big bridge connecting the islands of Zealand (where Copenhagen is) and Funen, and then the bridge connecting Funen to the mainland, Jutland (or Jylland in Danish, where Esbjerg is). 

The Islands

We arrived in the evening, and before doing anything else, we had to drive to the ocean and smell the salt air. Mette told me she always knows when she's home because of the salty-sea air. It reminded me so much of my own mom, who always has to spend a second just breathing the mountain air when we get to Montana, where she grew up. 

We got to the house and grabbed a quick bite to eat, before heading to bed. I was so excited to have my own room and my own bathroom! What luxury, compared to my dorm-apartment. Not having to share a bathroom with 6 other girls? Nice. I also loved spotting what Mette told me they call "stress-less" chairs around the house. My godmother Marni had those same chairs in her house and recently gave one to Aaron, so they reminded me of home. So I was immediately happy to be there! 

Stress Less ;)

I asked Viggo what his favorite part of visiting his grandparents was, and he refused to answer and instead told me, "It's always great to visit your grandparents. Everyone knows that" It was silly of me to even ask!

And I have to agree. It was a pretty great place to be. Viggo and I built a bunch of LEGOs, and Christian helped me watch the Danish-Gibraltar football match. (I don't know a lot about football!) And Alice, Mette's mom, made the most fantastic, huge meals for us. Breakfast was all these rolls and pieces of bread, with Nutella, jam, egg, cheese, and meat to put on top. And for dinner Saturday, she made rice with a curry-beef stew to put on top. And then you put topping on that! Cucumber, cashew, peppers, raisins, coconut, mango, apples, etc. It was quite good. 

Viggo and I building LEGOs together

I asked Viggo what his favorite part of the trip was, and he replied, "Well that's a good question. If I have to choose I would say either the "hygge" night or the vadehavs museum." So for those of you who don't know, "hygge" is a Danish word that roughly translates to "being cozy". It's really trendy right now, but it's trendy for a reason. Because it's pretty awesome. Viggo told me that for him, classic hygge is sitting around with family on a Friday night watching the Disney Show. For our hygge night, Viggo and I, and his brother Christian, mom Mette, grandpa Prepen, and grandma, Alice, sat around in the living room. Viggo and I played some mean Pokemon Go (he traded me an awesome Pokemon - thank you!) and then all of us play Space Team. 

Playing Spaceteam

The Vadehavscentret that he mentioned, was where we went on Saturday. It translates to the Wadden Sea Center. The Wadden Sea is a region stretching from the Netherlands up through German to Denmark and is a UNESCO protected world heritage site. It's an area of tidal wetlands that is home to great biodiversity. The museum is fairly new and was really well designed. It incorporated tech to help visitors understand the extent of the biodiversity, and have fun, doing things like making songs out of bird calls, racing "paper birds" (AKA paper airplanes), and touching flounder, crabs, and starfish in the touch pool. (I touched a starfish, but I absolutely could NOT bring myself to touch a flounder... UGH, they're just SO creepy! And I like weird animals. But I couldn't do it.)

Bird exhibit

Sand table with interactive projection

Bird DJ

Aquarium

THE FLOUNDER

The touch pool

It was especially fun to visit with Prepen because he knew so many stories. For example, there were a pair of china dogs on display. And Prepen told me that rich merchant sailors would have brought them back, and their wives would have put them in the window. And when the dogs were facing out, then the husband was home. But when the dogs were facing inside, the husband was away at sea, and the wife's lover would know it was safe to come over and spend the night! Haha. Prepen used to be a teacher, but also was a sailor stationed in Africa, and head of the local sailing club for a while. 

The dogs (pics from Wikipedia)

What did Viggo have to say on the subject? "I don't think I know any more than you do Butt🍑 I wanna say one thing, DJ. Bird my precious brother Christian (who also happened to be MASTER OF PAPER PLANES (at least so he thought)) was making FIRE🔥 hits👌 100 with... Bird sounds?" Hahaha! 

DJ Bird

The Wadden Sea Center is located about 40 minutes outside of Esbjerg, in Ribe, which is actually the oldest town in Denmark! So after the sea center, we explored the town a little bit, stopping for a sandwich and hot cocoa for Christian and me. (I do have to say, it's nice traveling with teenage boys because since they're always hungry, so there are always snacks around and no one is going hungry! A bit of a change from traveling with my family, where we sometimes forget to stop for lunch... Which makes for an easily hangry set of sisters, isn't that right, Grady? We should maybe start packing our own snacks!) We also stopped in the Ribe Cathedral, where a children's choir happened to be singing. 

Ribe Cathedral

Ribe

Kransekage and Kransehjertes for Christmas in a bakery in Ribe

Viggo helping out a dog in front of the supermarket

Children's choir in the cathedral

On Sunday, the boys needed some grandparent bonding time. So Mette and I set out to see the beach. I touched the North Sea which was fun and collected a bunch of shells. Mette told stories about how she would play on the beach as a kid, and run in the scrubby dunes bordering the sand.

Old German bunker on the beach

The beach

When we got chilly, we loaded up and headed to the Tirpitz Museum. Tirpitz was so cool. It was built into the side of the hill and somehow managed to blend into the landscape, be underground, AND have natural light? Only in Denmark could the designers pull all that off. The museum is about that region of Denmark, but especially during WWII. One of their exhibits is going into an old unfinished German WWII bunker.

Inside the bunker

I don't know too much about Denmark during WWII, but I do know they were occupied by the Germans for most of the war, but the Danish government was able to stay in control until 1943 when they were placed under strict military occupation until they were liberated by the allies in 1945. But the Germans were their neighbors and lived among the Danes for 5 years. So I learned at the museum that a lot of Danish women actually married German soldiers they met during WWII. But they had to move back to Germany because they were seen as treasonous unions after the war. 

The mine exhibit

The tone of the museum itself was really interesting. It wasn't hostile towards the Germans like I expected. It was actually fairly nuanced and presented mixed Danish and German perspectives. You walked around the museum with little hand-held audio devices that scanned different areas in the museum, and pulled up different stories, with different narrators. 

How you interact with the museum

My favorite room was an exhibit called "Stories of the West Coast", and most of the time, it was just a room you would walk around. There were these big geometric blocks that housed items on display, and a big ship in the middle to sit on. But then every hour or so, the whole room would turn into an immersive theater experience. And they would project on the ceiling, and walls and those blocks would become the foothills. And you could sit in the boat, and experience life on the West Coast. And then there was a storm, and you could actually feel the wind blow! It was seriously one of the most well-done museums I have ever been to. 

West Coast Stories in the light

West Coast Stories in the light

West Coast Stories during the film

That afternoon, we stopped and picked up Viggo and Christian, and already headed back to Copenhagen. It was so fun and I was so grateful they brought me along! One of my favorite weekends here so far. 

XO, 
Cristiana