Copenhague a Paris

Recap of the past few days

Friday - my last full day in Denmark
Another bike ride, of course. We wanted to bike to the coast again, but there was a chance of rain, so we went on some trails through a forest instead.

I am a master bike-packer.


We found some beautiful scenery, like this lake and some horses (technically, horses aren't scenery, are they?). The trails we a bit confusing and since we didn't want to check the map at every intersection, we got lost on the way back (but ended up on a main road and made it home just fine).

That evening, we went to a party for students in Elisabeth's program (she got me in too) and made new friends. Some were Danes, plus an American and a Canadian, so even if I don't get to see that fun group again, I know I'm leaving Elisabeth in good hands.


We turned the corner while biking to the train station before the party and saw this.


Saturday - travelday

I hardly saw Elisabeth's other uncle's family during the trip, so we went over there for a wonderful brunch before leaving for the airport. Elisabeth and I took the elevator to the tracks because of my luggage. Good thing, because I'd forgotten what Morten told us about how Danish elevators tell you that they're moving: i fart. We are very mature.



It was so sad to say goodbye, but at least I only have to wait until October to see her again, rather than the usual 1 year.


Best friends of 19 years!


Saturday afternoon-Sunday
Thank goodness my friend Philippe met me at the airport, because I would have been sooo lost without him! We took a train to a metro station, then switched metro lines twice before reaching one near where I'm staying. We got there around six and I finally got to meet my host family, Rosemary and Carina. Carina, who's my age, made us a cake! That was a nice surprise, then I got to unpack, eat dinner with Carina, and get ready to go out. One of her friends was having a party, and getting ready together was a lot of fun. It was great to meet her friends, but I couldn't understand them when they talked to each other, only when they slowed down to talk with me. I was surprised that when people heard me speaking English with others, they asked me where I'm from rather than assuming the US. Nothing like chatting with strangers in a language I haen't had to speak in a year after an exhausting day of travel! I'm really glad I'm staying with another student my age so I can meet other people from around here.

I went to the ATM and grocery store this morning, worked on my French grammar activities to practice for my placement exam, and might meet up with Philippe in a bit to wander around the city.

Kobenhavn

I was far too exhausted by the end of the night (that would be 10 pm) to write anything intelligible, but took sooooo many photos yesterday that I've got to update now. Someone had her first day of school yesterday!


I think her expression explains that we woke up at 6:30 to make pancakes for the family.

While everyone was hustling about, doing important thinks like going to school and work, I went on a walk to see the cows again, armed with my camera this time. I took a ton of photos - the fields are so amazing! You can see the beautiful landscape behind the cow in this photo, with a lake way in the back there.


Clearly, I caught him mid-sentence.


These ones were posing for me. In the whole huge field, there couldn't have been more than about fifteen cows, which is really nice.

Since Elisabeth had class until three, I went to the Museum of Danish Resistance 1940-1945 and wandered around that area for a while. The museum was really cool and covered Denmark's Nazi occupation during World War II. Some resistance efforts included industrial sabotage, but since the Danes would be using their factories for their own needs after the war, one tactic was to pour some really smelly liquid on machines to temporarily prevent them from being used. There was also info on secret communications, like illegal newspapers and radio - BBC in Danish was not outlawed, but the antennae necessary to receive it were banned mid-war. The British dropped supplies and later arms for the underground army, broadcasting the locations on BBC in code.


Danish Jews escaped to neutral Sweden via rail or boat - I think this buoy was used to mark receiving posts.


I also went to Kastellet, one of northern Europe's best-preserved fortifications. That was particularly interesting because I vaguely remember going there five years ago with Elisabeth's family.

At three, I met her at a fountain near Amalienborg, where we also met up with Hjalte (pronounced kind of like yelt-a). His dad is friends with one of Elisabeth's uncles and her mom thought they should meet. He was really nice and showed us more of the city, including the Norrebro area. It's less touristy but still had a lot of restaurants (we stopped for coffee/ice cream), which are less expensive because it's outside the center of the city.

We headed home around five or six, which meant the S-train was packed for rush hour, and spent the rest of the evening jumping on the trampoline, eating, and playing a dice game.

Today is my last full day here!

Magnetic Soap

I was not going to post anything tonight, but magnetic soap made me change my mind. I'll try to post some of the more unusual things I see over here (well, unusual to Americans, at least). When I saw this soap, I thought it was jammed on an extra faucet until I accidentally hit it and realized it was magnetic (it's like a normal bar with a circular magnet in the top). Elisabeth has seen this on previous trips and said, "Every time I come to Denmark, someone's got magnetic soap!" as if it were perfectly normal. Not quite!




