Thursday,  June 01, 2000

 NOTE - Today is Ascension Day, which is a religious holiday in Europe.  Therefore the Church Archive in Neustadt , which is normally opened only on Thursday morning’s …… was closed.  This was a disaster to John.   He found this out only 1 week before leaving for our trip to the island.  Visiting the archives, to do some research for his website friends, was one of the main reasons for visiting Fehmarn.  (These church records that he looks up are not available in the United States on microfilm.)

 When he realized this was going to be a big problem, he sent a few quick e-mails to a friend in Germany, and our problem was solved.  Frau Melitta Mull-Ehler agreed to meet us at the archives and open them for us on Friday, instead.  This was wonderful and we are most grateful to Frau Ehler and to John’s friend, Detlef Rahlf.

 Today, we decided to take some time off from our research and be real tourists!!  We’re going to take the ferry from Puttgarden, to Rodby, Danmark.  Our plans were to see Copenhagen  (Kopenhavn as spelled by the Danes) and take a few side trips on the way to see the small villages of Stensby and Kalvehavn.  Tressie has ancestors from those areas and she wanted to find the local churches and cemeteries.

  
Ferry from Puttgarden to Rodby

  This ferry is amazing.  (You must remember, I come from Florida and we don’t have ferries.)  It’s able to transport large trucks, train cars, trailers, campers, buses and cars of all kinds.  We even saw some bicycles!  There are about 5 of these very large and modern ships; therefore there is only a short wait of no more than 15 minutes.  The toll for our car and 4 people was 85 DM.  (*Tip- this was the fare for one-way.  Ask about a 2-way fare.  We forgot to ask, and it probably would have saved us some money.)  After driving aboard, we went upstairs to a spacious waiting area.  Tressie, Alan and I went off in separate directions to explore the ship.  I found several restaurants, nice bathrooms, 4 slot machines, video games, and a large duty-free shop…… selling liqueur, cigarettes, perfumes, make-up, candy and other assorted items.  It was a very smooth and comfortable ride across the Fehmarn Belt and the 45 minutes for the crossing went by very quickly. 

 When we arrived in Denmark, the passport control checkpoint just waved us thru.  I was upset!!  I’ve now been to Germany and Denmark and my passport has NO stamps yet.  No one is going to believe I’ve been anywhere!!!  Maybe when we come back into Germany, someone will stamp my ‘empty’ passport. 

 Before we knew it, we were driving on Hwy 47 through the Danish countryside.  We came across the first field of raps flowers still in bloom that we have seen on this trip.   This year we have seen no brilliant yellow fields like we did last year.  What a difference.  The fields we’ve seen this year are great expanses of green. 

 After stopping at an information center, we realized that the Danish kroners are very confusing to us.  We bought a postcard for 8 kroners. The rate of exchange is about 8:1, which is much greater than the German marks, being about 2:1.  Because of this, today’s expenditures will appear to cost more and will probably confuse us all day long.

 We found the Church and cemeteries for the small towns of Stensby and Kalvehavn.  We all got out, stretched our legs and wandered around the cemeteries, as Tressie was excited to find the area of her ancestors. 

This church is the oldest building in Kalvehavn.  It sits atop the hill between the old and new parts of the village.  The nave and the chancel were built around 1225-50.  The vestry and another additional building called The Soldiers Church were built in 1652 as the date on the gable clearly indicates. 

Church in Kalvehavn, Denmark

  TRESSIE- “I was excited to be in the place my father’s ancestors came from and to see the fields and hills they must have walked and farmed.  I started looking at the headstones in the cemetery, and realized our family names were everywhere.  The church at Stensby was closed and I was disappointed. But the church at Kalvehavn was open and having services for Ascension Day.  Soon the services ended, and Alan spoke with the pastor, who invited us to view the church.  We spoke to Pastor Knud  Munch and I told him I was a descendent of Ole Hansen Zoebell, Rasmus Rasmussen and others from this area.  He told me about a painting in the Stansby Church that was painted, using my ancestor, Ole as the model for “the good Samaritan”.  Now I was really sorry that I had missed seeing that church.”

 Back on the Highway, we pulled into a rest stop to visit the WC (toilette).  It was a single seater, with a cold metal bowl (no seat).  This cool, cool weather can sure make that metal bowl a shocker.  We had to wait in a short line.  When we came out the guys were laughing, because a busload of teenagers had drove up to use the facilities also.  But there being limited seating; all the young men had lined up next to our parked car and urinated on the bushes all in a row.  Our guys were really glad we missed that one!!!!

 Toilets in this country are a little different than the ones in the US of A.  They seem to be more water-efficient here, as they have very little water in the bottom of the bowl.  Another difference is all the different types of buttons to push for flushing.   But I must say, the public toilets are the cleanest I have ever seen.

 Finally, with only a small amount of difficulty, we found the city of Kopenhavn.  After driving through the center of the downtown area, Alan found a small parking lot with an open spot.  We parked the car and nice, local couple stopped us from buying a parking ticket at the automat machine.  We found out there are no parking fees required on holidays and today was Ascension Day!  The local people have been so kind and helpful to us, both in Germany and Denmark.

