4 months 3 bags 2 chances: The Family at Tivoli... Ree POV

Saturday rolled around and we thought the kids would burst! My second cousin Kate organised for the Sprogoe family to meet up at the Denmark's version of Disneyland. Wise choice - can't imagine kids would have been nearly so excited to attend a family reunion under other circumstances.

Tivoli is wonderful.

It's more than a century old and has about it the style of an old fashioned toy store except there's no toys and it's outdoors - it just FEELS like a toystore - full of wonders. The word (from Zoe our resident provider of little-known-facts) that it was on a visit here that Walt Disney was inspired to create Disneyland. Every corner turns up a treat for the eyes. There are games for the young and the old, some that have been around for decades. There are rides and restaurants and beautiful gardens. Despite its age, it doesn't seem tarnished at all and the mood is quite just jubilant. This might also have a little to do with the fact that Copenhagen is having a patch of extraordinarily good warm weather, its school holidays, it was a Saturday and Sting was also performing in one section of the park - so it was a pretty good crowd. Even without these extras - I thoroughly recommend a visit.

We met Ulla out the front and she walked us in to the cafe where we were meeting up with her friend Peter, and with another second cousin Kate and her Father (my Dad's cousin) Finn. Finn is 87 and he and Kate were travelling nearly 2 hours to join us at Tivoli. I reckon its pretty cool that an octogenarian is happy to meet up in an amusement park. That's how cool Tivoli is - and that's how cool Finn is.

I met Ulla and Peter in the Czech Republic at my brother's wedding a few years ago, and Lorry and the kids and I all met Kate when she travelled to Perth a few years ago with her daughter Naja - but we had never met Finn. He and my Dad used to holiday together when they were boys and as such he's the only Danish relative I have who has ever met my Dad. He was very charming and had drawn a picture for both Zoe and Drew to have in their rooms - he's very good with crayons and apparently draws pictures for a lot of the people who live around him too. Not to be outdone, Drew started to draw one for Finn - so an exchange took place.

garden everywhere - walking to the cafe

Zoe and Finn playing drinking games. Finn won

At the cafe we decided to go a bit traditional and Lorry and I both ordered the smorrebrod. Official definition: a piece of dense rye bread buttered and then covered, often to some height, with a variety of different toppings - lots to choose from. Lozza went the vegetarian option and might argue that the traditional definition would need to include the words "teeny tiny" before the word "piece". I, however, ordered mine with the "flaeskesteg" (traditional danish roast pork with crackling - mmmmmmm) heaped on top and was nicely satiated thank you!

Finn showed us how to chase it down!

Taj MaTivoli - one of the famous Tivoli fountains in front a bit white arabic looking building. Got no more info on that - just that its been there forever.

Lorry, Drew, Kate, Finn, Ulla, Ree and Zoe (photo courtesy of Ulla's friend Peter) - gorgeous sunny day

Naturally, there is nothing better than to eat a big meal and then jump on board a stomach-summersaulting ride...

Zoe and I rode this 100 year old roller coaster - so old that it still requires a "brakeman" to sit on that little black seat in the middle there and manually operate the brake as the coaster goes around corners. The driver seemed quite blazé I have to say. Great ride though. Scary now - so imagine that 100 years ago it was quite ahead of it's time. Those Danes were very progressive.

This game was very cool. A circular room with a contraption not unlike a massive record player I guess. Three toy "postmen" go around the circuit - each riding a bicycle with a basket. Each basket contains a great big box of chocolates or the like - something to make your kids want to bet their own kidney that it arrives at their spot. You drop a coin into a specific slot based somewhere on the circuit and then claim that spot and if the postman stops at your location you win whatever is in the basket and much kudos. We didn't win. Ooooh but we tried. Kids were all for dropping a coin in every single slot - even when i explained the illogical mathematics of that idea. Seems that winning the chocolate is more important than what it costs.

Then Zoe talked me into a ride on THIS thing... Turns out I'm not made of the stoic stuff I used to be. The "Star Flyer", as they nicely name it to make you think it could be quite pleasant, is a "swing ride" - and takes you up about 80 metres into the air while it gaily sends you out flying on the end of a set of tiny chains. I;m sure the laws of physics might be able to convince you that it was somehow safe, but i just kept my eyes on the extraordinary view of Copenhagen and tried not to notice how tiny everybody on the ground looked. Zoe screamed happily throughout.

Zoe, me and the flimsy chains...

Drew and Lorry went on the viking / pirate ship ride - not so scary but enough to put your stomach in the wrong spot nonetheless.

Then Drew tried THIS game. And soon Ulla and Zoe and Peter joined in. Roll the little ball up into one of the holes at the top of your playspace and hope it drops into one with a high score. The horse (seen in the background) moves along according to the score you get so you are playing everyone else at the same time. Not sure if that makes sense or not.

Well, i guess every amusement park has bumper cars. Although these ones are probably made of organic recycled materials and painted by a collective of volunteer artists. Or something.

Finn had to leave us just before 5 to make the return trip home so he and Kate bid us farewell in front of another Tivoli landmark (housing not only an auditorium but also a very impressive aquarium... with a bar in it... because you often need a drink when looking at fish)

Again thanks to Peter for his photography skills...

My lovely second-cousin-once-removed.

It was such a treat to meet family on our last stop in Europe - and to have such warm, welcoming family too. Ulla went to great lengths to show us how gorgeous Copenhagen is - from the street, from the water and above the buildings and then beyond Cophenhagen up the beautiful East Coast of Zealand. She is a great tour guide, and very generous with her time and even though she tried to convince me that not ALL Danes are amazing, kind, generous and enlightened, I don't believe her. Kate and Finn made a very long journey on a very crowded train just to meet us and spend the day and we made some wonderful memories. I'm so very glad the kids got to meet their grandfather's cousin so that they could have a clearer idea of who their grandfather was and the world he came from. Kate is calm and kind and wonderful with kids too and we really had such a lovely day with everyone together.

Peter and Ulla showed us even more of the amazing Tivoli (and turns out Peter knows just about every ride here backwards). We went to more rides and games and the lake and saw more cafes and restaurants and lots of special touches here and there... like this dude.

But eventually, after a huge day, Ulla and Peter had to get going and even the kids needed a pit stop - so we said "farvel" and headed back to our hotel for an hour or so - only after promising the kids we would return after dinner to do more stuff!

MORE STUFF:

Kids psycho-room... full of crazy moving staircases, ladders, bridges, tubes, tunnels, platforms, ramps and sweat. They loved it.

Dusk... and then dark... and naturally a mountain of sugar just before bedtime.

Although you can't get the effect of it here - about 200 metres away Sting was on stage doing an outdoor show for the folk of Tivoli - so we had a pretty awesome soundtrack while we roamed about doing everything we possibly could before it was literally too dark to find each other (Drew got lost again - completing his unblemished record of being lost in every city we visited) But somehow it was Tivoli and warm and slightly surreal and we all met up next to the ice-cream shop. Serendipity? Practice? Possibly both.