My First Trip to Scandinavia in 1984

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023

I received an email from a friend in Copenhagen today telling about plans to travel to Jylland, the western part of Denmark known in English as Jutland (since it juts upward from a land border with Germany).  It made me think about my travels to Jylland, so I wrote up my memories of two trips there with the first one being in 1984.  Here is what I wrote to him:

Have you ever been to Agger in West Jylland?  It's is a small fishing village.  Arne and I had a close friend (now deceased and who we called "Old Grethe" to designate her from "Nurse Grethe") who lived there with her husband Knud Eel who was an artist.  Old Grethe and I rented a car for a week on one of my trips to Denmark, because she was feeling nostalgic.  It was during the summer.  We spent a day in Agger (very small village on the coast) walking around and were invited to the home of an old friend who recognized her and who had some of Knud's artwork on the walls within his home.  We spent the rest of the week at their summer house at Slettestrad in northern Jylland.  It's another interesting place--a fishing village where the boats are pulled up onto the beach at night and then taken back into the water the next day for fishing.  We planned the trip to coincide with the midsummer event called Sankthansaften.  At the time, it was celebrated there the same as it has been for centuries.  The whole community came together for a bonfire on the beach, formed a circle around the fire, and danced and sang the midsummer songs.  During that week, we made a side trip to Skagen for a day and went out to dinner one night at the old hotel Svinkloev Badehotel just west of Slettestrand.  On our way back to Copenhagen, we stopped at the home (a remodeled old rural school house) of her daughter and son-in-law near Struer (where the son worked for B&O) and went to the large agriculture fair in Herning. 

Old Grethe gave me a set of 5 woodblock prints of life in Agger made by Knud and when Arne died I took a watercolor painting by him to remember our life in his apartment.  (The Danish consul who housed me in Calgary after Arne died had told me to take anything belonging to me and to take a few souvenirs of my life with Arne but for me to be careful not to make it look like anything was missing.  Arne had artwork that was not hanging, so I put one of those in place of the watercolor that I took.  I also took a two vases that were always in my view when we would watch TV and two glass nesting bowls--one large one given to Arne by WHO when he retired and one smaller matching one given to him by my sister when she visited--and just shifted things around to look like nothing was missing.  I think that is all I have as a physical reminder of my life with Arne other than my photo collection.  Knud Eel was never a famous painter, I don't think, but he and Old Grethe were friends with many painters at the time, and I understand that the Statens Museum has at least one piece of his art in their collection and maybe more, and as seen in the link copied to his name above, lots of his works are pictured on the Internet.  There is also a web page about the sale of his paintings which shows they are not highly prized:  https://www.invaluable.com/artist/eel-knud-a9jewezuwl/sold-at-auction-prices/  But I like the works I have as a way to remember Old Grethe, our friendship with her, and the trip that she and I made to Jylland.

The only other time I was in Jylland was on my first trip to Denmark (when I met Arne).  I had planned a trip through Scandinavia.  I spent 5 days in Copenhagen with Arne (having met him because friends from Germany who knew him had called and arranged for us to meet).  It's amazing, but I truly think that Arne and I fell in love that quickly--during those 5 days.  I was determined to continue my planned trip, though (and determined not to be an inconvenience by staying longer with Arne since I was unsure of our relationship situation at the time).  I took the train to Odense and wandered around the city and saw the home of Hans Christian Andersen.  Then I took a train to Arhus where I checked into what I remember as being named the Grand Hotel which I cannot find on the Internet, but it was a nice hotel near the Town Hall, so maybe it is what is now named Scandic The Mayor Hotel and saw nothing because it was raining very hard.  

It was still raining the next day, so I left to take the ferry from northern Jylland to Larvik in Norway.  I spent a few days in Oslo seeing the main sites.  Then I went to Bergen and spent a few days there.  The weather was beautiful and I really enjoyed exploring, but I was feeling very lonely.  Leaving Bergen as planned, I went to Ulvik at the back of a narrow fjord with blossoming apple trees going up both mountainsides from the water.  There, I stayed in the wonderful old Brakanes Hotel with a balcony view down the fjord with its apple blossoms.  It was so remote, however, and I was so lonely.  I knew no one else in Scandinavia but Arne, and I was missing him.  So I went to a public phone to call to see if I could return to Copenhagen for the rest of my trip rather than going to Sweden.  I couldn't figure out how to use the phone box--one of those where you would line up the coins and they would drop automatically when needed to keep the call going.  But a nice man who spoke English showed me which coins would work and lined them up for me.  Of course, Arne told me to return.

To get back to Copenhagen was still an adventure.  I had to spend the next day has planned--taking the small train (one that doesn't seem to exist today and was only a 1-car train then [1984]) to Myrdal in the mountains (covering the famous Flaam Railway section) and spend the cold day wandering around there before catching an overnight train from there to Oslo where I could continue onward the next day through Sweden to Copenhagen.  Arne met me at the station and I spent the final 8-10 days with him before returning home.  After that, there were LOTS of trips between Texas and Denmark by both Arne and me!!

