Copenhagen - day 37

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Geo: 55.6763, 12.5681

"wonderful wonderful copenhagen..." y'all know that song? whoever wrote it knew what they were talking about

i am in love! i love denmark, i love the danes, i love copenhagen and its quaint little city, and i love its monarchy - i knew i would love the monarchs though, i had a danish friend and his family told me all about queen margaret, plus i have that aussie princess connection..lol...i MUST do a proper scandanavia trip! my friend MelB (who i will be meeting up with in just ONE WEEK to go to the greek islands and rome) will be spending a few days in stockholm...from what i hear she should love it there too so i smell a girl's trip to scandanavia in the making

every single thing here has been awesome...the food, the countryside, the people, the little itty bitty unpretentious castles...i can't rave about it enough

i had a bit of a scary start - not real life scary, just me having a bit of a freak out scary...the train out of berlin was 1.5 hours late and we had a ferry to catch...this train (the scandanavian night express) actually goes onto a ferry boat which has train tracks on it (have you ever heard of such a thing?? i found out about it on youtube), so we couldn't just catch the next ferry, it was that one or nothing...the train made it though, and at 3am we rolled onto the ferry...i got out to have a look only to see the wide, black expanse of the baltic sea and some fisherman-type of older scandanavian men all around, so i scurried back to the lower decks and into my cabin and went to sleep, telling myself that we weren't really about to sail off the edge of the world

8am we roll off the ferry into sweden but had a "problem with the locomotive", as the conductor put it, so i missed my connecting train from sweden to denmark...the cute little conductor told us all not to worry about a single thing, and that we were getting dropped off at the closest train station in sweden, and the sweedish people are very nice...lol, wut??? true facts, the train did in fact just go to the nearest stop where we were all told to get off..."you, train 1B go to copenhagen", and he was gone...freezing cold, in the wrong country, and apparently train 1B would get me to copenhagen

it did though 😊 it turns out i was only 2 stops away from where i was meant to be (lol...) and after we went over the Oresund Bridge (the longest bridge in the world), i stepped out into denmark and wonderful wonderful copenhagen

the weather was on the cold side, but not icy...when it said it would be 17 degrees, it was actually 17 all day long, it didn't fluctuate, it wasn't windy...the sun would come out at times and everything would be yellow, but it didn't actually get any warmer

everything looks so different here...everyone is tall and blonde and green eyed, and i don't speak a SINGLE word of danish, not even hello or thank you...and then to see the sun come out but not feel its warmth is some confusing shit...i was feeling pretty damn far from home my first morning here...this is the furthest from home i have ever been, and the furthest north on planet earth i have ever been

but it was uphill from there, every step better than the one before...i did the obligatory city tour and boat cruise, watched the changing of the guard at the palace (and margaret was home!) then walked around the beautiful curved streets and soaked in the atmosphere...it's all just amazing

the streets were built curved in the middle ages to safeguard the city from pirates - their canon balls couldn't hit any important buildings that way...denmark made a lot of it's money when they were an absolute monarchy (hence why they still love their monarchs), and their king heroes are King Frederick (the numbered something) and his son King Christian IV...the passage between denmark and sweden from the north sea into the baltic sea was the only way trade ships could get from mainland europe to russia, so the kings placed a tax on any ship wanting to cross those waters - and they all did...the deal was, you paid according to the value of your cargo, which was based on an honour system...the captain of the ship would declare the value and pay his passage fee accordingly, but the king had the right to purchase your cargo if he thought it a fair price - so you declare it too low, the king could buy everything outright for that low price...declare it too high so he wouldn't buy it, then you'd pay more taxes...it was win/win for the danes for hundreds of years

today, the danes pay pretty high income tax but have a rather high standard of living...this makes for a very well functioning city, with perfect public services and well-maintained public areas...it's safe, it's welcoming, it has tourists from all over the world, good food, good beer (so i'm told..i had some Carlsberg, shit is awful!) and it's pretty...what more can you ask?

i had the best salmon EVER, and i am no fan of red fish! and herring, man do they know their fishes...also had some wonderful pork and later found out that denmark's greatest export is swine...there are 25 million pigs here, 5 pigs to every dane (basically, they have more pigs that there are people in australia!), and the pastries! they don't call them danish pastries here, just pastries 😊

florence and copenhagen, top marks from me...i've been to a lot of places and these two are right at the top of my best ever list

links:

youtube scandanavian night express

oresund bridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%!C(MISSING)3%!r(MISSING)esund_Bridge

danish royal family
http://www.kongehuset.dk/english/

pickled herring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herring

ps...had a few hours to spare before my next train to amsterdam...walked into a hair salon, asked for highlights, walked out with the lightest and shortest hair i have had in about 2 decades...LOLERAMA!

pps...i'm on the train from copenhagen to amsterdam and we've stopped on the border of denmark and germany, so i'm posting this quickly while i have internet access...spell check be damned!

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Photos

baltic sea
the furthest north on planet earth i have ever been!

Comments

[melissab2009]

OMG you look soo different with that hair!! Lucky i wasnt meeting you in Athens without seeing the pic otherwise i'd have walked straight past you! poor viv will feel left out with us both being blonde :) 5 sleeps to departure date for mep
s. 'WHEN' we go back to scandinavia, can we make it one of those freaky times of the year when its only night for an hour or something ridiculous like that? i always wanted to see that see you SOON!!!!

[naomi]

I loved that entry.. just lapped it up. You sound so in love with Copenhagen.. I was nearly in tears!I didn't see a pic of you with new hair.. where did Melissa see that?Just keep on having such a super time.xxx

[MrsD]

Where do I find a picture of you with your new do? Tell me, do you think they wanted to turn you into a Scandinavian woman? :)

[nicky7a]

my head is nothing short of funny...wait till you see it...heehheee

[nicky7a]

i emailed it to her...i'll forward it to you...copenhagen and amsterdam were beyond awesome, totally loved them both...now i am sitting in Brugge and so far this looks pretty fantastic too :)

[nicky7a]

i think they were scared of my overgrown dark coloured hair and assumed i would be too

[Con]

Helen wants to see pics of your hair. MelB says you look so different. We both want to see just how much different you look. Oresund Bridge looks huge.

[Con]

LOL.....my sister with blonde hair is almost as funny as me with a full head of hair!

[Con (amateur economist...LOL)]

Why do some European countries stay with their local currency and not go with the Euro?Lets take Hungary for example. They still use the Hungarian currency (HUF). If they changed to the Euro the country's major buildings (the one's that cos
t the most) would be bought out by rich foreigners who have Euros to burn!By choosing to stay with the HUF and then making the exchange rate between the HUF and EURO really unfavourable....that's a way to safeguard the country from falling into foreign ownership. Capisce!Con :)

[nicky7a]

i get what you're saying, but i don't reeeeeally get it...if the exchange rate is unfavourable doesn't that make the HUF more valuable than the euro? and isn't that impossible? if something costs 10 euro, 13 aussie dollars and 15 us dollar
s, doesn't it still cost 10 euro after your convert dollars to euros?

[nicky7a]

it is exactly like that...you USED to have a full head of hair, and i USED to have blonde hair (for a short time when i was around 19)

[barneyb10]

I want to see the hair....email me plezzzzzzz..... so glad you are having the time of your life...much love...

[nicky7a]

did you see it? there's still some people on the planet who like rob stewart, right?