Last Day in Copenhagen, Part 3

After a late rise and a relaxed breakfast, we headed out again – this time for the Rosenborg Castle in the center of Copenhagen. We found it (amazingly without incident) and immediately started the self-guided tour. The outside was covered partially by scaffolding for repairs, (it seemed like half of the city was covered in scaffolding and plastic) but was still beautiful. (The covered part of the castle is hidden by the tree in this photo. Also, if you haven't discovered this yet, if you click on the photos it makes them much larger.)

The minute we entered the hallway it was clear that the Castle was decorated very differently from those in England and much of Western Europe. The ceilings were lower and overall the rooms were smaller than most palaces and castles I had been in, but the décor was no less ornate. There were three stories that we could access, the bottom two divided into rooms about the size of a normal bedroom and the top floor open with thrones on either side. The Castle felt cluttered, but in a good way. Not an inch of wall, floor or ceiling was left bare, but this made it seem almost more accessible. Walking through Buckingham Palace makes you feel so small, but walking through this Castle made you feel as if you were walking through the house of a friend who has exceptionally rich taste. Each room was decorated in one or several different styles and belonged to a different royal family member. For instance, Christian IV’s bedroom was decorated in the “Chinese” style (as the self guided tour paper puts it) and Frederik III’s Marble Room was “furnished in Baroque style to glorify the introduction of absolute monarchy in 1660.” The Long Room at the top was the most impressive room. The ceiling and floor were more simply decorated than the rest of the palace (I know, that’s hard to believe looking at the photo.) and there were fewer items in the room, making each one seem more impressive. For instance, the King’s throne at one end was made of Narwal Tusks (I found this fascinating!) and there were three large silver lions in front of the thrones protecting the King and Queen. (I don’t know about you, but if someone attacked me I would want a whole lot more than silver lions protecting me - maybe an army or something along those lines.)


There is the Narwal-tusk throne that I love!

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of the paintings and other decorations didn’t seem to be quite as high quality as those you find in the rest of Western Europe. For instance, the proportions in some of the paintings seemed slightly off.


Seriously though, I love these cherubs! (If that’s what they are anyhow – maybe they’re just ugly, dancing babies.)


The bodily proportions of a creepy-dancing-cherub(?)-baby and the head of a man.


I have no idea what this is made of (wax?) but does it remind anyone else of the fortune teller from the movie Big?


This is the last interior shot from the Castle - it was the hallway on the second floor. Harry Potter fans - doesn't this look like a scene from Hogwarts? (Those of you who aren't fans, this is what I mean by every inch was covered - if not by panels or tapestries or silk, then by paintings of all sizes.)

The gardens surrounding the Castle happen to be Copenhagen’s oldest and most visited park, so that is two major sites in Copenhagen down. (I know, we rock!) My favorite was a rose garden off to the side. There were orange roses that looked like they were on fire, large, delicate-looking yellow roses, deep red ones and small bunches of pink roses. In the center at the front of the garden where the crisscrossing paths met was a copper statue of a queen. Coupled with the roses, she reminded me of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland. (Down with bloody big head!)








Next was the Marble Church. The wind was blowing at hurricane force and the sky looked angry. We were blown around a corner to find the way blocked by construction and the dome completely covered. Refusing to admit defeat, we picked our way through and around the construction and luckily found the door open. The inside of the Church was beautiful, every bit of it made from various colors of polished marble. We sat down, said prayers for people we loved or missed and took in each tiny detail for the next half hour. Mosaics decorated the spaces created where the arches met all around the area beneath the dome and the organ was decorated with white swans and gold. We could have sat there for hours, but eventually our growling stomachs demanded we leave.





After food, we decided to start heading back. We were exhausted from a week’s worth of walking and it was starting to sprinkle. We made it a few streets over before the sprinkles turned into raindrops and we took cover in a department store thinking we could wait out the storm. Ha, funny. So now we were stuck half a city away from our hotel with darkness quickly falling and no umbrellas. Oh yeah, did I mention that? The day before rain had been forecasted and we carried around our clunky umbrellas all day and it never rained. So today we saw that rain was forecasted, looked outside, saw blue skies and left them in the room.

Stupid.

