There and Back Again : Vikings and bookshops

So the final week of the Christmas holdays went very fast, and was full of adventure.

Our first outing of the week was into the city to visit the Rundetaarn (round tower) and the stunning art gallery.
We started the day rather late, walking down multiple side streets searching for the tower. We even managed to find an amazing bookshop and a delicious bakery on the way.

Looking down one of the brightly coloured side streets.

The amazing sci-fi book shop we found.

mmm. Cinnamon rolls from the bakery.

Then we saw Rundetaarn (the round tower) towering above the rest of the city buildings. We joined the queue to get in, and began our ascent up the steep path to the observatory.
The tower was built in the 1600's by King Christian IV. It was originally built as an observatory, and is one of the oldest in the world.
Instead of a staircase the path to the top consists of one long ramp. This was made so that the king would not have to walk up, but be driven by a horse drawn carriage.

The tower from the outside.

The view from inside. (note the ramp)

The view from about half way up.

Carvings on the windows date back into the 1800s (this one is from the year 1900)

The view from the top of the ramp.

When we reached the end of the ramp, we took a small flight of stairs up to the observatory. When we reached the top we were met by a beautiful sight. The sun was slowly setting over the horizon and an orange light danced across the city.

The view form the top of the round tower was spectacular, we could see the whole city form up there, and it made for some great photo moments!

The sun silhouetting the city.

The city view from the observatory.

Me with the city of Copenhagen the background.

On the Friday evening Nina and myself were invited to attend a Scout meeting at my fellow Queensland SISEP Venturer Zoe's scout group. It was great to be invited to a Scout meeting, as i have not attended one (other than the camp). Since we are at a scout school, we do all of our scouting activities at the school, and do not visit a unit once a week for meetings.

When we arrived I was very pleased to see that quite a few of the SISEP Venturers on exchange in Denmark were there.

We had a very interesting night. When we arrived we were informed that we would be having crocodile for dinner, thats right crocodile. I am in no way joking!

It was rather amusing as not one of the Australian scouts had ever eaten crocodile, and of course the Danish scouts had not.

The first challenge was how to cook it.

We prepared the crocodile two ways. Both of course over the open fire. We deep fried some smaller pieces of the crocodile, and also cooked some larger pieces in a sauce.

I was definitely hesitant about trying it, however both Zoe and I attempted it, and it was quite nice... Until we thought about what we were eating. Lets just say we left the crocodile alone after that!

After fulling up on crocodile and tortillas, we all sat around the campfire singing campfire songs, and before we knew it, it was time to go home.

Cooking crocodile meat.

On the morning before we headed back to school (we returned on Sunday evening) we decided to take a trip to the viking ship museum in Roskilde.

The museum was created when five viking ships were found at Skuldel. It was originally opened in 1960 to showcase the five ships, however now a boatyard and activity centre can also be found. The museum also hosts smaller more temporary exhibits.