(journal entry from September 1, 2019)
This morning we got up, ate breakfast, packed up and headed to church. Luckily, the place that we stayed last night was only about 15 minutes away from a ward building.
Today was fast and testimony meeting and since we don’t speak Swedish, they gave us head sets to wear and someone translated for us. It was really neat to get to hear many of the ward members bear their testimonies. It struck me how different it is for them to be active members of the church (and therefore very religious) and living in a country that is one of the most unreligious places in the world. They must feel like they can’t relate to many people in their own country. I mean, not everyone in the United States is religious, but many people are… and many of those people are Christian, so even if we can’t relate to each other entirely (if they aren’t a member of the church), we can at least relate through believing in Christ.
After church (we only went to Sacrament meeting), we jumped back in the car and drove straight to Ystad (a 3.5 hour drive), which is on the southern coast of Sweden. We were making pretty good time until we had a major slow down because of an accident (not us thankfully).
We thought that we still might make it to the ferry in time (we had tickets for the 4:30 ferry), but when we got there, we couldn’t find the right place to go to get on the ferry so we ended up missing it. We were able to get our ticket switched to the 6:30 ferry though and we just waited the 2 hours until then.
When the time finally came, we drove our rental car onto the ferry and then got out and went up to the seating areas. Jershon and I stood outside on the deck for the first little while, hoping to see some cool things because the ferry ride in Iceland was one of our favorite parts. Unfortunately, this ferry ride wasn’t nearly as exciting.
It took about an hour but we made it to Rønne, Bornholm! We got back in our car and drove off the ferry. The sun had already set most of the way so it was getting dark, but we decided to get out and walk around for a few minutes. Bornholm is such a cute island! There are so many cute Danish houses and we enjoyed wandering down the streets for a little while.
After our brief stroll, we got back in the car and drove about 20 minutes to our Airbnb, out in the country. Our airbnb used to be a horse stable (that is connected to the host’s house). 🙂 It’s really nice!
Now we’re going to bed. We’re gonna explore Bornholm tomorrow and meet up with Irene!
(journal entry from September 2, 2019)
Last night before going to bed, we decided that we would wake up around 5 am so we could drive 20 minutes to the east coast of the island and catch the sunrise. 🙂 . So that’s what we did. It was a pretty cloudy morning, so not the most amazing sunrise ever, but it was still really beautiful and peaceful to watch it over the Baltic Sea.
After the sunrise, we drove to some of the little villages and tried to find a place to eat for breakfast, but we didn’t have any luck. I guess places aren’t really open here very much on a Monday morning. Luckily we had some bread and jam in the car and we just ate that.
We continued our drive up the east coast, towards the northern part of the island. As we were driving, it rained a little bit and we saw a double rainbow!
We then drove up the coastline towards the northern part of the island. We went on a walk around the coast and ended up at a lighthouse.
After our walk, we drove over to see the Hammershus castle ruins. In the 1600’s The Liberator of Bornholm, Jens Pedersen Kofoed (who happens to be my 9th great aunt’s husband), led the rebels to return Bornholm to Denmark (it had been occupied by Sweden.)
Sweden and Denmark have had a lot of conflict in the past. My own personal internal conflicts must stem from my Swedish and Danish sides fighting against each other. Haha.
As we were leaving Hammershus, we saw some sheep! There was a path where you could walk right next to them. I don’t pass up opportunities to spend some time with sheep, so I took advantage of this moment. 🙂
(continued in Bornholm part 2)
We are family!
My mother is maiden Kofoed. I’ve been able to draw our tree to the early 1400’s. We have such a rich history! Amazing blog.
That’s so awesome! I would love to know what our exact relation is and I’d also love any other information about the Kofoed line that you have. :). I’ll e-mail you.