This weekend we went to Berlin - it was co-incidently the lead up to the 20th anniversary since the Berlin Wall came down (although that’s not why we decided to go - our primary motivation was that there just isn’t that much left to do in Copenhagen that is appropriate for us, that we haven’t already done, that isn’t closed over winter … and since we are so close, we might as well travel while we have the opportunity).
So we woke up reeeeeaaaalllly early on Saturday morning to catch the plane and flew to Germany. Germany is so close to Denmark and believe it or not, my German is (slightly) better than my Danish. (But that’s like saying my Lithuanian is better than my Swahili). Also, I heard a rumour that they have really good cakes there, so to Germany we went.
It was an interesting weekend to visit Berlin. Of course they were in the process of organising the celebrations and commemorations for the anniversary of the wall coming down. It really hit home for me when we were looking at crosses erected to the memory of those who had lost their lives trying to cross the wall - particularly the one in 1989, just months before East Germans were finally allowed to cross freely. It was incredibly hard to explain it all to Hugo who of course had a thousand questions.
In addition to the history, there were the usual kid-friendly activities including the Aquarium and the Science Museum. LOTS of walking for the parents. The Television tower (not, as Sophie imagined, a tower constructed of televisions). And delicious German cake food. Nom nom. What we didn’t do: Legoland. Believe it or not, sometimes there is such a thing as TOO. MUCH. LEGO.
I’ve realised that I will always, always worry about flying with children, no matter how well behaved my children are, no matter how short the flight is - and in the end it just doesn’t matter! Even if people are annoyed by the constant whinging and complaining excited chatter of my children, they’ll probably have forgotten it by the time they get home from the airport anyway (as I have, usually). We’ve realised that on the cheap airlines that seat 3-aisle-3 it’s better to have one parent and both children in a block of 3 than to split the kids up between parents. For some reason they both behave better when they’re sitting together. It’s also easier to share entertainment. And you don’t have to worry about having someone unknown sitting next to you, glaring at the children the whole time (or giving a friendly lecture on “all kids need is a good spanking to keep them in line”).
We enjoyed Berlin, although at some point we’d like to go back and do the Jewish museum properly (this is probably something that would be better without children, or with children who are old enough to understand it). We had really beautiful weather on Saturday (better than Copenhagen!) and we all had a good time.
Hugo and Sophie sleeping through the significant viewing of the Brandenburg Gate (ironically, though understandably, access through the gate was blocked off this weekend).
Tivoli must have been putting up their Halloween decorations since they closed for the summer season - it was amazing, they had additional rides and stores, there were pumpkins of every conceivable size in every nook and cranny available. If this is an indication of the effort they’ll put in for the Christmas season, I am really looking forward to it!
Hugo has enjoyed the Danish style Halloween - which seems to be mainly forcussed on this week (rather than later in the month like the US) which coincides with the school holidays here. There’s lots of decorating, pumpkin carving and some dressing up but not really any trick or treating.
Hugo was keen to dress up at Tivoli and chose a Knights outfit.
Walking with Dinosaurs has been on in Copenhagen this week. We would have liked to have seen in when it was in Australia but Hugo was too young so we didn’t go. When we saw it advertised here we thought we’d take the opportunity to go and see it (even though it’s in Danish).
Hugo really loved it, and Sophie loved the first half (she fell asleep after intermission and missed the whole second half, including the grand finale with the T-Rex).
On Sunday Hugo turned five! We celebrated by going to Billund, to Legoland and Lalandia. We were also very happy to have Aunty Livvy visiting from Australia as well. We had a great time, and acquired yet another massive assortment of lego.
On Monday Hugo took cupcakes to børnehave to share with his friends. It is probably not surprising that I used a Betty Crocker packet mix to make the cupcakes (I’m using the excuse that we got home late-ish on Sunday night from Billund, but the truth is I was too scared to try to work out the ingredients in Danish). I even used Betty Crocker icing mix. One of Hugo’s teachers said they were the best cupcakes he’d ever had, but I think the real reason for this is that the cakes here aren’t very much like cake in Australia. (And of course I didn’t disillusion him about the packet mix).
Other than home and work/school, the one place we’ve spent the most time here in Copenhagen is of course, Tivoli Gardens. It’s a really nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, going on some rides, playing in the playground and then having dinner in one of the cafes in the park. Sunday was the last day of the season, so we planned to spend the afternoon and evening there one last time*.
