Sunday, June 5 -- The Long Way to Denmark

Lying on the bed in Dessau, Germany. Timo slept lousily, because it was so hot and the pigeon behind the window was shouting at him. When it was finally time to get up, we were ready in a jiffy and started our breakfast before the breakfast officially started. Others, mostly retired people, were there even before us. Without any trouble we caught the 8:26 tram, though we had planned to take the 8:56. In the nonexistent Sunday morning traffic the tram was quick, and we were at the station even more ahead of time. The RegionalExpress train, on the other hand, would stop at every neverheardorf.

At Berlin Hbf we had the time to grab pizza slices and catch some envious looks from a fellow passenger child. Pizza Hut's seasonal speciality was the asparagus pizza. It looked like the ICE would be crammed, but though the LED displays showed reservations, no one came to claim the seats we chose. Most of the passengers were Danes, returning from holidays. A two-year-old boy was sitting in front of us, and we handed him yet another animal sticker from the German supermarket. An Austrian interrailer guy sat behind us. We had a short chat in Swedish, because the guy had studied it for some obscure reason. The Swedish Swedish spoken by an Austrian sounds quite different from the Finnish Swedish, and neither of us really understood the other. The guy later had more company from an Australian traveller. We also spotted the first Finn, who was revealed when she made a phone call.

On the last shore of Germany the train drove inside a ferry, and we were ushered out. From our point of view the train went in on reverse, which made the experience even more exciting. Never before had we been on the deck in the wind wearing sleeveless shirts, while still comfortable and warm. Seagulls followed us. Back in the Netherlands Patrick had apologised how the huge off-shore wind farm couldn't be seen from the beach, but now the E.ON 90 windmills/200 MW/800 GWh farm was visible to both countries and even better to the ferry. The train was 23 minutes late in the dock, but only 16 minutes in Copenhagen. All the announcements were in Danish, German, and English, always in a random order.

Brilliantly the Copenhagen S trains (local trains) were under repair on a free Sunday. This meant full trains that only ran every 20 minutes. Confused with the information leaflets, we missed the first train, and then spent a long while standing in the next one which was standing at the station. It was horribly hot and crammed, and every now and then the door would open and more people squeeze in. After some 15 minutes of standing, someone offered Tiiti her seat, but the place was instantly stolen by some hooligan teenager before Tiiti managed to sit down. The boy didn't seem to notice any of the nasty looks. Somebody else was kind enough to give another place. We kept sending messages to Sergey about our position, and finally at the Husum station we saw a familiar face.

Sergey is Tiiti's conference friend from 2007. Back then Tiiti arrived at the conference centre in the evening with a huge suitcase and a slight fever, and Sergey instantly offered to carry the bag of his new friend. On the Husum station, he kept on being polite and hospitable. Sergey and Yulia are Ukrainian, but they have lived in Denmark for ten years. Both their daughters, Sasha and Anna, were born in Denmark. Tiiti used Sergey's sofa for two nights when the foreign affairs bureau of DTU, Danish Technical University, made a king-size mess with her accommodation.

Yulia served us some Danish food, we had tea, and made plans for the next couple of days. The girls weren't afraid of us, but naturally kept to themselves. Timo spoke fluent Russian in the dinner table, but only fluently told our hosts, 'I don't speak too good Russian.' Sergey thanked Tiiti for honestly informing that Timo might spy the family with his secret language skill.

Monday, June 6 -- Tiiti introduces her past Everyday to Timo

According to Sergey, Yulia served the best breakfast that he ever had home. Today was the first schoolday after a short holiday, and the children went to school an hour later than usual. Sergey drove the girls to school and us to DTU, where Tiiti had the chance to scare her friends at the department. The university wasn't really busy even at ten, and we went for a little walk instead of waiting for people. Tiiti took Timo to her former home, or the guest house called the PhD house, and the swimming pool. Sergey gave us a tour at the radio anechoic chamber, and even Timo was made breathless by the sight, though he's no radio engineer.

After Tiiti had had her share of scaring people, we went to the student restaurant. Dagens fisk turned out to be chicken. With her almost perfect Danish, Tiiti asked for milk, but when this resulted not only in milk but also further questions, she had to admit that she doesn't really speak Danish. We walked through Bondeby to the church, the tea shop Chaya, and to the centre of Lyngby. Danish rooibos flavours had been tested at home, and now we knew exactly what we wanted to have.