We were immediately confronted with a new problem in the store: whenever I went through a set of the thief detecting archways, (which, by the way, were at every door and the entrance to every escalator and elevator) alarms went off. We got three floors up before deciding it was somehow us and not just a fluke thing. (What’s the definition of insanity again? Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right? We must be insane then because it took four sets of alarms before we decided we were making them go off. Amazingly though no one came to see why alarms kept screaming.) We decided we needed to be stealthy if we were going to make it out without being arrested, so we waited for another customer and followed them at a creepy-close distance through the detectors. That way when the alarms went off, we looked judgmentally at them before looking away as they panicked and tried to seem inconspicuous. Worked like a charm.

Four freaked out strangers later and we found ourselves (happily this time) back in the rain. The happiness didn’t last long though, and we ducked into a coffee shop. About an hour later the raindrops were back to sprinkles, and, figuring it wouldn’t get any better, we decided to brave it. We mapped out our route – it seemed simple enough – and began to follow it at a brisk walk, reaching the main street in about ten minutes with water dripping off our noses and pooling on every bit of exposed skin. I squinted at the map in the darkness and we turned down the street to continue walking.

After trying to talk for a bit, a few slips directed my attention at the ground beneath my feet. I walked, allowing my mind to go numb – counting the steps instead of thinking.

‘1, 2, 3, is that snot or rain dripping off my nose? Can’t be sure. Wipe nose. 33, 34, 35, thaw ears. No use really, hurricane force winds will just freeze them again when I take my hands away. 231, 232, 233.’

I looked up about one hundred steps before the river. That’s odd - we don’t usually see that sign near our hotel. Oh well, I probably just didn’t notice it before . 346, 347, 348. Ok this is definitely not our bridge…our bridge is a land bridge and this one is definitely suspended. I slow down.

“Palak.”

“What?”

“Palak…”

“What??”

It can't be. There's no way we went the wrong way. That just wouldn't be fair. Our hotel must be behind that building there.

Then I see it. My fears are confirmed. My mouth falls open and I stop moving – I freeze completely.

“PALAK THAT’S THE OLD STOCK EXCHANGE!”

We both stared stupidly for a few minutes. It is amazing how much you can hate a building. Those few minutes was all it took for that building to become the most hated object in my life. Math? A piece of cake. My recent gay/compulsive liar ex-boyfriend? An angel. The Old Stock Exchange? I think that’s where Satan lives.

Palak turned us around and dissuaded me from stopping a cab since we were already wet, and we began plodding in the other direction, water now falling freely from my eyelashes, nose and hair.

“At least the spiders are drowning!” Palak says, attempting to look on the bright side.

“I bet they are all taking refuge in the Old Stock Exchange or our room – we left the window open.”

We were silent for a few streets before we began rehashing our favorite moments from Friends as a way of distraction.

20 minutes later we burst into our room after having spread a river or rainwater all the way through the hotel. One hot shower each later and our moods were significantly improved, though our clothes still wouldn’t drip themselves dry by the time we had to stuff them in our backpacks in the morning to fly back to London.

And now, a moment of silence for my mangled shoes, which I sadly will have to throw away since they are probably covered in mold from being drowned in Copenhagen and then forgotten in the London rain four times. You were good shoes; may you rest in peace.

Other Photos

That's what would have happened if I had been allowed to ride a bike around Copenhagen

The final two bird photos from Scandinavia:




And lastly, this is our solution to sore feet:

Walking over round stones such as these is like a free foot massage. I think we walked back and forth over these particular ones at least three times.

Thanks for reading - on to London finally!

Walking Across Copenhagen, Part 2

The next morning began with a walk around Fredericksburg and the annoying discovery that the Jewish Cemetery there was closed on Sundays. As we were sitting at a café lamenting our bad luck, a woman approached asking us a question in Danish.

I think it was a combination of my blonde hair and the fact that we both tended to dress nicely but ambiguously (no words or brands stamped across our T-shirts or butts) that caused so many people to take us for locals, but seriously, I love how much this happened! It made imagining life in Denmark and Sweden that much easier. I could see myself living in one of the flats in the pretty white stone buildings on the corner of a quiet street just off the main road in Fredericksburg, preparing breakfast before I headed to work. My musings always stuttered to a halt when I went outside and got on my bike (which seemed mandatory if you were under 40). Whoever said riding a bike is one of those things you never forget is seriously delusional. The last time I road a bike was three years ago in Paris and I rode it into a pole two seconds after starting to pedal. “It’s like riding a bike” indeed. In any case the whole “locals” illusion was shattered once we opened our mouths in surprise and grunted ”uh…” (We really should have looked up a few useful phrases before we left.)