It was really busy (which we expected) but the weather was good and we still got to go on some rides and walk around enjoying the atmosphere. Because the days are so much shorter now, all the lights were on by the time we were leaving - that was a nice way to end the evening, riding the tram through the park and seeing all the rides and buildings lit up.
So long Tivoli, Thanks for all the memories.
(Tivoli will be open for ten days during October for Halloween - which coincides with school holidays, and also for a couple of weeks in December for Christmas, so we still have a few opportunities to return).
On Friday there was no preschool so Hugo requested a trip to the zoo. We haven’t been since February? … last winter - when it was freezing cold and snowing, and we subsequently had quite a short visit and missed out on seeing quite a few animals. Last time, there were baby lions. This time, there were baby almost everything else! Tigers, elephant, emu, horses … Sophie was so excited, she’s very into babies at the moment.
We rode the bike, which was short-sighted as the trip to the zoo includes the closest thing to a hill in Copenhagen. Embarrassingly, I had to get off and push the bike half way up (it’s a STEEP hill, all right!). Hugo helpfully said “it’s just like Gordon’s Hill isn’t it Mummy?” … me being Gordon, of course.
Going home was awesome though! I reckon I could have coasted most of the way home, if I hadn’t had to stop for traffic lights.
It’s nice now that she’s getting older, she enjoys our outings as much as Hugo does.
We’ve been lucky to experience many different things in our time here so far … I realised just how much we have seen and done when we were looking for something different to do this weekend (something FUN! requested Hugo. Because, you know, mostly we make him do horrible, boring things.)
Many of the suggestions were for things we’d already seen, so we decided to go further afield to Knuthenborg Safari Park. It’s located near the town of Maribo, about 1.5 hours drive south from Copenhagen (maybe less, if you know where you’re going). We’d been to Woburn Safari Park in England but this was waaaaay better. The animals were right up close … really, really close sometimes. There is an extensive playground for the children, and while some of the areas are defined as “stay in the car”, in a lot of places you can park and walk right up to the animals (if you want to!).
We got really lucky with the weather, it was a fantastic Autumn day, sunny and warm, and I’d say we had a FUN! day. The lemurs were fearless, quite happy to walk along with us. The rhinos passed so close to the car, I was glad we had the windows up. Hugo was fine with the rhinos (I guess he’s had experience with big game animals) but got very worried when I wound the window down to take a photo of the camels - he really didn’t want the camels to come over to the car. We pondered together, if wallabies are Australian, but they live in Denmark, do they speak English, or Danish? (A little bit of both, we decided).
I think Hugo’s favourite part of the day was riding the monkey-bus. Sophie’s favourite part was eating ice-cream (or possibly the monkey food she sampled on the monkey-bus).
We’ve spent quite a lot of time this year in planes, in cars, trains, on bikes just getting around and going places. Late last year, before we left Australia, I couldn’t even get my head around the idea of living away for a year because I was totally focused on getting through the first, awful 24 hours on the plane. As it happens, that flight wasn’t so bad all things considered (’all things’ being that Sophie had approximately 5 hours of sleep in the 36 hour period before we landed at LHR, including the hour long nap she’d had at home before we got on the plane). We learnt a few tricks - mostly involving lollies, biscuits and inflight entertainment about keeping the kids happy on the plane.
Since then we’ve taken a lot of short flights of up to 3 hours and a couple of longer flights around six hours, most with varying success at not being *THOSE* people with *THAT* child - with one vivid exception on the flight from Spain to England. Sophie had recently turned two, which meant she had to have her own seat (and sit in it for take off and landing) for the first time, which meant between us we needed four seats on a plane that was configured with 3seats on either side of the aisle. It made sense to split up 2 and 2 across an aisle and hope that the flight wasn’t so full that we didn’t have people in the third seat. As it happened, I did get someone else in my row, owing to the proximity of some old bloke who apparently sang in Spandau Ballet or something, and the girl who sat near me said she didn’t mind sitting next to a child (she was just desperate to get the old bloke’s autograph). Ha ha. I bet she was less happy by the time we landed. Sophie was VERY unhappy about having to sit in her own seat for take off and landing and screamed for a good 30 minutes (it felt more like hours) from the time the seatbelt sign flicked on until we had taxied into the terminal. It was probably my second-worst-case flying scenario (the first involves copious amounts of bodily fluids in addition to the previous situation - thankfully, we’ve never experienced that) and in spite of the trauma at the time, it wasn’t really that big a deal in the end. Also thankfully, we haven’t had a repeat of that level of distress on a plane again either.
