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Impressions of Sonderborg

Impressions and photos from “Kampen om Als”

This is a guest post by Iulian who has lived in Sønderborg for three years and has a blog in Romanian about social media for non-profits.

After spending the whole weekend surrounded by gunpowder smell and a lot of soldiers from a century and a half ago I think it might be interesting, for those of you that didn’t participate, to see what happened and why you shouldn’t miss it the next time.

First of all, is the night battle. Around 2:30 in the morning the things start moving in the camp. People gather close to the water where the Prussians are expected to attack. Boat movements, cannon fire, rifles and a lot of tension in the air. This happens in semi-darkness, only enough for the human eye to distinguish the flow of the events. During all the events, there is a narrator that makes the things even more interesting by giving background insights.

Then I remarked the authenticity. The people are dressed in the old costumes, they live in the army tents, they eat and drink from the old dishes and food is served by the army regiment from an army car attachment. Some of the cooking ladies even have an old outdoor stove or a fireplace in the ground for preparing the food. What’s the interesting part is that you can also be part of the people living in the camp, taking part in all the activities.

There are often demonstrations of the weapons, military activities and costumes. You can see cannons firing from 2 metres, battle simulations with a big number of soldiers, different weapons in actions, costumes of the people from that age, horse presentations. It seemed that there is always something happening there.

Besides the activities, there are also small exhibitions with the equipment and tools used at war. If you’re a fan of old weaponry, this is the right place to come. Not only will you get to put your hands on the old rifles (by the way, one was around 4 kg) but you can even talk with the owners and they can astonish you with some nice stories. I could see old weapons and aspects of the military but there were also exhibited utensils used by paramedics, showing the progress that medicine has made in 150 years.

The people scale the event. As I said, they are very happy to exchange some words with you. For example, this man from Norway was amazing. He explained for hours to all the curious people what was “his” purpose in the battle. How technologically advanced was his weapon. What equipment did he carry, what are the symbols on the hat that made him recognizable as part of a specific regiment, what is the decoration on his collar and how year by year he needs to regain it. There were also some Czech guys that were in the party mood and they seemed to have some prohibited alcohol in the camp, without their commander knowing it. That was probably the fun of taking part in the event as a participant and not only as a spectator. And they seemed to have the most of it.

After such a long tour of the camp, before going home a bit smokey from the fire and gunpowder, you can try the desserts in one of the tents. This old style sweet, made without cooking, was very good. Don’t miss it next year! And if you have proofs that you’ve been around the events, just post them here.

Guest Post: Parting Thoughts

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For the past few months, Ashish Patel has been occasionally driving back home from work with me and my friends. The time has now come for Ashish to return to India. Luckily for us, he had written a post about his thoughts on his first day here in 2011. That post will come up in the coming days.First we get to hear what his thoughts are now that he is leaving for India, what he thinks of Sonderborg, and why he has decided that it is time to move on. Over to Ashish:

Sønderborg, sounds like a medieval exotic kingdom with elves and fairies and sorcerers of the middle earth.

Though it is not exactly true but what is true is the fact that Sønderborg does make you feel out of the world.

There is strange sense of calmness coupled with grandeur and serenity that oozes out of the laid back lifestyle here.

There is no hurry, no hustle and definitely no traffic jams. Most of houses are centuries old and mostly old cars to match them.

If I were to describe the experience of living here in one word, that would be cozy. Right from the candle-lit drawing rooms, to the musty study, to the nicely decorated dining rooms, there is a homeliness and coziness which comes along. People are polite and have a very private way of life here. They give prime importance to family and after dark people tend to stay at home spending quality time with their loved ones.

The best part of Sønderborg is the area around the castle overlooking the king’s bridge and the massive church. I never fail to feel amazed walking over the bridge onto the line of fabulous restaurants facing the water coloured in different shades of yellow and pink.

The park behind the castle and the harbour sucks out every inch of negative energy and tiredness and fills you with a feeling somewhere between happiness and content. Watching the water from the bench on the long promenade sometimes makes me think I want nothing more from life than to sit and admire the simple sounds of water hitting the rocks.

There is so much to soak here, the rundstykkers of Fridays,the people lining up for ringriderpølser, the Sonderborg band playing in every special occasion, the huge horses and their riders with spears in the ringrider festival, the crazy drunk teenagers who ring people’s door bells on every Friday night.

We made lots of friends at office and at the LærDansk (Danish learning centres) and fitness centres.We had many parties, we joined the Sonderborg cricket club and enjoyed playing here, we did everything to stay busy. I thought I would never get enough of the charm of Sønderborg.

Many many months have passed since we first came here and now the very thing that we loved is also the reason we want to move on. We are citizens of India and growing up we were used to lots and lots of people, lots of noises, lots of friends and lots of family gatherings. When we came here the sudden change brought peace and quite and I am thankful for that. We got time to do what we couldn’t do there. But now after spending a few years here, we miss the noise, we miss the people and we miss the fun we had with our family and friends.

The one thing we learned here was to that the most important thing in life is to have the calmness of heart and the importance of spending time with your family and that is why we want to go back to spend some time with our family.

Vi Ses.

Guest blog: The 7 Prophets

Sønderborg 2013 – De syv profeter

The summer holiday also included a visit to Sønderborg. Here we are by a statue next to the university, Alsion.

The statue is placed with its back to the university and front towards Als Sound, where sailors have the nicest view of the statue. It will stay there only till September – too bad that it is moving away again – I think this is the perfect spot for it.