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Monday, July 8, 2002: We arrive back in Denmark to spend
a day in Århus. Some of us, however, opt to spend the day
visiting Billund, home of Legoland!
As we passed the Lego headquarters in Billund, our excitement mounted.
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Legoland!
At last! If they had one of these in Indiana, I'd never get anything
else done. |
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Just inside the entrance are several familar Star Wars figures.
Wait! Didn't we just see these at the Star Wars Celebration in Indy
last May? |
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Here's a tiny Lego soccer stadium. |
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A tiny Lego castle... |
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... a tiny Lego Buddha ... |
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... and dozens of tiny scenes based on actual places all over the
world. |
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A lovely palace. |
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Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. |
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Here's an alien/monster movie being shot in Hollywood. If you look
carefully, you can spot the green monster behind the building on the
right, with a spaceship coming up behind the red building in the corner.
This live action scene repeated every minute. |
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Downtown Los Angeles. |
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A little Scandinavian town with a working drawbridge in the background. |
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The ships moved from one port to another. |
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At a replica of the Munich airport, the airplanes taxied into place
and then returned to the hangar. |
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Little baggage cars came out to meet the planes as they taxied to
the gates. In this photo, you can see the tracks of the planes that
move. |
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More quaint towns ... |
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... with boats that cruise the canals. |
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Look at those tiny Lego cows and the working windmill! |
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A North Sea oil rig with boats moving around it. |
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The attention to detail is delightful. Here's a little Lego man
taking a photo of a little Lego woman. |
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This town had real working locks. In this photo, the ship has moved
into the locks and is slowly being lowered so it can continue travelling
on the lower water level. |
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A working Lego Ferris wheel! |
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A souvenir or flea market. |
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Hey, it's Mount Rushmore! |
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In the pirate-themed section of Legoland, these pelicans welcome
visitors. |
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One of our favorite displays consisted of scale-model replicas of
famous buildings and monuments. |
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The Kaiser-Wilhelm Church in Berlin. Click here to see a photo of
the real thing, taken the day before. |
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An amazingly detailed temple. |
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A tribute to the Pharoahs. |
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Washington D.C.'s Capitol Building. |
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The Acropolis in Athens. |
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Next, we visited the Lego zoo. You've got to see the larger versions
of these photos to believe them. Here are a flock of pink flamingos
and a pair of elephants ... |
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... antelopes ... |
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... rhinos and ostriches ... |
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... an entire family of lions (there are six lion cubs -- can you
find them all?) ... |
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... wildebeests, giraffes and zebras ... |
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... and a large group of babboons. |
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This Lego fountain was a treat to watch. Water shot out of each
side fountain into the middle section, one stream of water at a time.
Sometimes a stream of water would shoot out of one at a time, then
two at a time, and sometimes out of all six. It took several minutes
of watching and shooting to finally get a shot of all six streams
of water. |
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Tom likes Legoland! |
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So does Debbie! Here we are in the Legoland Tower ride that takes
visitors up high over Legoland to get a better view of the park ... |
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like this ... |
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... and this ... |
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... and this. |
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After some excellent shopping in the Legoland gift shops, we're
reluctantly ready to leave. We can't wait to visit Legoland
California some day! |
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On our way back to the ship, we passed Queen Margrethe II's summer
palace, where she was currently in residence. I'm pretty sure you
can see her peeking out of one of the windows. |
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We spent our last evening on the Noordam enjoying a dessert extravaganza
prepared by Holland America's terrific chefs.
It was a terrific cruise and we'll never forget it.
** THE END **
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