This woman had approached us to give us pamphlets about someone running for some political office since the elections were being held in four days. The pamphlet hardly seemed necessary since the city had been plastered with sizeable cardboard posters picturing candidates’ faces, their affiliation, desired position, slogan and usually a marker mustache or clown nose sticker. (Palak said there was no way people took her for a local, but at least half of the signs depicted Indians, so I disagree! This one was her least favorite. I tried to rip it off as a souvenir but it shredded once it parted with the cardboard.)

We headed back across the stretch of water that separated Fredericksburg and central Copenhagen before veering left toward the northwest corner of the city to make the pilgrimage to the Little Mermaid that every tourist in Copenhagen makes. For those of you who don’t know, the Little Mermaid is a bronze statue in the Copenhagen Harbor that was created by Edvard Eriksen in 1913. It celebrates Hans Christian Anderson, a resident of Copenhagen in life and in death. I probably shouldn’t find this funny, but vandalism to the statue includes several decapitations, the loss of an arm, a lot of thrown paint and being draped in several burqas. Poor Ariel.

The walk was longer than we expected and the day was warm, so when we came upon a stately gallery nestled between tall residential buildings with a sign that said “open,” we gladly went in. The man told us the museum was closing in 30 minutes so paying for a ticket wasn't the best idea, but we were welcome to peruse the gift shop anyway. Palak eagerly ran to the postcards while I lagged behind, half interested. She began picking out a few postcards that she liked. At first I wasn’t going to buy any because we hadn’t actually seen the paintings on the postcards, but since I’ve become pathetically easy to convince, all it took was her showing me one and telling me how romantic it was for me to start collecting. I think I ended up walking out with eight? (I know, stay strong! I actually really like them because they remind me of how much fun we had on that walk.)

When we had followed our map through what seemed like miles of park, we suddenly emerged onto a street, crossed it and found ourselves staring down at the Little Mermaid. (The photo is a reflection on the water that ran through the massive park you had to cross before finding the Mermaid.) After taking a few photos from above, I climbed down to the rocks below and fought off the other tourists for a better angle. The more I circled the statue, the more I fell in love with it. Yes it was small, but it was so sincere. You could feel the longing just by looking at her body language – her shoulders slumped, her muscles slack, staring wistfully at a point on the shoreline far to the side. She drew you in; she seemed completely real. It was as if Hans Christian Anderson hadn’t just created the story in Copenhagen; it was as if he had actually witnessed the story of the Little Mermaid and then had written it down. It was truly a beautiful work of art.

From there we walked along the water back towards Nyhavn. The water was calm and a salty breeze was lifting off the sea and whispering around the tourists on the walkway. The sun was sinking behind the buildings and lights were just starting to come on as restaurants reopened their doors for dinner. It was the perfect end to a relaxing day.

Now a few more photos/adventures.

I’m going to start with my sign adventures this time!

Baggesensgade - Baggesens sounds rather like Baggins, right? Anyone else think Frodo Baggins when they read that? If you didn't at first, are you looking back and thinking that? Thought so.

I think they left off the "e" on the end there.

Now some bird photo fun for the day.
A pigeon ON a sign? I don't know whether this goes in the bird fun category or the sign adventures category.



Now for some other favorite photos of mine.






I took this photo for my mom because she loves pink!




This is the Copenhagen Opera House.


If he would have fit in my backpack, I absolutely would have bought him.

One final tangent. Staying at Palak's house, I have been watching nothing but Bollywood films (which is awesome because I love them). When we were at the Little Mermaid, there was a large group of Indian tourists who kept getting in our way, so when we finally sat down and they showed up again, I couldn't help but snap a photo, and, having seen so many Bollywood movies of late, construct my own Bollywood plot.



