Two Days in Ostjylland - one rainy, one sunny

A month after the first post, and a lot has happened.

We have driven our dog 3,000 miles across America, to her new temporary home in Portland, OR; packed up a large house that we have accumulated all manner of crap in for the past 17 years; and reduced our necessary possessions to three 50-lb. suitcases, two carry-on bags, and two crated bicycles. We have been in Denmark, at Bo's parents house in the small town of Oster Bjerregrav for four days now and only one of the those days could be called sunny. From 102 degrees and muggy in NJ to 52 degrees and rainy is quite an adjustment.

On Saturday ( 6/14), we went into the nearby city of Randers, where the sculptures of Jens Galschiot are scattered throughout town (http://www.randerskunstmuseum.dk/FrontEnd.aspx?id=3035). He is a very political Danish sculptor, whose most famous piece involves an obese naked woman holding the scales of Justice riding piggyback on the shoulders of an emaciated man. Others around town depict specific homeless people from throughout the world, and allegorical groups such as this trinity in a new public square adjacent to the art museum: 

Hard to see from this shot, but on each cross is hanging a pregnant teenage girl as a protest against the Roman Catholic Church's prohibition on birth control in a world where so many unwanted children are born into dire poverty. Compelling, if rather obvious, and absolutely the LAST thing you'd see on view with the help of public funding in the US. Remarkably, there were no protesters in sight.

On a more light-hearted note, there were young street performers in another part of town hamming it up, doing head stands in broken glass, banging on drums and the like. One performer was my in-laws' next door neighbor, Caroline.

Caroline

Yesterday was the best chance of non-rain in sight, so we set off on our bikes at 8:30AM for Mariager, a scenic old town on Mariager Fjord about 16 miles form Bjerregrav. It started off well, but within an hour, dark clouds loomed and we ran into a medium rain shower. A quick change of jackets made it bearable, then absolutely doesn't-get-better-than-this perfect when the cloud passed over and we were again cycling in brilliant sunshine.

We got to Mariager by 10AM and it was deemed too short a ride for such a nice day, so Bo revisited the maps and we lengthened the ride up along Mariager Fjord and back through the farmland north of Randers where so much of Bo's family has held farms and businesses over the years.

Bo consulting bike map in central square of Mariager

Andrea biking along Mariager Fjord towards Assens

Kind of a mistake....Yes, it was lovely landscape and yes, the rain held off. But we were hit with an unbelievable headwind for the last third of the 56 mile bike ride and had to pedal pretty hard to avoid being blown backward, even going downhill. We earned a beer with our very late lunch. But it was definitely a cautious tale about biking in Denmark.