Super Fun/Dorky Weekend Times

Last Friday, I decided to skip work on Friday afternoon (everyone is on vacation anyways) and play tourist in Aarhus. The first place I went was the Aarhus Viking Museum. Nothing in the museum itself was very exciting, but the location of the museum was. The museum is located in the basement of a Nordea bank on the "Big Square" in Aarhus downtown. Why? Because this was the site of the original city of Aros in the 800s, which would one day become modern Aarhus. There was a skeleton in the floor that had not been moved from it's original location, and a lot of artifacts that had been found in the area. The city of Aros was about 9 feet under the level of the present day city. As I left the museum, it started to rain, so I ducked into the Aarhus Domkirke, or Cathedral. It was a pretty standard Danish cathedral - a lot of people buried in the floor and in the walls. However, there were a lot of really neat frescos, like this one of St. Clement, the guy on the right with the anchor. He is the patron saint of sailors and churches that are near the ocean.

The next day, I went with my friend Ulla to the Viking Moot at Moesgaard Beach, just south of Aarhus. It was crazy! There were people there from all over Europe: Iceland, Germany, England, Romania, Poland, etc. There was a big viking battle between two teams. These two teams were composed of smaller bands that practice and fight together all time. Here is one team getting pysched up for the battle:
The battle began when one team tried to steal the other's land. Here is the battle in full swing (also, lots of blond people):
After the battle was finished, there was a demonstration of special Viking horses. We know that these are Viking horses because the Vikings were the only ones to ever bring horses to Iceland, and this species of horse is now only found in Iceland. Today there are many regulations about bringing animals into the country, because the Icelandic people are worried that the horses could be wiped out by a foreign disease. These horses (they are small - more like ponies) have one more gait than regular horses. This gait is very fast but very smooth for the rider. The riders were showing off the smoothness of this gait by zipping around the field on their horses while drinking full cups of beer and not spilling a drop. Here are some of the ponies:
Finally, Ulla and I ate some authentic Viking lunch: flatbread and lamb roasted over a fire. It was really good! The whole time, I kept realizing how totally nerdy this festival was, but completely not caring because it was also really fun. This is also really funny because Rebecca and Claire, while in India, saw a TV special about this festival. Claire told me about it while in London, and then laughed at me for being a dork when I said that I really wanted to go.

On Sunday, I headed to Den Gamle By, or "The Old Town". This is a living history museum in Aarhus, that has old (1700s and 1800s) houses from all over Denmark. The houses have been moved there to create a sample 1800s Danish village, complete with all kinds of shops and tradesmen. Here is what a typical Danish house from that era looks like.
Also, here is a street scene with a Danish (read: not very tall) skyscraper. Ooh, juxtaposition.
One of my favorite shops was the chemist's shop. There was a special poison cabinet with a cool skull motif carved into it, and a bunch of preserved animals meant to give the shop an "exotic" air. There was a huge snake, a baby alligator, and a "sea monkey" that was a strange, stitched together, hybrid of a monkey and a fish. Another neat shop was the tobacco shop. Tobacco was actually grown in Denmark, especially during war-times when it couldn't be imported. There was a tobacco drying shed that looked pretty much like the ones we saw in Nicaragua, except smaller and with 100% less scary guards with machine guns. Once the tobacco leaves were dried, they used a special machine to roll them into a long rope. This was then cut into whatever length you wanted when you bought tobacco. There was another exhibit about tobacco through the ages, and there was even an authentic "gentleman's smoking lounge"!
How classy! There was also an old graveyard, which I thought was cool.
They also showed all the gravestone maker's tools and had some information about the methods used to make them. There was a ton more stuff at this village, and it was really fun to wander around for the day. I learned a lot more about Danish history and the way life was like in the1800s. It was interesting because the 1800s in Denmark is really different than the context in which I normally thing about the 1800s, with my American West mindset.

And finally, they are making some additions to the museum soon. Please read about building number 2.
OK, let me get this straight. They are going to take elderly people suffering from dementia, who I'm sure are already very confused about various things, AND MAKE THEM THINK IT'S 1974??? Seriously? W. T. F.