 We were hungry and wanted it fast, so we walked to the main square by the beautiful City Hall building and went into Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch.  The cost for two 2-piece meals and drinks was 92 kronners.  We thought that was a bargain.  The food was the same as back home.  Not very adventurous, but we just wanted a quick meal at this point.  We planned to do lots of sightseeing, and didn’t want to waste the time on eating.

TRESSIE- “Alan and I went nextdoor to a 2-story Burger King for our lunch.  We had a whopper meal and a chicken sandwich meal for 99.50 kroners.   Hooray!  The hamburger was the same as back home…. No cucumbers and real ketchup for the French fries.”

 Now we were ready to site-see in Kopenhavn.  We went to Louis Tussoud’s Wax Museum.  They had lots of European and American famous people on display.  We saw royal families of Denmark and England, and Heads of many of the major countries of the world, past and present.  John took my photo with President Clinton and I thought we made a cute couple.  The next section, after the politicians were famous artists and musicians, like Mozart, Van Gogh, Michael Angelo, Picaso and even a Mona Lisa posing for the artists.  Then came the section for famous entertainers, like Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, the Marx Brothers, and even Humphrey Bogart in Rick’s Bar from Casablanca.  Others included Elvis, Elton John, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and lots more.

 Finally…. We came to the horror section.  This was our favorite, as someone really had a sense of humor.  There were interactive touches everywhere.  Someone knew that you wanted to touch things, and they took advantage of human nature. When you opened Pandora’s box, it made lots of noise and we screamed.   Things hung from the ceiling and you ran into it in the dark.  We also found two bathroom doors that looked real.  When you opened the woman’s door, it appeared that you had accidentally opened the door on another tourist, which surprised you.   The guys opened the men’s door, and found the Devil using the urinal.  This was also very surprising!  We got a laugh out of that one. All the other displays were the usual dungeon and horror stuff….. and they were all very good.  This was a really dark area, with lots of screaming, but we loved it.

 After this, we took a sightseeing bus tour that took 1-½ hours.  This was one of those double-deckers, open top buses that drove around the city showing you the sights.  They had headphones for you to wear, with the tour explained in any of 8 languages.  We, of course, sat on top for the best view.  The charge for this tour was 100 kroner per person.

   
Tressie & Alan on tour bus

 TRESSIE- “The best thing about the tour was sitting down for that hour and a half!!  The narration from the headphones was very helpful in understanding the history of all the buildings and points of interests that were pointed out to us.  The one thing that I had wanted to see was the statue of the “Little Mermaid” in the harbor.  The bus stopped there for an extended stop, and John took our photo with the statue.”

     
Little Mermaid

  This tour was very interesting and enjoyable.  We rode around in the top of that bus and saw some beautiful sights.  The old buildings were pointed out and explained about thru the narration on the headphones.  The narration went along perfectly with the driving and the historical information about the sights made everything very interesting.  We saw some absolutely beautiful government buildings, lots of statutes, parks, waterways, the harbor, and some other major sites.  This was well worth the price and enabled us to see more of the city than we ever could have if we had just drove around in our car.

   
Street in Kopenhavn

 When we got off the bus, we wandered down a street with many shops, crowded with people and street venders and musicians playing to the public for coins.  After a while, we decided to find a restaurant for dinner, while our friends, Tressie and Alan, wandered a little more.  We found the Shanghi Restaurant and ate Chinese food in Kopenhavn!  The restaurant was a nice place to sit and relax, but we were a little disappointed with the food.  We probably should have tried the local food, but we were tired.  Live and learn (for about 270 kronner for the meal). 

 We had arranged to meet back at the car by 6:30 pm and again found our friends with the use of the family radios.  Once at the car, we were on our way out of the city.   By this time, we needed gas for our little rental car, so we stopped at a Shell gas station.  Gas cost 8.86 kronner per liter for a total expenditure of 286.07 kronner.  For this, we got 32.62 liters of gas.  Being a bookkeeper, I of course got my calculator out and figured out that we had just purchased about 8.6 gallons of gas at just over $4.00 per gallon.  John said that he’d never complain about the price of gas in America again!!

 The ride back to the ferry went quickly, as we made no stops along the highway this time.  Once on the ferry, we sat in the forward restaurant, ate some snacks and relaxed while we watched out the large windows as the beautiful view of the Fehmarn Belt went by. 

 Once off the ferry, we got on the Autobahn, and realized we were in trouble, when we missed our exit to Burg….. the only exit.  Soon we were passing thru the Fehmarn Sund Bridge and going off the island.  We goofed!  Turning around was also confusing, but soon we were going back to the island.  By this time, being very tired, we were laughing about our situation.  We envisioned us ending up at the port again!!  Luckily, we found our exit and were soon back at our room, resting for the evening.

 Click here to continue on to Friday

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