At the moment I'm back in England, I arrived late on Monday night and I'm leaving on Thursday evening. I'm trying to pack everything I forgot last time before I to drive back to Denmark - like warm clothes and shoes without holes in. I've tried to compile a list of things that aren't obtainable in Denmark; Marmite, jelly and of course chilli (scotch bonnet) and hope to fill my car to bursting point so that I never need to buy anything in Denmark for my full two years of study.
Over the weekend Ringsted played host to a medieval festival. The surrounds of the historical church (the oldest brick church in Denmark, dating back to to 1170) were transformed, with tents, stalls and straw on the floor, into a ye olde market place complete with a hog roast.
You could buy weapons, specialist teas and of course fox skins and boars' heads. Unfortunately we managed to miss the jousting, but I managed to see some sword fighting, although if I'm honest it didn't look like they were really trying.
The event culminated in a display of falconry. The falconist spent a short time describing the bird and the art of falconry before raising his arm and letting the beast take to the sky. As soon as it was airborne the bird made a beeline over the church and disappeared over the horizon. The crowd waited with hushed expectation as the falconist whirled a ball of rags on a piece of string to lure the bird back. Clearly the bird was much more cleaver than he anticipated and grabbed it's chance for freedom with both wings.
We all stood, neck craned, heads tilted to the skies. "Was that it?" - "No it was just a pigeon". As the uncomfortable tension built the falconist tried to fill time with interesting facts and explanations, it was a wild bird, falcons are never pets and hence sometimes they play up. Eventually he admitted that this particular bird had gone AWOL at least two times previously. While we all waited, scanning skies, the king and queen (not Queen Margaret and Count Henri de Laborde de Monpeza) looked on from their throwns with growing unease and embarrassment.
Sadly the bird never came back, the above photo is the last sighting of the creature.
I believe it's now living feral on Fyn, surviving on stolen Danish pastries.
In other news I saw a moth emerge from a pupa, he it is all new and shiny getting used to the big wide world.
And on the train to the airport I noticed that Danish trains have really happy plugs on them so that people can charge their phones/computers/food blenders.
I also found a place to live... but I'll write more about that when I get some photos.
On Monday night I flew back to England to pack up a car with literally tonnes of things to drive back to Denmark. I flew back on Norwegian air, which was surprisingly cheaper than Easyjet. There are several advantages to flying with Norwegian air, the nauseating orange of Easyjet is replaced with a much more demure crimson, seats are allocated so boarding the aircraft doesn't have that "running of the bulls" feeling of elbow swinging intensity and all announcements are read out in Danish, Norwegian (or possibly Swedish) and English - 3 languages!
The tail of my plane was garnished with Kristian Birkeland the nitrogen fixing, nineteenth century Norwegian physicist.
Please note this is an internet photo of the plane I was on, I didn't manage to get any external photos while I was on board.
Anyway, that's enough of that. Join me next week for the tail of one man (aged 26), one 12 year old car and one 1 and a bit year old tarantula on an epic journey. They'll (I me we'll) either triumphantly traverse four countries by two separate modes of transport (get that Charlie Borman!) or break down, be arrested, drown or get lost. There's only one way to find out... Join me for my most ambitious blog yet: Blog 5!
A Journey of a 814 miles starts with a single Blog
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