During Fall break I traveled with my host family to Denmark, driving to the northern tip of Schleswig-Holstein where we drove our car onto the very large Puttgarden ferry. During the ride over we exchanged our euros to Danish krones, walked the decks enjoying the crisp day and ocean scenery, eating a snack outside before docking and beginning the drive to our vacation home Gilleleje. I will always remember this first night in Denmark as the sunset at the beach (only a five minute walk from the house) was gorgeous! I took a lot of pictures but couldn’t seem to capture how just how amazing the sunset looked.
We traveled into Copenhagen two separate days as there was so much to see. It was interesting to see so many bikes at the train station with almost every rack full so people ended up locking their bikes to lamp posts and railings. The bike lanes were also pretty awesome, a raised portion of the street about six feet wide, heavily used by young and old alike. Some of the highlights:
- Seeing the sculpture of the Little Mermaid at the Langelinie promenade along with St. Albans Church and the Gefion Fountain. This was such a typical European stop with a beautiful church, a cool sculpture, a creative fountain and the water front right there. The history is great!
- Amalienborg Palace - a favorite story is when the Danish people all stood outside of the palace balcony to sing “Happy Birthday” to their queen and she came out in her pj's, waving and smiling to them.
- Christiana – a kind of freetown within Copenhagen. You could tell where it started, almost a gate way, with this "psychedelic" fairy, unicorn and pastel painted picture on the side of a walk with an archway to the left. As we got closer almost everyone was smoking something, some people cigarettes others you could smell the weed before you even walked past them. There was a green light district where there was a legitimate "no photos" sign so my eyes only took in the sights.
- "Zwiebel Turm" or Church of our Savior - The church was simple but beautiful and the organ was massive! We bought our ticket (~€3) and walked up the steps to the beginning of the actual tower. It was cool walking up because the stairs were wide enough for one person and when there was no one in front of you, you didn't feel like a tourist but like you were someone going to maintain the bells at the top of the tower. It was really cool how they didn't make it super touristy, you climbed right next to the bells and up steps so steep it was like climbing up a ladder. While there were a lot of steps, I wasn't breathing hard when we got to the top, which was much different from the Salisbury Cathedral. Once we came out of the door at the top we went until the spiral stairs got too small to move on. The view was great and while it had been overcast, the sun broke out once we reached the top, perfect lighting for pictures! We walked back down the spiral and waited at the door to the tower steps for all the people to come up before we could go down. It was a clown car experience since you can't see people until they climb up and about 15 people came up before we could go down. The walk down was much steeper than going up since walking down ladders is always harder than up.
- The Botanical Garden (http://botanik.snm.ku.dk/english/) where we ate some bread while we watched the pigeons in front of the Rosenborg Castle (http://www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/rosenborg-castle-gdk410582). The Rosenborg was a smaller building but each room was filled to the brim with interesting artworks, tapestries and stonework. The king had a glass collection, which was rare in that time period (glass was rare) and a porcelain collection, too. The throne room was also fabulous and had three silver lions, about three feet tall, in front of the thrones. In the basement we checked out all the weapons, trinkets and jewels that were displayed. It was a very impressive collection and was hard to wrap your mind around. At the mall you can buy a dress with imitation jewels and necklaces that look authentic, so it was kind of unimpressive at first to see all the jewels. But once you read the description signs and realized these were real rubies and diamonds embedded in the hilt of the sword, you begin to understand the term “jewel encrusted”. I was really glad we explored the museum, it was worth it!
- A protest at the Strøget shopping district where about 1,000 people were shouting, holding signs protesting against proposed budget cuts to education. There were a lot of younger people and they were super loud! It was peaceful but you could feel the energy from the crowd.
It was fun to explore the smaller towns as well. While at the Gilleleje waterfront we could see the Switzerland shore which was super cool! We walked the town center, buying some Berliners in a bakery with the cinnamon roll smell inside reminding me of grandma’s delicious cinnamon rolls. Helsingør had a castle where we walked around the grounds taking pictures and such before walking back out to the docks. This castle is situated on the closest part between Sweden and Denmark and used to control all ships sailing between them. They had cannons that could reach to the other side and required all ships to pay them before allowing them to cross, a great way to make money. A lot of countries got together and gathered a large sum of money to pay Denmark to lift their "toll". We walked to the docks and there was a statue similar to the Meerjungfrau in Copenhagen but it was a normal man, and it was all shiny. We took a picture with the statue since it reflected a lot of the pretty colors surrounding us. They had this really cool geometric library and a cool trash sculpture of a fish. It was made up of sand shovels, umbrellas, shoes and whoever was washed up on shore and it was vibrant and huge. There is a ferry that crosses between Sweden and Denmark every 15 minutes or so and one was the "H H Ferry" in German H is pronounced "Ha", so it was the Ha Ha Ferry;). I got a laugh out of that one. We then walked to the Main Street, which was much bigger then Gilleleje's. We mostly window shopped and looked around, I chose to people watch. It was interesting hearing Danish and seeing what the people looked like.
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (http://en.louisiana.dk/visit-louisiana) was a favorite as last year in Frau Wilson’s class I had researched artist Yayoi Kusama whose pop art installations have their own rooms at the Louisiana. We went to the exhibit "In Infinity" and it was beautiful and amazing. There were a lot of bright colors and patterns that kept the museum visitors intrigued, even the kids. We spent about 1.5 to 2 hours on that exhibit, especially enjoying the obliteration room, infinity room and red room. I did get a little dizzy from the red room but that was the last room so I quickly recovered. We then walked outside to look at some of the sculptures and the ocean, since the museum is right on the water, sitting on a slight cliff.