I'll Take A Danish, Thanks

So here we go: Copenhagen - the neighbour of Sweden! It made no sense not to check it out so on the way home from London, I just decided to detour over there for the weekend. No big deal. My friends from Uppsala met me there too! The awesome foursome in Copenhagen for a weekend = a jam-packed crazy weekend of exploring, partying, shopping and experiencing the culture that is Denmark.

My standards I have to admit had been set pretty high by London and I took such an enormous amount of photos in London that by the time I got to Denmark, I was photo-ed out and just wanted to walk around and relax a bit. So unfortunately, I don't have a huge amount of photos from Copenhagen. I can blame it on the weather - it ended up being rather dreary and foggy for one of the days. Arguable, it was super sunny the next day... so I guess really I have no excuse. Shall we just call it laziness and move on? Lucky for me, my mate Manon gave me her photos from Copenhagen and she really really loved it there so she had quite a few!

Now, whilst I was in Copenhagen, I actually had some pretty mixed feelings about it. Whilst my friends fell in love with it - I remained under the spell of London to be honest. Don't get me wrong - Copenhagen was a great city! It was however.... interestingly, under a lot of construction. Seriously. It reminded me of the song "All Torn Down" by The Living End which is about a city that is always being built and as soon as it is done, it gets rebuilt again. We never get to see it finished. It was, for me, a little off-putting. There were lots of construction sites, and large fences blocking paths, big planks of wood on the paths and roads covering I assume pot holes and construction holes and in general quite a bit of mess. Actually we later found out the reason for the modernity of the buildings and construction in the city was due to the immense amount of fires which happen here because the inhabitants of Copenhagen insist on "cosy" homes with candles. Interesting!

Some examples of the construction

The Shopping Area

Still, the city has a great atmosphere and the people are unbelievably friendly, nice and helpful - way more so than the Swedes who have an impression of being quite cold and reserved (but are actually also very helpful when you ask). I especially enjoyed the Danish trains and some of the art and design around was really quite remarkable and in contrast to the Swedish. Of course, you could still tell you were in Scandinavia but there were definitely lots of differences in the culture which was so interesting!

This was the first feed I had in Copenhagen! A Hotdog! WOOT

Shopping down the oldest/longest shopping street....(in Scandinavia? I forget)

During a free tour of Copenhagen, we were introduced to the super picturesque and touristy part of Copenhagen which you usually see on postcards - THE COLOURFUL HOUSES AND THE PRETTY CANAL SIDE RESTAURANTS!

GAME PLAN!

Oh man - I am leaving for Russia in like 10 minutes and I really don't wanna butcher this blog by rushing through it.... it's already feeling very rushed. I'm a little blogged out though.... But I also don't think I should just not post it before leaving as I'll be gone for a week. So this is my plan! I'm going to post this blog half finished! As I'm off to Helsinki and Russia - St Petersburg for Easter! (I might even get to see Ilona while I'm in Helsinki! :o ) - I will finish it when I'm back next Monday night.

My plan is that I'll be buying something special in Russia and I'll post it to one of you if I can get at least 6 people to comment on this post, egging me on to finish it, inspiring me or telling me about their day, or you know - entertain or amuse me! If I don't get 5 comments, that's ok - I'll keep the little present I buy! HOORAY! But if I get it, I guess I'll part with it and send it to one of you commentors - the one I like best maybe.... or maybe a random who knows!!! The other people who comment will get a postcard from Russia! HOORAY! :D

Happy Easter Everyone! Have the best week!

Back from Russia: Blog Continued! 10/04/2012

Thanks for all the great comments everyone - I do indeed feel loved and inspired to continue writing. I have a bunch of postcards from Russia too, so send me some love and perhaps you might find a postcard coming your way! But continuing on with Copenhagen. (and of course, trying my best to ignore the cuteness of the kitty with the lollipop)...

The walking tour of Copenhagen continued to the palace of the Royal Danish family - who is one I am somewhat familiar with thanks to their connection to Australia and all the hype of Prince Frederick and Mary. The tour guide remarked that the Danish family are quite down to earth compared to other countries (e.g. England with the Buckingham Palace). As such, we were able to walk right into the palace grounds and stand amongst the buildings. We were fortunate enough to have come at the time when Prince Freddy was in as the flag was up and the guards outside. They were wearing fluffy hats! Hooray! So while I didn't get to see them in London, the ones in Denmark were almost as cool! Here is the building that Prince Freddy lives in!

After the tour, we climbed the Copenhagen Tower to get a view of the city. This tower is unique because there are no stairs, but instead a steadily ascending, spiralling path which goes round and round and round. That was good fun to climb and we arrived at the top a little dizzy headed to find that the fog had subsided a little and the sun was out! Woo!

The tower - note the construction around it

The path up to the top of the tower

View from the top!

