The Island of Fyn

After Theta was blessed and before my mom and F left for UT, we took a brief trip to Denmark! We went to the island of Fyn (or "Funen" in English, "Fünen" in German), which is in between the Jylland (or "Jutland", Jütland") Peninsula (which is directly north of Germany) and the island of Sjælland (or "Zealand", "Seeland") (where Copenhagen is). 

Here I am (as a Communist?) in front of a standing stone with runes on it

that was at the end of a "ship" of standing stones.

Here we trecked across a field of barley* to get to this stone structure...yup, it was just on the edge of a field with no real path to it. Luckily the grain had already been harvested.

As Theta appears in this next picture I'll take the time to mention that Hans Christian Andersen, author of fairy tales like The Little Mermaid + The Ugly Duckling, was born on this island. We had planned to go to a restaurant in his home town called "The Ugly Duckling" for traditional Danish cuisine, but when we got there the proprietor said we'd only have 15 Minutes (instead of the publicly posted 45) to eat lunch.

We decided to go somewhere else instead and during this search we found ourselves across from Andersen's house! However because Theta was feeling fussy (hungry) and I'd surreptitiously started breastfeeding** him. We ended up going in circles around this one block and finally settling on a little pizza restaurant (partly because almost everything else was closed(!)***.

Now for some more yoga in picturesque places!

My cute parents!

And a beautiful sunset.

* I knew that this grain was barley, because of teaching my Waldorf class about it in 3rd + 4th grade :). We had 2 units "From the Kernel to Bread" in which we learned about different grains and actually plowed a field, sowed, weeded, harvested, threshed + ground wheat to make bread! It was tasty + allowed us to more fully appreciate our food!

**So, breastfeeding in Denmark. I realize that there are those who don't want to see breastfeeding in public, but I am definitely of the opinion that breastfeeding is exactly what those body parts are there for! Of course being discreet is still a fine idea.

Anyway, in our looking for a restaurant with typical Danish food, we stumbled across an article reporting on the fact that there was a court ruling that women breastfeeding in public establishments could be asked to leave...*sigh*. So apparently the Danes, though forward-thinking in many ways, haven't made much progress here.

Thus our hesitancy to enter the museum of Andersen's house with a fussy baby and then a being-breastfed-baby...but we saw it from the outside! :)

***This food adventure seemed to confirm the 'bias' attained from the last time we went to Denmark with my parents, where everything was closed -- it being Maundy Thursday, which is a national holiday in Denmark...oops! Here's my mom's post about that adventure :)