july 2005, danmark (denmark)

it seems to have become a tradition for the maternal side of my family to meet in denmark in the middle of the summer, and so this summer we again packed our bags and headed off for a gathering.

the family, however, has one new member: my newest (only) niece, selma. here she is, sitting with my mother, looking doubtful.

we stayed one day in københavn (copenhagen), and naturally strolled through frederiksberg have, as usual. we passed the pacifier tree, and one of the great blue herons, which once escaped from the zoo, and now have made the park their new home.
we also came past the home of the keymaker...
here is rundetårn (the round tower), designed and built by king christian IV in 1642.
this time, we went to the world-famous tivoli amusement park, where we spent a half a day. we bought passes with which we could go on everything, and so we went many times on the rollercoasters. i don't have any pictures of this though. one of them, the oldest one, was quite funny, because somewhere in the middle of the ride, there is a hidden camera just before a steep dive, and so it catches people's expressions of horror. jana was always screaming with joy, anna was grimacing with horror, and i was grinning fiercely. i thought of buying one, but they were a bit pricy. i used to be scared on the rollercoasters, but i have found the secret to enjoyment, which incidentally is the same as not being scared on planes: you simply decide that it is okay if you die, but you are going to enjoy it.
the next day we left københavn for rørvig, where the cottage is. here are some pictures from the trip up there, which wasn't the warmest of trips. my sister, who has a new car, took our suitcases, so we were travelling light.
almost everyone was there this year. just one cousin, his wife, and their two kids, decided not to come. he was there last year though, so this was okay. the missing ones from last year were all there, including the most recently discovered member of our family, matthias, who is the young-looking fellow in the eighth picture. he is a few months younger than i, and so i barely managed to cling on to my second-oldest title. selma is being her usual insanely happy and active self. she just babbles on most of the time, fully content. all babies should be like that. if you smile at her, she smiles hugely back.
one day we took a little side-trip to where i grew up, nærum. the little old red train, which used to be called grisen (the pig) has been exchanged for a soul-less new blue one. i used to live on the second floor, somewhere around the middle of the picture. here is the entrance as well, and the hill behind the building where we used to ski, if there was any snow, which was once or twice in my entire childhood.

we also went past the shopping centre, and my old school, where i took a picture in the window of the place i was in the first grade. when done, we took the little blue non-pig back, where jana was her usual climbing self.

after shopping in lyngby on the way back, we saw this beautiful old maserati, and i think we were all thinking the same thing: should we buy it? beautiful car, and affordable. it has a 4.2 liter 8 cylinder engine, however, and would likely kill us in gas. anyway, we didn't buy it. i still wonder from time to time if i should give him a call.
and that was that. we flew back and lived happily ever after.