Back on Canadian Soil - July 9, 2009

The flight from Frankfurt landed in Calgary – almost home. We had a three hour stopover – but that was a good thing because the security line in Calgary was very long – in fact some people may have missed their connecting flights, there was lots of frustration and a lot of cranky people. Fortunately for us our stress level was low thanks to the long lay-over.

Beth adds: I have to say that I didn't realize how much I missed Canada and everything familiar until we came through Customs and one of the first things I saw was a Tim Horton's. Finally I could get a simple cup of coffee without fumbling through foreign currency and language barriers. I was back in well-known territory.

We went through Customs in Calgary and were relieved to discover they didn’t care about the goat cheese! Yes, in spite of saying I wouldn’t do that again, Sissel and Terje gave us two big packages of gjetost to take home! There were no other problems at customs either, even though we were a little over our limit for the amount of purchases we were allowed to bring in duty free - they simply waved us through (big sigh of relief). Now all that remained was the last little flight home!

Landing in Regina was bitter sweet. On the one hand we were very glad to be home, but this also meant the end of our wonderful trip. When we came down the stairs in the airport we were greeting by two of our children (Anna and Thomas – Joshua was at work). A pleasant surprise was also being welcomed home by our friends Irene and John Edworthy. To see these familiar faces really brought home the reality of being back home. The pilgrimage was over – now to share our adventure with the many curious folks who would be wondering how it all went. But that was for another day – today we simply wanted to take ourselves and all our luggage to our house, then to try and get some sleep and get back on Saskatchewan time.

Once at our house we waited until Joshua got home from work, then we spent some time handing out the souvenirs we brought back for the kids. We shared some stories, answered questions, got caught up on the important happenings around home, then went to bed (after being up for close to 26 hours straight).

Thus ended our 6 week trip – so much packed into so short a time – and memories to last a lifetime. So too does this blog come to an end (ironically 2 years after our trip was finished we finally got around to finishing up the final days of entries!) Both Beth and I will post one more reflection piece each – as we look back over this whole adventure and make some general observations about the trip and how it impacted us. Thanks for sharing this pilgrimage with us through this blog. Now on to whatever the future holds.

Final Day of Travel - Frankfurt Airport - July 9, 2009

Our last day in Europe started very early as we had to get to the train station to catch the high speed train to Frankfurt (which rolled out of the station at 6:41 AM). The train was ride was fast, and smooth and before we knew it we were arriving at the airport in Frankfurt (the train pulls right into the Airport terminal – that’s effective and convenient public transportation!)

It was a good thing that we arrived at the airport early because the line up to get through security turned out to be very long. While waiting for our boarding call we marvelled at this city within a city – the Frankfurt airport is huge, indicated by the airport security people who rode around on bicycles inside the terminal! What a place to people watch – folks from all around the world, many different skin colours, clothing styles, languages, all waiting to go somewhere.

The last official duty we had in Europe was to complete and mail our forms for the VAT refund (Valued Added Tax - remember the leather purchases we made in Florence?) The deal there was that some of the tax was waived because we were from out of country, the trick is that there was a certain form that had to be submitted within six weeks. Beth mentioned that we wouldn't be leaving Europe before that so thus wouldn't be able to process the form through customs in time. She was assured (by the very skilled salesperson at the leather store) that this would be no problem (and it wasn't except that the extra tax portion wound up being charged to our VISA since we didn't submit the paperwork in time. Beth had quite the process after we got home to get it refunded.) It took a very long time but we did eventually get our refund. Anyway, enough side notes.

We wandered through the Frankfurt airport and found a convenient post box where we could mail the completed form. First Beth needed to go to the customs office and have the official stamp put on it. There was quite a line-up but we had lots of time. Imagine our surprise when as we waited, we heard the initial call for our flight. We were a little panicky until the woman ahead of Beth told her we would be just fine - she was one of the stewardesses for that same flight!

