Seeing the Queen and other adventures!

So, I know you’ve all been dying to know what on earth has been going on here in Kolding Denmark! Well let me tell you it’s been an exciting few days! :)

Holiday 1 is pretty much set. Last week I spent a good amount of time finding accommodations for us while we’re traveling. So the good thing about Eastern Europe is that it’s extremely cheap! I found an adorable little B&B to stay at in Warsaw. It has 7 total rooms and and was a great price. After that we head to Krakow and again I found a great hotel in the Jewish district of the city for not a lot of money! Heading onto Prague I found a great little room in an older building in the heart of Prague. Joe’s in charge of the Munich hotels since he was just there with his family so I’m on to planning Holiday 2! Right now the most challenging aspect of this is the cost of travel. Mid-July is a big time for Holiday here in Europe so things are pretty expensive. We may change our plans and go to Barcelona instead of Valencia but I still have some planning to do. Either way I’m super excited about our first trip! When we get back to Kolding I’ll have visited 5 countries in Europe and if you count my flights in and out of Amsterdam I’ll have been on the soil of 6 European Countries! AWESOME! :)

Friday night was a big celebration and sale in the shopping area of Kolding. We went out for some ice cream and to listen to some music that night. On Saturday when everything was closed we looked up why and discovered that June 5th is Constitution Day in Denmark. Here’s a little history for you. in 1849 the Danish king signed the Denmark Constitution which established Denmark as a constitutional monarchy. Another constitution was signed in 1953 which is also adopted on the same day (See Wikipedia for more details). In addition to that the Secretary of the State, Hillary Clinton recognized the day in Washington D.C. on June 3rd this year. There’s some history for you! :)

So this weekend was absolutely beautiful and so Joe and I decided it would be fun to take our bikes to the beach and have a picnic and go for a ride along the trails. Joe took us to this great little spot where we had a picnic lunch of runde stykker (round pieces or rolls) and cheese as well as some fruit. We had a beautiful spot and after we ate we went along the trails for a while and saw some beautiful Danish Country side! :) It was wonderful!

On Sunday we decided to go for a walk by the lake and as we were there we noticed a parade across the lake by the train station. We walked back into town to discover what was going on. We stopped at the Town Hall and discovered many guards and such on horses parading down the streets. We stayed and watched for a while and then when we got home I used the wonderful internet to figure out what it was we just watched. (Everything was spoken in Danish so we had no clue what they were saying). So low and behold what we had witnessed was the rehearsal for the Queen’s visit to Kolding which would take place on Monday June 7th. So naturally I got really excited and decided that since I don’t have anything else to do during the day that I would walk over to the middle of town and watch the parade on Monday and see the Queen!

So here’s some more history for you! (Oh no my blog is turning into a history lesson!) Denmark has one of the oldest Monarchies dating back to 936AD. There has been an unbroken line of Kings and Queens since this time. (http://kongehuset.dk/english/history/lineage/) . The current Queen of Denmark is Margrethe II and has been Queen Regnant since 1972. She is 60 years old. Margrethe is the second female Monarch since Margrethe I who ruled the Scandinavian countries from 1388-1412. (Compliments to Wikipedia and my Danish Language book for the information!)

Each year her and the prince make a tour of Denmark in the summer and today’s stop was Kolding. So this morning despite the fact that it was pouring down rain and a little cold I got myself up and ready to watch the parade from town. I got there around 10:15am and the Queen and Prince were suppose to start their tour at the Harbor area at 10:25. I had a great spot right near the front and was able to see everyone as they went by! It was so amazing to watch the Queen and Prince go by in the carriage! Such a cool experience.

The rain finally stopped this afternoon and so tonight Joe and I went over to the lake to see the baby ducks we’ve discovered. I brought some bread to feed them and such enough they came off their nest right up to where we were to eat! It was adorable. We kept walking around the lake only to find that the family of swans (7 babies) were coming to the edge of the lake to feed so we got to watch them for a while. Ultimate cute factor to see 9 little baby birds at the lake! I fully realize that I’m a big dork for being so excited about that but they were just really cute! :)

So a good ending to the evening. This week I’m planning on doing to the art museum in Kolding so I’ll post about that later this week! Hope everyone is doing well at home!

Love from Amanda