915,103,765

Six simple Lego bricks with a 2x4 orientation of the eight pegs.  If you were able to continuously arrange the bricks into a different combination every second, it would take you over 29 years to to reach the number of different combinations the bricks could make. 

If you have the opportunity to visit Billund, Denmark, I would highly recommend taking some time to visit the Lego House. Billund is the birthplace of Lego and home to the Lego House and Legoland. While Legoland is cool - I'll do a separate write-up on that later - the Lego House was a much more enjoyable place to visit for this traveller.

When you enter the Lego House and get past the admission turnstile, you begin your ascent to the different levels of the Lego House.  Throughout, there were many places for visitors to get hands-on time with bins of lego bricks. Different areas were set up with different themes and had interactive stations you could showcase and share your creation. This was great for kids of all ages.

If, however, you were more interested in seeing the work of other Lego artists, there was some rather creative works of art that were on display. These, too, were found in many places throughout the Lego House. 

Most of the pieces of artwork I did not take pictures of.  Actually, I didn't take near as many photos as I should have during this visit. This sculpture was a rather impressive piece as well as this one of Mount Fuji.

Perhaps if you are up to it, you can create and submit your own Lego creation to the competition that Lego puts on.

One of the showcases for the Lego House is the Lego Tree.  In the open area surrounded by stairs as they climb the different levels of the Lego House, there is a tree structure made of Lego. Along the trunk there are different 'carvings' of different figures for visitors to hunt for. 

On each floor of the Lego House, the canopy of the tree displayed different themes consisting of different scenes made of Lego. Here are some photos of the space theme.

Once you reached a certain level, you were greeted by three big dinosaurs. While I didn't get any photos of them, they were quite impressive and had a bit of a comical bent as each one had a popsicle and a spray bottle like would be used for cleaning solution.

On the opposite side where we approached the dinosaur level was an opening that looked to some large creations of different scenes on the floor below. Two of them were the mountainous creations and the big city. Each one of them had numerous different sub scenes that were built into the overall structure.

If you looked closely, you could see references to different aspects of modern culture blended into the scenes.

The different scenes had some mechanization for some of the pieces and each one of the scenes, overall, was illuminated from above as well as within the scenes themselves.  As the darkness would fall on the city scene, the lights of the city would illuminate. If you were looking at the football pitch, you would see the stadium lights come on to brighten the field.

Depending on how you made your way back out, you could have gone by a machine that was creating red Lego bricks. Every few seconds, the machine would package six of the bricks together and eject them out for visitors to collect. This was part of the display that showed how many different combinations of shapes could be made with six eight-pegged bricks in a 2x4 orientation would be made. When you scanned your wristband used for admission, you would get your own combination printed out on a card. 

Overall, I had a great time visiting the Lego House. Lots to take in as well as a re-kindling of the simple joy of putting together simple bricks to let the imagination wander.

-Michael.