Medieval Market

Chad and the girls once again had the day off on Monday, so we decided to check out the Middelalder Marked, also known as a Medieval Market, that we had seen advertisements for.  It ended up being a really fun event.  It’s kind of a historical reenactment event complete with handcrafted “medieval” items, period costumes and entertainment.  We thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the marketplace and wished that we had brought more cash with us!

The Kids could battle with a Troll.

We saw some really neat things.  We ended up coming home with a hand-carved in-laid jewelry box and a hand-carved Dragon relief to hang on the wall.  But the best part of the day was the entertainment.  They had knights sword-fighting and they were really going at it.

It looked like a real fight, with hard sword swings.  They also did a mock battle.

The commentary was all in Danish, so we didn't really know what was going on, but it was fun to watch.  They nearly ran us over in the beginning.

They had women doing tricks with fire.  I was a little worried about this.  We were sitting right in the front and they were flipping around these burning sticks and a couple of times they fumbled them.  I was worried they would drop them on us, but luckily, no one was injured.

I just felt bad for the guy they pulled out of the audience and proceeded to singe his chest hair.  They also had some “jesters” doing acrobatics and juggling.

 
At one point they asked for a volunteer from the audience.  The kids were sitting in front of us and Myra was just about wetting her pants trying to get them to pick her.  But all her hopes were dashed when he stepped passed her and pulled ME! out of the audience!  I have always really detested being singled out for things such as this.  Even as a kid, I would never volunteer.  I just always feels silly and awkward up in front of people like that.  But, I figured I had 2 choices, I could feel silly and awkward or I could just embrace the moment and try to put on a good show for the kids, especially Myra who was physically shoving me forward onto the field.  Luckily I didn’t have to do anything embarrassing.  The jester tricked me into giving him a neck massage and then picked me up and flipped me around.

When my part was done, he reached in and kissed me on the cheek!  Not the most pleasant of experiences considering he was drenched in sweat and I had to seriously wipe it off the side of my fast.  Ick!  Myra was so ecstatic about my “performance” though and just about knocked me down once I got back into the audience.

I love the look on her face.  You can see how excited she was.

But, my favorite part of the day was watching the Jousting.  Have you seen the movie the Knight’s Tale?  Well, this was just like that movie.  Fully-suited knights performing tricks on their horses, such has putting a staff through a ring or lighting a small object on fire.

They even battled each other with swords on horseback.

  But, the best part was the actual jousting.

 

Selling Honey Bread to the viewers.

There was no way it looked like any sort of an act.  They were really racing their horses down the field and hitting each other with the long jousting poles.  It was so fun to watch!  I think they have these Medieval Festivals a few times throughout the year, so we’ll probably go to one again.  It was a great activity.  We all loved it.  

Random girl walking around with an Owl on her arm.

Copenhagen Carnival

Every year, they have a big Carnival in Copenhagen.  It's kind of a small scale version of the big ones they have in Rio and other areas.  Whereas most Carnival's have religious significance, the one in Denmark has become a festival for World Music.  We headed towards the Strøget (pedestrian streets), where they were having the "parade".

Look how Crowded!

I think the kids were a little disappointed because their idea of a parade is much different than the parade we saw.

Funny that the "Brazilian" dancers were wearing the most clothing out of most of the dancers we saw.

He was still fun though.  Despite the many scantily clad women, there was just such a vibrant feeling around town.  The music was loud and fun.

Noah wasn't too thrilled about the noise and some of the costumes.  One dancer bent down to talk to him and he turned his head away and wouldn't even look at her.

And representative of many different places and cultures.  We didn't stay for too long.  The parade is kind of an all day event, and we didn't want to stay in the crowd of people for that long.  So after we'd seen enough, we decided to head over to the park where the celebrations were culminating.  Chad didn't think it looked like too long of a walk to the park, but it ended up being a very long walk.

Noah goofing around during lunch time.

Myra in front of the Nikolaj Kirke, turned art museum.

Lexi handing out with all the sunbather's at Kongens Have near Rosenborg Castle.

Rosenborg Castle

Taking a rest.

  I think we put in over 4 miles of walking.  Pretty good for the little ones.  The park ended up not being really worth it.

 We had to pay to get in and it ended up just being kind of a fair type thing.  With games to play, food to buy and not much else, unless you were interested in buying cigarettes and drinking beer.  The kids were of course disappointed we wouldn't let them play on the bounce house, but the prices were exorbitant.  But, they were happy again when we bought ice cream, which was barely less exorbitant.  We were glad we went, to experience something new, but we'd skip the park atmosphere in the future.  We also enjoy these outing into the city, there is just so much to see.  It's a lot of fun.  For the day, we put in over 4 miles of walking and 3 miles of biking, so it was nice to get home and rest.  And now we can say we've been to "Carnival!"

Bike Riding

Bike Riding is huge in Denmark.  Most streets have bike lanes, there are walking/bike paths all through the cities and even many intersections have separate lights for bicycles!  As we've posted before, we all got bikes pretty quickly after moving over here.  Chad rides his bike to work every day, I pull Lexi in the trailer to and from her school every day and now that the weather is good, Myra's school class has started taking bike riding field trips.  Last summer, Myra was pretty close to riding a bike, but we just didn't have a good place to practice, so she was never quite able to. But, once we got her out on the bike here, she was riding really well after just a couple of practice sessions.  Her being able to ride has opened up so many new exploring possibilities for us. We can now ride our bikes to the train station, instead of taking a bus.

 This cuts down on a ton of travel time and we can leave whenever we want, instead of waiting for whenever the bus comes around.  Also, we've been able to go out exploring the neighborhood in the evenings.  Once we started taking these little trips, we've been shocked at all the beautiful places that are just within a couple of miles away from us.

 There are seriously bike paths everywhere, so we've just been getting on one and seeing where it takes us.  We end up riding about 3-4 miles.  We stop a lot and take pictures and just explore.  It's been so much fun.  Denmark is so beautiful.  I hope that we have a lot more nice days exploring the neighborhood.  And now that the sun isn't setting until 10pm or so, we have long summer nights to enjoy the outdoors.

Herstedvester Kirke, dates back to around the late 12th century.

Zip Line at a park

One of the MANY playgrounds.

Swans with their cute babies