Legoland Billund: Part One

Last Friday, the train line that runs all around Denmark had a special deal for travel anywhere in Denmark for about $15 each/one-way (with a seat). Jared got to talking with his friends at work and they decided we should all go to Legoland in Billund. I must admit I was very apprehensive since our long train ride a few weeks ago was very hard on Ruby (and us!). But, we decided to go for it and we were all glad that we did...

For those that don't already know, LEGO bricks (they don't like the term "legos" apparently) and all the accessories were invented in Denmark. According to Wikipedia:

The Lego Group had humble beginnings in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a poor carpenter from Billund, Denmark. Ole Kirk started creating wooden toys in 1932, but it wasn't until 1949 that the famous plastic Lego brick was created. The company name Lego was coined by Christiansen from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well".

Having played with LEGO bricks my whole life (well, practically) I didn't have a clue that they were invented in Denmark. Apparently there are also four different Legolands--the original and largest in Billund, Denmark, then three others in USA, Germany, and England.

So, after waking up at 5am, a 2 1/2 hour train ride and two bus trips totally about 1 1/4 hours, we made it to Legoland Billund. The trip there was great since there were two four year olds along with us that Ruby was very interested in. They weren't getting along that great, but even listening and watching the arguing and rough-housing was better than listening to Ruby scream by a long shot. Once we got there we had a rather ironic experience... Julie (Jared's co-worker) decided that we should all buy our tickets in advance so that we wouldn't have to wait in a long line to purchase tickets. Apparently everyone else had the same idea and while there were about 6 or 8 booths to buy tickets and at least that many aisles to enter the park through, there was only ONE guy that had to scan every one of the tickets we had printed out at home! The line was HUGE and pretty time-consuming, but once we got in everything was peachy.

There are seven different "worlds" inside Legoland Billund: DUPLO Country, Imagination Zone, LEGOREDO Town, Adventure Country, Miniland, Pirate Country and Knights Kingdom. The first picture in this post is a LEGO model of the docks area in Copenhagen featuring lots of Maersk machines and containers in Miniland. The next one of my head inside the lions mouth was just around the park... I'm not sure which "world", but I had just bonked my head really hard on some protruding LEGO bricks, which is why I have the funny look on my face. The third one is of Ruby and Jared sitting with H.C. Andersen. Then, this one is in LEGOREDO Town where we panned for gold and then they melted it down into a medal... kind of cool actually. Jared was totally captivated by the process and took about a zillion pictures... I'll just leave you with one!

This final picture is of a LEGO modle of the Billund airport. The little planes actually taxied around and the planes with propellers would spin, etc. The whole Miniland was really awesome. They had models of scenes from all over the world. I noticed that in these pictures it's really hard to tell that everything is made from LEGO bricks, but it is. They said that you could make everything they have at home with the commercially available bricks... of course they didn't say how much it would cost you to collect enough of the right bricks to do it!