Have returned from seven days in Aalborg (Denmark) as the guests of our old friends Anne Karin and Hans Petersen. The main highlights were converse with them and their daughter and second son whom we had last seen when they were small children but now with grown-up, teenage and near-teenage children of their own. Mostly in English but we did remember to say "tak for meth" after meals for the response "welbecomen". And we did learn "tre slags sild" (three pieces of herring). [Sorry if the spelling isnt quite right!]
Many jokes often with the aid of the dictionary.
We were taken on fascinating excursions around the mainly flat countryside, including:
An excavated pre-Christian Viking graveyard at Lindholm (over the years they switched from bodily burial to cremation but still with interment and then back to bodily burial again) and museum with archaeological finds and models.
the tip beyond Skagen where the Baltic and the North Sea meet
the Nordyllands museum of modern art
and in Aalborg the magnificent Renaissance "stenhus" built by Jens Bangs as a riposte to the exclusive city elders (complete with a gargoyle sticking its tongue out towards their smaller Town Hall).
Some casual impressions: Aalborg still an industrial town with smoking chimneys and new high-tech firms, clean environment, happy and welcoming people, much use of English in street signs (job center, shopping center, takeaway).
A wonderful seven days. Mange tak, Anne Karin and Hans.