Ok, so you see the guy in the red shirt and the guy he's leaning up to in the blue shirt? They're lovers. (It's modern Bollywood.) The guy on the lefthand side is jealous because he loves red shirt, which is ironic because the girl - who by the way is dating pink plaid shirt next to her - is totally into lefthand side dude. Then there are the two random friends on the right who play minor rolls, and the guy with the glasses who thinks he is really hot stuff but in reality he's just annoying and fun to laugh at. I would tell you the ending, but I'm not into plot spoilers! Plus, once I got the beginning all worked out I was so excited I stopped scripting the rest of my movie. I can tell you that there would have to be about 12 failed declarations of love, five men crying and 18 songs and the movie would end up being between four and 89 hours long. Typical Bollywood. (If you haven't seen a Bollywood film, please go rent Hum Tum or Fanaa! You will understand all of this so much better! Or just watch Russell Peter's Bollywood skit.)

Thats all for now, thanks again for reading! Tomorrow I pinky swear I will finish Copenhagen and finally start publishing all of the things I have written about London!

(Swim) Lesson 1

(Prelude: I am breaking from Copenhagen just for today because I want to write about my first day of class. Now that you are mentally prepared, read on!)

Imagine being thrown into the deep end of a pool. You can’t swim, but it’s not because you don’t like the water – you do! You’ve just never gotten in past your knees. You are more of a look-at-it-and-appreciate kind of person than a flop-around-in-it type. You only have one floatie around your arm – you bought a pack of two that only came with one and were too lazy to return it and get a pack that actually had two like you initially paid for. Now for the rest of the people: they’ve been swimming since, well, forever. They probably weren’t delivered from their mother’s womb – they swam from it with perfect a backstroke. They all have eight floaties each even though they could totally swim without them. You are floating lopsidedly and feebly paddling toward the side while they swim circles around you. You’re still having fun though because, like I said, you actually like the water!

That was similar to class today, only the pool was the subject European Cinema.

European Cinema. It sounds interesting right? I thought so too. What I didn’t consider is that in England people only take classes within their major; meaning if you are studying journalism, you only ever take journalism classes. There is none of this take-a-weird-subject-like-Ancient-Athenian-Law-to-broaden-your-general-knowledge nonsense that we American students have. (True story – I loved that class.) Thus, all of the people in my class apart from the three other American exchange students were second year film students.

Near the middle of class, we were divided into four groups to discuss the definitions of four different film genres. I was in the Post War European Cinema group. Our instructions were define, list characteristics and provide two examples.

Wait, I came to class to learn all of that, not because I already knew it!

A class discussion ensued in which people threw about directors and obscure European cinema titles and theories like they had been to the Oscars and were name-dropping.

Do you know Michael Haneke? Nigel Wingrove? Ivan Passer? Italian new avant garde film genre? Iranian films?

Um… Do you know Brad Pitt?

Once the oh-my-gosh-I-know-nothing feeling subsided slightly, I realized that the class was actually quite enjoyable. The two professors teaching the course – one a young, clearly feminist woman and the other an older man – had a funny sort of chemistry. She kept saying things like “people from Ian’s generation couldn’t rent films because there was no such thing as a video cassette,” and he shot back complementary quips about not knowing how to use technology since he was a dinosaur. They both seemed fascinated with the exchange students though, even taking time to tell the class to be extra nice to us because we hadn’t been at Westminster the year before like they all had.

The class had about 30 people and was an interesting bunch as well. There was a French student with the sort of heavy, stereotypical accent that most Americans tend to use when mimicking the French and an Italian student with a voice so nasal that, paired with his accent, I barely caught two words he said. It didn’t help that I was slightly sleep deprived so my concentration was already impaired. The rest of the class was British as far as I could tell, and actively tossed in their own opinions and comments in between those of the professor and the French and Italian students.

The good thing about being thrown into an environment where you know little is that it gives you tons of room to improve. Also, the majority of this course takes place outside of class when you research and get to know the subject on your own, which fits me perfectly since I thrive in vague academic situations.

So what did I do when I got back to my room?

I watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Oh well, that’s a film right?

I do have a list of films and directors to research tomorrow though, not to mention worlds of time since I don’t have another class until Thursday. (I know, be jealous American students!)

Tomorrow I promise to finally finish Copenhagen so I can move back on to London. Thanks for reading!

