the potato holiday!

last week was the autumn holiday - called efterårsferie - here in denmark. that meant a week off from school! yay! it's a traditional harvest holiday, where once the kids had to be let out of school to be at home to help with the potato harvest. of course, these days, it's just a holiday as kids aren't really involved in harvesting potato crops anymore.

at our house, the father thinks that we should use the opportunity to tour around denmark and see all of the tiniest, most obscure museums the country has to offer. and we usually go to the westernmost point of denmark at blåvandshuk, just to feel the wind from the north sea on our faces. and let me tell you, that wind was blowing the day we were there. here are some highlights in pictures....

tivoli, the beautiful gardens/amusement park in the center of copenhagen is all decked out for halloween during the autumn holiday, so we started out there.

where sabin got cotton candy in a dark purplish-grey color, meant to look like spiderwebs.

next stop, koldinghus, in kolding (that's in jutland, the bit of denmark that's actually attached to the rest of europe - rather than being an island, like the one we live on).

we tried to get sabin to chop some wood, but she couldn't get the axe out of that stump.

the next day, we found a maritime museum and aquarium in esbjerg, over on the west coast of denmark.

despite the windy, grey day, we went to see some colossal statues on the beach in esbjerg.

see how big they are? they're a little surreal, sitting there, looking out at the north sea. that tiny little dark spot in the middle is sabin, so it gives you an idea of the size.

then we went to the very windy beach at the west coast at blåvandshuk.

this picture sort of conveys how windy it was.

tho' it was windy, it wasn't actually that cold, the wind was strangely warm.

sabin found a little starfish on the beach.

then it was on to the little museum in randbøldal, to play with all of the water apparatus.

it was really fun.

our friend mig, from scotland, came with us.

after that we went to århus, to den gamle by (the old town) where we looked at all of the reconstructed buildings from all over denmark and tried all manner of traditional things...like stilts and riding in a horse-drawn carriage. that evening, we headed home.

we were sad to see it end, but we do love the efterårsferie. this week, was back to a regular old school and work week and there won't be any holidays again 'til christmas.