And were off again! Around 3AM on Friday morning, I woke up to take a city bus over to Baker Street, where I boarded a pre-booked National Express Coach bus to London Stansted Airport. This was the FIRST time I had gone to Stanstead, and I was surprised at how easy it was. This was however, the LAST time I would have to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a flight. It has been a VERY tiring semester, staying awake in the ultra-AM is not easy sometimes. The flight was just fine, I am basically an easyJet pro by now, so I arrived smoothly in Copenhagen at 10AM, took the metro into the city, and began touring throughout the day while waiting for my friend Katie to be done with school for the week.
It was a full day! Danish is quite a hard language to navigate, they have the o with the line through it…haha so I didnt even bother with it when I was walking around. First, I saw one of the large parks in Copenhagen, where Rosenburg Slot is located (slot is a castle). It was pretty nice, like a large random mansion in the middle of a public park. Then on over to a former military fortress which was also very interesting. Now it is a hybrid public park-military offices area. It had the most Danish windmill I had ever seen. I guess I had a pretty strong opinion of Denmark before going, because I found myself seeing lots of things and thinking, haha yes that is very Danish. After that, I went to go see Denmark’s most over-hyped tourist sight, a statue in their harbour of the “little mermaid”. I was certain it wouldnt be a giant Ariel from the Disney version, but i was thinking it might be a little more impressive. Just a bronze, life-sized statue of a mermaid about ten feet out into the water. LAME, took a photo with it though of COURSE…and I waited in line to do it too. From there, it was a long walk back into the downtown area, along the way I walked along the water, and saw the brand new State Opera House which is completely modern, and apparently controversial for being a blight on the waterfront of Copenhagen. I thought it was a tad modern for the other stuff around it. Copenhagen is built on two sides of a river-thing that also makes a few islands and a harbor. One one side, is the old city and main downtown, on the other side is the main industrial part of town and where the airport and Christiania is located (I will come back to that last place). Also along the walk, I discovered the Danish Roya Palace, since Denmark is a constitutional monarchy, and the town’s largest church, the Marble Church, which was a great place to go inside to get warm. Copenhagen was FREEZING COLD, literally, all weekend, and during my first afternoon-night there, a good amount of snow fell over everything. I was NOT anticipating this! I knew it would be cold, but snow?? I went on after the thaw-out to see the main square in Copenhagen, around which is located the “Magasin du Nord” which is like a giant Macys Department Store, the old State Opera House, and other hotels and impressive buildings. All of the streets were being decked out in Christmas decorations and they were constructiong a large ice skating ring around the square itself. Just next to this, is the postcard-famous Nyhavn, which is a long and narrow port, around which are very small and unique houses painted in bright colors. They were drapped with garland and lit up, because at this point it was becoming evening, and with the snow, it was pretty special. It reminded me a lot of a town we visited in France in High School, Le Havre. I worked my way up toward Copenhagen’s “latin quarter” which is where the university is located. In one of the larger squares, there was an international food market being put on, where everything from Crepes, to cheese, to balsamic, to sausages, to paella was being sold. I was walking though it all, smelling what I could through my frozen nose, and came across the “Australian exotic burger” stand…for about $7 I was able to purchase my very own Kangaroo burger! Haha yes, it was weird eating a marsupial. After that, for some warmth and a chance to sit, I went into a guide book recommended cafe , ordered carrot soup, and worked out what the rest of the day and weekend would be like. After paying, I went to the National Museum to meet up with Katie. After we caught up a bit, I went off to explore the “Denmark through the decades” exhibit which was really interesting, and then we left to go back to her house before dinner.
She is living this semester with a Danish host family, and when we arrived I got to meet them all. There were the parents, and three children from 10-16 who all were quite nice, and curious about another American in their midst. We hurried off to dinner back in town, and met up with some of her program friends at an international restaurant. It was a nice dinner, and it was good to hang out with some non-NYU students. Afterwards, we had already planned out night out at a large American-filled club in the center of town. We were able to take a night bus home after this, but it took forever since Katie’s home was located about 50 minutes outside of the city. During the day time, this is no big deal since the entire country of Denmark (which is made up of about 400 different islands) is perfectly connected by above ground light-rail trains. The ticket system is a little confusing though, especially after a long night out at the club!
