Danish Family Ties

Whew, what a day! We started off when Joan and Sam called at about 7, ready to head for breakfast. The hotel does a free one for the guests, but it was pretty nice. The pastries here are wonderful. Go figure! After breakfast we went out shopping, so that gifts could be purchased for people back home. Joan was specifically looking for a ring, so we did a lot of window shopping.
Then we came upon the Royal Copenhagen store. So cool! We spent quite a little while wandering through and looking at all the different styles of kitchen sets, collectibles, and other figurines they had in stock. It was wonderful, though it would be better to actually get to see them painting the pieces. Still, it was neat to wander through the store.
After Joan and Sam headed back to the hotel, Mormor and I kept wandering for while longer. We found a really cute jewelry store, to which I am debating purchasing a pair of earrings, and on our way back heard a band playing. We stopped to figure out what it was and realized it was the Danish changing of the guards and the royal band and new guard set were marching down the street toward the palace. We quickly followed them and got to see the whole ceremony, which we later learned not only happens when the royal family is in residence, but that it meant the queen was there because they have different, less extravagant ones when it is only the princes there.
Shortly after this Helle and Mona came by the hotel to start our afternoon together. Their grandfather was my great-great-grandmother's brother. They took us to a restaurant for lunch that was right by the courthouse and the "Bridge of Sighs" and back in the day was only inhabited by prostitutes and thieves. Today it is one of the older restaurants in the city. They ordered us several plates of traditional Danish food that we could all share, Danish beer, and a Norwegian liquor which Helle referred to as...schneps, I think.
The meal was absolutely fantastic and once we were all stuffed they lead us to the bus and back to their homes. We went to Mona's first, where we had drinks and chocolate. Mona speaks very little English, but we were able to co-mingle a conversation together and had a good time laughing at stories and our attempts to understand each other. Then we walked to Helle's house which was only 10 minutes away. She lives in the same house she grew up in, which Mormor and Joan visited in their teens. Helle says it is because she is like a turtle. She never moves.
Helle had purchased some Danish pastries and made tea and coffee for us. We spent the rest of the evening exchanging family stories, showing family trees, and just having an overall wonderful time. We didn't make it back to the hotel until almost 9 tonight.
Some of the family stories were wonderful though. Helle was telling us about how after the war, Bedstemor, Joan, and Mormor had put together packages of clothes and candy to send to them. She started crying when she told us how much it had meant, and how she'd felt like a princess in her new clothes. Mona told us how she had been the only girl to have pantyhose at that point in time, and it was wonderful. The funniest part of the story was when Mormor mentioned she remembered sprinkling some white powder in the box, because if they thought the clothes were new, they might make them pay for the package in Denmark, but if they looked used they would not have to. This made Helle laugh, because she remembered the distinctive smell (it had been moth ball dust) to the clothes, and the unusual taste it had left on the candy. She had just told her friends that this was the type of candy they ate in the States and not thought anything of it.
We also heard many stories about when the family went to visit them that last time when they were only children. It was fun to hear all these aspects of the family and to see old photos that we simply don't have access to back in the states. Overall they were both fantastic to meet, and I greatly enjoyed the day with them. Tomorrow we meet Tova and her son, who were from my great-great-grandfather's side of the family. This is the family none of us have ever met, so we can only hope it will be as wonderful as today was.