Tillykke Med Fødselsdagen, Mor ! !

The week started out with a trip to the hospital in Glostrup.  I was so happy that Jens managed to push his CAT scan appointment several months ahead of schedule.  Jens’ original appointment was for June 28.  Our neighbor who had an emergency scanning told us not to settle for such a long wait.   “Call and cry and whine” she told us, “Tell them you are in pain and dying and that there is no way you can wait.”    It was pretty much true so Jens didn’t have to lie.  But on the phone, the nurse said she was soooooo sorry but the only day available was in 4½ months from now.   She did suggest calling back from time to time to see if there was a cancelation – yeah, right!   I said, “That’s a good idea Jens, try calling tomorrow.”  Of course, that is not what the nurse meant.  She meant like, try next month.  But Jens was not going to wait one more day so he called later that afternoon.  What a surprise - suddenly there was a space available 3½ weeks earlier.  That was great, I thought.  But that was not good enough either.  So Jens called again the next day and suddenly they were able to take him in, in just 12 days from now.  Wow - His original appointment for June 28 had now been moved to Monday the 13th of March.  

But to my disappointment, the visit to the hospital was only a visit with a check from the doctor as well as a million questions.  Surprisingly, the doctor said that Jens was one of his strongest patients.  The doctor checked every which way that Jens could bend his leg.  We were thinking the problem was his Sciatic nerve – the one that runs down from the lower spine all the way to the foot.  But the doctor said he thought the problem was actually in the lower leg.  “An MRI scan will show us where the problem actually is” said the doctor.  That’s when we had to interject that because of the 2 metal pins in Jens’ brain and battery pack in his chest, he cannot have an MRI, he can only have a CAT scan.  If he has an MRI, it will melt the wires in his body.   “That was too bad,” said the doctor, “Because an MRI will pinpoint the problem. A CAT scan will just give us a good idea and some guessing will be involved.”

The doctor said that they will be able to do a CAT scan in about 2 months.  Oh mi god.  We got bumped up several months and still it’s going to take another 2 months for the scanning ?!!!  But good news came our way in the mail.  It was a letter informing that Jens has been scheduled to have a CAT scan at the end of this month. Yes !

2 days later we found ourselves at Fredriksberg Hospital having a heart scan.  About 15 years ago they discovered that this one particular Parkinson’s medicine has horrible side effects.  Both to the lungs and the heart.  Luckily, Jens’ lungs are ok – even with all that smoking, but the doctors were afraid that they were going to have to do a heart valve transplant on Jens.  But thank god his condition is stable and it is just a slight bit of fibroses he developed.  That means that a bit of blood travels the wrong way in his heart.  Anyway, he got the results back and there has been no development since the last check and everything looks as good as can be considering the situation.

Each city has a coat of arms.  This is for the city of Fredriksberg. 

It has 3 falcons.  It was hanging on the wall in the hospital.

It was pretty nice and it looked to be very heavy.

It's made of porcelain.

Now it was time to get the party started.  We drove directly from the Fredriksberg Hospital to the other side of the country.  Our final destination was Kolding.  We were going specifically to celebrate Jens’ mother’s 89^th birthday.  It’s amazing how well she is doing.  She is still going strong and takes care of herself.  She does, however, have a problem hearing.  I SAID SHE HAS A PROBLEM WITH HEARING.

Before arriving to Kolding, Jens’ plan was to go to a town called Haderselv. Say it like: ha-ther-slew. I’ve never been there so I was excited about seeing it.  Actually, while driving on the road, I got very excited when I notice a sign pointing the way to another little village - Christiansfeld - which we drove through a few years ago.  I swung off the main country road and into the village.  We came to this very well-known bakery whose specialty is gingerbread.  Christiansfeld, founded in 1773, is well known for its gingerbread.  It’s not my favorite but you can’t say no to something this special.  As a matter of fact, this village bakes chocolate covered gingerbread cakes and packages it to sell to other markets around the country.  Whenever I see it at the market that I shop at, which isn’t often, I buy it.  I ended up buying about $35 worth of gingerbread in this town on this day – silly me.

