DENMARK IV – The Area

Written September 17, 2015

From the moment my Aunt Karen teasingly ripped my backpack from my hands I was completely at her and my uncle’s mercy. I spoke no Danish aside from “flødeis,” “isvand,” “tak,” and “ja kan ikke tale dansk.” (Translation: ice cream, ice water, thank you and I cannot speak Danish, respectively.)  Not a lot of help. And so I relied on them to translate for me, to order food for me, to help me find books or souvenirs or bathrooms, helped me use currency and pay for purchases. I was 19-years-old and felt about as useful as an infant. Despite this, they went out of their way to make my stay there wonderful and comfortable. And it certainly was a treat to experience a country as foreign as this one as intimately as they allowed.

At the time, my aunt and uncle lived in a tiny cottage on the outskirts of Sæby. The cottage was on a road that had only a couple/three homes along it, and bordered a park that was filled with sun dials, statues, pathways and ponds.

Statues in Nellemanns Have, directly across the street from the cottage. Sæby, April 1995.

There were a few days during my sojourn in which I was alone in the house while my aunt and uncle worked. Usually one or the other or both had all or half a day off and would entertain me somehow. But while alone I usually composed letters home and walked through the nearby park and neighborhood. From the top of the hill I could see the sea.

From the top of a little hill in Nellemanns Have. My uncle’s pink cottage is seen at left, and the sea is in the distance.

When they were home I was treated to tours of the nearby towns – usually on bike. I remember following them through the suburban homes near their cottage, out on lonely country roads with views forever, and lovely tours of some of the better parks and woods. The Sæby Woods were my favorite, as was the many sculptures one could see throughout urban areas.

Sæby Woods. This could be the setting for a fairy tale.

“Jordbas” sculpture, downtown Sæby, April 1995.

I especially loved the Herregårdsmuseet Sæbygård.

Herregårdsmuseet Sæbygård. We biked past it while it was under refurbishment. April 1995.

Everywhere the architecture was quite European, and Scandinavian at that, so I marveled a lot at the different look and feel of the places. Despite this, I was tickled to learn there was usually large English language sections in local bookstores, and I recall purchasing several books to get me through the long bus ride home again.

We took a day-trip to Göteborg, Sweden. It was about a two-hour ferry ride, and super cheap for foot passengers, so we walked on.

Never-ending bridge painting is the same in every country.

Once in the city we took a tram into the downtown area. Swedish is enough like Danish, so my aunt and uncle were able to talk with the locals, but it was all Greek to me! I was again taken with the architecture of the city, so foreign-looking to my American eye, like my history books come alive.

Downtown Göteborg.

We spent the day wandering the frigid, windy city, embarrassing my aunt to no end when I tried to steal a poster off a street kiosk of a band named “Amanda” for my sister back home. I was happy, however, to add this country to my list of places visited.

By far the most intense part of my time in Denmark was when it was time to leave.  The return bus trip started out normal enough, though the bus was nearly full and I was soon playing host to myriad passengers who wished to share my seat. Things got more crowded when we reached Hamburg, and some passengers were tripling up in their seats. I was thankful it was just myself and a haggard old woman as the bus lurched off. It wasn’t long, however, before the woman next to me began to speak, at first in German and then when I said “I’m sorry, I only speak English,” she switched so that I might understand her. But it was odd: she wasn’t really talking to me. It was more like she was talking to the side of me. Or not at me at all. She would mutter “Go ahead and confess what you did,” or “Whatever your trouble, there is help, let me help you…prostitution, drugs, gambling, I can help you.  I can see you need help.” As she spoke she took swigs out of a medicine bottle that smelled heavily of iron.  She continued: “I can hear your cries for help.  Let me help you, I can read your pleas.”  I was stunned. My first crazy bus person and I was too young to know how to handle things and I was a million miles from home in the days before cell phones in a foreign country and all alone. What was I going to do if this got ugly?

As if responding to my anxiety, she suddenly stood up, grabbed her bag and mumbled, “I can see you’re terrified of me…” and she moved to sit in the back of the bus.  I sighed a sigh of relief.  My seat remained empty for 45-mins until she came back again.  She had almost sat entirely down when I decided I wanted nothing to do with her, so I stood up, turned around noticed a free seat directly behind me next to a perfect stranger — a kindly-looking German woman.  I eyed her carefully. She was a little older, late 40s maybe, looked sane, but looks could be deceiving.  Still, I was desperate, and asked her if I could sit with her.  She had been watching the ordeal and readily agreed to be my seatmate.  We exchanged names — hers was Jetta — and I thanked her profusely. My hero. She stayed with me the entire remainder of the journey, through the night and across the channel, chatting and telling our life stories. We parted ways in London and I never saw her again, but it was a fitting end to an exciting trek through Europe.