Guten morgan

Guten morgan, we were greeted with wind mills and fields of yellow canola as we entered Germany.  The train we were riding left Copenhagen packed and as we made our way into the countryside the people slowly trickle out.  It was fun to have the train board the ferry. We went out on deck with the Baltic Sea breeze in our faces looking with excitement toward Germany.  As we watched the country side go by I notice how the land was used. They have left huge tracks of land as forests between there crop fields.  And in some of the fields you would see wind mills spotted about generating electricity. The land seemed to be used efficiently and consciously. While in Denmark we went to the National Museum. It was really cool. They had a section that started out as the beginning of Danish history. Starting with the Stone Age, I was amazed at how closely the stone axes and tools resembled those in all cultures. They looked just like the ones in New Zealand, Hawaii, and even like the ones in Utah that are on display at the museums. I notice some of the carvings in the stone and they reminded me off the eerie pictographs/ petroglyphs and such down in Buck Horn Wash.  It was interesting to see the progression of time in the form of handmade objects. To watch how even slight changes in the stone tools lead to art and mystery as things became refined. To watch identiy and culture being born out of rock and antler, to become the Norse people of Denmark. i really liked the ancient 7000 year old wood spoons that had been preserved in a bog. There really is something magical about a handcrafted spoon. To me it is a symbol of health and well…a sense of nourishment and abundance. I brought my own wood spoon on this trip. It is a wooden spoon hand carved from a limb of mountain mahogany.  I have been eating with it since 2006. It is so smooth and silky, I find great pleasure to have it in my hands and even more pleasure to have a big scoop of mango sorbet slide into my mouth.  I love the feel of the wood on my bottom lip as I pull the spoon free after delivering is precious cargo. I know it sounds quite silly.

I have never seen so many bicycles in one place as I did when coming out of the train station in Copenhagen. There were at least 500 if not 700 bikes lined up over the bridge, around the corner and down the street again.  The cobble stone streets don’t look fun to ride on though.  Our couch surfing host lent us their bikes, so heather and I went shopping for foods at a small market.  It was fun to cruise the streets of Copenhagen with a basket full of veggies. I was feeling very European until I notice that people would stare at us as we rode by. “How do they know we are not locals”, I thought.  They just do.

I’m in a town called Kiel in northern Germany. Today I’m going to go hitch hike out into the country side, to a village called Passade. That is where some of Shauna’s ancestors are buried from 1667.  My German is not good and when going into the small villages it makes it quite difficult to communicate.  Yesterday I was walking the streets of Kiel and an older man stopped me and asked if he could buy me a coffee. I accepted and sat with him in a sidewalk café.  Communication was difficult as his English was broken and I thumbed through my phase book that my sister Julie gave me just days before I left. He was a painter and gave me a photograph of some of his work. He told me of how he used to do exhibits and commissions. And now with his family all gone and sight failing, he raised his hands up and said, “I am forgotten”.  Tapping his worn watch “I must go now”. We exchanged goodbyes and he disappeared into the woven threads of people on the street. I write this, as to make sure he is not forgotten to me.

The bakeries are incredible!!!!! The crusted breads taste so good. I just want to eat that them every day. One day I’m going to buy one of those huge twists filled with elder berries topped with flaked almonds.  Last night we walked to a beer garden. It was in this huge park surrounded by giant oak, elm, maple, birch and cherry trees that were in full bloom. It was amazingly beautiful!!!! I was excited to say “ien bier bitter”, with my order. I had the pilsner age in oak barrels. I guess I was expecting more.  It was good but not as great as Gregg Updikes pilsner. But none the less the night was just beautiful. We dined with our couch surfing hosts, the garden was called Forstbaumschule. We walked back to their flat along the old cobble stone steets. Their flat is in an old building that survived the bombing of world war II. This city took a beating as it has a major shipping port.

Monday we are moving on to Szczecin Poland.