Two Weeks of Summer Vacation!

It's so fun to forget about work for a while and enjoy the Danish summer! We just had two weeks off and you can bet we filled it up with visitors and events.

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As the school year came to an end, there were lots of activities going on. Kaden had a little graduation ceremony at the Ungdomsskole, Khloe had some fun beach days with her classmates, and Harrison had a special breakfast with his class.

In the Danish schools, there are a lot of organized activities to promote bonding and camaraderie between the students, and even though it keeps things busy, I think it's really nice. Harrison and I attended a meet-up at the skate park (Multiparken) with his class one day, and he's had a lot of playdates and sleepovers as the year wraps up. There was also a party at Fritidsklubben (the after-school club he goes to) with food, music, bouncy houses, a flea market, sumo suits, and all kinds of things, although, he mostly just wanted to hang out at the club's skatepark...

Harrison and Elliott also ran in the 1000 m IronKids event, which the city hosted as a little warm-up to get people psyched about the Ironman competition the next day.

The weather has been outrageously nice, and we were thankful that our neighbors introduced us to the bathing bridge down the road. A dip in Øresund on a hot day feels really fantastic!

Marabel and Han have been enjoying the sun, too.

We also had lovely weather for the Sankt Hans celebration at the harbor in Helsingør.

Kaden was at baseball, but Khloe, Harrison, Zac, and I rode bikes downtown to eat, sing, and watch them light the bonfire. They built the bonfire on a platform on the water and lit it up around 8:30 p.m. A lot of people turned out, and the song lyrics were all online so we could participate. I think I was the only one from our family singing, but it was still fun to be a part of. Kronborg Slot looked lovely as always in the background.

We also got invited to our backyard neighbor's 50th birthday party! We have chatted with him and his girlfriend several times since our yards are connected and there is no fence, and they are really nice. He mentioned to Zac that he was celebrating his 50th birthday just before Copenhell and that we should come over for a drink. A few days later, we got an invite in our mailbox on a sheet of paper saying that we could come after 9 pm. It was an '80s theme party, which made us both very excited and yet, very sad - we gave away all of our '70s, '80s, and '90s costume stuff before we left the U.S. Oh, cruel fate!

We borrowed a wig from Ann-Louise's boyfriend, Lars, and Zac was able to repurpose much of his King Diamond costume stuff to give a sort of '80s Billy Idol rockstar look. I bought a pair of lace gauntlets and a black tank top with lace on the straps at the grocery store and was able to do a sort of '80s Madonna pearls-and-lace thing. Our costumes were actually very good considering we had so few resources to pull from. I wish we had a full-body photo, but all we got was a selfie in the dark.

We made Jell-O shots and popped out of the bushes into the party yard, much to the surprise of the guests sitting at the table nearby. Most of them had never heard of a Jell-O shot before, but they were almost all game to try them, although I had to demonstrate with an empty cup about 40 times and the underside of my tongue suffered great irritation. (To clarify, there is no Jell-O in Denmark. It's very American. I brought home a few boxes from our last trip to the U.S.)

It was a fun party and Micky was glad we came. It was also a fun warm-up for Copenhell.

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This year, Zac and I set off for Copenhell by bike! Not the whole way of course, but if you've read posts from our previous two Copenhell experiences, you may recall that getting there has always been a challenge. There are many options for public transport, but unfortunately, they can only take so many people at a time, and it often means long waits in the hot sun. Even though we are farther away this year now that we live in Helsingør, we made a very nice plan.

Every day, we rode our bikes ~5 minutes to the train station, rode the train ~50 minutes from Helsingør to Nørreport (making sure to book tickets for our bikes and ensuring we arrived at Nørreport before rush hour so that we would be allowed to depart with our bikes), and then biked to Copenhell from there. It took about 20 minutes, and then we had to park the bikes and walk into the festival grounds (easily another 10 minutes), but all told, it was still faster than our previous years with the added bonus of an absolutely beautiful bike ride through Copenhagen. I'll take the fresh air over the stench of sweat and BO on an overcrowded bus any day.

We thought it might be challenging to find our bikes again after the festival, so I dropped a map pin and we looked for landmarks and hoped for the best. We didn't need to worry though. It was easy to find our way back to them, and we just parked in the same place every day to make things simple.

The festival was fantastic, as always. I can't recommend Copenhell enough. It's such a welcoming, fun, and safe environment. Everyone is looking out for everyone else, you make fast friends in the crowds, and there are great volunteers all over the place to make sure it's a good experience for every person.

