Pastries and Tulips

Hello all, and happy Easter! Heather and I are stuffed from an international Easter feast out at Skjaldarvik (the RES dormitory outside of town)and our fingers are funny colors from dying Easter eggs. We attended church at the big church downtown that you've all undoubtedly seen in our pictures. We think we attended a children's service, as the kids in the congregation were involved with most of the service and most of the activities of the pastor were directed at children, i.e. cartoon slide show, puppet with great voice acting, etc... A group of girls even sang songs from the musical Momma Mia as special music, which was kind of odd for an Easter service, but they did a good job. The church was built in the 1920s and is very beautiful, with stained glass windows depicting familiar biblical scenes as well as people/events which are important in Iceland's religious history.

We got back from our trip to Copenhagen and Amsterdam on Saturday evening and were exhausted. It was a wonderful trip! We flew out of Akureyri last Sunday, and made our way to Copenhagen, where we landed at 2 a.m., then had to figure out the metro/subway system, and find our lodging, which was the apartment of a RES staff member's mother. Luckily Copenhagen has maps set up all around the city that give travelers the "you are here" arrow, and we were able to find the apartment (after thinking we were hopelessly lost) and get some shuteye before we spent the day sightseeing.

The city was much more beautiful in the daylight and when we weren't exhausted and praying we were in the right part of town. Our apartment was situated on a canal across from the Danish Parliament building, which is an old royal palace, and smack in the middle of the old downtown, which is now filled with historical landmarks and great shopping if you have the money. We were on our feet all day roaming around. We tried a danish since we were in Denmark, and it was delicious but flaky, so much of it blew away in the wind with each bite! We also tried Carlsberg beer, which is brewed in Copenhagen, and took a canal tour, which was very helpful in pointing out the significance of many of the buildings and statues we had already seen but had now idea of their significance. We got a taste of culture in the King's Garden, a park next to Rosenborg Palace, the home of King Christian IV, which was full of beautiful statues, flowers, and people drinking and leaving their trash behind.

On Tuesday evening we flew to Amsterdam and Heather's friend Lilian, with whom Heather became friends when she stayed in Altoona during high school as a foreign exchange student, met us at the Haarlem train station and graciously allowed us to crash at her place during our stay. Haarlem is a city outside Amsterdam, and only 15 minutes away by train. Wednesday was cool and rainy in the morning, so we spent as much time indoors in Amsterdam as possible. We still got to see many of the sights, but very briefly as we flitted from shop to church to museum. The weather cleared in the afternoon and we spent more time outside, and were able to enjoy the abundance of flowers and green grass. Thursday we went back into the city and saw the Anne Frank museum and a little more of the city since it wasn't raining, then went back to Haarlem and roamed around there with Lilian.

Friday was warm (around 70 Fahrenheit we think) and we went to the beach and then boarded our bus back to Copenhagen to catch our flight on Saturday. We can say we also visited Germany, since the bus stopped a few times here and we switched buses in Hamburg, but even though our passports were checked at each border crossing we did not receive any stamps! We got back to Copenhagen at about 5:30 Saturday morning and since the bus station was only a few blocks away from the apartment we were able to catch up on sleep before our flight that afternoon.

It is still snowing in Akureyri, although in Reykjavik the snow is gone and the sun shines, but we were able to experience green grass, warm weather, new cultures and a change of scenery, so Heather is refreshed enough to continue her hard work and I am already thinking about our next visit to the continent!

See our pictures at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Heather.Sanden/Copenhagen?authkey=Gv1sRgCKX8quHY6eKSbA#

http://picasaweb.google.com/Heather.Sanden/AmsterdamHaarlem?authkey=Gv1sRgCJq7wJ6rsLajbw#