The city

I know my city. Not every nook and cranny, but enough to be confident without a map. I knew my city, because it is no longer mine. Now I live in a city where you don't need a car to get around because it is so small that the longest I could walk to any point is 45 minutes. Or I could just take the bus. On the one hand I hated driving, hated being confined in a box, hated being a sitting duck at a robot, waiting to be smash-and-grabbed. But it also means no more singing loudly to *NSYNC while cruising around my hood for the neighbourhood patrol, no more leaving when I want to out of fear for missing the bus. This car thing, it is a two-way street. 

Luckily, my friend could borrow her mom's car for a road trip to Denmark a few weeks ago. There was no real border. One moment we were still in Germany, and the next we were in Denmark, on our way to Aarhus. 

We had no real plan for what we wanted to do there, with the only thing on our list being the Aros art museum. We arrived in Aarhus and parked the car near the harbour. Because we had no Danish money we drew some at an ATM, bought coffee and a three-chocolate-hot-chocolate to get small change and then discovered that the parking machine also accepted cards. However, when we had inserted the card into the machine it very cleverly tried to tell us something, in Danish. My friend and I both just looked at the screen, rummaging through every language we knew to somehow deduce what it wanted. Luckily a friendly Danish lady helped us out: "You need to take your card now". Ah, ok.

We ate our packed lunches in the car, looking at the bleak weather, and explored the city in the rain. Basically we just went to a church, the art museum and our hostel.  

This would be the church.

Aros from a distance.

Everyone said we would need a lot of time at Aros, but after doing the very cool colour wheel first the rest was a bit of a disappointment. There was an exhibition by the king and queen of Denmark, with his poems and her collages and other art works. The Danish people seemed to really enjoy this, but I found it very strange. If they had not been royalty I doubt their work would have been exhibited.

The 180° thing didn't work out too well. 

Ron Mueck, Boy. 

In the basement of the museum they also have an area entitled 9 spaces, with nine different rooms containing various installations that are more tactile than work that is normally exhibited at a distance. The one room contained what looked like an elevator shaft of mirrors and then the viewer would also be infinitely reflected. Another room emphasized all five senses and you could touch everything, even a furry wall like the one in Get Him to the Greek. 

After our visit to the museum we wandered back to our hostel through the rain. Somehow we were both exhausted. It was also quite funny finding out that when the hostel said online to 'bring own bedding' it only meant duvet covers and a towel, not blankets and cushions and the kitchen sink (as we had brought). Later we strolled to the beach and then walked back to the city centre through a large park, again in the rain.

Oooh, the Baltic Sea. 

Aros by night. You might notice I quite dig the colour wheel. 

The next day we just ate breakfast and started driving again. Our plan was to head to the western shore, look at some of the little villages and then head back east to Flensburg. Somehow the GPS system assumed we were heading to one place and we assumed it was taking us to another, so we ended up next to a field in the middle of nowhere with the GPS telling us: "You have arrived at your destination". As my friend said at the beginning of the trip, it isn't a road trip without a u-turn. So we trusted the GPS again and were on our way. I really enjoyed driving through the countryside, singing along to The Beatles and not really knowing where we were.

Hahaha. 'Farten'. Fart. Laughing like a child.

This was in one of the sea side towns we drove through on our way back to Flensburg. 

Ah, the North Sea. 

We ambled around two towns whose names I can't recall, were drenched slightly by the rain at the North Sea, had more sandwiches which we took along from the hostel's breakfast buffet in the car and after stopping for a warm coffee in Köping we returned to Flensburg. 

A watch shop. 

The only moment we saw the sun the entire weekend was an hour before we crossed back into Germany. 

Flensburg harbour at night. 

I know it was only a very short road trip, but besides spending time with my friend I thoroughly enjoyed Denmark. Everyone looked so stylish and I appreciated the packaging in the supermarkets. In Germany it seems like no thought is given to the design of the packaging and of the stores in general. It is just piling as much produce as possible into the space, which after years of being spoilt by Woolworths is quite a change.

Come springtime I'll buy myself a bike and explore Denkmark some more :)