On Wednesday, we started slow in the Biergarten with the Bobby Tenderloin Universe - I missed them last year when they played (as Cowboys from Hellberta) in the Boneyard (because of transport delays...), so it was a fun surprise to see them on the schedule again. The sound in the Biergarten was terrible, so I don't think they were able to perform to their full potential, but it was nice for a while.

We headed over to Tom Morello after that. We saw him two years ago and it was a good time, so he was on our list again. We all got to chant, "Fuck fascism!" to a sweet baseline, and later, his son joined him onstage for a song that I think they wrote together(?). We only stayed for about half the set because we were hungry and left to get food. We found Nille and Dorte along the way and met up with them several times throughout the evening to watch shows.

We weren't sure what to expect from Alice Cooper, but for a guy who is almost 80, he really brought it! We both enjoyed that concert so much. I feel very lucky we got to see it.

We saw Suicidal Tendencies and Iron Maiden after that. I don't know what we expected from Iron Maiden, either, but it wasn't quite as fun as some of the other things we had seen already and we left after a little while.

We showed up early for Mastodon and got a spot right at the front of the pit. I've never actually been in the pit at a metal concert before because it seems mildly dangerous, but several people thought that maybe it would be a very tame pit, so I took my chances. I'm glad I did because it was so cool to be up close to Brann and Bill and Troy. We exited early because we didn't want to miss our train home - that would've been quite a pickle - and we were sad the whole walk back to our bikes because we really didn't want to leave.

Thursday, we started with Gatekeeper and Die Spitz, and since neither of us felt too passionately about anything happening after that, we went to see Queensryche because Zac's colleague likes them a lot. I think I like them better than I thought I did, which is always a nice surprise.

We also decided to go to Papa Roach for old times' sake. We had low expectations but we severely misjudged it. That concert was awesome! It was so much fun! They hyped up the crowd, the music was excellent, and Jacoby brought out his son, too! This kid was like 11 maybe(?) and it was so freaking cute to watch him duet with his dad. Jacoby gave a really sweet speech about how important it was that their families could be there with them and I tell you that I never expected to cry at a Papa Roach concert, but damn.

During the lead-up to Copenhell, I had seen a video of a band called Calva Louise that I liked. I'm a sucker for a blend of English and Spanish. Anyway, I made a point to see that one. The singer is from Venezuela, and she was very distraught since the country had just experienced two violent earthquakes and so many people were dead and missing when the country is still reeling from government instability, and so I teared up for the second time that day. Thursday brought some big feelings.

Friday, we started our day by guiding my friend, Jasmine, through the airport, metro, and regional train - she came for a visit from Post Falls on her way to Spain! Jasmine (or "Apple" as you may have heard me refer to her) met when I started playing roller derby, and we've just remained friends ever since.

Look how little and cute we were!

She said she wanted to come see us on her way to Spain during her summer vacation, and I told her we would be going to a 4-day metal festival, so she should come after that. She said, "What if *I* want to go to a metal festival?" and thus, she joined us for the last day of Copenhell. Of course, the last day is Saturday and she arrived on Friday, but we figured we should give her a day of rest after the long journey before we jumped into Copenhell, so we picked her up from the train station and brought her to the house to relax with the kids before we left for the festival Friday.

We go there a little later than we wanted to, but it was important to ensure Jasmine felt comfortable and settled before we abandoned her! We arrived and watched Trivium, then walked over to P.O.D., then A Perfect Circle. We did find my colleague, Kim, and Sidsel at Soilwork for a bit, and I think we all started at A Perfect Circle, but they left to go watch something we didn't really want to see, so we split up again until later in the evening.

It was a little bit of a lackluster start, and then we didn't know what to do since we hadn't "favorited" any bands until later in the evening. Paleface Swiss was starting on Pandæmonium, and I liked the description I read on the Copenhell app. Zac thought that it sounded like something I'd enjoy and I really, really did.

It was a very fun concert and my first brush with almost being in a wall of death. So close. They kept asking us to expand it farther and farther back, and I got a little worried as people in front of me started parting, but eventually, I leaned into the idea and backed up to the side as well. The crowd at the far end where we were didn't seem like they were going to be particularly aggressive, so, just like being in the pit at Mastadon, it felt like I could do it and stay safe at the same time. I was disappointed when they all just kind of closed back in while the front half of the crowd slammed into each other. If you care to see where I was, this video was taken by someone near where I was standing, and as you can see, the back of the wall was very non-committal: paleface swiss wall of death copenhell

My feet were tired and I needed a rest after all the chaos, so we sat on the (dead) grassy hill that overlooks the two main stages. There was a special event scheduled, which took the place of a headliner that cancelled, and we thought it might be fun to watch. It was a celebration of the 15th anniversary of Copenhell, so they got a bunch of musicians together from various known Danish metal bands and took turns doing covers of popular songs that had been played at Copenhell over the years. It was a good one to watch while we rested, I think.

