Our Trip to Denmark

Ten years. Had it real­ly been so long? Before Helen and I got on the plane to Copen­hagen, it was hard to believe that when I last vis­it­ed Den­mark, I had just fin­ished row­ing at the Hen­ley Roy­al Regat­ta. Before that, as some of you know, I lived in Den­mark for a year as an exchange stu­dent. That was sud­den­ly 13 years ago. I had no idea I’d be stum­bling over so many mile­mark­ers as Helen and I pre­pared to vis­it my Dan­ish friends and host fam­i­ly, but there I was, trip­ping over them with prac­ti­cal­ly every step I took. I could only hope for a soft land­ing.

And what a soft land­ing it was. When Helen and I arrived at Copen­hagen air­port, we met my old friend Tom­my, who, along with his part­ner Camil­la and their son Alexan­der, would be our hosts while we stayed in town. They’re great friends, the kind of peo­ple you can recon­nect with after years of being out of touch and just pick up where you left off. It’s an amaz­ing feel­ing, and as Helen not­ed, the sort of thing that makes you feel at home wher­ev­er you are. They were great hosts and their son Alexan­der is a great lit­tle boy!

We began our tour of Den­mark by tak­ing a relax­ing spin around Copen­hagen’s canals. It was the per­fect thing to do after sit­ting on a plane for over sev­en hours. We soaked up the Dan­ish sun and did a lit­tle sight­see­ing from the com­fort of a boat. If you’re head­ed to Den­mark, this is a smart tourist move. It gives you a pret­ty com­plete sense of the city so you’re not dis­ori­ent­ed lat­er in your trip.

Helen and I con­tin­ued down Mem­o­ry Lane the fol­low­ing day by tak­ing a trip to Skan­der­borg. I lived in the heart of Jut­land’s lake dis­trict for a year — and what a year it was! Do you remem­ber the win­ter of 1995–96? It was ter­ri­ble! Den­mark usu­al­ly does tem­per­ate win­ters, but this was an excep­tion. Look at the lake in this map. Pret­ty big, right? It froze! That had­n’t hap­pened in 25 years and it has­n’t hap­pened again since. Need­less to say, it was a mem­o­rable year.

Intro­duc­ing Helen to Skan­der­borg and the Schmidt fam­i­ly was like solv­ing the last piece of the puz­zle. Helen and I met the year I returned for Den­mark and she’s spent about a third of her life hear­ing about this place and these peo­ple. A lot of my iden­ti­ty is built around the year I lived abroad. It may sound strange, but Den­mark is home to me, too. Maybe you can go home again?

Now that I’ve final­ly recov­ered from jet lag, I’m going to be post­ing pho­tos and lit­tle sto­ries to accom­pa­ny them here, recount­ing our belat­ed hon­ey­moon — or baby­moon, depend­ing on how you look at it. It was an amaz­ing trip. I can’t wait to share it with you.