Today the S trains were nicely cool and half empty. Apparently Tiiti had never got off the train at Vesterport, and started to walk in the completely wrong direction. Timo was observant enough to suggest she might have made a mistake, and with the help of Sergey's map we found Rådhuspladsen and Strøget. Tiiti was looking for the Austalian street musician whom she had met a year ago, but he was gone and Tiiti felt a little less at home. Taking into account that it was a Monday in June and not the real tourist season, there were huge crowds of people. Timo was wondering whether the people would bump on him if he just continued walking on the collision course.

Apart from the S trains, the subway, and the buses, there is also a harbour ferry operating in Copenhagen. This comes in very handy, since someone put water in the middle of the city without thinking of the consequences, and there are not many bridges over the troublesome water. We took the ferry 902 from Nyhavn to the end stop. Nice ferry--apparently many others thought so as well, because the signs on the walls ordered everybody to get off at the end stop. We walked to the Little mermaid and along the park on the shore, and then decided to take the S train to a larger park. After all, we still had a valid ticket stamped on the ferry, because the same clipcard is used on all the local traffic.

With cups of ice-cream ordered in almost-Danish, we walked to the botanical garden to read the Latin names, but soon collapsed on a bench in half shadow. It was insanely hot again. Before this we had known to protect us from the sun, but finally here in a Nordic country we burned our skin, and Tiiti will probably carry the shape of her top until winter.

Exhausted, we took the S train home. The construction work should have ended for the workdays, but just to keep us on our toes, there was something little going on. Somehow we got to the station to be picked up by Sergey and Yulia. Today we had a real Ukrainian dinner, borscht, which was as delicious as ever. Back when Tiiti was here, Yulia asked her what she would like to have, and was very pleased to hear she likes the traditional dish. At that time the girls were less fond of borscht and other Slavic things, but now they were ok. Remember to put in cabbage and tomato puree, potatoes cut in pieces, and lightly fry the beetroot and the onion.

While we were cooking, or more precisely, Yulia was, we all sat in the kitchen. Sergey told about their life and what had happened in the past year. Even though there were many clouds in the sky, the bottom line seemed hopeful: the world does not end with any of the problems, and there is always hope in the future. In exchange, Tiiti talked about the baby plans, and together we explored the possible future of our little family. Maybe this is the reason why Sergey and Tiiti made friends with each other back in 2007: it feels natural to have such discussions. The same applies to Yulia, it is easy to speak with her.

We got a grand thunderstorm for the night, though it didn't quite come on top of us. The horizon was blazing all the time, and we welcomed the heavy rain that cooled the air for the comfortable night's sleep.

Tuesday, June 7 -- Roskilde and Dragør

We were slowly waking up at the same time as yesterday, only to find everybody else busy with breakfast. We had completely forgotten that today was a normal day and the girls would go to school in the normal time, at eight. Then again, maybe it was better to have us out of the way in the morning. We had our breakfast while Yulia gave the others a ride to Lyngby, and when she returned, we were almost ready to go. Yulia wanted to take us to Roskilde, which seems to be on the other end of the island and thus very far away, but in the end it was only something like twenty kilometres. On the way we cast anxious looks first at the glooming clouds and then the drops of rain, but in the end we were lucky: today it only really rained while we were inside the car.

The foundations of the Viking ship museum were laid in the 1960s, when somebody fished pieces of wood from the bottom of the sea. From these, the full instructions on how to build viking ships were deduced. Some reconstructions had been built, the best of which, the Sea Stallion from Glendalough, sailed from Denmark to Ireland and back. One way takes 1.5 months, including all the harbours, press conferences, and waiting for a good weather. A documentary film of the trip was shown in the museum, and there were excepts from the log book, photos, technical information, and interactive maps. Another big thing in the museum were the original ships, or actually metallic frames with rotten pieces of wood fitted in here and there.

What is the connection between Roskilde an the vikings? Roskilde used to be the capital of Denmark in the Viking era. On display, there was some speculation how the Norwegian vikings could have stormed Roskilde, and how Roskilde had prepared for such an attack. The only way to attack the town from the sea was to make it a surprise, and for that you would have to bribe the beacon guards. Roskilde is built at the end of a fjord, and there is a long, narrow, easily defended route from the sea to here.

Having seen the museum before, Yulia was naturally a lot quicker than us. We tried our best to hurry, but of course had to read everything about the viking journeys, and try on viking costumes. By the way, their dresses seem tailored for a pregnant body.