We ended the night with Anthrax, where we met up again with Kim and Sidsel and Kim's cousin. We were having fun, but again, we wanted to catch our train, so we left before it ended.

Saturday, we took our time getting ready all morning. Jasmine was super psyched to get all dressed up. I broke out my Snake Pit Derby Dames burnout t-shirt. It's usually in a box because it has holes all over in the armpits and it's kind of see-through, but it seemed perfectly acceptable for Copenhell and very apropos since I was going with Eve L. Apple (that was Jasmine's derby name, and hence, why I call her "Apple").

I have learned some lessons from my previous years at Copenhell. For one, the weather is unpredictable, and when there's sun, it's not forgiving. It gets hot in hell. I don't think I focused enough on protection from the elements in previous years. This year, I had a very different vibe:

Hat. Sunglasses. Bandanna around the neck that could be wetted frequently. Hand fan (thanks, Amanda). No tank tops. All the sunblock. No excuses.

Did I look cute? No. But did I get sunburnt or fall ill with heatstroke during Denmark's most insane heatwave in decades? Absolutely not! I have advanced to pro-level festival attendee.

This hat was not my first choice, but the only hat that I have is a Patagonia hat. I wore it to the first day of Copenhell for the sun protection, but I felt weird wearing it given the current situation with Pattie Gonia, so my plan was to buy the cute blue Copenhell trucker hat at the festival. Unfortunately, they sold out of that one really quickly, so I borrowed Kaden's camo Copenhell hat that Nate gave him last year instead. Not my style, but at least I had no internal conflicts about wearing it.

But I digress.

Jasmine doesn't have a bike here, obviously, but Zac has a fixie that he thought he could handle to and from the Helsingør station, so Jasmine rode his station bike, I rode my station bike, and Zac rode the fixie. We only took the first two on the train to Copenhagen, and when we got to Nørreport, we rented Jasmine an electric dott bike for the journey. She did great!

When we arrived, she wanted to see Djerv. Zac and I had never heard of the band, but we went since she was our guest and we didn't have anything else going on. I was pleasantly surprised. It was very nordic and very cool.

Afterward, we walked to see Trollfest. I kind of wanted to see them because they are a folk metal band that wears costumes. They were all dressed in like pink tutus and spandex with flamingo heads on, which was not exactly what I thought their costumes would be like, but I was promised a "carnival in the metal universe" and it appeared to be exactly that. I don't think anyone else wanted to give it more than a couple of songs though, so I was easily persuaded to drift away.

Plus, we wanted to be right on the fence for Social Distortion, which we all wanted to go see! The heat was oppressive. It was the last day of the festival. The energy was low, the crowd was thin. I think a lot of people stayed indoors or decided to come later because of the temperature. I felt really bad for the band because I think they came to play some damn good rock and roll music and the crowd just couldn't find the enthusiasm at 3:30 in the afternoon.

It really was a good concert. I just think they were playing at the wrong time. I hope they understand.

We found Zac's colleague, Jan, and said hello. It's fun to see people we know!

Jan volunteers at the Tuborg beer stands every year so he can get a ticket, but we can never seem to find him when he's working! Zac's other colleague, Dorte, knew someone at the beer stand though so we all got free beer one day.

The crowds rallied by the time Alestorm took the stage. I mean, I was really excited to see them because I knew it would be wild and amazing and weird. I mean, if you don't know Alestorm, it's pirate metal. And they have large rubber ducks. That's really all you need to know. It was a freaking blast, of course.

They tossed rubber ducks around. Dolphins and beach balls and life preservers flew about. It was instant energy.

They started circle pits all over the crowd. I was emboldened by my brush with the wall of death. Ironically, I wasn't brave enough to push my way through like four people to get over to one, but then another one opened up and I ran for it. Exhilarating. Zac joined me. I don't know if it was to protect me or because he really wanted to, but either way, it was fun to have him there with me. I have included a (very short) video that Jasmine took of the end of the circle pit, which I was in but had exited because I knew the song was ending.

