You have to Lego and have fun

Legos are fun to all ages. The birthplace of Lego is in Billund, Denmark, along with the original Legoland and the relatively new Lego House (see Netflix for a special on this). Having been to Legoland several times (see here and here), we opted for Lego House.

It’s floors full of fun, with games and activities throughout. There was building, laughing, and amazingly, no fighting. The staff clearly loves everything about their job. The two hour drive was a great way to see more of Denmark.

In other news, I’m really concerned about our night cruise to Oslo tomorrow, since a cabin for five cost the same as our tacos. Denmark is really expensive, so we may have just bought a pillow.

Dinosaurs don’t like stepping on those bricks either

Build a Lego car, race car, run around screaming, do it all again

A yellow submarine - all you need is love and Legos 

A giant Lego tree 

 

A rooftop to run around and scream on

 

Breaking records

The largest carillon in Northern Europe is at Our Savior’s Church in Copenhagen. So is one of the windiest towers to climb. Depending on the weather, it’s also the windiest. It’s 400 stairs to the top, with 150 being outside in the wind. It goes counterclockwise around the spire, leaving you dizzy and confused at the top. They closed it right before we went up because it had rained and the treacherous, narrow little steps are especially slick when wet. But since we were there, he said we could go on up, it would be fine. Daniel is still recovering from 17 stitches in his leg, but the views are supposed to be great up there and we never turn down a good tower climb, so up we went.

There’s also a little mermaid statue in Copenhagen that’s quite famous. It was crowded when we saw it and a bus full of Chinese tourists unloaded right as we left. Dinah commented, “I didn’t know they had a Chinatown here.” She doesn’t usually see a bus full of Chinese people and she’s never been to Chinatown, so I’m not sure what to do with this observation. The genetically modified little mermaid statue is way better and just down the road, and no one is falling over their selfie sticks to see it.

We also never turn down a good scam, so we bought tickets to the Guinness Book of World Records Museum. You’d expect to see really fat people, really tall people, and disgustingly long finger nails. You'd be right. 

Never one to turn down a good burger, the Gasoline Grill is reportedly one of the best in the world. That one checks out, best I’ve ever had.

The long and winding stairs

Wet stairs that could be a slide

     

A not so appealing photo of a famous place (note, selfie stick in photo, duck lips came immediately following)

 

An appealing photo of a not-so-famous place
 

His record is safe in spite of the best efforts of Gasoline Grill

Proof these stick figure drawings are based on reality

Cinco de Mayo es muy interesante en Copenhagen

It takes a few days to get in the groove of vacationing. We don’t often spend day and night all together all the time, that’s probably part of it. The Airbnbs we rent usually don’t have a place to escape when someone annoys you to the point of screaming or crying. Today was the day to figure it all out.

As with every Sunday, we started with church. The International Church of Copenhagen has a wonderful English-language service and a warm, welcoming congregation. The church brings together people from all over the world who share the English language. Hearing everyone say the Lord’s Prayer in their home language at the same time was an extraordinary global experience.

As with every Cinco de Mayo, we needed tacos. Hija de Sanchez is the place for tacos in Copenhagen. Ours were served with a side of bickering and grumbling, which came with us as we walked the city.

Stopping to smell the lilacs

Stopping to smell the tacos

Canals are funny    

Probably laughing at canals  

What is Hans Christian Anderson looking at?? 

Tourist, scooter, Mario pants 

Icy cold salty dogs

We’re in Iceland again. We always come here on our way to Europe, sometimes to spend time with friends, sometimes to just do the obligatory walk through the duty free shop. This time we saw some dear friends who let us sleep off our jet lag in their house early on day 1. They also fed us an amazing breakfast as our welcome. And lunch on day 2. And they’re great company.

It was a low key couple of days. We hiked around a small cave, drove by a small church, and took another small nap. We played salty dogs at the Maritime Museum, ate salty licorice ice cream, and were glad our Icelandic hot dogs weren’t too salty.

We also got ice cold in a fake ice cave. 

Now off to Copenhagen, where there will be many more hot dogs. And tacos.

A small church

A small cave

A small hike 

A small nap in a small car

Before tasting salted licorice ice cream

Before tasting cod liver oil

Salty dogs 

Is this real ice??

Angkor What?

Since arriving in Cambodia, John and I have successfully managed not to melt...mostly successfully.

Normally, the temperature here should be in the 80s, which sounded really nice last week during the blizzard. However, the temperatures have been much higher than that for the last month. It also hasn’t rained for a really long time (months, I think), which means rivers are lower than usual. That might not be too much of a problem, except for the fact that the power is hydroelectric here. So, there are scheduled daily power outages, sometimes for a few hours in the morning, sometimes for a few hours in the afternoon. Add high temperatures, high humidity, no electricity, and no breeze, and even the locals are complaining about how hot it is!

