Denmark – David and Yanmei

August 18, 2015August 18, 2015

Thank You

As a traveler I think the most important phrase is “Thank you.” That was what I learned to say before each country we traveled to. Even if you can't speak the local language and talk in English or gestures, it is nice to be able to thank someone in their native language. Second most important for me is “I'm sorry” or “excuse me”. That is very useful when on crowded buses or trains and you have to push by someone to get off. Third is probably “where is the bathroom?” or simply “toilet?” which gets the message across.

Anyway, here is how to say “Thank you”, in every country we visited, at least how it sounded to me. Please don't get too offended if I mangled your native language, I was trying 🙂 :

Taiwan (mandarin), China: Shi-shi

Korea: Gamsameeda

Egypt (Arabic): Shockram

Zurich – Switzerland, Vienna – Austria (German): Danke

Geneva – Switzerland (French), France: Merci

Spain: Gracias

Italy, Vatican City: Gratzie

Hungary: Kusonome

Czech Republic: Dekuji

Poland: Dziekuji (very similar to Czech)

Norway: Takk (pronounced like talk)

Denmark: Tack (like tact)

Iceland: this is the one I didn't learn. Supposedly it is similar to Danish (tack) but they add several syllables to differentiate from Denmark. Just saying “tack” is frowned upon, so I went with “Thank you” which everyone understood.

Canada, U.S.A.: Thanks.

-David

Posted with Blogsy

July 5, 2015August 18, 2015

Winter is coming

At long last our time in mainland Europe is come to an end. But I had one more thing I wanted to do before leaving Denmark: have a danish.

From the Andersen bakery near Tivoli Gardens. Delicious.

Then it was off to Iceland. It is about a 3 hour flight to Reykjavik from Copenhagen.

Of course it is summer, not winter in Iceland. The temperature was about 13C when we arrived. By the time we got to our hotel and had dinner it was raining, so we didn't go out to do anything. The great thing about this time of year is it never gets dark, so you can go see things late at night, if you feel like it. Sunset was at 11:55pm, so no official midnight sun, but then it becomes dusk and never gets any darker, because the sun comes back up at 3:00am. The only drawback is no chance to see the famous northern lights at this time of the year.

-David

Posted with Blogsy

July 4, 2015August 23, 2015

Egeskov Castle

The next day we were both feeling better. We had one day left on our Eurail pass and Yanmei wanted to get out of the city, which she feels is similar to many other European cities we've visited. Initially we considered going to Ystad, the village in Sweden that my brother Chris recommended. However Yanmei did some research and decided Egeskov Castle in Denmark would be a good choice. According to their website the closest train station is Kværndrup and you can walk to the castle from there. The hotel reception recommended we take a bus, but I didn't want to do that, so we took the train.

We had to change trains in Odense before a short final ride to Kværndrup. It turns out Kværndrup is a hamlet, I'm surprised the train even stops there, probably only because of the castle. I thought there would be other people going there, but the one other person to get off got a bike locked at the station and rode off. There was no trail or anything to the castle, just a highway. I don't really consider this walkable like their website indicated. I wanted to wait for the bus, but Yanmei thought we should try walking. Google maps said it was a 30 minute walk, so we set off across the Danish countryside.

Every so often the was a sign so we knew we weren't lost.

It really did only take us about 30 minutes and the weather was great so it was a pretty nice walk.

The castle was more like a park or complex, they had more than just the castle. Actually I thought they did a great job with the place, they obviously made an effort to have something interesting in every room, and they had several other attractions on the castle grounds.

First we had lunch. While I was getting the food Yanmei put her bag down on the table and logged into the local wifi with her phone. While she was browsing she didn't realize she'd set her bag on a candle and it caught fire. Luckily she put it out quickly. I came back to a funny scene at the table.

After lunch we headed to the castle itself.