The end of an era

All good things must come to an end.  I know I’ve said this before but this time it’s really happening.   My World Tour 2010 (with a little spillover into 2011) adventures are almost over.   It’s a bitter pill to swallow but I knew my lady of leisure days couldn’t last forever.   I feel so blessed to have been able to take the last year off and pursue my passion – traveling the world.  I feel so rejuvenated and ready to take on life’s next adventure.

I will be moving to the Bay Area later this month and will start working on May 2^nd!!!  Man, I’ve got a lot of things to accomplish in the meantime….find a place to live, buy a car, and figure out how to move my stuff across the country.   I will also be working on a new blog and will post a link to it soon.  

Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone, whether in person or virtually, who has come on this amazing journey with me.  It has been one crazy adventure after another.  Thanks for being apart of it.  Oh, and don’t worry, my traveling adventures aren’t over for good…I just need to figure out a way to cram the most into four weeks of vacation.   Something tells me I’ll be able to make it work!

Love,

Sara

We walk the line - Copenhagen, Denmark

We walked to most of the sites around Copenhagen but there were a few times when we got a little tired and opted for the metro.  Now, there was a little bit of confusion as to how the metro tickets worked.  The metro fares were determined by the number of zones you traveled within but there didn’t seem to be a ticket when traveling within the same zone.  There weren’t any information booths in any of the stations so we just came up with our own theory for the metro…..when traveling within the same zone you don’t have to buy a ticket.  Sounds reasonable, right?  We were confident in our theory until we were on the train and saw a woman checking tickets.   Dan noticed the woman checking tickets and pointed her out to me.  Realizing that we were going to be the next people she checked, I popped right up and started walking down the train.  I approached Maria and Kevin and whispered, “They’re here guys”.  Maria immediately said to Kevin, “We gotta go” and he followed her without a word.  We were all panicking a little bit because the trains were super short (only about three cars long) but thank goodness we felt the train slowing down and we knew we were approaching a stop.  As soon as the train came to a stop we ran out the door.  Needless to say, from there on out, we purchased tickets no matter how many zones we were traveling within.  Our theory wasn’t worth being hit with a $150 fine.

We hit up the major sites within Copenhagen except for Tivoli.  Unfortunately, Tivoli was closed for the winter and we missed the opening day by 2 weeks.  It’s still a very sore subject for us, so we try not to talk about it.   

Thank goodness there were plenty of other things for us to do.  We hit up the Kastellet (old fortress), the royal palace, Danish Museum of Art and Design, The Little Mermaid statue, scenic harbor streets, and the Copenhagen Concert Hall.  

Yes, there are churches in Denmark - Copenhagen, Denmark

It’s kind of ironic that we spent a lot of time in Copenhagen popping in and out of churches.  As most of you know, Danes aren’t really known for being a very religious people…. although, it appears at some point in their history they were.  We found it interesting that in every church there was some type of model ship hanging from the ceiling.  Kind of strange but we’ll take it. 

Below is a church that was located close to where we were staying.  I loved walking by it everyday and especially loved hearing the bells toll on the hour.  One day we actually went inside to check it out.  I may or may not have stolen a couple of postcards.  I didn’t notice a donation box by them but then at every other church there was a donation box by their postcards.  Oops, I promise it was a mistake!

We took a train to the northwestern part of Copenhagen to check out Grundtvigs Church.  Dan had studied this church in one of his architecture classes so we thought it would be worth the trek out there.  It definitely didn’t disappoint.  The church was built as a national monument for the priest, hymn writer, and social reformer Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig.  About 6 million yellow bricks were used to build the church.   A lovely choir was practicing when we arrived.  Hearing the music just added to our experience.

A visit to Copenhagen wouldn’t be complete without visiting the Church of Our Lady and seeing the famous Christus statue sculpted by Bertel Thorvaldsen.  This statue represents the resurrected Christ displaying the wounds in his body.   Many copies of this statue are found in various Mormon temple visitor centers around the world.   The interior is also filled with sculptures of the 12 apostles, which were also designed by Thorvaldsen.

The last church we visited was Frederick’s church.  We stumbled upon it as we were walking to the palace.   For some reason we didn’t take a picture of the outside….but trust me, it has the largest church dome in Scandinavia (well, at least that is what Wikipedia claims).