We also rowed. Sometimes, you row like a viking in the crowd. Technically, I have only seen videos of this at Amon Amarth concerts, but when Alestorm called for it, I knew what to do. Another short video courtesy of Jasmine. She was guessing most of the time at where to point the camera, and thus, I do not actually appear in either of her videos. Haha.

We had a nice time wandering around the festival, and Volbeat was our final destination. We would've liked to check out Baby Metal after Volbeat, but who has the energy after four days? Not us.

Earlier in the evening, I was waiting in line with Jasmine so she could get a coffee drink, and I looked over at the line next to us and thought I saw the lead singer from Magtens Korridorer. Zac said he didn't think it was him, but he could see how I thought that. Anyway, fast-forward to the Volbeat concert, and when they played "For Evigt," the lead singer from Magtens Korridorer came out as a surprise guest to sing the chorus! It was not actually the guy I had seen, but I thought it was weird that I thought I saw him and then it wasn't him but then he was there after all.

We sat on the hill for the first part of Volbeat, and I think literally every single festival guest showed up for it, but we were on the steep part and it's hard to sit there very long, so we made our way down into the standing crowd. I was glad we were down there when they played "For Evigt."

We started seeing lightning, and Zac said his arms felt staticky, so we decided to get out of there fast. We grabbed everything out of the locker, made our way to the bikes, rented an e-bike for Jasmine from the pile, and made our way out to the road as a torrential rain began. It was warm out, so we weren't cold, but we were instantly wet through and through. I tried hard to keep up with Zac and Jasmine, but, ya know, glasses + unyielding rain + exercise fogging up the glasses = Lindsey cannot see. It was scary and I didn't feel safe, but I trusted that I could follow their lights and we made it to Nørreport unharmed.

They did end up pausing the concerts because of the lightning storm and the violent rain after we left, so we chose well. It was an exciting end to an exciting festival. We started out fresh and ready for anything. We ended the last night limping, drenched, and exhausted. We carried Jasmine's sweet Doc Marten combat boots in a backpack while she rocked a pair of comfortable Nike slides I had thrown in "just in case." I left with a bandanna tied around my upper thigh to protect myself a little from the horrifying chaffing that came from four days of my thighs rubbing together in shorts and fishnets. We were dirty and half dead, but still smiling all the way.

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We were tired on Sunday and had a pretty chill day around the house. We probably did laundry? I don't even know. Harrison had a week of scooter camp starting Monday, so we took him to that in the morning, and then Zac and Jasmine and I walked through downtown Helsingør.

We picked Harrison up, took him to a playdate at a classmate's house, and then we went thrift shopping (ya'll, I found a book on King Christian IV and I'm going to annoy the shit out of you with my historical knowledge when you come visit next time) and got lunch so she could try smørrebrød.

Also, Jasmine and I did Kronborg Slot!

The "Fest" exhibit was still going, so we had a good time at that.

One of my favorite parts of the castle is where they have removed layers of the paint to show the layers all the way back over time. I think they maybe do this for historical investigative reasons, but I like to see if I can find them around.

On Tuesday, we went to Copenhagen. I knew she'd love Christiania (I mean, who doesn't?), and we actually spent a huge portion of our day wandering around there.

"Remember to dance."

After lunch and shopping in Christiania, we walked to Broens and got Limoncello spritzes for the walk to the canal.

We had a lovely canal tour. I was happy to fill in where our seemingly brand new tour guide left things out. (Only to Jasmine. I wasn't, like, addressing the whole boat or anything.)

Afterward, she wanted to dip her feet in the water, but all the canal access points we were near were very high off the water, so we walked a long way to get to one of the harbor baths with a little dipping area. It was worth it. It felt nice and we got to sit and kick our feet in the water for a long time.

We were ready to head home and needed a bathroom, and there, before us, stood the Danish-invented female urinals. Behold!

Perhaps I have discussed that at festivals and large busy outdoor areas, there are male urinals all over the place. You can probably go back to one of my old Copenhagen posts and find a picture of one. I mean, they are like a little four-leaf clover of urinals with tiny dividers between. They're gray and out in the open and men just walk up, relieve themselves out in the open (you really can't see anything), and walk away. It frees up the bathroom queues, which we like a lot. BUT. Wouldn't it be lovely if you could just walk up, no doors to touch, drop your pants, pee, dab, pull up, and walk away again? Where are the lady urinals along the side of the road into Copenhell? They didn't exist. Until now. Meet the Lapee.