It turns out that our plane was over-sold and so they were checking us into the gate early (we didn’t take the offer to take a later flight and get some credit or something – we simply wanted to get home to our family). Soon enough we were settled in our seats for the long flight home.

The flight itself was memorable for only three things – it was very long, the movie system kept crashing, but the food was good (better than what I would expect on an airplane).

A Tale of Two Hotels - July 8, 2009

We woke up to our last day in the Scandinavian countries refreshed and ready to go (in spite of the very small hotel room – and small beds to match!) Little did we realize that the contrast with our accommodations later that day would be a study in contrasts. After breakfast we lugged our bulging suitcases (now I know where the term luggage comes from) to the train station. Thankfully we had wheels on the largest suitcases and thus we made our way down the sidewalks of Copenhagen looking very much like tourists.

After waiting for a little bit we were able to board the train that would take us to Hannover, Germany. By this time we were experts at getting all our luggage and ourselves onto the train and settled into place. The train trip had nothing of note – or perhaps we were simply worn out and didn’t pay attention to things that would have caught our fancy earlier in the trip. Actually there was one cool thing about the trip - at one point the train boarded a ferry to cross a body of water. We had to leave the train while the ferry sailed, and doing so we were able to see the train tracks built into the floor of the ferry. Thinking back on this now I realize that within a 24 hour span we travelled by rail, sea and air!

Once in Hannover we walked the couple of blocks from the train station to the hotel where we discovered that we had been upgraded because the room we had booked was not available. This was one of the hotel rooms booked using our Airmiles. So up we went to the top floor of the hotel and walked into the most luxurious and spacious suite we had been in the whole trip (see the picture above). The irony was we weren’t able to enjoy it very long because we had such an early start the next morning.

The best thing about this room was all the space! We were able to unpack everything, and then re-pack it as efficiently as possible for the trip home. So rather than being able to enjoy the spacious room and huge bed with a lazy day and sleeping in the next morning (in the lovely huge bed) we simply grabbed some food from a grocery store in the train station and proceeded to eat, and repack. When that was done we fell into bed exhausted… it was time to head home!

Marilyn Mazur Concert - July 7, 2009

Back in Copenhagen after running around Malmo for the day. The Copenhagen Jazz Festival was taking place at the time so I thought I would see if there were any concerts I would be interested in. One name jumped out at me – the American/Danish percussionist Marilyn Mazur. I recognized her name from a number of recordings I have, most notably Jan Garbarek’s recent ECM albums. Playing with her that night were a couple of musicians I recognized from ECM recordings - John Taylor (an English pianist who I first heard as part of the group Azimuth) and Anders Jormin (a Swedish bass player who I knew from his playing with the Bobo Stenson Trio). The group was rounded out with Josefine Cronholm, a Swedish vocalist I didn’t recognize. The concert was in The Queen's Hall of the Royal Library (Det Kongelige Bibliotek)and with a little checking we discovered it was within walking distance of our hotel. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so we decided to take it in.

We had a little time for shopping before the concert so we wandered around the city streets near our hotel. It was a lovely evening and many people were out and about. I was specifically looking for a Danish vimpel, but also any other Danish souvenirs to bring home. We grabbed some food from a street vendor - the Scandinavian equivalent of a hot dog – a thin long sausage in a baguette. When you ordered one of these the vendor asked what condiments you wanted, these then were squirted into the hollowed out baguette and finally the sausage was stuffed in - well not all the sausage, a good 4 or 5 inches stuck out the top! A little unusual looking but they tasted good.

Being a beautiful summer day there were also buskers about including a couple of guys in full North American Indian outfits, complete with huge feather headdresses. They looked like they could be of aboriginal descent, they certainly advertised themselves that way – but rather than the drum circle music we are familiar with from the plains tribes, these fellows were playing their version of Native American music: Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” played on pan pipes! Beth and I laughed at this ‘authentic music’ of the North American first nations peoples – but the Danes were eating it up!

