We set out down the main shopping street, which was mobbed on a Monday in mid-July, practically retracing our steps from a couple weeks prior with Ina. We had to show Analyn the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace. Frankly it was a bore, unless you really like watching two lines of men in funny caps staring at each other for ten minutes without flinching.
We passed back through Nyhavn where we tested the pølse, or Danish sausages from a street vendor (for like $7 each) and then settled into a harborside people watching café to quaff Leffe’s Life was good. We ambled back to the hotel and Ingrid liberated us a rental car and soon we were whisking along the Danish Riviera – my mother swears some people actually call it that - past Isak Dinesen’s house, on our way to Helsingør. I had planned on being able to show Analyn the Kronburg dungeon, but that was not to be. She had mentioned wanting to see a dark dank real dungeon and the best I have ever seen was at Kronburg.
We zipped through southern Sweden, only stopping for some groceries, before arriving at our Vandrarhem, or youth hostel, in Magnarp. I won’t lie to you and we didn’t hold back the truth from Analyn: the place is spartan. But it’s got everything you need and it’s got a beach, reedy and rocky though it may be, and it’s full of charm and close to where my grandparents used to live.
You have to share the kitchens (there are about two) with everyone else. This usually means drying everyone else’s dishes because they like to leave them in the drying rack. In ancient times, Swedish gnomes, akin to Tomten, would come out at night and dry them. Now they are an endangered species and unable to meet the demand. But the Swedes are fond of tradition and like to leave wet dishes around. My mother is not Swedish in this regard.
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