Roskilde and Danish roots

Mark and I have been having an enjoyable time together.  Yesterday we weeded at Olivia's a little (our tiny contribution to her beautiful yard for the upcoming wedding). Then, we stopped at my parents' house and helped pick cherries.

What an aesthetically pleasing fruit cherries are to pick!

After picking about three buckets, we sat in the sunroom and visited and pitted the cherries.  My mom was closest with her estimate.  She guessed we had 30 cups and we had 29.  My mom overpaid Mark for helping with the cherries then she fed us lunch.

So it was a pretty good deal for us. (Also we will get some of the cherry pie!)

We came home and Mark cut the grass along the brook and I raked it out of the water, which was a satisfying job.  

Today we will go back to Utah.  It's been so nice being here.  All good things come to an end.

Back to the travelogue:

June 23

Roskilde

We left Copenhagen and drove to Roskilde to visit the Viking Museum.  It was fascinating.  Over 1000 years ago, five Viking ships were sunk in the harbor to better control the seas.  More recently (I think in the 1960s), they were discovered and excavated.  Once the wood dried, it crumbled so they had to keep it wet for years before they came up with a solution (the injected it with something to protect the wood).

Rebuilding the ship fragments into the five ships, gave a lot of information about how the ships were built.

Looking at a map of where the Vikings were, they were in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Normandy, Scotland, Ireland and England.  My places!

I've learned about other ancient cultures, but this is the first time I've learned about my very own ancient culture.

They had a workshop where they were working on boats, plus a finished replica.

On our boat tour in Copenhagen, the guide commented that the weather was going to turn and we were going to experience "Viking Summer."

If by Viking Summer, he meant rain, we did indeed get that.

It was such enthusiastic rain, the cars on the road pulled over for a few minutes.

We took a ferry from Zealand (the island Copenhagen is on) to Jutland (the peninsula Aarhus is on).  It was a 90 minute ferry and very pleasant.  When it was raining so hard, I asked Adam, are we going to capsize on that ferry?  (I am never dramatic.)

He pointed out what we had just learned at the Viking Museum about how long they'd been sailing in those waters.  He said, "I think they have the kinks worked out."

They have indeed been at it for a while.

While we were waiting for the ferry, I sketched pictures of some of the houses we were looking for where Adam's people had lived.  

I texted a picture of my sketches to our kids and said we were ready.  They were, of course, very supportive of my efforts.

I had them on my phone, I just had time on my hands and a notebook so I sketched them.

We went to Vinkel, where I think Adam's grandma's family lived right before emigrating.

Adam's great grandpa, Simon Simonsen was christened and his great great grandparents are buried at this church in Vester Velling.

The grounds were beautiful!  Some of the best we saw (and all of the churchyards were very nice.)

The Simonsens worked at cutting peat moss in Denmark and here's a picture of the family in the peat bog.

Less than a ten minute drive from Vester Velling was Øster Velling.  Vester = west, Øster = east.

Karoline Lang was christened there.

Down the road was Helstrup, where Karoline was born.

Despite all my doubters, my little sketch helped me find the house.  (Sketching helped me pay attention to the details.)

(Besides my sketch), these are the pictures of Karoline's house that were on Family Search.  And I think this is the house!  The windows in the roof are different, but I'm calling it the same.

So that was exciting.

We went back to Aarhus from there.  

We had zero expectations, but ended up loving it.  We went to a pita restaurant for dinner (delicious!) and the bishop used google translate before drinking this so he could make sure he wasn't about to drink alcohol.