Odense. Day 4 (16th June 07)

We both woke up a little worse for wear (see yesterday), but a hearty breakfast and a couple of painkillers helped a little. Todays plan was to re-visit the gallery, Hans Christian Andersen's house and check out a photo exhibition called '100 shots' that we were told should be a good one.
The downside to all this was that it was raining although it wasn't as cold as our day in the wet in Copenhagen. Kenneth (our host) even offered us a loan of a brolly on our way out the door, but we declined as, well, we're from Scotland so we're used to the rain.
The HCA museum/house was as I remembered. and we enjoyed the exhibits and a couple of storys each. In the 'Hall of Memories' there was a separate wee exhibition about a new edition of Thumbelina that had original concepts and drawings. It looked much fun, but Suzanne was disappointed that there wasn't an English version she could buy.
It was still raining outside when we had finished, but we soldiered on to Brandt's Passage where the photo exhibition was. The concept was that 100 people (some photographers, some actors etc) had been asked to submit one piece that suggested 'Humour'. Now, some of these worked easily and were laugh out loud funny, but some....well, I couldn't see humour in them anyway, but perhaps I was missing something. It took a good hour or so to get through the exhibition and by the time we ventured back outside, the rain had stopped. We moseyed on to 'The Irish Pub' where we had a pint of Guinness or two and figured on catching a snack (we were due to go for a meal that evening) on the way to have another peek in the Gallery.
Due to the need to lose some of the Guinness, we went to the gallery first and were enthralled by a choir that was singing in the room which held our pictures. We wandered around the rest of the gallery again, and once the singers had sung, sneaked back into 'our' room to try to observe peoples reactions to our pictures. One guy stood for ages looking at a couple of both our pieces - which was nice.
Again though, it was nearly closing time (5) so we left and headed back to the hotel to freshen up, change, and get ready for the evenings proceedings.
We got to the gallery bang on half past 6 and met with friends, both new and old. Of course, discussion seemed to centre around what a Scot wears under his kilt, but that soon passed and we were chatting like old friends to everyone. We all got on a boat for a trip up the canal and chatted some more about mostly everything. Our transport puled up at the Zoo stop, where we were met by the waiter for the evening and led through the zoo to the 4* restaurant we were going to eat in. Some of us who had brought cameras kind of got held up taking some pictures of some of the animals, and a few others just watched the antics of the prairie dogs and monkeys. Suzanne and I decided there and then that we needed to come back the next day to check out the rest of the zoo. Into the restaurant where we were seated round 2 big tables and the buffet started to arrive. Being a fussy eater, I was a bit wary of what there might be for me, but there was enough to keep me happy although we found out afterwards that there should have been dessert too. Beer, juice and conversation all flowed and it seemed like only a brief time later we had to go to catch the boat back.
Becky was feeling really tired so we decided we would walk back to the hotel with her (she was in our hotel for one night, and had been given - by chance I think, the room which shared the balcony with us). So we said our farewells to everyone, except Jeanette(sp?) who lived nearby and walked with us to the door.
Up on the balcony we gave thanks for the 5DKK coffee from the vending machine and this time toasted Becky who had done an even more remarkable job this year in getting everything sorted out.
It was about half 11 when we got to bed and had pre-booked a breakfast date before Becky had to check out and we set off for the Zoo.