On Saturday, we slept in and then took a quick bus over to the local grocery store, to stock up on ingredients for Sunday dinner. We planned to cook “breakfast for dinner” for the host family who had so kindly allowed me to sleep over with them. We had some success at the store, and on the way back to the bus stop I convinced Katie to come into a bakery with me to check out what they had (whatever it was had a delicious smell that was being pumped out into the street). I bought a flanky pastry, filled with an almond glaze, and topped with chocolate glaze….I wish I knew what it was called because I could eat it for every meal for the rest of my life. I couldnt finish it all though, and saved it for breakfast the next day. After unpacking, we headed into town to finish doing the sights I had overlooked the day before. The largest of which was the island of Christiania. This is hard to describe, so jsut try to picture some of this. Christiania is an area of Copenhagen, it was once a military barracks, but was abandoned in the 1950s. In the 1960s, a group of squatters broke into the site, and took up residence, declaring the island to be a seperate entity from Denmark. They believed in anarchy and freedom from laws and government which they saw as failing their former state, Denmark. They turned the barracks into a commune, where wages were minimal, a strict moral code was enforced purely by the people….etc. Today, it remains legally in Denmark, but its own independent area within the city. The barracks have all been modified so to speak, and new houses have all been built hap-hazardly (one is made compltely of windows stacked like cubes on top of each other?). In the 1980s and 90s, Christiania became known for is largest street (Pusher Street, where tourists are NOT allowed to take photos), which is where many drug dealers and street vendors operate from. Denmark police are allowed to take action within Christiania, and have cracked down on hard drugs, but more benign ones are all over still. There is no heat in any of the buildings, there is a communal kitchen and shower house, little electricity or other utilities. Over a thousand people live there however, and Katie told me that there is a committee who decides if you can join the commune or not. Because of the increasing value of the land these squatters are living on, Christiania may not be around for much longer, but it was certainly an experience. My favorite part was a sign next to the exit back onto the streets of Copenhagen: “Now entering the EU.”
After this, we took the metro over to Nyhavn too see the harbor by day. A row of vendors had been set up along one side of the portside, selling Christmas items and foods. I tried a Fransk hotdog, which is essentially a baguette with a hole drilled down the center of it, they fill it with hot dog toppings, and then ram the hotdog into the tube. It was pretty delicious, Germanic people know their cased meats very well. We bumped into one of Katie’s friends who was out with her own host family. The daughter in the family ran off to buy a small package of what looked like bent french fries, and while we were all talking she came back up and insisted we all try this “traditional Danish food”. I took one, ate it, and as I was debating how much like bacon it tasted/felt, the father told me it was deep fried pig skin…I refused another kindly. From there, we took shelter from the cold in Magasin du Nord, while looking around at vastly expensive clothing and Chrtistmas items. From there, in the spirit of looking at things we couldnt afford, we exited onto Copenhagens pedestrian only, ATM-void, large shopping street, Stogert. Many many european clothing shops lined the street, and as it was getting dark, the Christmas decorations came on and the street musicians played, it was a very nice hour or so walking around. I bought souvenirs, and then we headed towards Town Hall Square which is described in LonelyPlanet as “Times Square as Copenhagen, but dont expect too much”. The book was right, the square was very large and surrounded by some old, some new buildings, covered in neon blinking signage. However, I did not feel as if I were in the center of the universe. The themometer on the side of the Carlsburg beer building told us it was time to go indoors for a while, so we headed into a pub. Katie insisted I order Copenhagen’s famous “Christmas ale” made by Carlsburg and Tuborg. Julebeer was not that impressive, it was pretty bitter, but it was GREAT to be indoors. We decided that since it was getting dark, we would go over to “Tivoli” which was right nearby.
