LAST GASP BEFORE WINTER WITH KENDELL AND RUTH

Fall has plunked itself down with a thud.  It came suddenly after summer fizzled and left with hardly a whimper.  Shy as a wall-flower, summer never really tried to be friendly.  I kept asking everyone when it would arrive - all through June, July and August I wondered.  "Well," everyone stalled.  "You just never know."  I'll say!  NEVER being the key word here.  A few sunny days masquerading as summer in August does not count.  A smattering of a few warm weeks in September does not count.    Stingy Season.  One thing I worried about was our final visitors of the year:  Kendell and Ruth.  They scheduled their trip for the last of September and the first of October.  With summer so fickle, I just prayed the weather would hold until they came.  We were already fighting a few tourist-type downers:  1. Tivoli closed for the season  2.  Temple closed for fall break  3. Church cancelled because of General Conference  (we love GC, but wanted them to see our branch)  4.  Days shorter  5.   Visiting hours for tourists sites reduced.  So I was a little worried that they would not have enough to see.

Well.  not to worry.  Kendell and Ruth are ideal tourists.  Curious as cats, they scoured the travel books and poured over the maps, looking for out-of-the-way places to visit and ways to minimize travel and maximize sight-seeing.  They became experts on Frederick the 4th and Christian the 5th and read every historical word in the museums.  They knew far more that we, and ended up educating us!  Cool.  And the weather was miraculously cooperative!

We try to have all our visitors see some things that the others do not.  So in keeping with that, we visited Grundtvigs Kirke here in Copenhagen.  This massive cathedral, made entirely of bricks, is not old, but styled with  a classic combination of medieval battlements, Gothic pillars and pointed arches. Simplicity.  Dizzying heights.  Light spilling in from the high windows making the ordinary, yellow brick walls look glossy.  I don't know how many bricks were used, but one solid pillar contains 30,000 - the most bricks used in any one building in Denmark.

We did all the basic touristy things and then Kendell and Ruth went out on their own.  Went to Sweden on a ferry,  poked around Copenhagen's warren of streets,  and even rode bikes.  Brave souls.  

L-R  Hans Christian Andersen's home street,  Fredericksberg Slot,  Nyhavn,  Christianborg.

Selfie stick,  people.  I want one. They snapped this gorgeous roof-topped pano of the city from a church tower.

As for Danish food:  Kendell and Ruth loved the smørresbrød.  So Danish.  The restaurant below is famous for their open faced sandwiches.  Yes, we  they had liver....... more than once!

L-R Baltic Sea at Stevns Klint, Rosenborg Slot, Carl Bloch paintings at Frederiksberg

We went over the Big Belt to Fuenen and Ruth found her ancestral church.  She was really exited about that.  We went to Odense and strolled down the street where H.C. Andersen was born.  (Famous fairy tale guy here.)  Stuccoed houses with roses climbing the walls.  Charming.  

On one excursion we found a Halloween shop and even though Halloween is not huge here yet, this shop had all the good stuff.

On Sunday we went to our version of General Conference: a  mixture of recorded and live sessions at really strange times.  The mission president and a good group of missionaries met for conference and ate chili dogs provided by the senior couples.  It was wonderful to watch conference with family and hear the inspired words from inspired men and women.  Conference uplifts and boosts lagging spirits and helps keep us focused on the important things in life.  Facebook had a flood of quotes and praises about Women's Conference and the Saturday Sessions so anticipation was high here, and we were not disappointed.  All too soon,  Kendell and Ruth had to return home,  but we were so glad they came and loved having them.