We had lunch in an authentic viking pizza place. The vikings indeed went to exotic places in their journeys, and surely they wouldn't have objected easy and quick meals. We and our satisfied stomachs continued along the park and then across a no-man's land towards the cathedral. It was surprising to find this empty lot with a view to the sea, but then we found a sign that explained everything: underneath, there were some remains of an ancient city and city walls, and therefore the place was protected from real estate businessmen. Let's see how long it takes until someone gets the inspiration to dig up the city.

Seen from the outside, the cathedral looked just like another church, and still they claimed 40 DK for the entrance, although churches should always be free. The Unesco sign at the door was convincing enough to make us enter. In the church we once again got to feel the presence of history, but this time also to feel that we are a part of history. All the royals of Denmark had been buried in the church since Christian III, whose reign started in 1534, and many previous kings and queens are present until the oldest gravestone from the 980s. Each memorial and chapel had been built and decorated in the contemporary style, and the future people will look at the coffin from the 2000s as one in the chain. The present queen had already ordered a coffin for herself.

Apart from kings and queens, other important and rich enough people had been buried in the church. We felt a bit odd walking on the graves, but there was nothing we could do, when the gravestones seemed more numerous than regular stones. Most of the stones had lost the texts and become smooth under all the footsteps, but many had been readable if we had known Latin. The Danish graves were more readable, and we found one which was a cross-breed between a grave and a sales contract: "N.N. has today bought this grave for himself and his wife... With the above sum, the church has been able to buy..."

Even today, the church is being decorated with other things apart from kings and queens. The main door had been renewed just a year ago in a pretty symbolistic way. It is decorated with the twelve apostles, for example St. Peter is pictured only with a sword and an ear. The Kings' Door is used as an exit after funerals, weddings, and confirmations, but as an entrance only in the occasion of royal visits. The same artist, Peter Brandes, also had the task of decorating one of the small chapels, which was now covered with golden mosaic tiles and equipped with a ceramic altar that weighs a ton. The modern art is facing the 500-year-old frescoes like it belongs to the lot, and indeed it does. We are just one moment in the history.

Sasha needed a ride from Lyngby to Copenhagen for a choir practice in the Danish Radio building. The choir would appear on tv in a short while. After dropping her on the way, we continued to the south, to Dragør. Suddenly the city disappeared and we found ourselves in the middle of countryside, with horses and everything. The Nordic countries are so small that even the capitals stay within understandable limits.

Of course Dragør was the jewel of the countryside, a picturesque collection of yellow houses, thatched roofs, and decorated windowsills. In a town like this there must be some rules of what kind of curtains are allowed, how many pieces of decoration you need for each metre of windowsill, and which portion of the decorations can be substituted with orchids. We wondered about what kind of people would live in a red house--perhaps the unwanted people get their houses painted red overnight? There were also some curious mirrors on the windows of some houses, and we couldn't figure out any other use than spying the neighbours.

Yulia asked if we ever tried the local delicacy called Danish bread, and we never did. So we went to a bakery to buy some, and when we saw it, it was the normal thing that the Finns would call "viineri," which coincides with the Danish name "wienerbrød." This has nothing to do with sausages, as the American word "wiener" would suggest, but with Vienna. And don't the Americals call the wiener also the frankfurter--are they mixing up European cities? Back to the wienerbrød, it came in a lot more varieties than in Finland, where we only have one option for the taste.

We went back to get Sasha and had a look inside the Danish Radio building, very modern architecture again. Tiiti thought there was too much glass, while Timo informed her that he likes glass as a material. On the way home, Tiiti had a chat with Sasha, or more precisely, spoke slow English while the girl kept silent though understood everything. They both sing the soprano, and many of the Christmas songs in her notes collection were familiar. Back home, we tried to sneak away, but received a quick and delicious dinner before Sergey took us to Niels'.

Niels is Tiiti's oldest conference friend. They met in 2006 in Nice, first had a long talk about Niels' poster (electrically steerable antennas), and while at it, Tiiti decided to ask about his plans for the evening. Ever since, Tiiti has been enjoying conferences with cheerful Danish company. Soon after Nice, Niels finished his PhD and never got to go to conferences again, but they had the chance to meet a year ago when Tiiti briefly visited Denmark to study--and she never would have come, had she not met Niels in Nice.

We had a relaxing night with Niels, doing nothing, chatting, checking out his bookshelf, and planning what to do tomorrow. Kaj had given us a hint of the National Museum, and also Niels was interested to see the exhibition of What made the Danes the Danes. Again we were given the bed of the host, and this time we didn't even try to object.

