Hanover and Denmark

27 - 30 September 2009
Sunday - Wednesday~

Heiko (Mom’s foreign exchange student that she had 17 years ago) met us in Hanover almost as soon as we stepped foot onto the train platform. I’d gotten off first, took three large steps straight forward so as to get out of the way of others coming off, set the bags down, turned around to see where Mom and Rhonda were, and saw Heiko giving Mom a big hug. Very nice. He took Mom’s bag and led us out to where he’d parked his van and then drove us to his apartment. It wasn’t far but we appreciated him meeting us and giving us a lift so we didn’t have to drag our bags while trying to find the way to his place.

He also went with us to the ticket office to make reservations for the next day’s train to Denmark. He did all the talking and interpreted for us. Very nice.

We met his girlfriend Hang, a very beautiful Vietnamese girl who emigrated to Czech before the wall fell and then to Germany afterwards. Heiko said there are a lot of Vietnamese in Czech Republic and I recall a lot of Asians there. Hang has a nine-year-old daughter named Josan (Joe-sahn) from a previous marriage and a five-year-old daughter with Heiko named Marlene (Mar-lay-nuh). Only Heiko speaks English with any fluency but cute little girls are cute little girls in any language.

Hang prepared a wonderful Vietnamese meal of a soup followed by rice and stir-fry with shrimp and other goodness. We were offered our choice of fork or chopsticks. Mom went with the safe fork but Rhonda and I tried the chopsticks. We finished with chopsticks, too, but it was hard because we spooned juice with the stir-fry and that made the rice not sticky anymore. We learned that after we were chasing rice around our plates and Heiko explained things to us. So we got more rice to try to sop up the wet rice. I think we only left a dozen grains of rice on our plates. Heiko said bowls are better because there’s something to push the rice against and make it stick together better.

Heiko offered to give us a tour of Hanover by night after supper. We take every chance of a walk we can manage and a guided one tops the list. It was too late in the evening for the girls to joins us so Hang stayed home to put them to bed.

We walked the downtown area first and saw something we hadn’t seen before. Heiko pointed to a building and said it was built 300 years ago. Then he pointed to one right next to it and, indeed, attached to it and said it was built in 1945.
“Bombing,” I said softly.
“Yes,” he replied. “A bomb fell there and not here. Then whht up went a new building. Anytime you see an old building and then concrete, it was a bomb.”

The Germans live every day with the reminders of war visible in front of them. Our reminders are in our memories.

We were at a square that had, among other things, an old church and what Heiko called the Old Mayor’s House. I think he meant city hall but I’m not sure. Anyway, I told Rhonda to look up at the fancy work on the roof.
“That’s how we tell tourists,” Heiko said smugly.

We got him back later. We had our heads craned to better see what looked like twenty small weather vanes peaking every spire along the front of an elaborate building. We wondered aloud if they were, in fact, weathervanes. I noted that they weren’t all facing precisely the same direction. Heiko had his head as far back as the rest of us. He finally said, gently sarcastic, that he’d check their positions over a few days and email the findings to us.

Most of the cafés in Europe (at least the cities we’ve been in) have chairs and tables on the sidewalk. The sidewalks are wide so pedestrians sort of flow around them. We were walking past a pub and saw, on a table of three or four people, a very interesting sort of a pitcher of beer. It was a tall cylinder, maybe two and a half to three feet tall - the top was maybe a little higher than my head as it sat on the table - and four to six inches in diameter. A spigot was positioned on the side just high enough to get a stein under it and there was a filter just above that. Heiko gawked with the rest of us. We got past, Heiko turning for a last look, and Rhonda asked him if that was common in Germany. He said he’d never seen one before. He sounded impressed.

He told us that four years ago, he and Hani moved from where they’d been living in an area of young single people to where they live now. He asked us if we remember about the Stradivari and silver worth around 3 million dollars that had been stolen from a family. I only remember vaguely hearing something about that. He said the police recovered both the violin and the silver. The thief? One of the guys who had lived next door to them at the old apartment complex. He was glad he was raising the girls in a better neighborhood.

My feelings of Hanover were varied. A line of English kings came from this town; the house of Hanover. This was also a country that caused two wars which involved every major and not-so-major country in the world. But those wars were of the government and a minority of the average people; not all the citizens were in agreement with Kaiser Wilhelm and certainly not of Adolf Hitler. These were people who had suffered much but picked up and continued on instead of waiting for others to bail them out. Hard workers.

It was also the only country that had a rather abrupt ticket person. She told Rhonda to keep her shoes off the seats. Later, when she came round again, Mom had her shoes on the seats. Rhonda and I saw that at the same time but weren’t fast enough to warn Mom. The lady was somewhat short with Mom about shoes on the seats.

