It’s impressive how much the accuracy of weather forecasts has improved since the last century. I remember clearly when they used to be standard joke material. Not any more. We now always have available a pretty accurate picture of how the weather conditions will evolve in the next several days, wherever you may be staying.
When Gianluca and I went to Denmark, rarely a safe bet weather wise, it was late October so we were really asking for trouble. All considered, though, luck was with us as, according to Weather.com, only one out of our five days there was going to be bad.
Excellent forecast! Weather.com didn’t let us down this time, either. Tuesday was absolutely awful. Cold, drizzly, windy, grey and universally dismal. The ideal conditions to visit an oasis of warmth and bright colours in the middle of the peninsula of Jylland: the Lego House in Billund.
At Lego House, they take the meaning of ‘fake plastic trees’, first mentioned by the band Radiohead, to a new level. Five levels, actually: 15.68 metres height and more than 6 million Lego bricks.
Once we’re into songs, I’m sure the 80s band Buggles, who became rich and famous through their Video Killed the Radio Star, never had the Danish city of Billund in mind when they wrote Living in the Plastic Age. I did, though, when I made myself comfortable on a Lego brick armchair there.
The Lego House has several levels of exhibition areas, creativity areas, play areas. Full-size dinosaurs… a fun restaurant with automatic electronic ordering and food delivery in (of course) Lego boxes…
Along with dozens of other visitors, though, we went berserk simply trying to create things from many thousands of Lego bricks of different shapes and colours.
People’s creativity is impressive.
35 years after the students in my course launched a sticker campaign at the University of Malta, proclaiming to the world a cry of angst and anguish – AJMA! (‘ouch’, but it means more than just that) – the same cry took pride of place alongside other works of creativity at the Lego House in Billund, Denmark.
Gianluca regaled the people of Denmark with a pyramidal layered-plastic cake.
We didn’t want to leave, and had to be practically asked to do that by the personnel in attendance.
I’m thankful to Lego House for colouring up a thoroughly grey, cold and wet day for us. I urge you, dear reader, to seriously consider going there if you happen to be on the peninsula of Jylland in mainland Denmark. But save it for the day with the most awful weather.
The Wanderer 