Men in Denmark wear headbands

Need I say more? In all fairness to the Danes, we saw a guy in Estonia with a headband on too. It wasn`t just any headband, either, it was one of those comb thingies that goes all the way around your head and keeps the hair back. First time I`d ever seen a guy in one of those! But, we`ve seen tons of guys here in headbands. Don`t know what that`s all about. And, we`ve seen some of the craziest hair on the guys. It`s like they are trying to make it look like a cow licked the back of their heads. The women seem to have regular hair, but the men? It`s odd. Speaking of hair, I must comment on the leggy, blond stereo-type. While we have seen quite a number of leggy blondes, we have also seen quite a number of blondes that are of the bottle variety. Yup. More than anyone would like to admit. And, apparently, dyed stark black hair is super in too.

We are currently on Æero island in the tiny municipality of Æroskobing. How`s that for a name? You should see some of these street names. We saw one that was 15 letters long!! We finally got here at around 6:00 last night. It was a rough day. We walked around Odense and saw some of the May Day activities. People marching in makeshift parades. Loosely organzed bands followed by groups of people, some organized, some who just randomly joined in, almost all who had been drinking a lot already, and it was only 11:00!! The all convereged on the square we happened to be in with their red flags and fists flying and socialist propaganda.

Actually, the gal who checked us in last night said that morst of them really don`t care that much about it all, it`s just a free day and a day to get righteously pissed (in the British sense of the word......crazy drunk). We shopped in this awesome department store. It`s a good thing we don`t have it at home, and that we don`t live here. LOTS of our money would go to that store. Lucky for me, though....they have a website. Gotta love the information superhighway!

We headed for the train station. We bought tickets from the automated teller just for the experience. We made our way to the track. And we missed the train. I don`t know how. I still don`t believe it was actually there. So, we weren`t actually facing it. We thought it was the track on the other side, but I kept turning around and looking at that one, and I promise, there was nothing there. Well, this threw off the day even more than it already was. And I was not so pleased. We took the next train to Svendborg and missed the ferry by 10 minutes, so had to wait another 3 hours for the next one. Again, not so happy way I (but, I knew this was the case as soon as we missed the first train, so at least I was mostly over it by the time we got to Svendborg).

Since we were stuck there, we walked around the town. Impossibly quaint. Look quaint up in the dictionary, and you`ll find that town (well, that`s what we thought anyway, until we got here!). We had lunch outside by the quay (I just love words like that) and savored the sunlight. It wasn`t the warmest day we`ve had, but man did it feel good. Didn`t even need a coat! Not really even a jacket! I had the most amazing salmon fish cakes. Oh my, was it good! Chris and I had mentioned earlier in the day how hard it can be to keep up the water intake when traveling like we are. So at lunch, I ordered water, and whaddaya know? I got an entire liter. Drank the whole thing too (except for the couple of sips I gave Chris). We walked along the shopping streets. That was where everyone was. There were sales and families out enjoying the day. It was nice.

Finally, at 4:30, our ferry left, and we were on it! We got to Æro a short 75 minutes later. Then we had to walk to the campgrounds. I`m sure it is a nice walk in the summer when all of the grass has been tramped down by all of the other people walking that way, but we were among the first, so we were forging a path in grass sometimes hip high! It was a nice view, as we walked, though. And our cabin is impossibly cute! We are at a non-primitive campgrounds. Meaning, there`s showers and electricity and cabins. If you can stand bunk beds, I highly recommend it. So quite and so nice! We love it, and were thinking of staying an extra day. Probably won`t, though.

We had the most amazing meal last night. Chris had Ox filet (yep, that`s right...Ox) and I had....well, I had fish. We still don`t know exactly what kind. She didn`t know the translation. Only, "Flat fish. You know, with the red spots on it." Hmmm.....whatever....it was darn good. So was the Ox. Outstanding! Afterwards, we took Rick`s walking tour of town. This is a glorious place, and we are glad to be about the only tourists. It feels so slow and perfect here. Many of the homes are from the 1700s. Holy cow! You can tell on some of them, they`re leaning just a bit. This place just feels special.

We`re supposed to be on a bike ride already, but we did a little shopping instead. We have to quit buying things! But it`s so hard! We see the most unique things. And how are we supposed to pass them up? Now we need to have our picnic lunch. Maybe down by the water? Then maybe the bike ride. Did I mention ìt`s 18 miles?