Yesterday we were able to spend some time with the kids at Ray of Hope Cambodia - it was such a treat to meet them and see a little bit into their daily schedules. More on this to come in another post.

Today, we had planned to take a trip to see Angkor Wat and some of the surrounding temples, which were built way back in the 11th century. Remember that awful heat, though? The son of our missionary who is also acting as our guide got a stomach bug, which wasn’t helped in any way by this heat. 

In order to stay close to home base in case they needed to take him to a doctor, plans shifted a bit. No, we didn’t go see what we’d planned to see, but we saw more than we would have been able to if we’d taken the long trip to and from Angkor Wat.

First up, Phnom Sampow. This is a mountain that has several Buddhist temples built at the top. Each of us rode on the back of a moto up the steep mountain. I was pretty sure we were going to die, because it was so incredibly fast and the road was a bit gravelly. But, we all made it safely to the top and began our tour. Although the temples were beautiful, this area has a deadly history. During the time of the Khmer Rouge, part of this location was used as a killing field. We visited the cave were people would be blindfolded and led to an opening above the cave. They’d be hit with the butt of a rifle, knocked into the hole and fall 15-20 down to the rocks below, to a brutal and painful death. Some of the bones were collected, and are displayed as a reminder of the evil that transpired in this place.

Next we visited Ek Phnom, an Angkor Wat-era temple. Although the stones look like they have been quarried, they were constructed, in a process similar to cement. The temple is crumbling now, but had been standing prior to the Khmer Rouge, who destroyed a good portion of the structure. 

Last we visited a torture museum, which chronicled some of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. I won’t go into detail here, but suffice it to say that much of what they did was simply torture and evil for the sake of torture. I’m not even sure that horror films would portray what was done in real life to thousands of people.

John at the top of Phnom Sampow

The moto I almost died on

Buddhist Temple

John likes Jackfruit

How the stones were stuck together

Ek Phnom

An artist's depiction of Buddhist hell at Phnom Sampow

Big Tuna and the Doggie

Being the seasoned travelers that we are, the actual travel aspect of this mission trip hasn’t seemed that daunting. Months ago when booking the details of the trip, Doug and I decided that we would book a very early flight to LA, even though the flight John and I would take to Cambodia (by way of Beijing) wouldn’t leave until the early afternoon.

“You can check in when you get there and then walk over to In-N-Out Burger! You’ll love it” 
“This way if there’s bad weather, we could still take a later flight and get there in time for the next leg!”
“We are sooo smart!”

This morning, Doug and I awoke our three sleeping children at the ungodly hour of 3, so that John and I could get to the airport in time for our 5:45 flight. Everything went smoothly, even though there was a huge line for security.

By 7:30, John and I had arrived in LA, only to find out that no, we couldn’t check in until 10:30, and no, LAX doesn’t have luggage lockers. Looks like In-N-Out was out.

After we finally were able to check in, we started the slog through the security line. In LA, they use sniffing dogs who make sure you’re not carrying contraband as you saunter by. For most everyone, the dog sniffs you and then moves on. No big deal.

For John, the dog practically lost his mind, sniffing and circling, circling and sniffing, wiping his face on John’s pants and basically freaking out. “Uh, son, you’re going to need to go through some extra security screenings.” Thanks, Captain Obvious.

After a full-body pat-down, search through all our carry on baggage, wipe down of our hands (for hazardous materials), and two electronic screenings, we were free to go. I think the security folks actually looked a little sad that they hadn’t caught us in the act of smuggling something awful.

As we were re-packing our bags, John blurts out, “it was the tuna!”

Did I mention that we’d had a little snack of lemon-pepper tuna during our wait to check in? Oh, and that he’d spilled some on his pants and backpack?

Mystery solved. Lesson learned? Don’t wiggle while you eat your tuna if you don’t want the TSA to hate you.

The Riverman

The rain in Barcelona was even worse than we could have imagined. Biblical is a descriptive term that comes to mind. It started in the middle of the night, and carried on through the morning.

The good news was that our apartment was one block from La Sagrada Familia, so we were able to see the extraordinary work-in-progress cathedral without getting too wet. After spending some time there, we retreated back to our apartment to see if the weather got better.

There was a small window of opportunity in the weather forecast from 1-3pm. Like clockwork, the rain stopped, the clouds parted, and the sun ever-so-briefly said "hello." We rushed out the door to at least see a few of the Gaudi sights on foot, knowing we had around 2 hours. The forecast was nearly spot on.

We were about 15 minutes from our apartment when the clouds unloaded again, going straight to another torrential downpour. A few little umbrellas don't do much when it's that bad, we were soaked. And our apartment didn't have a dryer.

Gaudi does a church (or tried, they're going to be working on this one for a while)

A forest of churchiness

Gaudi did this

Gaudi did this too

Maybe Gaudi, maybe not...still cool

Why is it still raining!?

Gaudi does a hospital

Gaudi didn't have anything to do with this to the best of our knowledge

They didn't have a dryer either