The awesome foursome at the top of the tower

Well, the big city tour, the climb up the tower and the rather fun walk back down the spiralling pathway had made me ravenous and so we went on a search for budget friendly food (which by the way is impossible to find in Copenhagen...woweee is it expensive here). We came across a really beautiful little area hidden in the city which had colourful buildings and a few good restaurants where we could eat a meal for a do-able price (around $12). It was cool because there were turtles! I had a delicious burger and chips! My favourite.

Speaking of meals, I wanted to quickly talk about the expensive food in Denmark. It is indeed expensive! You'd be hard-pressed to find meals for under $20 here. We were after something more around $10 and so to my disgust, we had to eat a lot of American food here. I was a little disappointed about that because I am all about experiencing the local cuisine but at least I can be proud to say that we did not frequent fast food restaurants like Mcdonalds or anything, but rather...spent sometimes an hour walking the streets looking for the cheapest place to eat. We found for breakfast, the only budget thing we could eat was a Bagel. I have never understood the hype about a bagel, but DAYAM - these ones were tasty and filling! They were filled with cream cheese, a meat of your choice, salad similar to subway, sauce and cheese so that they were practically taller than a hamburger! It was definitely a mouthful and what a delicious mouthful. I don't completely understand why there needed to be a hole in the centre but hey...it was not too bad pricewise so we pretty much ate this for breakfast everyday. The bagel worked out to be around $8 each. For dinner another night, we were recommended to go to a American Steak place which had a salad buffet deal for $15 where you could eat as much vegan food as you wanted - and it was really tasty too! Lots of choice. That dinner was ruined a little by the fact that for a few hours, I thought I had lost my mobile phone in a sushi restaurant we had gone to but ditched because it was too expensive. We hurried back to the sushi place after dinner and the waitress luckily had picked it up for me. Scandinavia is indeed one of the safest places when it comes to stealing items! PHEW. But anyway - wow, we did eat a lot of American food in Copenhagen!

After our late lunch, Kelsey and Manon went back to the hostel for a nap to freshen up for an organised Pub Crawl we were attending that night whilst Mina and I went for another walk through the Nyhaven Area as Mina had skipped the morning tour in favour of sleeping in and I was keen to get some shots of the place at night. It was really pretty and again, I regretted not having a tripod with me to get some nice long exposure shots!

Another awesome place we went past at dusk on the way back to the hostel was this building which was a replica of the Louvre complete with the glass pyramids in front (trumping France with 2 extra pyramids!)

And Oh look - more construction!

That night, we went on a pub crawl organised by the same company that did the City Tour joined by 2 guys from our hostel - An Irish and a German. We had a great night checking out 5 different bars and ending at a club. It was a pretty big night out too and after a quick stop off at Burger King we crawled back into our beds at 6:30 in the morning!

On Sunday we slept in a little and then spent the afternoon in Freetown Christiania - a truly fascinating place. Unfortunately, we could not take photos here so I have only the one of us entering the place. It is basically an area in Copenhagen which has declared itself independent from the rest of Denmark and follows its own laws and has its own flag. It is actually a little dodgy and quite intimidating (especially if you aren't used to seeing junky dens and substance use!) Still, it was an interesting place to see and my friends stuck together and it was ok. It is actually quite a touristy place with some markets selling souvenirs and a pretty lake. That day it was really sunny too so we sat by the lake, having a pantheistic time getting back in touch with nature and the rest of the day was quite a blur of mainly lounging around, seeing interesting people, and then walking around the city of Copenhagen a little more. We took an early night tonight, still weary from the big night out the night before!

The next morning, on the way to get some breakfast bagles - I was confronted by a wonderful sight! A SOLDIER WALKING CASUALLY ON HIS WAY TO WORK! We were of course ecstatic and it was our one and only chance to get a piccy with a fluffy head soldier so we took it!

That day, we checked out a place called Norrebro which was recommended to me by a friend in Sweden. It is known as the more multicultural area filled with art and cultural stores. It was another sunny day and so we took it easy walking around in the park and having some more burgers (like I said, we ate a lot of American food here). The highlight was my burger which was a Jack Daniel's Burger! I LOVE JACK DANIELS! After that, we found a really pretty area by the river and sat in the sun for a while longer. Yeah yeah, OK we did a lot of lazing around in the sun but seriously, it is sooo good after so long in dreary winter!

Outside the Norrebro "Town Hall"

I liked the stickers on the traffic lights!

 In the Park

Lunch!

 Lazing around by the river in the Sun!

After that, it was time for us all to part ways and head on home. Mina and I to catch a 6 hour train home to Uppsala and Kelsey and Manon to take the plane home. It was a long journey but there were some great views home and I admit, I slept for most of it. I probably wasn't the best travel buddy. Oops!

Well anyway - on further contemplation of my time in Copenhagen now that I am back from another holiday and going through the photos of this trip again - I realised, actually, Copenhagen is a truly remarkable and wonderful place! There was actually so much to see there. There was a great vibe about it, and everyone was so nice. I'd definitely go back again! Sure, London blinded me but actually - Copenhagen is a special place and I'm starting to really appreciate my time there more and more. It's amazing how time away makes your heart grow fonder =]