Wednesday, June 8 -- National and Royal Stuff

Niels was already awake when we got up. We had porridge and wonderful home-made buns. There was some white tea but no instructions, and after careful thinking we brewed it in too cool water.

The S trains were again messed, and we changed to metro as soon as we could. This metro runs without a driver, and Timo found it wonderful. Why would you actually need a driver when you can well do without? The stations are equipped with plexiglass walls, and the metro doors align perfectly with the glass doors and naturally open simultaneously. We quickly went to the main station to reserve tickets for the Swedish train tomorrow, and Timo was worried that we might need a reservation for the Ø train as well. Tiiti assured him that the Ø trains are just like any local trains, only international.

Our main destination today was not the rail traffic of Copenhagen but the National Museum. We decided to be interested only in the timeframe between the years 1660 and 2000, and totally skip vikings and other exhibitions. This proved to be an excellent decision, with the museum hot and the exposition large. All the interesting things happened to be in the fourth floor with all the hot air.

We have been taught about Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Norway at school, but it had never occurred to us that Norway wasn't being given out as a Christmas present. Instead, Denmark had been constantly at war with Sweden. Norway was given to Sweden only five years after Sweden had lost Finland to Russia. We also learned that pregnant women used to sew burial clothes for the baby. The midwives had to get one or two years of education. Tin utensils that contain lead were forbidden in 1806.

The twentieth century of Denmark was very familiar. They had no civil war like Finland, but all the workers' movements and social democracy. To conclude our architecture journeys, we saw a building block set named Funkis-arkitekten. The display with Danish design showed the Margareta bowl, which apparently is a classic design found in the cheap Finnish shops. Again there were great posters from the 1950s to 1970s, and hippies were included in the official history.

Yesterday we had passed an interesting chili restaurant and headed for it. Niels isn't the chili man, and pregnancy has changes Tiiti's taste so that she doesn't enjoy pureed habanero any more, but anyway we chose to follow Timo's ambitions this time. For starters we found smørrebrød, the Danish open sandwiches, and choosing randomly, we found swede among the other toppings. Tiiti ordered using her perfect Danish, and when the lady asked for some extra information, Niels answered her in English.

The chili place turned out to be no chili place at all, but anyway its operational concept was interesting: at least twenty different salads were available, and you could order a plate of one to five salads. There was also warm dish and soup available, only one of each. The evil waiter didn't allow Tiiti to practice Danish, but immediately changed to the easier language. The food was very tasty, but we would have preferred having plates of 2 to 10 with half the portions of each. Now the chick pea salad was quite a filling experience. Every night ends with a happy hour, to get rid of all the leftovers with half the price.

We found an outdoor exhibition of nature photography with all sorts of European wonders. Some of the photos were really good nature shots, while some were clearly framed using zoo animals. One of the so-called nature photos showed a fly in front of the St. Peter's basilisk. There was also an osprey photographed in Tiiti's original hometown, and she explained how there is an artificial lake with planted fish, guarded from each side by bird watch towers.

A year back, Tiiti had seen the new Royal library building, the Black Diamond, which is a black box from outside and concrete uglistic style in the inside. Hearing this judgement, Yulia had told us about the beautiful park behind the old building. We rested there and let our eyes rest at the flowers. A guided bicycle tour came to see the fountain though biking was forbidden in the park. Next to the library door there was a sign saying "MAIN ENTRANCE is not here".

We walked on along the harbour with the sun burning us. The place was a former industrial area, now a swimming beach. Some old industrial buildings were still standing and we saw railway tracks, and all this made the place much more interesting and delightful. The water seemed to be about 20 degrees, and there were lots of young people swimming. Later we passed by some floating pools where children could swim with their feet reaching the bottom. They were apparently filled with sea water as well.

Tiiti had wanted to go to Flæsketorvet, the old meat market and the butchers' quarters. Now it hosts art galleries and trendy restaurants, though some meat shops still exist, or at least the three butcher-looking men seemed authentic and not hired by the tourist agency. Again: when the surroundings give hints of the former use, the area becomes much more interesting than any art gallery built from scratch. We visited some galleries and found the tea shop Tiiti had been hoping to find--"I hope you get through customs," commented Niels.

Feeling exhausted, we returned home to rest. Tiiti walked the last streak barefoot, because the evil shoe had eaten through her heel. Later we went to the supermarket Føtex to see the fancy LCD price tags with the discounts flashing. To continue exploring the smørrebrød culture we had sandwiches topped with tuna salad, curry paste, chicken salad, and whatever we could imagine. Finally there was rain to kill the heat. We spent the evening discussing history, nazis, and what we learned in the National Museum. Niels would go to work early, so we bid farewell before going to bed.

