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Friday, November 3, 2006—Day trip to Århus

There was a bit of confusion on the drop off time, so most of the choir was hanging out at 8am while waiting for a few people who thought the drop off time was 8:30. While waiting, Mr. Tarango had the boys testify to something they saw, be it food, their bathroom fixtures, or whatever. Very funny stuff.

We hopped on the bus, and after a quick stop at the side of a road to meet a billet bringing us an Australia jacket, we headed to Århus, on the East Coast. We did some academics on the bus, which doesn't seem to be a problem. The binders are compact and efficient, and there are tables on this bus, just coincidentally. The boys do some math and some reading about Denmark. This is the promise of this kind of school: learning about a place while you're there; incomparable to reading about it.

Since we were running late, we just had a chance to walk through the cathedral in Århus. It's painted white inside, so very bright. It has an elaborate organ, and somebody was playing it. There's nothing quite like walking into a cathedral in Europe and hearing somebody playing Bach or something on the organ. There was also a brochure on a table about a recent or upcoming concert by some local boys choir. Welcome to Europe, where there are boys choirs in every town practically.

It is cold, but not nearly as cold as the first day we arrived. Still, when the wind picks up it can be quite cold. It's obvious why they have a lot of windmills here.

Our next stop was a guided tour of Den Gamle By (the last word sounds nothing like it's spelled), which is a town resembling 19th century Denmark. They take historical houses and buildings from that time, from around Denmark and physically move them to Den Gamle By. I have to say I've seen this kind of thing in Switzerland and Hawaii, where people make thatched roofs as you walk by or whatever, and it can seem rather contrived, but this was good. Our guide was excellent, and what made this place convincing was that everything was real. They had people in houses cooking the meals and you could talk to them. I guess they have that at the Polynesian Cultural Center, but I was really impressed with the merchant house, which was an actual merchant. If you wanted candy of the 19th century type, turns out in Denmark they used to make young men apprentices, then send them away from the town for 3 years at the age of 19 or so. We asked why they did this, and they said, "Oh, just to learn." Learning about the world by being in it, exactly what we were doing.

After Den Gamle By, we went to Moesgard, a Viking museum not too far away. We had no idea what was in store for us. The first building we went into had some typical displays, and a gift shop. While we were waiting for our guide, the boys did a little shopping, and I hope the parents like wooden Viking swords.

Our guide Sarah met us out front, and she seemed rather quiet at first. I really hadn't been paying attention I guess, but she mentioned that the building she was taking us to was all about things being preserved in peat bogs in Denmark. Doesn't sound that interesting perhaps, but when you have this woman as your guide, and when what can be preserved in a peat bog includes whole human bodies, this gets really cool.

They do have a whole body on display here, and she talked all about how they figured out how he died. The explanation included demonstrating on Pam how to break somebody's tibia quickly and how to slit their throat the best way (the bog man's throat was slit). We learned about floating dead bodies, what season they float, and why you shouldn't poke them. We also saw Roman artifacts that had been tossed into a bog at some point. So Sarah, who is a graduate anthropology student, showed how various weapons were used by the Roman army. She had made her own longbow apparently so talked about the longbow there as well. She was absolutely fearless, and I don't think we've ever had a guide that was so good. The material was interesting, but a guide can make all the difference.

Because we had been running late, we were concerned about getting back to Herning on time. Leo said we were okay on time, but didn't have much to spare, so we had a 5-minute snowball fight, then back to the bus.

With delays and some Friday evening traffic, we were late to rehearsal, which I hate since we're guests, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it. The rehearsal was only one hour, then the boys went home with their billets.

--Mr. Fox

Jeremy testifies in the morning	dont' recall what the description was
Malcolm takes a turn	We were all entertained
at the cathedral in Arhus	the organ in the distance
in the merchant shop in Den Gamle By	Some of the Danish Kroner have holes in them
Norbert tries on some chain mail	Learning about peat bogs
The bog man	Snowball fight!