Another Trip--Middle East Itinerary

No one has returned the journals that were taken.  I have been on a couple of trips since discovering their loss, and am now on a major one.  But the "spirit" is no longer with me to maintain journal postings.  So much of what was taken was before I started the blog and was, therefore, the only copy I had of my travel experiences during those years.  I even have problems going to the journals I still have and reading about the past travels in them because I find details there I have forgotten over time and it just increases the awareness of the loss I occurred when the journals were taken from my home.

Anyway, I am now in the Middle East for two months.  I am just finishing 9 days in Lebanon (Beirut and Tripoli).  During the rest of March, I will be in Luxor, Cairo, Muscat (Oman), renting a car and traveling around Oman, Amman (Jordan).  The April itinerary still is not confirmed yet.  I will probably post it in a week or two.

Possibly My Last Travel Bog Entry Ever and the Reason Why

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018--Cincinnati

Some of you who know I am on a trip and have been reading my travel blog probably have noticed there have been no entries for the past two days.  It is because I am upset about something that has happened, and it has caused me to lose interested in writing about my travels.

Before the travel blog, I wrote long, handwritten entries into journals related to my travels.  They took a great amount of time to write.  I didn't do this just to be doing it.  These were the records of my past.  I have gone back through entries occasionally and have always been surprised to find details that my mind had forgotten.  My plans, my reasons for writing the journals, were twofold:  1) To have them to read and remind me of my travels throughout my life as I age and can no longer travel, and 2) To possibly pick out the best of the entries to write a memoir someday.

Neither of those is going to be possible now, and that is the reason I have lost interest in writing the blog.  Someone has removed about half of my handwritten journals--from the beginning of my travels in the 1970s through early 2002--from the bookshelves in my home, and these are years BEFORE my blog, so there were no other records other than those handwritten journals.  

I've known all along that people liked to read about my travels, and I didn't mind sharing them via the blog.  That's one of the reasons why I started the blog.  But since I discovered the disappearance of my early handwritten journals, I cannot keep the loss off my mind.  Next to losing Arne as my partner, it is the worse loss I have experienced in my life.  Actually, losing those journals is like losing much of my life.  Only someone who enjoys reading about my travels would have taken them, and only someone who is enough of a friend to be invited in my home would have known what they were and have had an interest in them.

Losing the journals has caused me to lose interest in writing the blog.  I tried on this trip, but while traveling, the loss of the journals has been on my mind every day.  Finally, on Friday, I just didn't want to write another blog entry.  Yesterday was the same.  And last night when I should have been sleeping but was in fact staying away suffering from the loss of the journals I decided it is time to end the blog for now.  Maybe it will come back someday, but I am not sure.  I do plan to keep traveling with trips next year tentatively planned for Bolivia and Peru and for Lebanon, Jordan, Oman, and Egypt.  But at the present time I have no interest in sharing my travels with anyone, since among the readers is likely to be the person who took my journals.

Not everyone knows I am traveling right now.  So in addition to writing this last entry in the blog, I plan to email the entry to everyone I know well.  That way, more than likely the person who took the journals (out of interest in reading about my travels, I'm sure) will realize that they should be returned to me.

If you have my journals would you PLEASE return them?

I promise I will not try to find out who had them.  They can even be sent to my sister's mailing address and I will ask her to remove them from the packaging and to discard the packaging before giving them to me, and I promise to her now and to you that I will not ask if there was any indication of where they were sent from or who might have sent them.

Randell Drum
8000 Donore Pl. #47
San Antonio, TX  78229

My sister:
Scharlotte Bradley
8415 Fredericksburg Rd. #806
San Antonio, TX  78229

PLEASE, and goodbye.

Randy

German Village and Granville

Thursday, Oct. 25, 2017--Columbus and Granville

Today was a bit cloudy, but it was still dry.  My body was a bit sore from all the walking yesterday.  But I had plans and followed through with them.

In the morning, I drove south of downtown to the area of town called the German Village.  It is a very quaint area with mostly narrow streets paved with bricks and mostly small houses built close together with the fronts at the sidewalk line and small yards on the sides and in the back and an occasional corner retail spot, each probably a former corner grocery but now a variety of places such as chocolate shops, gift shops, restaurants, etc.  It has a European feeling to it and is a very popular neighborhood covering many blocks.  I just walked up and down the streets throughout the area and through the local Schiller Park.

From there, I needed to get to Hwy 16 to take me to the small rural town of Granville, but it wasn't easy.  So many streets are one-way and so many of those are closed off at various points because of reconstruction of intersections, installation of new under-street infrastructure, etc.  At least I knew I needed to go north to Broad Street and turn right.  But it took a backtrack or two and some zigzagging to make my way there.

