| | Aug 21, 2009 - Århus | (click to enlarge)
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 | | show all 11 | | Århus canal | | canal and cathedral | | back of the cathedral | | |
| I just left Årus, after spending a busy 3 days finishing up my research. I can't believe how fast the last 2 weeks have gone by, and man, am I beat. I literally ran and cycled around town yesterday like a mad man, going from museum to museum, then restaurant to restaurant, scurrying around like an over-caffeinated viking on a raid, trying to get things wrapped up. I didn't get to bed until well past midnight on many nights. Last night I was up until past 2:00 a.m. finishing up the book maps so I could fax them to the office before leaving. I still have 2 chapters to finish editing, but I should be able to finish them up today. The ride to Frederikshavn is almost 3 hours, and the train has WiFi, so I can get a lot done. If not, I have a 3 hour boat ride to Sweden, where I can get some work done as well.
I had dinner my first night in town with Erik and Ule, a Danish couple I studied Spanish with in Costa Rica. We hadn't seen each other in almost 10 years, but they were still the same. They took me to a very traditional Danish restaurant, where we had 'frikadella' (meatloaf-like, rectangular meatballs) served with potatoes, gravy, beats and pickles. Erik told me it's the type of place Danish guys go to get food their wives won't cook at home (Ule doesn't cook this). It was very tasty.
Århus is the 2nd largest city in Denmark, but quite a bit smaller than Copenhagen, and without the glitz. I think it's a place most tourists never see, but I really liked it. They have a great Prehistoric museum just outside of town, with a huge Viking section, which is loaded with artifacts including the 'Bog man' - a 2,000 year old corpse of a man found buried in a bog here in Jutland. He's incredibly well preserved, with hair, fingernails, eyelashes... you can even see the slit in his throat, which which is how he died. The museum had a great 2-mile hike through the forest down to the sea, where they have reconstructions of Viking era buildings, all intricately carved with dragon heads on the eves, some typical housed and a boat yard (my camera battery died, so no pictures) .
There is also an open air folk museum with original and reconstructed buildings from all over Denmark. George, you would have liked the antique toy museum, which had a huge display of metal cars, trains and airplanes (see photo).
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