Hang served us a wonderful breakfast spread. There were two kinds of cold cuts, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, four kinds of breads (Hang works in a bakery), six kinds of spreads including some sort of herbed cheese thing Hang makes fresh. I had an open-faced sandwich of the cold cuts and lettuce, then tried the herbed cheese spread since Heiko and Hani were piling it on their bread rather thickly. It was spectacularly delicious. I don’t know what went into it or what kind of cheese she used and didn’t even try to find out because of the language barrier. But I made sure she knew how much I liked it.

The girls were in school and Hang had errands to run when it came time to make our way to the train. We walked there, Heiko pulling Mom’s bag, and were in good time for the train. Heiko hung around with us until the train came and then waved us on our way. He’d taken the morning off just to be with us and see us off. What a guy!

And so, on to Denmark.

We’d gotten off to such a good start but, unfortunately, it didn’t end so great. We enjoyed the country-side as it changed from German to Danish and we saw the sea after about three hours. The entire train drove onto the ferry that would carry us across to Denmark and we all had to leave and go up. We went all the way top-side in the brisk wind and spattering of rain. I loved it but Rhonda got pretty chilled after about fifteen minutes and we went inside.

The difference between walking on a moving train and a moving boat is that on a train, you nearly end up in someone’s lap and on a boat, everyone lurches when you lurch and staggers when you stagger so you don’t even bump into anyone.

We saw little reddish-orange jellyfish not far below the surface but no other water life.

The ferry ride took 45 minutes. We all boarded the train and rolled back onto land. Everything was going splendidly and we were counting the hours left before we got to Stockholm (just over two) when the train came to a halt on a siding. After a few moments, we were told that there was a bomb scare at the next station and we were ordered to halt until the police cleared us to go. We waited for about half an hour and were then told to move closer three kilometers and wait. After another half hour, the engineer came out of the cockpit or whatever it’s called on a train….control room? I looked at him; he shook his head resignedly and walked out of the car. A minute later, he got back on the intercom and said that the police had the situation under control but were questioning people and we were ordered back to our last stop.

I was trying to remember where the last stop was all the way back to it. It was where we got off the ferry boat. Two hours and nothing to show for it. They got us buses and drove us to a place called Voldingborg but sounded like the English pronunciation of volleyball, where we boarded a train again. We were two hours late getting into Copenhagen (which they pronounce Co-ben-hah-ven, by the way).

We had told two of our ministers what day and time we were coming and expected them to be there. We just hoped they decided to meet with us the next day instead of having to hang out at the station for us.

They weren’t there and we heaved a sigh of relief. We phoned the hotel and asked for directions. They told us it wasn’t easy to give directions to where they were but could ask anyone to point the way. So we asked a nice-looking young man…who turned out to be a visitor to Copenhagen himself. But he pointed in the direction of a hostel he knew of. So we took off again.

At the next big intersection, Rhonda buttonholed a young lady for directions. She became excited and said that’s where some other girls were headed and to follow them. So we did. For a long way. And found out at check-in that we were at the wrong hostel. There are three Dan Hostels in downtown Denmark and those girls went to one that wasn’t ours.

Not to worry. It’s only five minutes to the other hostel. Go here, turn there, hang a left and then a right but look sharp because the place isn’t well-marked. And was our train delayed, by any chance? Did we expect two ladies to meet us here? One fairly elderly? Oh, yes, they came to the wrong one, also, but we directed them to the right one. So our journey for the day wasn’t over, yet. We went there, turned here, hung a left and then a right, looked sharp and found it. Priscilla and Vibeke were waiting for us in the breakfast room by day/bar by night/reception at all times. Ever meet your ministers in a bar? Where could you find more needy souls?!

We checked in, got our key cards, and tried to open the door to the dorms. Finally, Rhonda saw directions to use the card. Mom observed that when all else fails, reading directions helps.
“Don’t read directions first,” Vibeke advised. “It makes life so boring.”
We got into the dorms and went up to our room. It was a very small elevator so Mom, Rhonda, and I went up first and Priscilla and Vibeka came after. We got out and Rhonda noticed a button next to the elevator that was lit up and said “I fart”. We giggled all the way to our room.

We had a short but very nice visit with the ministers. At one point, they were asking what town we rode the bus to and I told them “Volleyball” because that’s how I could remember it. They cracked up. Then Vibeke (pronounced Vih-bih-kuh), a Dane, gave us a short lesson on pronouncing the Danish words.
“The ‘r’ is silent, you see, but it is still heard,” she said helpfully. “’vorg’ is pronounced ‘voe’ because it has an ‘r’. If it didn’t have an ‘r’, it would be ‘voo’. But it does have an ‘r’ so it’s ‘voe’. Clear as crystal, is it not?”

