Sweets with the Swedes?

I type this as Andi tries to get the car to go over 100 MPH, 160 KPH on the Autobahn. And Audis still pass us over and opver...

Easter Sunday we woke up in Sweden. The easter bunny found us and delivered baskets with standard chocholates and a few small towys for the kids. At breakfast, we watch 4-5 bunnies playing in the nearby field.

We then "hopped" in the car and drove 3 hours to Bilund, Denmark, home of the original Legoland park. We have been using our annual pass a lot, but mostly for the Legoland near Stuttgart (also for some aquariums and Madame Tussuad's in Berlin). This park opened in 1968 and I have wanted to go visit since I was a kid.

Overall, it was a nice park. It is more established than the Germany park. They have hills, older trees, and waterfalls. They also have a huge miniature land where they recreate buildings from various countries. The one in Germany was expansive, but this seemed even bigger. The rides are mostly the same, but this park had a few new ones. One was a fire truck thing where you have to physically pump the truck to move it and get the water flowing (tiring). They also had an old mine train that definitely was not ADA approved. The rest were standard for legoland, good for smaller kids but lame for roller coaster enthusiasts. We were worried about crowds on Easter, but it was not bad. Maybe they were all in Church?

This park does have a nice looking hotel attached to the park. Literally, one border of the park was the hotel. However, it was like $400 per night to stay, so we stayed just down the street. We could have slept in the car, the kids were so tired after running around all day at Legoland. Andi and I were dissapointed in the Legoland shop. I had hoped they would have "pick-a-brick" with a wide selection of parts (technical, hard-to-find, and duplo) but no such luck. We have a better selection in Germany, and that is not too great. So while nice, I am glad we did not plan a whole European trip just to do Legoland.

BTW, Denmark has a lot of windmills. And a lot of wind.

Of course, the Germans have Good Friday off. A three day weekend being insuficient, they also get Monday off. I guess they call it Good Monday? Maybe they need to recover from their easter hangovers? They could not be burdend to take one of their 30 personal holidays, or maybe one of their liberal sick-days either. Anyway, we are headed down toward Amsterdam to see some flowers.

Just from our cursory visit to Hamburg, Copenhagen, and my previous trip to Stockholm, northern Europe looks "nice". The towns are meticulously clean, the building look old and stately, there is no grafiti and they have limited businesses. You don't see doner kebab shacks or gentlemen's clubs like they have just off the main drag in Stuttgart / Munich. Maybe they push the dirt further out into the suburbs? We spent some time wandering around an exit in Denmark looking for an ATM and even the "normal" areas seemed quite nicely done.

BTW, ATMs are rare in Denmark. They take credit or the silly EC card everywhere. Even pay at the pump! (Not found in Germany now) We did find a ATM at Legoland. They have coins with holes in them, that was pretty neat. The Danish lady at the hotel spoke english perfectly, I assumed she was British but she was actually a local. The scandanavian kids are very very very blond, I saw a couple that could have been albinos. I have never seen white hair like that.

Driving to Sweden was an experience. They have a couple of long water crossings to get there, rivaling the long bridge in the Keys and the Macinac bridge in Michigan. Amazing structures.

Driving around up here, I am glad we canceled our crazy trip to the Arctic circle. Once you get to Denmark, things are pretty sparse. Stockholm was a good ways away from Malmo, and the Arctic circle would have been 6-7 hours north of there. Google says Stuttgart to Malmo is about 10 hours, which we did over two days. Google also says Columbia to Cleveland is abougt 10 hours, a trip we have done on a Friday afternoon...

No beer again. Maybe in the Netherlands tonight.