Birthe works for Bodum and gets a nice discount on their items, so the kitchen is a wonderland of gadgets and coffee/tea accessories, such as these coffee cups that have two separate layers of glass to keep the coffee warm and not burn your hand. Brilliant.


Here, my beautiful best friend is modeling a high-waisted apron. We made dinner of black bean burgers (sort of, you can't find black beans here, so misc. bean burgers), chickpea spinach salad, sweet potato fries, and rum cake. Except there was no rum so we used brandy, and the instant pudding and cake mixes are not as common here, so I think the Danish alternatives might have made it more dense (mom, it wasn't as good as yours!).



I got to talk to my parents on Skype today, which was wonderful even if they had to type to me due to microphone problems. I showed my mom the turtle, Speedy, but he wasn't awake when I wanted a photo with him. He's runs all over his tank, climbs things, and is quite the active turtle. Here's Speedy hiding in his shell sleeping (doesn't my arm look weird?).


After dinner, we walked through some fields and the cows came over to check us out. I'm definitely taking my camera next time we go over there.

Castles, National Museum, Elves

Yesterday was my Copenhagen sightseeing day by myself, and I sure did cover some ground. Elisabeth was busy with orientation for most of the day, but met me for lunch in a park between sessions. Afterwards, I set off with a map to do some sightseeing. Morten suggested I visit the parliament building and I remembered liking Amalienborg Palace (the winter home for the Danish royal family), so I set those as my destinations and took a roundabout route there, spending some time along the water and also checking out a few of the pedestrian streets. The photos I posted below are the two palaces (slot is the Danish word used for castle/palace), Christianborg (now parliament) on the top and Amalienborg on the bottom. I left my memory card in my computer and took the camera without it, but had to post these photos I found online.



Today, we met for lunch in a different park and Elisabeth got to join me for more touring. I really wanted to see the National Museum, so we spent the afternoon there. It's a huge museum, which covers the entire cultural history of Denmark and is housed in a historic mansion (we saw an exhibit that traced the history of the building, originally as the home of a wealthy merchant, but added to over time) almost in the center of the city. Elisabeth's program had an activity fair at 5, so we only had a few hours to learn about everything that ever happened in Denmark.



We took as many interactive photos as we could. I think the horns suit her.


Danish fashion - bronze age era.


I found another cannon! After I got so excited over the ones at Kronborg, I didn't even have to ask Elisabeth to take a photo of me with it.




If you look at the glass cylinder, you can see the not-so-contorted image of the king. Who thinks of things like this?

We had to rush at the end, breezing through the second half of the "Denmark 1660-2000" exhibit to make it to the activities fair, where a guy approached us with information on live action role playing. They had a bunch of medieval replica gear and he said that a lot of women like to be elves...I don't quite remember why, but something about dancing and singing in the forest.

Lazy Sunday

We had a pretty laid back day today, starting with french toast Morten made for breakfast. I'm glad I changed from vegan to vegetarian before this trip, because I would have some difficulties eating here otherwise. And be missing out on some good food in favor of bread and salad.

Today was Elisabeth's first day of orientation, so she had to head into the city to pick up her schedule for the rest of the week. I stayed home and went through a French textbook I brought with me to prepare for my placement test. She left the house sporting a new do though, because I cut her hair this afternoon (last year we cut each others' hair, this year, only she was brave enough).

When she got back, we went on a walk to a lake nearby. Actually, we went on a walk to get ice cream bars, and enjoy them on the lake. Here, you can see her haircut...just don't look too closely. The second picture is a field the walking path goes by, but keep in mind, this isn't even in the country, but rather just a suburb of Copenhagen. At the top of the field, you can see a few dark spots, which are cows.

And now, it's time for a metro tutorial so I can bike to the station, buy a ticket, and take a train into the city all by myself to meet Elisabeth for her three hour break in between orientation sessions (and do some sight seeing on my own!). She's got activities or classes for the rest of the time I'm here, but it's not so bad because I can study French and sight see while she's busy, and we've still got plenty of time together.

Go Big or Go Back to Denmark

CYCLING HOLIDAY

Yesterday and today, Elisabeth and I biked over 70 km, exploring the northwestern region of Zealand, the island containing Copenhagen. It was an inredible trip. We left the house at 9:30 on Friday and biked up the coast, reaching Helsingor (the northern tip of Zealand) by noon, which allowed for plenty of stops along the way, including our first water break at a marina. Once in Helsingor, we visited Kronborg, also known as "Hamlet's Castle" or "Elsinore," as the setting of Hamlet. After a picnic under a shelter while some rain clouds passed by, we went into the castle, visited the courtyard (passing by the rooms open to the public for a fee) and moved onto the grounds. We found seventeen or so cannon and Elisabeth made fun of me for my excitement at seeing them (since part of my job with the Park Service consisted of giving "Cannon Talks").



