Chalk, Crack, and Fog

Waking up in Praesto was like waking up from the perfect dream. The night before was so much fun, and to wake up surrounded by blankets- literally, except this one window that had been decorated with beautiful green wine bottles and a magazine collage and the sun was trickling through the surrounding forest encasing me. It was a perfect moment. But there was a day of adventure ahead so it was no time to lollygag around, no matter how comfortable the double blow-up mattress was.

For my first full day in Vordingborg Tara and her teammate Schnake took me to Mons Klint and the island's chalk cliffs with it's 497 steps down to sea level of the Baltic. The day was perfect and sunny and the hour drive was filled with chatter and laughter. I didn't care what we did at this point- I was already loving Denmark.

During a quick stop for gas I also learned that the dollar/ Danish king krone conversion is easiest when you divide the DKK price by 5. This made more sense when seeing shirts for 200 DKK.

Once we got to the cliffs I wasn't sure what I wanted to look at more- the massive, glaring white chalk cliffs, the near undisturbed Baltic Sea, or scavenge the beach for chalk pieces and shards of natural glass that would sometimes be formed into fossil prints.

    

In between walking, tanning, breaking for lunch, and picking up random objects, we did a little photo shoot. I also decided to scale a chalk cliff. In theory this was a great idea, considering I didn't actually expect to get that far, but since the moisture of the sea mixed with the chalk...dust?... it basically was a hill of more like a dry-ish clay consistency. However, once I was up, I realized how far I got because of how steep it was and because of the whole center of gravity thing while climbing forward and the not wanting to lean forward and tumble down the crumbling cliff thing, the only way I was getting down was by scooting down on my butt. Apparently the chalk/ clayish mixture when packed down and smoothed out make a formidable slide, which I so learned in accumulating a nice layer of it on my backside. Whatever- it was fun!

Our time on the ocean ended with that lovely German lady sharing her beach combing finds, another couple's gorgeous yellow lab chasing chalk chunks, swans, hummingbird sized bees, color accenting our outrageously accented personalities, climbing a tree, being chased by fog and hiking back up the 497 steps that originally took us down seaside, and three words that made me the funniest person ever.

The first moment was when I started using the chalk pieces to re-whiten my shoes that had picked up a few stains. Through commentary with Schnaki and Tara and proving that this method was working, I used that awesomely pathetic pun, "I'm just CHALK full of ideas!" This guaranteed a mildly amused giggle from both girls. Shortly thereafter, Tara and Schnaki was cracking each others back using their own hilarious puns so I threw in my own, "You two CRACK me up." Both of these retorts were followed with the classic knee-slapper but they were still funny in their own right. At this point we were all fairly amused at the terrible puns, mostly because they were terrible, but that is half the fin of them. Until... and we're all still a bit FOGGING on the last pun, but I'm pretty sure it was during the fog chasing sequence, where we finally reached the top- out of breathe... at least on my part- and I was feeling a little lighted headed after the climb where I aptly applied, "I'm feeling a bit FOGGY!" BUAHhahahahahaha (insert more knee-slapping here).

In a quick succession of events, we stopped in one of the mile long towns to look at the stores and grab some snacks. I also bought my Danish souvenir of yarn [shocking-I know] in bright orange, in an attempt to find a similar color to that of the many farm houses was passed.

We returned home in time for the girls to head to volleyball practice, while I wiled away my time back at the apartment. Later in the afternoon I took a very chilly walk down the trail through the woods to enjoy the sunset. And once the girls were back, enjoyed Sage's entertainment with all the things she could use the head massager for.

   

In ending the perfect day, Tara, myself and a couple more teammates went out to dinner at a local cafe- which is not at all like our cafes- and after the most delicious salad I've ever had, went to walk out on the pier... in the dark... with no one else around...

While documenting with some of the coolest shots I've taken in a  long time, Tara and I were left to walk back by ourselves. We were joking around about how this scenario is how horror movies start; with two unassuming girls laughing, right before a walrus jumps out of the water to break the dock and eat us alive... when suddenly we heard this load splashing in the water under the dock, where we had just walked from. Needless to say, we freaked out a bit. We quickly, but as carefully as possible in the dark made our way off the dock, onto the pier and back to the solid land where the car and her teammates were waiting.

We couldn't perfectly describe the sound, but I'd say it was a cross between a bird beating the water with its wings, a fish fin hitting water before diving back underneath, and some nefarious creature lurking underneath, about to strike. But it was still a pretty good day, regardless.