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Published: July 16th 2008
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The Little Mermaid
Hans Christian Andersen is like a god here. I arrived in Copenhagen at 11pm after an eleven hour train trip. The secenery on the Swedish west coast between Gothenburg and Copenhagen was absolutely spectacular. In Copenhagen, I stayed with two different hosts, both of who I contacted through an online organisation called Couchsurfing. When I arrived in Copenhagen I took the train to the apartment of the guy I was staying with (Mark) and went promptly to sleep.
The next morning I went into the centre of Copenhagen and to the tourist office to plan my movements. I went to the Copenhagen city museum but it was closed. I then went to the Danish Jewish museum, which I wasn't really impressed by. There wasn't much in the way of exhibits, it was mainly an architectural statement, and was quite small. It was good to learn about the Danish saving almost all the Danish Jews by helping them escape to neutral Sweden. After that I went to the erotica museum in downtown Copenhagen, which in hindsight I could definitely have skipped. After that I went to the botanic gardens, near where I was staying. It's a really good one but ot closes at 6pm so I didn't get to
spend much time there. After that I went back to the apartment and out for a meal and a beer with mark.
On wednesday morning I did some laundry, and then went to hire a bike in an attempt to feel like a local. Copenhagen has really good bike paths and a lot of the locals cycle rather than drive. I tried to follow a route that Mark had recommended me, but I took a wrong turn and got hopelessly lost. After a lot of trying to figure out where I was, I caught the tube back near Mark's and got some lunch. After lunch I actually managed to follow his route, and I went to the coast and cycled along it. I saw the statue of the Little Mermaid (written by Hans Christian Andersen, who also wrote the ugly duckling and other fairy tales. he seems to be worshipped in Copenhagen). I then went to the Danish Resistance Museum, which was all about the Danish resistance to the Nazis during World War II. The Danes didn't resist the actual occupation, but did lots of sabotage acts and managed to keep some of their liberties under the occupation. They
also managed to save almost all of their Jews which is a really great story. After that I went to the Rosenborg park and saw a statue of H.C. Andersen and some others. It's a nice park. I then went back to Mark's, packed up all my gear and headed to the place of the next guy I was staying with. I met some other people who were there and we ate pancakes and watched the soccer.
On Thursday I went to the Copenhagen city museum for real, which was fairly good, and then to the park for lunch. After that I wnet back to the botanic gardens, but for some reason it wasn't so good this time. After a while it started raining heavily which kind of ruined it as well. After that I went back to the flat and made a big salad with salmon which was awesome, it's so nice to have healthy food again, and shared it with the others. After dinner I went with the Polish bottle players to meet some Polish girls in town. We went to a student house for a drink, and then sat by the river with some beer. We
then to an irish bar which was full of old drunk Danish men. We didn't stay very long... It was a great night.
The next day was my last day in Copenhagen. I went to the town to meet my friend Anne, who is from Copenhagen but studied in London last semester. I was late because I got lost, but eventually found her and we had some hot chocolate at a nice cafe. It was raining heavily and windy, and we were sitting outside under umbrellas. The wind was so strong it blew one of the umbrellas out of the ground! Summer in Copenhagen... We then went into an antique bookstore to get some shelter and looked at Danish books. H.C. Andersen featured prominently. After that Anne showed me to the Glyptotek and it was really worth it. I loved the paintings of Van Gogh, Corot, Gauguin and other french impressionists and post-impressionists. I also really liked the french sculpture section.
After the Glyptotek, I went back to the flat, met all the guys and we went to Tivoli, which is a permanent theme park type thing in the centre of Copenhagen. The guy we were staying with
had free tickets so we thought we'd check it out. We saw a Danish band called TV2, who were really cheesy and frankly quite awful. Myself and one of the Polish guys (the other was too scared..) went on a rollercoaster which was kind of fun. After we got sick of TV2 (about ten minutes), I headed to Nytorv, the entertainment district, and drank some beer with the Polish guys by the canal. Some homeless guy came and collected our bottles to put them in his trolley to trade them in. We then got a very good kebab and headed home.
The next morning I got up early, grabbed my stuff and headed to the train station for Kiel.
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