O Danmark!

Today we took a castle tour. First, we visited the Helsingor castle, better known as "Hamlet's castle." This castle is the setting for Shakespeare's "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." Our tour guide proceeded to show us all of the spots where important parts of the play took place, and then dashed our hopes of gloating to our friends by reminding us that it is, in fact, a fictitious story :) Still cool, though, that this is the place Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote it.

Next we visited the Queen of Denmark's summer residence. She was actually there at the moment, which was kind of cool, but didn't allow us to see much.

Last, we visited Frederiksborg castle (shown), built by King Christian IV in the late 1500's. It's a very neat castle, and holds a lot of the original Carl Bloch paintings that the church uses in its publications.

God dag from Sweden!

Well, actually, I'm in Denmark at the moment, but the photo is in Sweden. We flew out of Phoenix Tuesday night, and arrived in London on Wednesday. A few hours later, we flew to Malmo, Sweden and spent the night there. Thursday, we took a ferry to the island of Bornholm where my great-great-great-grandfather was born. It's a neat little place, with a beautiful countryside, neat houses, and unexpected beaches! We spend this morning at the beach (pretty bummed that I didn't add the Baltic to one of the seas that I have swam in--way too cold). Afterward, we took the ferry back to Ystad, Sweden and then a bus to Copenhagen. I love it here! I really do feel like this place is home, and I love that I don't stick out of a crowd. Everyone here thinks I'm Danish; until I speak :) Anyway, I'm having a great time, and I will post more pictures later. Hejdå!

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