VEJLE, DENMARK
2016-08-02, 16:40, THORIN
BUDGET, STAY: CABINN VEJLE
Our friends were getting married in Vejle, Denmark, which was why we decided to head to Europe in the summer. We landed in Copenhagen from Dubai and rented a car from SIXT, then headed straight for more small town Denmark. It was a standard European gray sky kind of day.
We forgot how much Scandinavia cost. Upon getting in, we didn't consider the fare it took to go across the bridge, which was about the same price as it would have been to rent the car. Suddenly, things that were taken for granted for cheap were immediately appreciated. A parking spot cost 32 SGD for two days, a small brunch would cost 30 SGD. The only solace we had being in Scandinavia again was the cheap price of brown bread, an assortment of cheeses, and the occasional smoked fish. After burning through much of our money in the toll and gas on the way up, we took solace in our hotel room (about 213 SGD for two bunk beds, felt like university again) and rolled out the bread we got from the Fotex supermarket. Yes, it was good to be back.
Denmark has three main 'areas' which are the island with Copenhagen, the middle island, and the continental bit attached to Germany (Jutland). We drove from the bottom of the first island, across the second (and the toll half the price of the car) and through to Jutland. The landscape was rather flat, rather strangely like southern England at times. And as we drove through, the country towns also reminded me of northern Hampshire/Wiltshere. The weather was spasmodic, switching between bright sunshine and hideous torrential rain. The trip took about 2-2.5 hours by just powering through. Luckily we had brought an iPod cable with us which plugged into the smart car and played all of our favourite hits from the 80s, 90s and today (do radio DJs still say that, or do they add in 'noughties' too?).
The trip was unremarkable, and we quickly pulled into Velje. It was very Belle and her provincial life from 'Beauty and the Beast' pulling in, with a small central area visible from the front of the hotel. Jason checked into the hotel room with a sister at the front, who warned him that it was 'quite a small room'. We took the lift up to the top storey and opened the door to a decently sized room with two bunk beds -- cheapest in Vejle! It was a cross between easyhotel and a hostel, but the room was IKEA-chic and reasonably cosy, with a good view over the town. Vejle itself looks a lot like a southern English town, with a long highstreet that is the main artery of the town. The high street passes over a cute little strem/river/creek/puddle with steps around it that people could sit at and eat/drink/projectile vomit. As it was Friday afternoon, the street was just getting lively with all the great Danes in all their glory hanging out and looking Danish. Very girl with the dragon tattoo.
We ventured out of the hostel smelling like 45C Dubai combined with two days or aeroplane sweat, which fit right into the viking aesthetic. Very longboat-chic. The main high street was considerably longer than we had anticipated, and we wandered around looking at the shops and shit. There had been some professional bicycling race (which we learnt from overhearing two loud Italians in cycling gear in the lift) and we walked a little bit around some roped off area that we assumed to be 'the course' before doubling back to the high street and walking around. The shops werea third Danish cafes and what I like to call 'Danish interest' shops with things I can only assume are popular in Denmark (like trekking and pony trailing, and ship burning), a third high street fashion shops (H&M,etc) and a third sad British high street shops (second-hand clothing shops and cheap food shops). Since Denmark signed up for the whole 'shockingly expensive Scandinavia price scheme', we decided to eat out of supermarkets, which turned out to be an excellent, if not filling choice. Stopping off in the first market we came to, we picked up some bread, cheese, smoked fish, veg and skyr (which we lived on in Iceland and is delicious) and meandered over to the river/stream and ate on some steps facing a McDonalds (very romantic). Since we are in Northern Europe, the summer days last for ages, and we decided to head back to the hotel around 10ish to get some sleep for the inevitable day of heavy drinking and eating the next day (we keep it classy).
The next morning we ate some pastries (Danish pastries?) and drove over to this old viking mound called 'Royal Jelling' which apparently is UNESCO. Two mounds flank a church and some rocks an old Dane wrote in runes in what I can only assume to be a live-action re-enactment of the Lord of the Rings in the ninth century. Interesting that, whilst the Chinese had 4 millenia of history and wear trading with the Turks, the Danes were carving straight lines into boulders and leaving them next to churches, but I guess that's what separates developed civilised western nations from barbarians. Poignant anti-Eurocentric rhetoric aside, the mounds were nice, but the accompanying museum that UNESCO so kindly donated money to is quite remarkable, with lots of interactive elements that the kids there loved. Nice to see so much excitement about history as the children around the exhibit seemed legitimately excited to be at a museum. Smithsonian take note! As the hour of preparation was pressing we booked it back to the hotel and got ready for the wedding, which mainly consisted of having open-faced Danish sandwiches for lunch with booze leftover from the Emirates flight (Cha-ching!) before picking up our friends from a hotel down the street and driving to the wedding venue.
The wedding was lovely, I won't plunge into too much detail as our friends have a right to privacy, but we drank excellent wine (hard to tell if its excellent after the 3rd glass but we assume it was), ate terrific food and generally pigged out on western foods uncommon in Singapore. At about 1am we decided to call it a night, mainly because Swedish pop and Danish rap had become the order of the night, which always seems a cue to leave. At which point we discovered the car's battery was dead. Luckily, being in a residential neighbourhood and having an electrical engineer present we were able to jumpstart the car and get back to the hotel. The next morning we caught a quick brunch with our friends (which we had to sell one kidney each to afford) and then drove back to Copenhagen!