All in a day's work.

We've almost reached the end of my epic first weekend in Denmark, so please bear with me.

As far as I was concerned, I had planned on riding trains back to Weiden all day after the wedding. Perhaps finishing my book. Maybe take a nap, if I felt like it. I did not expect to help feed calves, tromp through mud to pet a miniature horse named Champ, be almost trampled by panicked cows, cuddle newborn kittens, and literally straddle the fence on the border of Denmark and Germany.

I missed my train from Odense. Which meant that I would miss every connecting train as well, and I wouldn't get to Weiden before the regional trains stopped for the evening. So my friend Lisa, who had invited me over even before I missed my train, excitedly called her parents and asked if she could have a friend over (I swear we're twenty-four, not twelve). She herself had driven to the wedding, and lived about two hours away, in a place called Tønder, in the very southwest corner of Denmark. We got to the farm about two in the afternoon. Her parents, Irene and Lorens (pronounced like "Lawrence") were great, and she had an older sister, Solveig ("sunny way" in Danish) and a younger sister, Lykke ("luck"). They were all so polite and generous--when Lisa and I arrived, they stopped what they were doing to serve coffee and apple cake. We switched between Danish and English, and I was doing a passable job keeping up when they conversed in Danish. But as we're finishing our coffee, Irene said something that I couldn't quite follow. Lisa replied in Danish and then said to me, "Do you want to take a little tour?" I said sure.

We all piled in the car, after Lisa had informed me that I would need boots. I had to borrow a pair of hers. From the driver's seat, Solveig said that we were going to move calves from one field to another. I remember distinctly that she said "calves" because I imagined us picking up adorable harmless baby cows from one place and depositing them in another.

Arriving at the fields, I asked Lisa where the calves were. She pointed at the herd of almost full-grown cows and explained how her dad, on the ATV, would round them into a group and chase them towards the gate. We girls would create a line, waving our arms, so the cows would be forced to go through the gate and not change direction. Um, okay. Let's round up some cattle. Lykke was to stay near the car, so I gave her my camera and she happily began snapping pictures of everything: us, the cows, the sky, her boots, a flower, etc. I followed Lisa, Solveig, and Irene out into the field.


From left, that's me, Lisa, and Solveig, in a long line to herd the cattle through the gate in the foreground. The cattle are off to the right, being rounded up by Lorens.

But things didn't go exactly as Lisa had explained. The cows were full-out running, perpendicular to the line we girls had created. Behind them, Lorens revved the ATV, making "HI! HI! HI!" noises. Fifty feet from the gate, instead of slowing down and going through the gate like they were supposed to, the cows turned towards us (Lisa, Solveig, and I) and showed no signs of slowing. I had never done this before (maybe the terrified cows come barreling towards these girls every day, no big deal?), so I was looking at Lisa and Solveig for my cue. They both started screaming. My vision tunneled and my only thought was, "Wow, I really don't want to call my parents to tell them I've been gored by a cow." I covered my head in my hands, as though that would help (it made sense at the time). But somehow, thankfully, all twenty or so cows ran in-between and around we three girls (mere inches away) and fled across the field. Solveig's head was between her knees, as she tried to not hyperventilate. I couldn't feel my legs. Lykke was crying and yelling at the edge of the field, camera forgotten. Irene, who had been on the other side of the ATV, was screaming at Lisa to get me the hell off the field. Lisa, mad as hell that we were all very close to being maimed, grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the car, muttering a string of swears under her breath. After depositing me next to Lykke, who hugged us both, babbling in tearful Danish, Lisa leaned against the car with her eyes closed. I did the same, thinking that I didn't remember signing up for the Running of the freaking Bulls.

From our vantage point safe behind the gate, Lisa, Lykke, and I watched another three attempts before the cows got the message and filed through the gate and onto the road. Either that or they were tired of running from one end of the field to the other. Lykke took a picture of Solveig, after the whole fiasco:


The rest of our trip was a lot more peaceful. While Lorens took over the cows, Irene, Solveig, Lisa, Lykke, and I drove around South Jutland for a little while. We drove to the border and turned west until we came to the coast, which only took ten minutes or so, and we walked around the marshes for a while. The border was marked by a fence with a sign reading "National Borders/Do Not Cross" which was odd because a hundred feet away there was a road between the two countries you could drive (or walk) on, with no border patrol or anything.


We drove north to the Højer Sluice and walked around some more, and then visited Schackenborg Castle, where Prince Joachim (Crown Prince Frederik's younger bro) lives with his family.



Even after we returned to the farm, the day wasn't over. I offered to help Lisa with dinner (burritos), but she shooed me out the door to see the rest of the farm. Lykke was more than happy to show me around. There were hundreds of cows, thousands of chickens, and several horses including Champ, a miniature horse who only came up to my thigh. The calves were deafening, as it was close to dinnertime for them, too. I tried to pet them, but they think that hands are udders so they tried to suck my fingers. It felt very, very weird. I helped pour milk into buckets that had udder-like attachments on them so the calves could drink. Lykke showed me where kittens had born that day in an empty stall, so young their eyes weren't even open yet. There may have been cooing and cuddling...

Lisa and I had both stayed up late the night before at the wedding, so after dinner and a shower to get the milky, farmy, cow-poo smell off me, it was straight to bed. Lisa took me to the train station the next morning. As we said our good-byes, she said that Esbjerg was less than an hour north of her family's farm, and that I was welcome back anytime. I'm going to take her up on that soon, I hope. Especially now that I know what "moving the calves from one field to another" actually means.