Getting Lost in Copenhagen, Part 1

First I must say how very sad we were not to find Wayne’s Coffee in Copenhagen. They sold these great Chokladballs that were pretty much everywhere in Stockholm. (Coconut coated chocolate balls – they are a little difficult to describe. They weren’t solid chocolate, but I have no idea what to compare them to. Seriously though, Google a recipe and make them – that’s what I plan to do because they were hauntingly good. I’ll blog about how it goes once I actually try to make them.) Now on to Copenhagen.

Copenhagen gave me a really mixed first impression. I’ll start with the positives: First, I knew a bit more about Denmark than I did about Sweden, which made me a little more excited about Copenhagen. There were also more sites in Copenhagen that I had heard of as must-sees than in Stockholm. Finally, I was absolutely charmed by what I saw during the short walk from the train station to our hotel. Our hotel was located (again) on the southern side of the city between central Copenhagen and more residential Frederiksberg, so we got to cross through the lower center of the city, a pretty stretch of water, and then through the tree lined streets in between the beautiful houses and buildings in Frederiksberg. People rode bikes to such an extent that we almost looked odd on foot, and most of the people we passed were close to our age. It was just getting dark and Frederiksberg especially was quiet except for the occasional murmur drifting from an open restaurant window or the sound of a television program from one of the open apartment windows. I was taken by the manner in which it seemed the locals had lain their city open for us to observe and fall in love with.

Now for the negative – Nothing makes you miss your own home more than looking into someone else’s, and all of the flats had their lights on and their windows wide open, presenting homey comfortable living rooms and kitchens to the two of us on the street. Finally though (and yes this was the largest drawback), there were several of the largest, black spiders I have ever seen nesting in and around the hotel sign inches above the door. (Yes, I said nesting because they were the size of birds.) I’m not the least bit suspicious usually, but that has to be some sort of a bad omen.

Now I know those of you who know me are scoffing and picturing ant-sized spiders, and fine – I’ll admit it: If it’s larger than the head of a pen I call it a giant spider and compare it in size to a quarter. These were not little pen spiders though. No, these were Shelob-sized, fat, malicious, furry monsters waiting to drop down on unsuspecting tourists and feast on their flesh. (I hate spiders. They’re evil. Don’t give me that they’re-more-scared-of-you-than-you-are-of-them nonsense either – if you believe that then you don’t know how scared I am of spiders.) Luckily in this situation I was observant enough NOT to be an unsuspecting tourist. I saw these gigantic terrorists, noted their position and planned accordingly. Thus, after much mental preparation, I took a running start and launched myself through the doorway, luckily stopping short from knocking over the flower vase in the entryway. I believe I cancelled out the bad omen by taking it very seriously and flinging myself in and out of that doorway each time we passed through it over the next four days. (High five self, high five.)

We were up relatively early the next morning and started wandering in the direction that we had come from the day before. The night before we had decided we were roughly looking for Christianshavn (an island that was described as the upscale, canal area of Copenhagen) and the Jewish Museum, which was in the same direction.

After a few streets we stumbled upon the Copenhagen Cathedral and decided to go in. It was different than any cathedral I’ve seen before. For one, it was Lutheran and not Catholic, meaning it wasn’t laid out like a cross. There were statues along the side leading to a statue of Jesus in the center, but there weren’t really any other relics. The outside seemed relatively plain since it was built in the Neoclassical style. There were also no stained glass windows. In fact, there was hardly a spot of color inside the cathedral at all. Wandering on we came to another church; this time situated in a courtyard garden. The inside of this church was much the same as the last, but the courtyard was empty and peaceful.

We wandered on in what we thought was the direction we had been heading before and found ourselves back at the Cathedral. That’s odd – we never got lost in Stockholm. We circled back around and found a park, walked around the park, headed down the main road in what we thought was the direction of the Jewish museum and then turned around ten minutes later to head down the same street in what was actually the correct direction.

Finally we found the National Palace, which let us know that we were on the right track because it was written on the map on the same square as the Old Stock Exchange, the Royal Library and the Jewish Museum. We came through the Palace and into the inner courtyard. (From what we saw it was very different than the Palace in Stockholm. The entryway was made from white marble and had fat, muscular sculpted men holding up the ceiling and the rest of the palace.) Next we came through to the courtyard of the Royal Library. The back of the library was beautiful – it was made of rusty red bricks and was situated behind a pond with a large fountain. Across the grass courtyard were two white houses in front of another brick building. Over the buildings you could see nothing but clouds and sky.

