Monday Aug 09   Today was the day we had decided to go to the Knuthenborg wild animal park. This again in my opinion is the kind of park that could never happen in the U.S. I can only imagine that the tort laws in Denmark are totally different, because I’ve seen so many things that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen in the States. And then Denmark is so paranoid about safety and guarding people’s sensibilities in other ways; it’s a mind-blowing contrast. Anyway, Knuthenborg is a safari park where you drive through the park and the animals are free to wander around. The park is divided up into different zones, in some of which you can get out of your car and walk around, and in some of which you can’t, and then there is the tiger enclosure. I know it’s safe, but it’s still very exciting to be driving just a few feet from this huge tiger with nothing between you and his claws but your car door and his disinclination to pounce.   Other parts of the park have rhinos and giraffes, camels and donkeys. There was a playground and pygmy goats. Lizzie spent the entire time pointing and saying “am-muls”. The goats were probably Lizzie’s favorite. I think watching the camels poop on the Range Rover in front of us was my favorite part. After the park we returned to home-base at Telse’s house for a wagon ride a couple of kilometers to a mud-flat beach. It’s a harvest-week, so we were passed on the road by an assortment of threshing machines, tractors, and wagon-loads of grain, and after greeting each driver with lazily raised hands, Telse and Carsten would tell assorted stories about each person, their family, their fields, their business practices, and their morals. It was hot but we were shaded by the wagon’s canopy, and it rolled smoothly along behind the horses. They trotted and walked, and disdainfully ignored the thundering large vehicles that overtook them. The girls grew blissfully dirty at the mud-flat beach, and found a crab, woo-hoo. On the way back we went by smaller side-roads, waving grasses and field flowers on either side, interspersed with reeds and occasional trees. Emma, Silla, and Silke sat on the driver’s box with Telse securely holding Silke, and Emma & Silla worshipfully gazing at the horses and at Carsten, alternately, and they sang songs where it didn’t seem to matter if you knew any of the words. It was great. Lizzie tumbled around in the wagon, scrambling into people’s laps and then down again, leaning as far out as she could and trying to get access to the picnic basket so she could scatter the drinking straws, again. We had trouble finding Emma’s shoes last night before we left Telse & Carsten’s house. Mystery solved when Telse giggling this morning told us she’d found them stashed in her washing machine, along with a pair of Ida’s sandals. Lizzie, you little rascal.