Funnily enough, since all the traveling we did over summer, the children often play the ‘aeroplane’ game, where they pack a little bag of colouring in and assorted toys, then sit in seats next to each other and play, and eat snacks from a tray. They spend hours playing it, good practice for our flight home in a few months.
There are a lot of websites that list helpful tips for traveling with children, and I’ve always been one to run with the herd, so here are mine:
* Try to pack as light as possible. Even with taxis or airport-to-hotel transfers, it is still a pain in the neck to lug baggage, pushchairs, children and husbands around the place. To that end, if you use a travel cot beg, borrow or steal an ultra-light, folds-up-tiny one. We use a Phil&Teds T2 and it’s well worth the outlay for the convenience of not having a huge amount of extra luggage.
* Don’t take a thousand and one different activities in your hand luggage to entertain children on flights. I know lots of people say to pack little wrapped gifts to make the flight fun and blah blah blah but honestly, it was really just a hassle to rummage through a packed-to-the-gills backpack to find a pencil or a DVD. In the end, a few crayons and a pad of paper, plus a DVD on a laptop covered most of our flights easily. Anything more just ended up getting in the way, not getting used, falling on the floor … However, one exception to the pack lightly rule - take (at least) a spare tshirt for EVERYONE. Me, Sophie, vomit, JFK airport before boarding a long haul flight - that’s all I have to say about that.
* If in doubt, take a pushchair. Especially if you’ll be doing a lot of walking. On most flights we’ve been allowed to take our small umbrella strollers right to the gate, and often right onto the plane. And they always come in handy to hang bags on the handles and shove extraneous purchases in the basket when you’re out and about.
*Jet-lag … On the plane we take sleep whenever we can get it. Trying to control when the children sleep is pointless and doesn’t really seem to work so we just let them sleep as much as possible during the actual flight. Most of our long haul flights have had us arriving at our destination early in the morning. Once we arrive we aim to limit day time sleeps to no more than a couple of hours and to be awake by early afternoon, get outside as much as possible the first couple of days, try to get to bed as close to the usual time and so far this has worked quite well for us. We make the kids stay in bed until a reasonable time in the morning, and resettle them back to sleep for any overnight wake-ups rather than letting them get up and play, eat or whatever.
We’re now only 3 and a half months away from heading back home, and I’ve discovered that the best way to approach traveling with children is to just relax and take each day as it comes. Routines have to be adjusted and compromises made but it’s really just for a short time and things DO get back to normal. It’s worth it!
September seems to be circus month in Copenhagen, there have been a few different circuses advertised around our suburb lately. I can’t even remember the last time I heard of a circus in Australia …
Recently, while we were in Spain over Summer, we saw a circus tent and had wanted to go while we were there but unfortunately they didn’t have a show on the night we wanted to go so since then, we decided that if we could find a circus in Copenhagen, Hugo could go. Sure enough, within weeks posters started appearing everywhere advertising the BEST! circus in Denmark, Denmark’s PREMIER! circus, the NUMBER ONE! circus … (these are all different circuses!).
Cirkus Dannebrog* set up it’s big top just outside the post office here in Østerbro last week, and purely by virtue of it’s closeness, Hugo went to their show this weekend. He loved the clowns (and understood their crazy antics, even though it was all in Danish), the performing dogs, the horses … but the highlight (well, for me at least) was that he got to RIDE AN ELEPHANT.
Like I said, I’m not aware of any circuses in Australia, but even if they’re out there I’m pretty sure (public liability being the issue that it is in Australia) that riding an elephant is NOT part of the show. He was all very down to earth and serious about it. No, he wasn’t scared at all.
* Dannebrog, just by way of interest, is the name given to the Danish flag (literally, Danish cloth). The flag is used for all occasions here, particularly birthdays. When we first arrived, I thought there were an awful lot of national holidays because nearly every week I’d see Danish flags everywhere, but it just turned out to be different birthday celebrations.
Hugo’s børnehave held their sommerfest (summer party) this evening. Everyone brought different dishes so there was lots of yummy food (among his classmates, Indian, South American, Japanese, and of course Danish), and lots of games to play. They had decorated the school with balloons and fairy lights, and all the kids were so excited.
Sophie, who wishes she could stay with Hugo every time we take him to school, was also extremely excited about going to the party. She even put on party clothes (not a small achievement, as getting her to agree to ANY clothes at the moment can be fraught with danger).
While Hugo had a good time playing the different games, Sophie’s favourite place was the disco room. She’s a total groover, she’ll dance to anything!