Thursday, June 9 -- Fast Forward Sweden?

We woke up alone, raided the fridge, and walked to the station because there was nothing to do at home either. In the park, a jogger spoke Danish to us all too quickly, apparently wanting to encourage us with walking with backpacks. Tiiti answered that she sadly doesn't speak Danish, and later Timo commented that her pronunciation made this sound like a lie.

This time the S train ran smoothly. We looked for sellers of the homeless' journal Hus Førbi at the main station, but didn't see any, and just jumped on the next Ø train. These international local trains run between Malmö and Copenhagen on the Öresund/Øresund bridge. All the LED displays showed that all the seats might be reserved, but the train was quite empty on a workday in the middle of the day. Another display showed the estimated arrival times at stations, and we could follow the train being more and more late each station. The bridge could have provided a great view, but instead we got fog and ticket control.

We left the last 17.5 DK on the Lund station platform for some lucky person to find, and headed to look for food. We decided to trust the credit card, while the other Finns on the train wanted to get cash. The weather was humid, and we didn't feel like walking too much with the backpacks. On the square next to the station we found Matservice = Food service, which looked like a truckers' place. There were no truckers, but the locals went to this little place, which is always a good sign. The mother took our order and the daughter brought our plates, and both made several enqueries about the food being good. It was.

Tiiti had some trouble switching to Swedish, while her beginner's Danish is mostly based on speaking Swedish with a hot potato in her mouth, and additionally remembering some simple words that are different in the two languages. Now she had to really think how to say things in proper Swedish. The Finnish and Swedish accents of Swedish are remarkably different, but she can't do the Swedish accent and had to do with sounding like a Finnish schoolchild.

We found some dried berry soup for our future hikes in the ICA supermarket and returned to the station. On our way someone tried to bum money from us, speaking the antonym of Czech: vowels only. Today was the high school graduation day, and we watched the new graduates who walked past the station under umbrellas or wrapped in plastic raincoats. The spirits were high despite the rain.

The trip with the X2000 high speed train was full of mishaps. First the estimated departure time was postponed four times, each time by five or ten minutes, and finally the train left six minutes before the next estimated time. The reason was a broken signal. At the best, the train ran 200 km/h and tilted horribly so that Tiiti had to lie down and try to sleep. The rain we had brought from Denmark escalated into a thunderstorm, and we lost power from the tracks. That was repaired quickly, but something else had been damaged by the blackout or the thunder, and we would stop every now and then, possibly because of broken signals. In the end we were so late that we had to wait for other traffic. On the other hand, the other trains might have been stuck on the tracks because of the storm. We arrived in Stockholm an hour behind schedule, just some minutes before the next X2000 from the south should have arrived. We must admit that the announcements were precise and informative, and we were well taken care of during the whole trip. Besides, the Swedish countryside looked a lot like Finland, and we felt like at home on the train.

We marched through the Stockholm old town and didn't care whether it was on the Unesco list or not, and didn't stop for ice-cream or souvenirs. Timo guided us to the ferry harbour, and we arrived at the same time with the ferry. Obviously we were allowed in only much later, but sitting in the terminal was fine. A team of young ice-hockey players came on the same ferry, though going to Finland would mean losing 1-6 (cultural hint for the foreigners: see the result of the final match of ice-hockey worlds 2011).

The cheapest cabins are found under the car decks. Many got anxious on the endless stairs, we didn't. We walked a bit around the ship, had a dinner of 19 eur/kg, bought some sweets as gifts, and watched the sunset colours from the front windows. When we tried to go and breathe the fresh sea air, we were greeted by a litter bin on fire, spreading such a stench that even the fresh wind was helpless.

Friday, June 10 -- Skipping the European Culture Capital

The cleaning lady didn't come and usher us out of bed, but we got to wake up and get going only when the ferry arrived in Turku. We had some Danish food on the station platform, feeling sleepy, and continued with the sleepiness on the train. The car was full of children going to a swimming competition, and many others. Timo offered to lift some old lady's bag to the upper compartment, but the lady was afraid never to get it back, not being able to lift it herself. In Tampere, Timo helped the bag down.

Our plants greeted us very green, thanks to the committed neighbour who watered them. The local shop offered new potatoes on discount, the water in the lakes was warm, and the forecast showed several days of heat ahead. Finland at its best.

Welcome to Tampere. Thank you for travelling with us, we hope to see you soon again.