Top Ten Denmark Memories

Last week the three of us headed over to the land of my uncle and aunt. It's worth sharing.

10) Playing with solar mirrors. My uncle John will someday either rule the world or save the world or destroy the world through his inventions – we don’t know which. In any case, we had fun discussing his various ideas, including improvements in solar heating with mirrors. He showed me how overlapping ten “suns” would burn a hole through my chest. Okay, maybe not, but things got hot quick.

9) Walking the canals of Copenhagen. The city, we found, was laid out very nicely with plenty of shops, restaurants and museums to keep anyone busy. A nice touch was the canal system crossing through part of Copenhagen, on which people take boat rides or (for sinister kicks) throw in cheap bikes.

8) Watching and discussing Adam’s Aebler. Take one part Tarantino, one part existential Christianity, one part Medieval morality play, submerge it in Danish lager, and you have the movie “Adam’s Apples.” We really liked its quirky inversion of the Garden of Eden and the book of Job in order to explore the relationship of faith and reason, ethics and knowledge.

7) Deciphering all the imagery in Roskilde Cathedral. The churches in Denmark have a long history, and have been state sponsored for centuries now, creating a bizarre, well moneyed amalgamation of religious and civic imagery. The cathedral in Roskilde felt most overwhelming with its towering ceilings, ornate (largely Roman Catholic influenced) art, housing dozens of burial sites of powerful kings and clergymen. Christina and I had a fun time figuring out the wood carvings of the Christian history of salvation, Genesis to Revelation.

6) The ceiling art in Tuse Church. Even more impressive to us was the humble country church in Tuse. Dating back to the late medieval period, this building still bears ancient apocalyptic artwork on its ceilings. I (Nathan) couldn’t stop blathering on about the place of the resurrection of the body and the Last Judgment for the historical Christian consciousness. Eventually a woman with a group of bored-to-death confirmands kicked us out.

5) Wandering the dungeons of Elsinore Castle. Remember? The castle from Hamlet. The upper chambers are impressive, no doubt, but the underground barracks/storage/prison area made the mind run wild.

3T) Throwing A.J. around. I hadn’t met either of my cousins, each of whom were born in the last decade. The younger, A.J., decided I was prime material for a jungle gym. We had a blast monkeying about, and managed to get in trouble at Elsinore for playing tag in the ballroom.

3T) Watching Alex entertain Z. Alex, the elder, had not only a wonderful goofy side, but also a real brotherly affection for Lazarus. He whipped up all sorts of song and dance, and could be found pushing Z around, giving him tours of little parts of Denmark.

2) The Viking Ship Museum. All of us enjoyed going to a museum enshrining five authentic Viking ships dredged up from a local fjord. I wish we Americans had manly, pillaging ancestors like that.

1) Eating one of the most praiseworthy slabs of beef on Earth. I’m not sure who sold a soul for this beef loin, but we were served by my aunt and uncle one of the finest meals possible. With a red wine and garlic sauce drenching the whole thing we were falling over ourselves for more helpings. In fact, we ate like kings and queens from breakfast to dinner every day. Museums? Churches? Kirkegaard birthplace? Bah. Bring out the cuisine and catch up on old times. That tops all.