Biking Hurts Your Butt: Bornholm Island!

Hej Hej!

I just got back from a weekend island adventure! A group of DIS students went to Bornholm Island this weekend... it was supposed to be a bike trip... and that it was! The Day 1 I biked 42 miles or something, and Day 2 was something more like 25-3 miles or something... I know that probably doesn't sound like an incredibly long distance or anything... but there were so many hills! Plus! We hadn't really slept the night before because we took a 6 hour night ferry to get to the island... and sleeping in ferry chairs is an acquired talent, I think.


Every moment of the 2 days I was there was so beautiful, the ocean, hills, green everything, cute colorful thatched roof houses, villages, harbors, fish smokehouses, even the farm fields were mesmerizing... I'm sure the people I was biking with got a little exasperated with my constant exclamations... but, I just couldn't help it! ...everything was so fairytale-like! Ah!

DAY 1

We arrived on the island Saturday (May 2) stumbling and dreary-eyed... to our hostel, Danhostel Gudhjem, which is pictured below... it was an ocean-front too!

We had breakfast and then started out on our journeys... they gave us bikes and a map and let us free... By the way... the hostel cooks were so so so nice! I couldn't believe it... the cooks gave me two different kinds of GF bread and crackers... so I could eat a smørrebrød-style breakfast like everyone else! They also made special dinner meals for me too...that tasted good !!! wow! I was so happy, surprised, and thankful.

One of my friends and I went on "The Killer" trail... 42 miles which covers the entire coast of the east side of the island... and then back through the middle of the island. On our way we made a lot of stops... to see things...

like cute cottages...

did you know that there is no cuch thing as cottage-cheese? haha, all these years I've been fooled. It's cotted-cheese... sounds so similar.

More specifically... we stopped in a coast village called Svaneke... where we listened to some tunes...went to a market, watched people blowing glass, and stopped at a fish smokehouse to eat some smoked salmon and french fries by the seashore! I love smoked salmon, I love french fries (and these were really good), and I love the seashore... so you can imagine how I was feeling at this point... the picture below is the smokehouse...Then we started up again biking along the coast to the beaches of Dueodde and the Baltic Sea, which are supposed to be dunes of the finest sand in the world... apparently the sand is exported for hour glasses. We took off our shoes and played frisbee in the sand... it was a little too cold for swimming I think... but, only in my opinion, because there was a little 5 year old who thought the temperature was just fine. I miss those days, back when I was unaffected by the cold!

Then we resumed our journey... passing by many enchanted fields and cottages...

Finally, we returned to Gudhjem for dinner...

This is another cute ocean-front cottage...

Another cute one... with a really cute door!

And then there was the mesmerizing sunset... oh my! oh my! ...!

A dream? no no! real life! It looks like there should be a unicorn frolicking in the background though... doesn't it? haha, like one of those school folders or notebooks you might have had in 2nd or 3rd grade... not the Lisa Frank ones, but the more real-life looking ones... I don't remember the artist's name... those were funny, huh?

Another view...

DAY 2

Sunday was just as beautiful... we biked to a forest, waterfall, burial ground, neat rocky place, and a castle.

Here are some things which we saw on our journey...

In the fields...

In the forest...

I have come to the conclusion that Ivy is definitely taking over the earth... and I am quite ok with that.

Waterfall...

A tree that I would name Grumpy Lumpy... if it were up to me.... This tree reminded me of the character Plumpy in the game of CandyLand... :)

I love the feeling of living in the movie Ferngully... which is how I feel in forests...

See... the Ivy is plotting... first forests... then who knows?! hopefully my house :)

Then we came to the rocky formations... which were neat to look at and fun to climb on!

Then we ate at another smokehouse... and started off for the castle...

but, on the way... we ran into some miniature ponies...

And then the castle... I guess it was more ruins than castle.

There was a great view from the top of the castle hill...

After the castle we started the journey back... it was very exasperating... oh my, and I was so so tired! And my butt hurt so bad I didn't think I would ever be able to sit down again! ... but I made an exception for dinner... and ever since.

Every time I started biking up a hill and switched my gears from 5 to 1... I felt like a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire... and once I reached gear 1 I had used up all of my life lines... the bike could offer no more... and had to rely on my own will to get up the hill... ohhh I just don't like biking up hills... I would rather run up them... also, another thing that kept happening while riding up hills is the voice of my high-school cross-country coach saying "crest the hill!" coming to mind... I hated that... but I find it amusing that it still helps me today... 5 years later.

Back in Gudhjem... I liked that the color of this house matched the sky!

Can you find the boat!?

Ok! That ends the trip! I got home this morning... and was so exhausted that I didn't feel like moving or going to class... :) so I stayed home, laid on the couch and did this... :) while writing another paper...

I have a funny story about May 1st...

Friday was the most beautiful day in Copenhagen so far this year... It all began when I started walking home from school around 3pm... I was walking along the lakes and what appeared to be some crazy drunk man was biking with one hand and a liter beer in the other, toasting in mid-air to every passer-by... the first thing to cross my mind was a combination of 1. hmmm, that's an unusually social Dane for the mid-afternoon (usually they are not socially open to strangers until after dark... :)) and 2. What is that crazy man doing, riding his bike drunkenly without a helmet!!! Then once I got closer to my apartment the bike paths and sidewalks got more and more crowded... and I started to notice that everyone was holding beer bottles, and/or partnered and carrying crates of beer while drinking it... and an abnormally greater number of people seemed to be eating McDonald's in the streets... Funny things just kept happening all the way home... and I ended up getting stuck in crowds of people... Everyone was just outside drinking beer and taking up space that is usually open... and playing music... among other things..

I witnessed so many funny things on my walk that I laughed to myself more than a few times... and I couldn't help but think... wow, every one was right, you really do recognize a difference in the Danes' habits from winter to spring...

(My friends and a few other people had told me that the Danes do a 180 when the weather gets nice and start to spend all their time outside... doing fun things and stuff...)

So, in my mind... I was thinking... Holy moly... they weren't kidding about the 180. Danes are crazy when it gets nice out... crazy! ...but fun!

After I had packed for Bornholm and set out for the bus stop at 9pm... there were a little less people crowded everywhere, but it their absence was the largest amount of McDonald's trash I have ever seen, I almost wish I would have taken a picture... it was literally everywhere, on every street, on every bench, tucked in every corner... McDonald's Wasteland... I was slightly disgusted... but also amused... and I was additionally thinking... right, the Danes try to play up their concern for the environment... and then things like this happen... hmmmm, it doesn't really add up. Just because they have a windy environment... perfect for windmills... the amount of waste they produce and leave lying around probably cancels out their windmill effort... (this comment is only a little bit serious) but still!

Haha, and then guess what my asked me when I met him at the bus stop? "So did you take part in any of the May Day festivities today?"

Oh, oh, oh... and then it all made sense. Danes go all out for May Day... it's a big drunk outside music playing, frisbee throwing, McDonald's eating holiday (because a lot of the other food places are closed on May Day apparently? plus, I guess drunk people tend to consume McDonald's...)

Haha... then I laughed at how baffled I had previously been, thinking that this behaviour would be a daily occurrence, now that it's nice outside. :)

funny, funny.

ok! I wish May Day was as fun in the US... perhaps we will have to start that next year!

Ok! I'm done with this... I need to go write some paper. not a lot of paper... just some.

Have a lovely day! and no, I did not forget about Thailand...!