Weekend in Copenhagen

I just got back from Copenhagen with Amy. I'll admit I was having second thoughts about traveling again last week. As horrible as it sounds, I am tired from all this traveling! I love being able to see different cities, but I still don't like the actual transportation part. Possible solution: Teleporting myself. If only...I did, however ,make friends at the airport. While I was ordering a coffee, the man behind the counter and I started talking in very basic Czech. I was so proud, until he through like a real Czech sentence into this conversation. It was then that he realized I was American. We got to talking and his English was fabulous. He ended up giving me his favorite Czech author and novel to me.

Once in Copenhagen, it was absolutely gorgous outside. I'd say about 70 degrees and sunny. Beautiful day for just being outside. So, that's just what we did. We walked from our hostel (Absalon Annex--great hostel) to the center of the city where we met up with Christina from Hamilton and also randomly bumped into Tipper as well. So weird. Christina led us to the Round Tower (picture)


and we also strolled down Stroget Street which is one of the famous shopping streets in the city. Near Stroget there was a gorgeous park right near the Royal Castle. There were tons of people laying on blankets, playing frisbee and just enjoying the weather. It's really funny how much a city can change as soon as the weather does. Without a doubt Prague is a completely different place! All Czechs really want to do is rollerblade in beer gardens - no wonder no one is happy in the winter!

(This is a picture of the park)

Our hostel provided us with a guide book to "April in Copenhagen" and Amy and I saw that there was a big soccer game on Thursday night. Coincidentally, when we ran into Tipper randomly on the street, he mentioned that he and his friends were going to the game. But it gets better: Amy, Christina and I were trying to buy tickets when three separate people handed us free tickets! And they just happened to be excellent seats as well! Team FCK (pronounced F C Kah) couldn't quite capitalize on all their shooting opportunities but at least they tied.

On Friday we woke up and decided to do some of the main tourist attractions. Inevitably that led us directly to the statue of the Little Mermaid. We proceeded to navigate our way through Kastellet Park over the river and through Charlottenburg into Christiania. Christiania is considered to be the "Freetown" of Copenhagen. It is technically self-governed and has only 1000 inhabitants. It was this little oasis amidst the hustle bustle of a city. The entrance part was very touristy but as you got further in towards the river and some of the homes, it was just beautiful and incredible to see. You are not supposed to take any pictures in Christian so this is just a picture of the entrance. But as you can see it is completely covered in graffiti, as most of the 'town'. I think my favorite sign which happened to be graffiited everywhere said, "Imagine a world without wheels, forced labor and high heels". In Christiania we stopped and ate some lunch at basically someone's house. Essentially you walked into this house and there were a few vegetarian salad options. We sat outside as people were planting and gardening.

Friday night we met up with one of Amy's sister's friends who she met while studying abroad in Denmark! How crazy! We met her at a hip bar called Bang & Jenson and then went to a late dinner. I feel like I say this after every trip when I get to speak to people from the country, but I just love speaking to people my age from around the world. She was telling us how so many of her friends are planning trips to America right now since the dollar is so bad...After dinner she took us to this new bar/club called Karriere Bar which is in what used to be the meat packing district of Copenhagen. As we were walking through the area it was completely vacated until all of sudden you heard loud music and then out of nowhere came this bar.

Saturday morning we decided to go on a canal tour. Copenhagen is very similar to Amsterdam in the sense that they both have canals running through the city, bikes everywhere and beautiful, little side streets. It was nice to be on the water, but like on most boat tours, it is very hard to understand what the guides are actually saying. This is one of the many pictures we got from the boat.

Amy and I decided that we wanted to try some traditional Danish food. Little did we know that Danish's are not really from Denmark. In fact, Danes actually call what we call Danishes, "pastries from Vienna". Weird. So instead, we decided to try Smorebrod for lunch which is basically just slices of bread with different kinds of toppings. We decided to share two different kinds: salmon and herbed goat cheese. It was delicious and much less intense than Gulash. This is a picture of the place we ate in. They were so nice there and were so concerned with making sure that we enjoyed our first Danish meal.

After our lovely lunch we walked to the Carlsburg Brewery which was much farther away than we had anticipated. We ended up missing the last tour so we ended up just heading up to the bar for some taste testing, since we had walked all the way there.


Our last stop of the trip was Saturday night when we went into Tivoli Gardens. From the outside, Tivoli just looks like another amusement park, yet when we walked inside it was huge and beautiful! I couldn't believe all of the flowers and how much they had bloomed already. It was like a fantasy land in a fairytale. I felt like a little kid in Willa Wonka's factory. We walked around and took a lot of touristy photos.


On Sunday, as we were landing in Prague I realized how bittersweet leaving Praha is going to be. With less than two weeks left, Sunday was the last time I would be flying into Prague. I am full of a mixed sense of emotions: a sense of accomplishment, excitement to go home and start the summer, but also sadness to leave Prague when I finally feel really comfortable here. I was running outside today and was thinking back to the beginning of the trip when I ran outside for the first time. I remember being so nervous of not knowing where I was going, of something happening. But today, I was running like I actually did know where I was going and it actually felt like I was running in my neighborhood.