Stops 1 and 2. In 2, you see the common scene of Elisabeth checking her wonderful map book (while I handled snacks-she just polished off a digestive (delicious cookie/cracker)). Quote of the day: "Biking and digestives, pretty much my life."


The scenery wasn't so bad...



We investigated the beach at Helsingor, but decided it was too cold to swim and biked back to where the ferries were to get from Helsingor to Helsingborg, Sweden. We had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to buy ferry tickets and one left while we were still working on that. We were in no rush though and waited for the next. Being completely unexperienced with Scandinavian ferries, we decided it would be best to follow the other two bikers onto the ferry as they rode to the front and parked. That meant that cyclists were also the first off the ferry, at which point we followed those ladies again to see how to get out of the docking area. Turns out the roundabout we used for reference on the map was not the one we thought it was and we got a bit turned around finding out hotel. We looked into booking hostels, but for a price difference of $4 each, we were able to book a hotel (for 650 Swedish krona), which was upgraded from a single with an extra bed to a double! We immediately showered because we were so gross (see before and after pictures) and went out to explore the town some more. It took a while to find a place that accepted credit cards, but we eventually bought ourselves a pizza, returned to the hotel to relax, then went back out to watch a free running/parkour/freestyle walking/urban gymnastics whathaveyou competition. We were wrong, the competition was the next night (sponsored by Red Bull), but we watched some people practicing in front of what looked like a castle and walked around the harbor a bit before calling it a night.



We woke up at 7:45 and took full advantage of our free breakfast at the hotel to gear up for a lot of biking. The first leg of the day (after another confusing ferry loading) seemed to be alllll uphill, but was only 10 km. The castle at Fredensborg had some beautiful gardens, where we again picnicked on trail mix, digestives, apples, and cookies. There were gaurds in front of the castle, so we couldn't get very close, but did have a man take a photo in which we effectively block your view of it. The next leg was the longest, but not as bad with the hills. The second day was also through the countryside rather than along the coast, so we got to see a lot of beautiful fields and forests. The Danes are also wonderful about bike lanes - we were on a raised bike line almost the entire trip, including along highway, and some were even seperated from the road by trees, so it was like biking through a forest. This longer but less greuling ride brought us to Fredericksborg, where we found the most impressive castle of the trip. It was on a big lake, surrounded by gardens, and was ginormous. I haven't been able to find brouchures at any of these sites, so I don't know its history, but it sure did look impressive. There were three wedding parties there for photos.

The last part of the trip was about another 15 km and included more beautiful scenery. We liked to say "We're making great time," but since we've never biked this much, we really aren't sure how great of time we made. I definitely slowed us down the last couple of kilometers because it hurt to extend my left knee (it still hurts to get out of chairs, etc, but I'm not too concerned). It wasn't too much of a problem timewise, though, because we still crossed the border, biked 40 km, visited two castles, and made it home by 4 o'clock. We've spent the rest of the evening relaxing, enjoying a delicious meal made by Birthe (Bierd-ah) and Morten (Elisabeth's aunt and uncle), and playing games with the family. Birthe mentioned taking the kids for a bike ride tomorrow, but I think I'll be okay missing out on that...

Welcome to Denmark

After driving to Dulles, flying to Charles de Gaulle, and surviving a seven hour layover, I finally reached Copenhagen for a reunion with my best friend! No time for jet lag-there's too much to do! It was Elisabeth's mom's last night in Denmark, so we had a traditional Danish lunch for dinner with bonus not-so-Danish vegetarian options. Check out the eel Mrs. A prepared...we were not so pleased when she assulted us with it while we were cooking.

This morning, we had a family breakfast, said farewell to the madre, then Elisabeth and I took the metro to downtown Copenhagen. We spent most of our time at a swimming area built into the harbor, where the water was 18 degrees Celcius, so cold! During our exploration of the city, we ran into interesting things like a "Skills Show," where craftsmen and chefs impressed show goers as a (not so good) Danish rapper performed. We walked through a beautiful park hidden behind a museum and made our way through the crowded streets along the canal en route back to the metro station. I would also like to add that Elisabeth's Danish is coming along fabulously.

Before and after our Copenhagen trip, we made some preparations for our "cycling holiday," as Elisabeth has taken to calling it. We bought a tire repair kit and found these gems of helmets at the bike store, made to look like hats (and actually saw a woman wearing one of the three styles today).