We took photos in front of the library before heading out to find the Jewish museum. (Keep this in mind – this will be important in a bit.) According to my map, we were currently on a square bordered on all sides by canals, and the Jewish museum was between the Old Stock Exchange and the Royal Library. We had now come through the Royal Library and were standing in another courtyard with a large, imposing stone building on our left. It appeared to be some sort of museum (not Jewish) and was closed for construction. We exited to the side and found an intricate building with a tall spire made of four dragon tails. We didn’t know what that was, but we knew we should have found the Jewish Museum by now so we walked along the outside of the courtyards we had just come from thinking it must be on the outside. Instead we found the front of the National Palace.

Again.

Hmm.

We decided it was time to start asking people for directions. The first man sent us back the way we had come, instructing us to find a garden. We ended up back at the closed museum. The second lady sent us in the opposite direction. The next two women said they had been looking for it too but had given up. Clearly the Jewish Museum didn’t want to be found?

By this point we were so ticked off that we had been circling the same, relatively small block for over half an hour that we were more fueled by fury than interest to find the illusive building. We stomped up the incline to the building with the spire that we had found before but the sign on the front said that it was the Old Stock Exchange and that it was not open to the public. Reader, I cannot begin to impress upon you how deeply and sincerely I hate this building. In all that circling, this was the building we saw most frequently, and thus this became the object that we focused our frustration onto. I bought a postcard with the Stock Exchange on it and every time I look at it I get angry.

We headed back toward the library asking directions from a few people along the way who either didn’t know or sent us in different directions. Finally we switched to Palak’s map which had a short, dead end street that was missing from my map and came through a side entrance to the library courtyard and found a sign: Jewish Museum.

Really?

Are you kidding?

It’s PART of the Library? WHY IS IT LISTED SEPARATELY ON THE MAP!?

We sat down angrily on a bench in front of the museum, refusing to go in just then. Soon though we started laughing that we had started out by taking photos in front of the building we had been looking for over the past 45 minutes.

Once we finally went in we really enjoyed the museum, though I wanted to kill the guy at the front desk. When we told him the museum was rather difficult to find, he laughed and said “Oh yeah, we don’t have enough signs!”

Oh yeah? We noticed.

The building was nearly as interesting as the artifacts. The floors were sloped as a metaphor for the difficulties Jews face in life and it was laid out with five rooms and glass cases between quotes on the walls. (I think I’m still walking sort of crookedly as a result of trying to walk without drifting on those floors though.) The World War II section was particularly interesting, as Denmark was the only occupied country to have over 99% of it’s Jews survive the Holocaust. When word came that Jews were going to be rounded up, the Danish people came together to evacuate the Jews to Sweden, saving their lives. It was an amazing story, and seeing pieces of it firsthand made it seem even more amazing.

When we left we decided to swing by Nyhavn on our way to find food. Nyhavn is one of the canals on the Northern side of the city, just across the water from Christianshavn, and is an iconic site in Denmark. We found the area easily (Thank God) and sat down at a restaurant to eat. The area was beautiful. Colorful buildings lined both sides of the canal and historical ships were anchored all the way to the edge. Both the streets and the canal in between were busy with tourists and locals.

After dinner we crossed a bridge to walk around Christianshavn before returning to our hotel. The canals were pretty and there was an interesting mix of old and newer buildings. The people on this side of the city were also really friendly. Each time we pulled out our map someone stopped to ask us if we needed directions. The second time when we told the man we were looking for Christianshavn the man asked us “Do you smoke?” We stared at him, confused. “No, your eyes do not look like you do. Well you can follow this trail up here around and see the canal and Christianshavn is right over there.”

After passing a few people we realized that we had managed to find the major pot smoking area in the city.

Ironic considering neither of us smoke.

From there we headed back through the canals and across the city back to our hotel.

Now a few memorable photos/adventures!

More fun with signs

This is the top of their guard stations. I think the M is for Megan.

There are nine hearts on the Danish Coat of Arms. There are also hearts on the coins and guard stations.

People only ride bikes - no matter what they're wearing or where they're going.