Viking Encounters of a Danish Kind

This past week we had the unique opportunity to visit two local vikings Mikkel and Ilya who showed Tyler and I a great time. The first, Mikkel, planned on meeting us to hang out Wednesday evening. He showed up at our dorm to pick us up with Becky (a visiting viking) and his nephew Emil (who's in the danish royal guard). His car pulls up blasting his horn and his nephew is holding beer out the window for us. Once we were in the car, Mikkel proceeded to say "In Denmark it's ok to drink and drive...if you want." Mikkel drove us up to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art to view the exhibits and have dinner as well. We saw some great art by people like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein among others. They also had an exhibit on the architecture of art museums, which displayed the miniature models, floor plans, and graphic representations of current and future art museums all over the world. However, I was dissapointed that they did not include the Milwaukee art museum. The dinner we had was excellent and came with a great view over the water. The next day Mikkel invited us to Nokia, where he works. He gave us a quick tour of the facilities, which were quite impressive, and then took us to the all you can eat buffet for the employees. Again, more great food.

That Thursday night Ilya invited us to his apartment for dinner and he said we could bring dates so Abby and Kara came along as well. Ilya greeted us and gave us a tour of his apartment. An amazing place, he even had American made furniture, which is unheard of in Denmark. His wife, Natasha, made us the best meal we've had so far on this trip. Ilya busted out quite a bit of wine for the occasion as well. After dinner we sat in his living room for hours discussing all sorts of things. Ilya was even gracious enough to have us finish off his cognac stock. Needless to say we had a great time.

Friday we made another venture up to Helsingor to visit Lars and get some cash money. He took us out for brunch and we had another great time. Most people in the program went on the Copenhagen Business School trip to Oslo, Norway for the weekend. It wasn't so much a trip as it was a booze cruise with a 6 hour stop in Oslo. We didn't go because we are planning to visit the city after the summer program is over. Saturday we visited Assistens Kirkegaard, which is the cemetary for famous Danes. We saw the graves of Niels Bohr and even Hans Christian Andersen. The cemetary itself was stunning. Sunday we made our way back out to Roskilde to check out the viking ship museum. Back around the year 1000 the locals sank five viking ships in the harbour to create a barrier against attacking ships. These ships were recovered and put in the museum. Along with the old bits of ships, there were also fully working replicas that you can pay to ride in.

Tonight we are going to an F.C. Copenhagen game and this upcoming weekend we have a busy schedule, but not much else as of late.