Copenhagen, At Last

Hi team,

I regret to inform you that Copenhagen is the last stop of the trip so this is my final blog of The Victory Lap! I'm sure that this isn't my last international excursion though, so just think of it as a slight pause in blogs to entertain you.

Copenhagen at dusk

Copenhagen was a fantastic place to "pause" the journey because I got to spend it with two great friends. One was a friend who also did an exchange semester in Zurich with me, and the other was a friend from Vienna who came to join the party. In addition to the excellent company, I found Copenhagen to be a beautiful place to visit. It was clean and safe with pretty architecture and pretty people. They naturally come tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. I swear the average height for guys must be over six foot. And everyone looks dressed up and put-together all the time. From the way people look, I'd imagine that they spend hours every day getting ready to leave the house. My thrice-worn questionably clean travel clothes did the best they could.

Copenhagen is actually an up-and-coming fashion hub. There are lots of Danish designers gaining international recognition and the city is preparing right now for the big Copenhagen Fashion Week. I spent an evening perusing side streets and department stores window shopping and seeing what all the fuss was about. My reaction: I can't wait till some of this stuff comes to the US. There were lots of crazy patterns and show-stopper shoes that made me wonder who would wear that. Oh yeah, the Danish. I'm just an American and a geeky engineer, what do I know.

The gold ones, please.

Along the way I grabbed a "snail" pastry from a famous bakery. They're like swirled croissants with cinnamon on the inside, and very Danish. I bet you're wondering if I had a Danish pastry too. Oddly enough, in Denmark a Danish is called Wienerbrød, which translates to Vienna-bread. Where this pastry comes from I don't think anyone knows, but they were very popular in Copenhagen (and not in Vienna). And of course I had one.

Viennese Danishes?

Not only did these Danish people look good, they were also super nice! Everyone that we spoke to had a smile on their face and was more than willing to talk with us. I actually personally think that this is a byproduct of how safe Copenhagen is, as the crime rate has to be almost nonexistent. To show what I mean, I'll give you an example. We stopped two girls on the street late at night to ask directions. Both of them turned toward us without hesitating and answered us wholeheartedly. In most big cities, as a female especially, I would never stop to answer a stranger on the street at night, especially if it was a guy doing the talking. All day long, people just talked to us like we were friends. I think that Copenhagen is so safe that it's easy to be friendly. Safety comes with a price tag though - this was easily the most expensive city that I've ever been to. I paid ten dollars for a pastry and coffee, forty dollars for two cocktails, at least twenty dollars for breakfast, fifteen for a sandwich. Of course, their average salary is much higher than ours to compensate. Their taxes are also astronomical compared to the US. But, everyone seems quite safe and happy. It's hard to argue with that, since isn't that the goal?

I also think they're happy because they bike EVERYWHERE. Biking always makes me happy :) They have it figured out, as I did in Philly, that it's almost always faster to bike than it is to drive or take public transport. They actually have bicycle traffic jams in the morning. Amsterdam is the only other city that rivals Copenhagen in cyclists that I've experienced and biking must be just as popular or more so in Copenhagen.

Of course, I couldn't just watch - we rented bikes for a day on Saturday. We broke up our time in the cold with a stop at the botanical gardens, which have a rainforest climate inside. It was a perfect getaway from the snow. This garden has the world's largest flower, which only blooms every ten years for three days at a time and smells like rotten meat. We missed that part, bummer.

Of course along the way we had to take the obligatory tourist photo at the Little Mermaid statue. Hans Christian Andersen lived in Denmark in the early 1800's and wrote the Little Mermaid, the Ugly Duckling, and many others.

We saw the palace where the Danish Queen and Crown Prince live, as well as a beautiful Mormon church. I kind of wonder what it's doing in Copenhagen, but that's on my things-to-Google list. I got a bird's-eye-view of Copenhagen at dusk from Europe's oldest observatory, which was stunning.

The Mormon church

Changing of the guards at the Queen's home

The other main sight that we had to see was the neighborhood without laws, called Christiania. It was an undeveloped chunk of land that was taken over in the seventies by a group of people that wanted to live without a government. It's now known as a birthing ground for hippies, awesome artwork, and drugs. There was a dispute with the government a few years ago about taking back the land, but it was decided to keep things contained in this little area as they always have been. 

Christiania, in the area where photos are allowed

The sign upon exiting, "You are now entering the EU."

My very sweet native Danish friend played tour guide for a day too. We saw where she works at the Parliament building as an environmental economist. I was blown away to hear that Denmark aims to run entirely on eco-friendly renewable energy sources by 2020. You see, Perfect-Country Denmark is also a global leader in green technology, design, and sustainable energy. They're known for churning out environmentally-conscious home appliances, furniture and products. The handle of my bathroom shower literally had an arrow pointing toward the engraved phrase "eco-friendly." My friend is working to get everyone to own electric or hybrid cars (or bike, I suppose) in the next few years. You go, Denmark. Maybe the US will follow in your footsteps.

My lovely Danish friend

My equally lovely French/Austrian friend

Parliament, where she works

My friend took us to one of her favorite cafes overlooking the main plaza and winding pedestrian shopping street. We had smørrebrød, which is an open-faced sandwich on thick, dense rye bread. It was very Danish and very good.

We wandered around a beautiful museum that housed ancient Greek and Egyptian ruins, and mainly wondered why these Greek busts were missing noses instead of paying attention to their history.

Along the main shopping street we had to stop in the Lego store - guess where Legos come from! It reminded me of the giant M&M's stores with the walls covered in tubes of colored candy, except this store had bins of Legos all over. They had a detailed recreation of an adorable well-known street along a canal where we had dinner one night. I don't know which was cuter, the Lego version or the real thing.

To get to Denmark, I took a train from Hamburg and we clearly had to cross a big body of water because Denmark is a bunch of islands. I had no idea how we'd get there - a big bridge, maybe? As it turns out, the train climbed aboard a ferry and we boated across! It was so cool, I've never been on a train on a boat.

View from the ferry on the boat trip to Denmark

Because I know many of you concern yourselves with my safety, I'll let you know that I made it back to Minnesota in one piece. I had a layover in Oslo, so now I have Norwegian coins to add to my collection that I'll accidentally try to spend in the US. We flew over Iceland and Greenland, which is apparently rare, and I got to see them from the window. After quick stops in several other international airports and a touch of "wintery mix" weather, I'm back in the grand US of A. Ironically, Alysa and I almost overlapped timing in the Chicago O'Hare airport, which we agreed would be a fitting way to end the trip.

Up in the air

Thank you for reading, dear follower. It's been real. Now go see the world!


Love,
Melissa