Honningkagehuset or The Honey Cake House

Click here to go to the website for the bakery.

Hand made and decorated ginger bread men.

Now onto Haderselv.  It is about 700 years old and has a lot of history – as most of Europe does – and the moment we drove into town, I wanted to spend hours there but we only had a few minutes to spare.  So, we drove on a few streets to admire the architecture and then parked near the cathedral to snap a few quick pix.  Google Haderselv – you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

A side street leading to the church.

It was the iron work that caught my eye.

A monogram for the king but I haven't been able to

figure out, which king.

These are the tallest windows of any church in

all of Scandinavia.

The Queen of Denmark designed 4 alter covers.  This is one of

them.  Along with the altar cover is a matching robe that

the priest wear.  Click here if you would like to see the others.

Every church in Denmark has a ship hanging from the ceiling.

Click here to learn why.

Click here to see more professional pix of the cathedral.

Another side street leading to the cathedral.

From Haderselv we were off to a tiny country village called Gram.  Very tiny.  It probably weighs only 5 or 10 grams at the most.  In Danish it is called Gram Slot.  Slot means castle but actually it is more of a manor/mansion estate.   On the grounds of this estate, Jens’ grandfather and grandmother were among the team of groundskeepers.

We were following a teeny tiny paper map and ended up taking the wrong road back to Kolding.  That actually worked out well for me because on the way to Haderslev and just before Christiansfeld, we had zipped passed some sort of marker that I caught in the corner of my eye and I had a feeling was very important – it was and this is it.

On the stone it says that this is the point where King Christian X reunited the southern part of Denmark that had been lost to Germany during the second Slesvigske war of 1864.  At one point in history, Denmark was a huge country.  Then after the war of 1864 it was even smaller than it is now.  But in 1920 after Germany lost WWI, a part of southern Denmark that Germany had conquered, became reunited through a vote to rejoin with Denmark again.  But only part of what was lost to Germany was rejoined.  The other part of Denmark that voted not to rejoin, is now the northern part of Germany today.  It was here at this point that the king of Denmark crossed the old boarder to reclaim and reunited his countrymen and territory.

Finally we arrive in Kolding – this is a fantastic town.  A very small town with an endless number of things to discover.  For example this fascinating windmill can be see from Rigmor's kitchen window.

Kolding is the town where Jens grew up.  We popped in for 3½ days to visit Rigmor, Jens’ mother.  On our second dag, Rigmor wanted to take a drive to the farmhouse where she grew up – she hasn’t seen it since she was a young woman.  We got lost trying to find it as the farm house is actually away from the road.  But finally we found it and we drove right into the yard and had a brief talk with the man who is now the owner.  At one time, Rigmor and her husband Arne had taken over the farm – about 6 acres.  Unfortunately, the soil is sandy and not of top quality and there was a lack of rain at the time when the Bosen family was doing their best to make ends meet.

This is an areal view of the farm house from long ago.

Much of it has been changed from the 30's.

It was such a simple thing to do – take a drive – yet it was a big thrill for Rigmor to drive down memory lane.  The rest of our time was spent visiting and taking it easy until it was time to return to Copenhagen.

Breakfast would not be breakfast without real Danish danish.

One with cream, one with raspberry and one with prune.

Jens and the birthday girl having a fun conversation.

Getting ready to dig into the b-day cake with

Jens' sister and brother-in-law.

Road Trip

I had some time off at the end of May so Jens and I rented a nice station wagon and took a drive to Kolding, Jelling, Vejle, Twin Peaks and Jordrup.

Here we are at a road side stop having a late lunch because of our late start.

Just 2 days ago Jens had cancelled our trip because of his health.

Then it was on again the following day.

Then the day that we were supposed to leave he decided to rent a car.

No worries - there are several auto rental shops just a 5 minute bike ride away.

