Legoland!

Last weekend we were lucky enough to be gifted with some free tickets to Legoland! (That's the original Danish Legoland. Legos are Danish, you know). So we hopped on a bus to Billund and rode all the way to Syddanmark.

We were joined by B's colleague, French J, and his girlfriend Lithuanian A. (Sorry, I know this is getting complicated, but we already have a J and an A. And we have to protect the identities of the innocent).

The bus trip was about an hour and 45 minutes. The bus picked us up just across the street from our apartment, drove through Silkeborg, stopped at the Billund Airport, and then dropped us off approximately at Legoland. Actually it was about a kilometer away, in the middle of a field, but we didn't mind, even though it was about 7 Celsius and raining. (That's because we're practically real Danes now. Cold and wet? No, pleasantly soggy and refreshing! Brisk!)

At first, we thought the key attraction would be Miniland, a huge replica of famous locations all built out of Legos. It was in fact very cool.

Look at all the windmills!

Copenhagen harbor

Anyone recognize this location? E did! (Answer at the end of post).

A little piece of home

But Legoland has a lot more going on than just awesome models. They have boats you can ride as you tour the models! And the boats are made of Legos!

Never thought I'd be on a Legoboat! (That's French-J and Lithuanian-A behind us!)

On our second boat ride of the day! Watch out for sharks!

We made some new friends, too.

B gets cozy with a Legolady.

E poses with a genuine ancient Egyptian. Hey, doesn't he remind you of this guy?

At the end of it all was a pretty impressive Lego store. Of course, they had all of the sets you could ever want, but they also had these:

Legos in bulk! (Look closely - they're actual Lego people parts!)

B is overwhelmed

Our day ended with some excitement. We weren't entirely sure where to catch the bus back (perhaps because we'd just been abandoned in a field earlier?) and it was the last one of the day. B and French J asked at a help desk, and discovered--oh joy! that the alleged stop was a mere 200 meters away. This seemed surprising as it was nowhere near where we'd disembarked that morning.

Well, we walked along for about 200 meters and came to a bus stop... that wasn't ours. No 913 X bus at that stop! After briefly reviewing our options, we decided to go search for another bus stop somewhere in the vicinity of the morning's drop-off point. Sadly, no sign of a returning bus stop did we see. So, with only about 12 minutes before the bus was supposed to come, we decided that our best bet was to walk (really fast) to Billund Airport. We could see it in the distance and knew it to be not more than 2 km from Legoland. Well, after tearing across the Danish countryside for just about 2 km, we made it in the nick of time! Exciting stuff.

* The mystery location? Norre Vorrepoer - home of the Nordsoe Akvariet, made famous in a previous ADAFT post!