I have seen this on Instagram. I thought they were inspired. I was hoping to see them at Copenhell and I didn't. Then, there at the harbor bath, stood two units (three stalls each). They were clearly leftover from a little party that had been held at the harbor a few days earlier, and all the toilet paper and waste bags were gone so none of the signs made any sense, but we tried them out anyway. It was scary and I thought my shoes would get wet, but all went smoothly. I'll endorse these.

Spyo

On Wednesday, we spent the whole day at Lousiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk. Zac and I hadn't been since Jacob and Christina took us when we arrived in Denmark, and we really enjoyed ourselves. The kids have all gone for school (I think), and when Kaden went the last time, he got two free tickets. Kaden had a doctor's appointment and needed a parent, so Zac very selflessly agreed to take him and let us go to the museum.

There was a great Sophie Calle exhibit that I wanted to see, and Jasmine wanted to see the Kusama installation, so we both got to see something we enjoyed.

Thursday, it was time for Jasmine to head to Spain, so we said goodbye, but we weren't done with visitor summer break yet! We turned over the house, cleaning bathrooms and setting up air mattresses and changing sheets and then later that same day, we picked up Jack, Katie, Max, and Lucas from the ferry!

We spent five days hanging out with Zac's sister and her husband and their kids. It was so fun to see the boys. We read stories and played trucks and built with magnet blocks.

We visited the beach at Hornbæk, went to a bunch of parks, and walked around downtown Helsingør.

The weather was super uncooperative. Besides the short amount of time we were able to play at the beach (not in the water...brrr), it pretty much rained non-stop for the five days of their visit. We decided to visit the Technical Museum as a fun indoor activity out of the weather. The kids sat in the cockpits of airplanes, learned about the history of cell phones, saw exhibits on flight and motorcycles and bikes and video games and all kinds of things. It was a cool place.

It was a nice visit, and it was really fun to have such a continuous stretch of time where the cousins could get to know each other better. The adults had fun, too. We took the kids out to eat, had some time to visit and catch up on everyone's lives and plans for the future and wish-list projects. It was such a lovely visit and we were sad to see them go.

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Harrison finished his scooter camp. It was really cool. When we were moving here, we heard that there were activities that the communes did for the kids all summer that were free or very low cost, but I had never been able to find access to any of them and it was confusing. I think the issue was that these are offered by the commune for kids enrolled in the public education system there. It may or may not cover the private schools, too, but we never heard anything about them until Harrison started going to Danish school. As the school year was ending, they sent us the sign-up and flyer through the school communication app, Aula. I was able to go on the commune website from there and easily register him since he is in the system. I don't think that would be possible if he weren't enrolled in public school. Anyway, mystery solved.

The catalog was fantastic! He could learn survival, bouldering, tennis, football, swimming, and all kinds of really, really cool things. Some of them were free and some cost a small amount of money. He only wanted to do the scooter camp, which I think was around $20 for the week. Anyway, it's such a neat way for kids to try out a bunch of different hobbies and activities to see if they enjoy them.

Kaden has still been going to baseball practices, but of course, the one he went to while we were at Copenhell resulted in him injuring his thumb. He called and said he thought it might be broken. He called 1813 and they scheduled him for an x-ray in Hillerød. One of the baseball dads that lives in Helsingør, Dennis, had to drive him there and sit with him all evening while he waited in a queue to get his scan. It wasn't broken, thankfully, and Dennis got him home, but I swear that the next time Zac and I want to take four days off to go do something for ourselves, our kids are not going to be allowed to go anywhere!

In fact, Harrison was cycling around after school on Thursday and his bike chain snapped completely in half so he couldn't ride home. It's not a short walk, either. Khloe contacted the neighbor and they went to pick him up.

In case you were wondering, no. We were not nominated for any Parent of the Year awards that week. But what a testament to our phenomenal support system here, huh?

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The plants really liked the summer weather, and our pink elderflower bush finally blossomed!

I made my first batch of pink elderflower cordial and it went very well. Unfortunately, I'm out of flowers now (the neighbor took some, too), so I'll have to wait until next year to make more. It was quite good though. I forgot to take a picture when it was all finished and strained, but the process itself is beautiful.

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So that was our two weeks of summer vacation! Well, plus a few days on the front end. It was so nice to be able to share our lives here in Helsingør with Jasmine and the Evert family. The hollyhocks and roses are coming out now, which adds a huge dollop of charm to the already insanely charming old houses in the downtown area, so please look at these photos and then decide to come see them in person sometime in the coming years!

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See you soon?