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I've now just arrived Gothenburg having spent 3 lovely sundrenched days cycling up here. That'll be in my next blog entry to come...
Ok, so back to Copenhagen. Well my first day there in fact I ended up going to visit my friend Alexandra, a Swedish girl I knew from Oxford. She's now studying (well kind of so it seems!) in Lund, the Swedish version of Oxford. I got the train across and had a nice day, first wandering around Lund and the university then down to the beach at Lomma. This was my first of many Swedish beach experiences, and on the hottest day of the trip it was amazing to get in the cool water. I didn't realise at the time, but the water isn't salty at all! It's just like swimming in a lake (you even see ducks in the water, though not at Lomma - just swedes there). And it's shallow till way out too. So we had a nice time, devoured some strawberries (see photo) and then headed back up to Lund for one of the best (and biggest) ice creams ever! Sweden was definitely beginning to appeal. We also saw a graduation ceremony (for
high school not uni) with all the kids kitted up in suits and dresses. Well sadly I had to go back to my hostel in Copenhagen that evening, and a night in a dorm with 13 beds - and that was the smallest dorm!! The largest had 60 beds and no windows.
Well the next morning I got up bright and early (really no choice there as some of my roomies had had an early start) for a bit of laundry, then an meeting with my cycle buddy Nuno. Well it turned out he was just about to leave for Helsingor then Sweden, so we found a nice cafe-bar and had a nice chat over a lunchtime beer. I wasn't sure if I was going to see him again, but I'd made up my mind that I'd be hitting Sweden too, the next day, and cycle at least up to Gothenburg before wending my way via 2 ferries back to Denmark and then on to Kristiansand in Norway. Before I forget here's Nuno's blog: http://go2north.blogspot.com/ Practise a bit of french and see a piccy of me there!
So on to Copenhagen. Well I'd already spent a little bit
of time there and to be honest had felt a bit disappointed. It's a big city and has all the traffic racing through the centre that you'd expect. There's also lots of cyclists, many wearing helmets (a first for the trip) and wide array of bicycle carts for carrying any thing from shopping to kiddies to bits of furniture and surf boards! So the first morning I'd seen the centre it was full of Carlsberg lorries blocking every street. This afternoon was a lot more pleasant. I strolled around all the main sites taking piccies as you can see and ate a very nice sandwich and danish (and for a fiver you'd hope so) for lunch, climbed a tower which was a huge ramp rather than steps - interesting! Got one of the freebie bikes (they're like golddust) and struggled with its squeaky crank against the wind out to the mermaid (overrated!) then wandered through a few parks - the weather was amazing (In fact it's been touching 30 degrees for the last week now, the hottest place in Europe so i'm told, and even the Swedes are saying this is very unusual.) so half of copenhagen seemed to be
out sunbathing. All in all a nice day, but I was itching to get back on the saddle - cities seem to be pretty lonely places to be when you're solo. Plus the hostel - why was I paying 15 quid a night to share a grotty room with 12 others when i could be out in the open camping for free? That evening I had a fun chat with a bunch of Swedes, a Texan and the dippiest blonde I've ever met from Laguna Beach, California as she told me about a million times (she was drunk so maybe I'm being harsh).
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