Our first stop was at Jens's mother's home in Kolding where we spent the night and then left for Jelling the next day. 

We were supposed to stop in and have a cup of coffee with Jens's mother's sister-in-law.  But it turned out to be a 5 minute visit on the door step as the sister-in-law was on her way to the doctor's office.  So into town we went. This is where they have the Jelling Viking Stones.  But first I wanted that cup of coffee.  And here we are having cake and coffee inside of a café that was Viking themed.

So sad and so sorry - the rain was getting ready to pour over our heads and thunder was cracking so we made a mad dash back to the car and never even saw the stones.  But thanks to the internet, we can see them here:

here: Pix from Google,

here: info from Wikipedia,

and here: documentary from Danish television.

Lucky for me the Viking village is just a "stones" throw away from where Jens's mother lives and we will see it the next time we are visiting his mother.

From Jelling we drove to Vejle.  We took the long scenic route through Grejsdal (Grejs Valley).  There's not much forrest in Denmark but this is one of the spots where there are plenty of beautiful trees with a little country road running through the valley between Jelling and Vejle; our point of destination.

Vejle has a long and interesting history. You can read about it here.  I really wanted to see the city center but it is just too much for Jens and his mom so we saw what we could by car, drove along the fjord and then up into the forrest to our hotel. 

The following pix are what I snapped with my camera from the car window.  We of course saw lots more of the city center but it's too dangerous to drive and hold a photo session at the same time.

The pix below is the part of the drive between Vejle fjord and our hotel.  Here the road narrows to a single lane under a double set of train tracks.  It was cute and funny that we had to stop for traffic from the opposite direction. 

So now we have come to our 4 star hotel - Munkebjerg Hotel.  It's very nice and I booked 2 rooms with balconies.

Jens's mom and I went for a doggy walk around the hotel grounds.

I got word from a friend that it is baking hot in Copenhagen but here on the west side of Denmark it's a combo of wetness with fog and a splash of rain.  It seems to be like this often.  Even in some of the pix on the hotel website, there are a number of photos showing off the view from the hotel yet not always with a clear sky.

It's almost impossible to tell from these photos but the views above and over the fjord, from the hotel restaurant are beautiful.

The following day, I got up out of bed and walked the dog.

So I still have on my morning face.

But I just had to take a selfi with these amazingly huge Rhododendron flowers.

We are a bit early in the season but the hotel driveway is linned with giant size Rhododendron plants and I am sure that as I now write this, there is a 10'/3m high wall of bright pink-magenta flowers.

Beyond the hotel grounds and on the other side of the road is a trail running through the forrest where I walked the dog.

Eventually we came to this log cabin of sorts.  Made of real logs and with a grass roof. 

Once I am back from the doggy walk, it's time for our breakfast.

Jens took a few extra sausages from the breakfast restaurant to treat Bounty.

Below are a few pix of the hotel but NOT from my camera.

This is the view over Vejle fjord from the restaurant and the outdoor dinning terrace.

The entrance drive to the hotel and casino.

One of the 2 hotel restaurants.

The hotel had a full spa treatment.

From the other side of the fjord you can see the hotel up in the lush forrest.

Now we are off to find the highest point of Denmark.  Eventually we get lost and can't figure out where we are or where to go.  It's near by and it is called Ejer Bavnehøj Møllehøj (aka Twin Peaks) at 170m/560' high.  Click here for more info. 

They say the views from the top of the tower are fantastic but not today - it was very foggy and this was all I could see from the top of the tower.  On a clear day, you should be able to see a bridge that is only 5 minutes from where Jens's mother lives.

From the top of the world we head out to get a little bite to eat and then to pick up some danish and we slowly make our way to Jordrup where Jens's sister and her husband live.  We visit for a couple of hours and then we head back to Kolding for one more night before driving back to Copenhagen.  It was a lot of driving (just around the corner by California standards) but it was so much nicer doing it in a big rental than in our little city ultra mini fold out car.