Amalienborg Slot, Canal Tour, and Glass Blowing

So, last week on Thursday and Friday we did some fun things. First, we went to the Queen's castle, Amalienborg Slot. This is one of the four house sections. In between the housing sections, there are archways which make the plaza into an octogonal shape. The Danish monarchy is the oldest in the world (a fact of which Danes are proud) and the present queen, Margrethe II, has been on the throne since 1972.

This is a view of one of the arch sections and if you look closely, you can see one guard and the little red guard shacks where they store their heavy coats.
We waited FOREVER for the changing of the guard. They do it every day at noon. When the queen is in residence, the royal band accompanies the changing of the guard. There was no band. Anyways, the first thing that happened was that about six guards came out of the guard room and stood in the square for about ten minutes while we were wondering if that was all that was going to happen.
Then, some guards came around the corner into the plaza (about twelve of them). Apparently they go marching down one of the streets in Copenhagen--that's why we had to wait for so long.
After some manuevering, the two groups of soldiers stood and faced eachother, like this.
Then about six of the soldiers from the group on the left started marching to the other side of the plaza. From our viewpoint, we couldn't see anything so again, we began to wonder if that was it. Maybe the two groups of guards were just going to continue to stare at eachother for the rest of the day--how should we know? Actually, the group that had left went around to the three actually stationed guards, inspected their little shacks and made a switcheroo--aliviating the guard on duty. However, we didn't realize this for another 10 minutes or so till they got back around to where we could see them. Just imagine if there had been as many guards on duty as there were shacks--at least 16 from what I can remember--it would've taken half the day to change the guards!

This next set of pictures is from our canal tour and walking around the city. The city of Copenhagen has a bunch of canals that king Christian IV (I think) built during his reign. First is a royal naval dock--isn't the crown on the top of the building cool?
This is the shot of the marble church that I took from the canal boat. Between the fountain and the church is the plaza of the Amalienborg Slot.
This is a picture of the most photographed street (canalway) in Copenhagen. It's called Nyhavn (pronounced: newhoun). Aren't they cool-looking buildings? They're super old and at one time this with the brothel/drunken sailor district of the city. Now it's much more respectable and clean.
This is the Marmorkirken (marble church). It's one of the largest dome churches in Europe.
This is one of the lighthouse boats that used to patrol the harbor and canals. Now it's a houseboat. There are many houseboats along the canals--how fun would it be to live in a houseboat in Europe?

The previous pictures were all taken on Thursday, the following is what we did on Friday. We went to the Holme Gaarde Glassworks visitors' center. And we got to blow our own glass! This first one is of the official glass blower giving me instructions. The oven behind me is full of melted glass.
If you look carefully, you can see the orange glow of my future glass pitcher (the size of a regular glass--perfect for butter syrup).

And there I am, blowing my glass! I'm an artisan! This is truly a cool thing.
Here I'm shaping the pour spout of my pitcher (so that it will pour).
I think it would be super cool to be able to work with a medium like glass. As we watched them shape different sized vases and bowls, it was amazing. Personally, I think that I'd be liable to burn my hands off--so it's not really a great choice of profession for me.

Some of you have asked how church was on Sunday. Interesting. They provided earphones and translation into English for the English-speaking members in the congregation. The translator sat at the front with a microphone that was linked straight to our headsets. Then, Scott taught sunday school in English (since he doesn't speak Danish) and for Relief Society we were in the over-flow of the chapel and had a translator again. The sister that translated for us then was very obliging to give us a bit of a commentary when the teacher went off on a tangent, explaining that she must have had a bad experience and is bitter for some reason. As for singing, I started out singing the words in English--with my small hymnbook. But then in Relief Society, I happened to be sitting next to the translator, who is also the choir director, and she informed me that if I'm going to be here for a year, I should start learning to sing in Danish and I should join the ward choir (Lynette, are you so proactive in recruiting choir members?). Overall it was great--the language is totally not a romantic language, which makes it totally not easy for me to learn. The pronounciations are completely counterintuitive. But, we'll work on it.