Uh, yeah. Clear as crystal. Right.

I said that I hoped things didn’t sound quite like I thought they should because we saw a light by the elevator that said ‘I fart’.
“Yes, well, that happens sometimes.” Vibeke said solemnly.
“It said what?” asked Priscilla.
“I fart,” I repeated
“Oh, my! I never thought of it like that!” Priscilla exclaimed and shrieked with laughter. We were all pretty much howling at that point.
“We pronounce it ‘ee fart’,” Vibeka explained. “’I’ means ‘in’ and ‘fart’ means way or movement.”

Glad to know what that meant.

They finally had to leave and we reluctantly said good-byes. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture.

We turned in for the night, one or another of us exploding with giggles every now and then, setting the others off.

We woke up and got around just a little too late for the breakfast in the hostel so we set off in search of adventure without it. We headed for the canal and the tour boats there and, in spite of having a map, still managed to get off track by a few blocks. We eventually found it, purchased tickets, and found a little place that had sandwiches. We got back to the boat just as it was loading and hopped aboard.

Fun trip. We had a guide that enjoyed doing her job. Either that or she faked it really, really well. We went under some very low bridges and had to duck; we saw the Little Mermaid; their opera house; the Queen’s residence in Copenhagen; Hans Christian Anderson’s places of residence, and a lot of other great stuff. The guide was incredible. She said everything in Danish, Swedish, English, and German.

From there, we walked to the train station to make reservations for the train to Stockholm. We stopped at a little pastry shop there and had a cup of tea and a…..ahem…..Danish Pastry. Had to have one of those! We walked back to the hostel and, after an authentic supper at a Danish restaurant across the way, had a quiet evening. I taught Rhonda to play Chaos and Gin. Maybe “quiet” isn’t the right word….

Everyone we met in Denmark spoke English, most of them quite well. But it’s the Queen’s English, not the American variety. We heard people using English as the language in common. I mean, when a group of people are visiting and don’t know the other’s language, English is what’s spoken. We heard that several times.

I learned that Denmark is of more temperate climate. They don’t get a lot of snow. In fact, things tend to shut down when there’s an inch of snow. Sort of like the west part of Oregon. It gets cold, but not a whole lot of snow. So I have to change my mental picture of Danes and snow in winter.

We walked to the train station this morning. It isn’t too far if you go the right way. Our train is direct from Copenhagen to Stockholm and we won’t have to change in between. It’s a very nice train with big, plush, seats. Maybe to accommodate some of these very tall Swedes. My goodness, are some of them tall!!

I saw one young man walk down the train towards us who was so tall he had to duck quite a bit to get through the door. The overhead shelves for luggage came to between his chin and shoulders. Rhonda watched my eyes widen and jaw drop as he came closer and started laughing.

Things were a bit of a disaster when we arrived because we needed directions to Audrey’s place but didn’t have much in the way of coins for the phone. We dumped in what we had and Mom got at least the suburb we needed to get to before the phone cut us off. So we rode the commuter train to the community, got some more coins and were at the phone when a very nice young man offered us his cell to use.

Such kind people you meet when traveling!

Audrey is a retired minister that Mom has known for most of their lives. She went on a mission to Sweden 50 years ago and eventually got Swedish citizenship. Mom had been looking forward to this visit very much.

Mom got good directions to her bus stop but we took the wrong bus, anyway and had a nice tour of the area but no stops to match what we were told. We even got off at one that sounded similar and had to catch another back to the station. That time we found the right bus and the right stop and got off just as Audrey was giving up on us coming.

The poor dear had been waiting at the bus stop for nearly an hour for us in 47-degree Fahrenheit weather. She had a good supper for us but we took so long getting things together that we decided to have a simple Bible study together at her house instead of going to the one down the street a ways.

Maddie and her husband Simon picked us up after their study was over and took us to Maddie’s parents Patti and….is it Olba or Olva? Patti’s parents live in Boise, Idaho, and Rhonda knows them quite well. She’s met Patti and Olba a few times, also, and Maddie spent a summer there with her grandparents.

They have three boys besides their daughter Maddie (Andreus, Robert, and Sven) and run a large greenhouse nursery. The convention in Stockholm is located here. I’ve not gotten to see the place yet but that’s in the plans.

Copenhagen is a great place. Public transportation is widely available as it is in other countries but here they even have a bike lanes about as wide as a car lane. The city is busy but not so busy that you can’t stop someone and ask directions. Nearly everyone knows English (we didn’t meet any who couldn’t speak it) which makes one very confident in getting around. I got a sense of looking forward….meeting the challenges of tomorrow….holding the past precious but not letting it hinder progress. Maybe that was because we stayed in a large hostel with herds of teen-age and older youth.