3-Star Girls in a 5-Star World...

We enjoyed seeing the Danish countryside on the 3.5 hour journey by bus and train to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, where we spent 3 nights for the cultural phase of our vacation. We stayed at the historic Palace Hotel, which is being converted into a 5-star Le Meridien and offered discounted rates during construction. Sadly, we preferred the old world feel of the unrenovated portions of the hotel to the contemporary look of the finished portions, which again proves that we're not the 5-star type. As we do in most cities we visit, we spent most of our time wandering the streets. Above is the beautiful Nyhavn harbor.

Fun at Legoland...

We spent a long time gawking over Holland made out of Legos. Somehow it’s much more quaint getting photos of the girls in front of this version of our train instead of the real thing. While we do see windmills from the train, the view from our station isn’t pretty like this. In addition to the 20 million Legos depicting countries in Miniland, there were great scaled reproductions of larger sites as the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore and the space shuttle.
In addition to the cool Legos sculptures, there were some really fun rides. Luckily there were no crowds so we could go on our favorite rides again and again. Check out a promo video of Power Builder, a custom programmable ride that was Veronica’s favorite; Ashlynn and I were wimps and didn’t go upside down like she did. We all loved the above Jungle Racers and the Dragon roller coaster. I was worried that two days might be too much, but we enjoyed every minute.

Our Daily Train...

Imagine our surprise when we turned a corner at Legoland and there chugging along was the Dutch NS train that we travel on daily to get to school, although this one was made out of tiny little Legos. In Miniland, there were great reproductions of places around the world, with a special concentration on Denmark and near-by Germany and the Netherlands. Of course, we couldn’t resist taking lots of photos of Holland in miniature and the girls experimented with taking videos of the train (click on the above arrow to see it for yourself).

Legoland--Here We Come...

When I realized that I’d be on my own with the girls for their October break, I set out to find somewhere we could visit that I’d feel safe and could get around easily. While I was debating about which Legoland to visit, a new friend invited us to visit her family in Sweden. That was the sign I needed to finalize plans to go to the original Legoland in Billund, Denmark, where Legos continue to be manufactured (although there’s rumors that the factory is moving to Poland). While it’s tiny compared to any of the Disney parks, there was enough to do to keep us happily occupied for two days.

“B” is for Breaststroke...

After all that swimming this summer at my dad’s house, Ashlynn quickly progressed through her next set of swim lessons to earn her “B” diploma. This exam included swimming several laps of breaststroke wearing long pants and a long-sleeve shirt and the above 18-foot underwater swim as well as a variety of other strokes and skills. I had to laugh when I saw the mascot for the pool. He clearly wasn’t a real hippo since he didn’t try to drown any of the children.

A Look into the Future?

The final portion of the Leiden Liberation Parade was a look forward to the year 3007. It started with an amazing alien circus, then turned dark as these vehicles reminiscent of “The Road Warrior” came by followed by a scary gothic band. Hope that the future won’t be this dismal, but did enjoy seeing these fantastic groups.

A Parade of 7’s...

In honor of Leiden’s October 3rd Liberation Day, I liberated the girls from school at noon so we could go watch the parade. Apparently there’s a different theme each year and this year’s was the Number 7. Not surprisingly, there were lots of 1970’s bands with dancers. Some of the other ties to the Number 7 were more creative, such as the Dwarf and the 7 Snow Whites. The above cycling veggie stand was part of a “ 7 Days a Week” group that also included women with ironing boards, breakfast in bed and laundry tubs all on wheels. At first glance the below “7th Heaven” seemed innocent enough until we got a good look at the larger angels who somehow don’t seem so angelic after all.