Denmark: A Day In Århus - Not Long Enough

[Composed 8/16 - 8/18]

Saturday morning, 8/16, after my brief late-night post at the hostel:

My watch alarm doesn't work, but I woke up at the right time anyway. I ordered breakfast when I checked in, and it cost me about $12 extra. The place, called 'City Sleep-In,' was quite nice, though the decor was a little strange: some cross of a children's hospital and a modern art museum. Internet cost me another $12 (paid online) and that's how I wrote the short post called 'Checking In - Backtrack Later.' My laptop battery did eventually die and, without a charger, I had to wait until the next evening to rejuice it.

After checking out, I wandered over to the main shopping street, near the train station (it reminded me a lot of the 16th Street Mall in Denver). Århus is the second largest city in Denmark, after Copenhagen; Wikipedia quotes the population at around 1.2 million, so it's comparable to Denver in size as well. The most striking feature of Århus (and the rest of Denmark) to me is the staggering amount of bicycles. They are everywhere! I took some photos of the rows upon rows upon rows of them in many places throughout the city. They also have a public bicycle system where a person can insert a 20 DKK coin into a slot on the handle bar. This motion pops out a locking mechanism, which is chained to a pole, thereby releasing the bicycle. The bikes are usually single-speed, having solid-rubber tires, and a simple, solid aluminum frame in a design that fits all sizes. The wheel spokes are covered with flat circular plates, further distinguishing them from other bikes (which is great, since every Danish citizen has at least one if not two of their own). The seats are adjustable, but cannot be totally removed and the parts are quite unique-looking compared to other bikes. For instance, to brake, you pedal backwards, eliminating any chance of brake theft. Overall, the bikes are very undesirable to steal and so they stay in the city and stay on the roads. I am really interested in this stuff because I'm working to start one on the CSM campus. The dynamics of the program and the design will have to be different in one obvious area: landscape. Golden and Århus are very different terrain types, with the former having a lot of hills, and the latter none to speak of.

I met up with some of the other students wandering the sites and grouped together for the rest of the day. It was fortunate I made it to Århus from Risø because this day happened to be the one free day where the summer school participants were bussed to the city and allowed to explore it all day. I mostly hung out with some of the Spanish students and continued to ask questions about saying this or that or another word in their language and practiced talking to them.

It took our group some time to find enough public bikes for all of us, so we walked most of the day. We visited a historical district first, called 'Dan Gamle By' (the old village which Århus grew out of). There was a student rate to get into the town, but I'd forgotten my Mines ID at Fuglsøcentret. I borrowed one of the other student's alternative school IDs (no picture) and convinced the cashier I was an American student studying at the University of Bologna in Italy, for Political Sciences. The town felt just like touring the Old West towns, with people in costume doing the jobs of the day, and telling tourists about what life was like several hundred years ago. I took a bunch of pictures and even caught sight of a two Danish people getting married and taking a carriage ride though the old town. What was strange was seeing the old buildings (originals I believe) and the cobblestone streets in the foreground, and a 15-story modern building about 1 km away on the horizon.

We left the city to find some lunch and stopped in a grocery store first. I bought some fruit, beer, water, and an avocado. You can drink in public in Denmark (I may have mentioned that fact already) and the fruit/veggie combo made for a cheap meal. An interesting feature of the grocery were the electronic price indicators. Each shelf, each section, each bin of items had a small RFID with LED display tag attached to it and the prices were updated automatically by computers in the store, another example of the high living standard in Denmark. We headed back to the main shopping thoroughfare and found the McDonald's. The Spanish kids bought food, but I ate my grocery items and just sat and talked, using my room key to disembowl my avocado.

The sites in Århus are many and varied. From street performers to prostitutes (quite obvious the previous evening when I arrived from the train to the hostel), modern architecture to ancient buildings, paved highways to cobblestone roads, the city is very beautiful and full of surprises. One of the most incredible was visiting St. Clement's Cathedral, only a few hundred meters from the shopping mall area. The Spanish students explained to me how this church was 'moderate' by European standards, but it was definitely the largest religious structure I had ever seen, dwarfing anything in Colorado (though, that's not really a cathedral hotspot in the U.S., so my 'awe' isn't that special). The inside was astounding. I was right up close to original frescos dating back to the 15th century, walking on the tombs of Danish people buried in the 1400's. The cathedral was built in the time span of 1200 - 1250 AD and 'converted' from Catholic to Protestant in the 1500's. This conversion meant many of the icons and frescos were dismantled and painted over. A few of the originals survived or were uncovered, but all the stained glass windows were removed and replaced with plain glass about 500 years ago. We were allowed cameras, so I have some good shots of the interior.

Our final journey of the day took us on one of the hundreds of bicycle paths past the Baltic Sea shoreline and up into the main city park where the Danish Royal Family's Summer Vacation House is located (they're technically a Kingdom still, but only in title). The shoreline was nice in this area because the city had made it into a narrow sort of park. From the highway to the water was about 50 meters and in that space were a couple walking paths, a bicycle road, and a wide swath of grass ending abruptly in the rocky, mossy beach. We watched ships come and go, and took a brief rest on the grass in the sun (the weather was unusually nice this day).

We rode our bikes up into the park (actually had to pedal harder on the slight rise) and took pictures of the Royal Summer Home and some of its many gardens. Around dinner time we rode back into the city, parked our bikes, and walked to get some food on the mall. We stopped in a pizza/falafel restaurant. In Denmark, these places are the equivalent of Burger Kings or Wendy's: they are everywhere and they are cheap. They are mostly run by Middle Eastern folks, who mix these cuisines in interesting ways. The best part is, next to the grocery stores, it's the cheapest food in Denmark (so the natives say) and actually not too bad for you. I had a pita shwarma that tasted great and we split a pizza called 'quatro satrino,' which had artichokes, shrimp, ham, and mushrooms on it. A very unique thing for me, an American, but apparently it happens all over the place in Europe. After dinner we took a bus from the Århus train station back to Fuglsøcentret, all with sore feet and full cameras.

We had a party this evening, in one of the common rooms at the dormitory facility. Several of the students had been planning it since Wednesday, and had been going around asking for monetary contributions so they could buy the alcohol and food we wanted. It ended up costing each of us 60 DKK, which translates to about $12 at the best exchange rate. Two of the Spaniards made Sangria (very good Sangria), there were some bottles of vodka, tequila, and several crates of beer. One of the students, an Iranian guy named Merhdad who has lived in Denmark for 8 years, brought his mixing table and served as DJ for the evening, playing us a lot of popular techno mixes while we partied. We played cards and learned new games from some of the Danish students. One of the Americans started a game of King's Cup; I wrote down the rules. It went rather slowly with the language barrier, but I think everyone had a good time with it.

I crashed into bed around 1:30am, but not before outlining this post (finished two days later).