The Queen's Hall in the Royal Library sounds like it should be an old ornate space, but it turned out to be a very cool looking new facility (it is also known as 'The Black Diamond'), and the theatre inside was modern and comfortable. When we took our seats the first thing I noticed on the stage was what looked like a cage made out of all kinds of percussion instruments; cymbals and chimes, bells and drums. This was going to be interesting!

Shortly after settling into our seats the lights dimmed, and Marilyn Mazur’s Celestial Circle (as the group was called) took the stage. For the next 90 minutes we were treated to a display of focussed energy and percussive precision that was truly captivating - this from a woman in her 60’s! It was not all banging and crashing either, much of her playing was subtle yet intense – supporting the musical expression of her band mates. I found myself thinking “This is like listening to an ECM recording – but live!” I was really pleased at this happy musical discovery, and Beth was very patient.

After the concert (and buying a couple of CDs of course!) we walked back to our hotel with thunderstorms threatening in the distance, but we never got wet. A pleasant end to day that, in spite of being pretty spontaneous, was filled with wonderful sights and sounds.

Day in Malmo - July 7, 2009

Tuesday was another great day, weather-wise and we decided to take advantage of it. Dennis wasn’t feeling too inspired about exploring Copenhagen, he had seen what he wanted to in 1980 and apparently the little mermaid is overrated anyway, so we hopped the train and headed back to Sweden. Even though we had gone to some very specific places and had accomplished what I had hoped we would, I was feeling disappointed that we hadn’t had more time to just soak up the ambience. Turns out that I’ve become very pro-Swedish since we came back (or so I’ve been told).

Malmo is only about ½ hour from Copenhagen by train so that’s how we spent our afternoon. One of the first things we saw was a four piece marching band artwork made out of steel - quite funny! Then we talked to a very informative man in a souvenir shop who drew all over a city map and told us about some sights we really should see. So we went through yet another Saint Peter’s church. Some interesting points about this one - the pulpit was resting on the shoulders of a statue of Peter (see the picture above) Was this a reference to Peter being the rock upon which the church would be built? Also there was a medieval side chapel with some subtle ceiling paintings.

We also saw a building with the craziest architecture ever - the floors were slightly offset so it looked twisted and almost leaning. There’s a river running through the center of the downtown core, quite the focal point. There were these water features flowing into the river and on the steps beside we saw statues of cats - they almost looked life-like, at first glance you didn’t realize they were statues.

We discovered a great cake shop and tried a few amazing cupcakes (along with a pretty decent cup of coffee). We needed another piece of carry-on luggage so the helpful man told us about a shop that had used to be next to him when he was located in the train station. We covered a lot of ground looking for it (even though we were talking about a ten block radius probably, just did it several times) but never found it. We even went to the tourist office in the train station to try to get an address but had no luck. Good thing we didn’t try to find the restaurant he highly recommended (which was apparently a little tricky to find). However, it was good of him to be so helpful and we did end up getting another bag, just not from his friend.

Finishing the Blog

Well it has been two years since we travelled in Europe, and finally we are getting around to finishing the Blog. Once we got back to Canada we got caught up in our busy schedules again, and good intentions of finishing off the final entries never happened. To tell you the truth I think we were simply worn out. Besides that we were focusing on our upcoming 25th Wedding Anniversary celebration held only a couple weeks after our return. A few of our readers kept asking when we were going to finish the Blog, thanks to their gentle reminders Beth and I decided that this summer we were going to do just that. We took Beth's laptop up to the Hedlin family cabin at Christopher Lake and while relaxing at the lake we took some time to review the notes about the final few days of our trip, looked at pictures to refresh our memories, and then sat down to write the final entries. Now this long weekend we finally will post these long-awaited entries, and the Blog will be mostly complete. We also hope to each write a personal reflection on the whole trip that will complete the Blog, but for now here are the entries to finish the trip. Thanks for your patience.
Dennis