When I did reach Broad Street, I was beside Franklin Park which is surrounded by nice mansions and is the home of the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.  I didn't stop, because I had read they are closed temporarily until tomorrow because of some work happening there.  If it doesn't rain, maybe I will go there part of tomorrow which will be my last day in Columbus.

Even though it is only 35 miles away, it was a long drive to Granville via Hwy 16, but it gave me a chance to see that part of Columbus.  For blocks after Franklin Park, there were nice neighborhoods.  Then I passed through an older area that has gone downhill over time.  Next came a suburban area with offices, new shopping areas, etc.  Finally, I was in the countryside.

Granville is nice and small New England-style town--one of the Top Towns in Ohio as far as multiple lists of places to visit.  It must have been a wealthy town, because there are so many large houses (blocks and blocks of them) from the 1800s and early 1900s.   There is a tiny, but beautiful and nice, downtown that is about 1 1/2 blocks long with one more block off to the side.  I walked the streets for a couple of blocks in all directions seeing the houses, the shops, etc.

Granville is also a college town with Denison University located on top of the hill above the downtown area.  Denison is similar to Trinity in San Antonio.  They have the same enrollments, are both highly ranked among small colleges, both have similar size endowments, both have campuses on hills overlooking the town, etc.  Denison has a noticeably diverse student body I observed and then read about online.  Up on the hilltop, I parked my car and walked through the major (central) part of the campus.

Back at the apartment in the middle of the afternoon, I finished watching the Danish series (the first 3 seasons of it) Dicte on Netflix; the series expires on Oct. 31.  Then at 19:30, I walked over to the High Street to explore the part of it nearest to my apartment.  There was only a short section of about two blocks with shops and restaurants.  Most of the businesses on High Street are the other direction from where I live, but now I know.

A Big Walking Day

Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018--Columbus

The goal today was to explore a large portion of Columbus.  Starting at my apartment, I walked over to High Street and then down it and off to the sides all the way to the end of downtown--to the Franklin County Municipal Court building.

Observations along the way:

On the corner by apartment there were three Bird scooters lined up.  So scooters are this far from downtown here.  I encountered a few people on scooters during the day, but not as many as I normally encounter in San Antonio. 

I walked through the Ohio State University campus.  (Well, to be honest, they are as silly about being uppity here as they are at UT in Austin:  with the official name being The Ohio State University.  Isn't that a sign of trying to overcome an inferiority complex?)  Anyway, the campus is not one to recommend to people as a place to see architecture.  Almost all buildings from about the 1930s through the early 2000s are rectangular solids (box-shaped), built of bricks--sturdy, but not very attractive and with no ornamentation.  There are a few modern attempts of buildings built of glass or metal, but even they are not ones worth a postcard image.  Most of the buildings with character and some architectural flourishes are on the Oval, the campus' version of a great lawn.  But there are even a few non-special box-like buildings there.  Since my interest was strictly architectural, I was disappointed.

High Street runs for miles north and south in this city and is lined with shops, restaurants, apartments, and offices.  It is like a multi-mile local shopping, entertainment, living, and working street.  It is very urban looking--long blocks of connected buildings rather than long stretches of separated, individual buildings.  It makes a nice urban environment for all those living a few blocks from it. 

I stopped at The Angry Bakery in the area known as Short North (a popular district between the university and downtown) and bought two pastries--a chocolate babka and an almond croissant.   Then I continued a few more blocks before turning off to Goodale Park to sit on a bench by the lake and eat them.  Being on the edge of downtown by then, I rested while reading a couple of articles in TIME magazine which arrived before I left on Saturday.

From there, I set off for the rest of downtown.  I explored the North Market, a surprisingly successful old market filled with stalls hosting restaurants, bakeries, chocolates, seafood, spices, etc.  All but one stall was occupied on the lower floor.   Its success is probably greatly attributable to the fact it is only a block from the local convention center.

There are few buildings downtown that attracted me architecturally even though most are the typical office buildings that most cities have--attractive, but bland.  But I did enjoy seeing the Leveque Tower and its adjacent Palace Theater, the Ohio Statehouse (capitol which I would have toured if I could have found an entrance, but the tourist entrance was blocked off for installation of new air conditioners), the Ohio Theatre, the Westin Great Southern Columbus Hotel and the adjacent Southern Theater, etc.  I explored as far east as Grant Avenue and as far west as Front St. 

After all of that, I walked back to the apartment along  High Street and then Indianola Street (where the apartment is located).  That carried me through the "Greek District," the blocks lined with fraternity houses and possibly some sorority houses. 

I was exhausted when I got home.  I had been gone about 5 1/2 hours and had been walking about 5 of those.  Whew!