Western Denmark (Saturday)

On the final day of our study tour, we were exhausted, but I still had a really great time. We started out the day by visiting a castle called Egeskov Slot. This was my favorite castle I've seen in Denmark by far! It was crazily beautiful, with a moat and some beautiful flowers, and gardens. There were mazes in the shrubbery, which I wanted to do but didn't end up doing for fear of getting lost and missing the bus. Inside the castle, there were some rooms with all kinds of animal skins, including lion and tiger. Other rooms held armor, plates, dollhouses, paintings and other strange items. The strangest single item was probably a small wooden doll in the attic of the castle, which according to legend must never be moved or the castle will sink into the moat on Christmas. Also on the castle grounds was a 'treewalk,' where you walked on a shaky footbridge through the tops of the trees. My mother, and anyone with any fear of high up unstable things, would have hated it. It didn't look very scary from the ground, but that bridge was really wobbly. Eek! What really struck me as strange is that people actually still live in the castle. I can't imagine ever living at a castle, not just because it's a castle, but also because there would be tons of tourists running around my house every day. It would be cool to have a moat though.

Here are some photos from the castle:

The Castle, surrounded by the moat

One of the fountains

View from the attic window of the castle

The wooden doll that can never be moved

Animal Skins on display.

Walking through the trees

After the castle we went to the city of Odense, which is where Hans Christian Andersen was born. The city really prides themself on this fact, as can be seen by their pedestrian crossing lights, street names, and signs all showing their allegiance to Andersen. Funnily enough however, HC Andersen never considered Odense his home. Rather, I've been told he really hated Odense. But nonetheless, I thought Odense was a cool place.

The pedestrian crossing light, made to look like HC Andersen

We ate lunch at a place called the Ugly Duckling (another tribute to Hans Christian Andersen) and went off to see the Robot Festival. There were certainly some cool displays of robotics at the festival, including one that took a plastic ball, engraved my name in it, and shot it at me with a ping-pong paddle (probably the first free thing I've gotten in Denmark!). Finally after a very long three days we loaded up on the bus and headed back to Copenhagen. The short study tour was awesome, educational (in a good way), and fun but it was nice to be back in Copenhagen where we could just relax.

Robot that gave me the plastic ball with my name on it