During the summer, Tivoli is a very large themepark right in the center of Copenhagen. Famous since the 1800s, it is similar to Lake Compounce with one roller coaster, kids rides, swings, a lake, themed areas and many many vendors. For Christmas, the turn it into a large “winter wonderland” with all of the cafes and vendors selling moulded wine, crepes, hot cocoa, and many other Chrtistmas foods. The whole park is covered in garland and lights, it is truely a Christmas world. It was SO SO SO cold out, we made our way into as many of the little huts selling ornaments and food as possible, just to get warm but also to look at some of the Danish Christmas stuff. At 8PM, there was a light show around the lake that we went to see…surprisingly it was not Christmas themed? It was all techno music, lazers, smoke, and stobe lights, but still cool I guess. We wandered through the rest of the park, taking in the extensive decorations…and then we saw it. COLDSTONE. In the middle of a Danish theme park, there was a formidable American ice cream standard shop. I just had to have some, I ordered a love it sized “Cookie Doughn’t you want some…as if it werent cold enough out. The one advantage, no line! Katie opted for some Spanish chueros with soft serve instead. Everyone who saw us with our food was so jealous, asking us where we got it! After that, our bodies had no more feeling left in them, so we opted to take the train back home for some dinner and sleep. We cooked dinner at the house, vegetarian tacos and pasta with pesto…odd but tasty.
Sunday was an early call for me, because I had decided to go to Sweden for the day! Rather glamorously, Sweden for lunch! It was a little complicated, taking 3 different types of Denmark public transportation to get to the ferry in a small town called Helsingor. The ferry only took 20 minutes, and claims to be the “Worlds most frequently running ferry”…mostly because it is entirely funded by Swedes who are crossing over to Denmark to buy cheap alcohol because taxes on alcohol in Sweden are very high. After arriving in Helsingor’s sister town in Sweden, Helsingborg, I decided that coming on a Sunday was maybe a bad idea because pretty much EVERYTHING was closed. There were a few cafes open, having sunday brunch, but other than that, not much else. I visited the main attraction in town, a former castle that is at the top of the main shopping avanue in town, build in red brick Danish style. Now would be a good time to mention that at one point, Denmark owned Sweden, Norway, Greenland, and part of Germany in a very large and powerful empire. They lost it all however, except for Greenland (did you know Denmark owns Greenland??? I didnt) by 1850 and turned towards isolationism after that, remaining neutral in both World Wars. This isolationism explains why Denmark has kept its own currency, and is extremely socialist and pretty much a welfare state. I wound up eating lunch at one of the only cafes open in town, mostly because I had taken out Swedish currency and had nothing ot spend it on. I chose the one cafe in town that was hosting a 15 person birthday party, for a 9 year old girl. They sang Happy Birthday in Swedish however, so that made it worth all the racket. I had intended on visiting H&M which Katie told me is originally Swedish, but unfortunately they were closed for sunday…there was no obvious way to get to an IKEA either. However, there WERE a lot of Saabs and Volvos….not as many as West Hartford however.
I took the ferry back to Denmark, and spent about an hour or so wandering the small town of Helsingor. The most famous thing in the place was a very large castle, which is the castle Shakespeare used to create the world in his play, “Hamlet”. The castle was closed by the time I got back, but it was cool to walk around because it had actually been a very important part of Danish medival history, it had a moat and everything! The town itself was cool too, but it was getting dark and cold again, so I got back on the train to head home. We cooked a pretty sorry excuse for “breakfast for dinner” that night. Omlettes are MUCH harder than I had ever thought they would be, but the breakfast potatoes and fruit salad came out good. The kids all thanked us, so I thought the effort we put in was more important overall. It was nice sitting down for a family dinner too, with everyone talking about their days and how their weekends had been. We had an extensive discussion about Thanksgiving too, which it sounded like they would be celebrating for the first time with Katie this week. I spent the rest of the night writing thank yous for people who had written me recommendations for internships next semester, and then went to bed.
The flight home was really easy, and I spent the rest of the day resting and responding to emails till just now! This week is looking like another busy one, with SHINE, classes, and homework. Friday afternoon, I am scheduled to take a train up to the Eastmidlands area of England, for my HOST weekend with a British Family. Their names are Steve and Janet Oatway, and they have three children. We will be cooking, hopefully, a Thanksgivng feast all together. I am very excited, and I think that the thing I am most thankful for is to remaining in the UK, and not having to fly on easyJet for a while. Hahaha hope you all are well, almost December!
