Day 113 - April 23

Still not the warmest (but sunny!) we nonetheless took a walk through Vesterbro to get to Frederiksberg Have.







I haven’t explored Frederiksberg very much at all – it’s still basically part of Copenhagen but is its own municipality with its own postal code, etc. The park was nice, and we sat down to have a picnic. However, just as weather.com had predicted, as soon as we began eating, the clouds began to came, the wind picked up, and it suddenly turned freezing.







View from the top of the "hill".

A cool tower at the zoo.



Finishing up our lunch, we walked to the other side of the park where, unbeknownst to me until I had looked at a map of the park, there was another castle (well, palace…). It’s a Baroque palace, so built later than Rosenborg and Frederiksborg (Confusing? There’s a Frederiksborg Slot and a Frederiksberg Slot). The placement on a hill, the gardens/water fountain, and the architecture really reminded me of Versailles. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized the existence of this palace before now! Now it’s an Officers Academy.

















These were the cutest kids ever. Afraid of looking sketchy, I then had to take a sneaky, sketchy photo...but seriously. I had to.


Now thoroughly cold, we had a hot chocolate (among the things I’ll miss when I’m back – palaces and cute cafes with amazing hot chocolate), picked up a pastry for later, then walked to Christiania.

Just another day in central Copenhagen...





I've taken this photo a billion times now, but I love the building.

My feet were rather sore at the end of the day, but we had to walk off the hot chocolate and…


Two of the best pastries I’ve ever had. I think I’ve talked about my favorite street, Skt. Pedersgade (photo). Well, there’s a bakery there I’d been meaning to try, but it’s closed on weekends and I haven’t been to the center in the last weekdays. Then, I found a website about Danish culture in which the website creator listed his top three bakeries in Copenhagen, and this was listed. If it wasn’t already a must, that put it on the fast-track of bakeries. The assortment all looked mouth-watering, and Dana has made it my mission (not very hard to accept) to try everything there. I’ll keep you posted.

Day 111 - April 21

Despite Eyjafjallajokull’s best efforts, I am proud to say there was finally a major airport chaos/disaster in which I was not involved – directly or indirectly. Copenhagen airport decided to open back up at 2 AM Wednesday morning which meant…Dana was able to safely arrive on her visit to Copenhagen!

The excitement of having another visitor was slightly diminished by the spitting rain that then turned to snow and hail (ew! Ick! Not okay!), which I was not prepared nor dressed for. However, I am not one to let weather get the best of me, so we trudged on…first to lunch, in which we discovered that one of the major restaurants on Strøget actually had decent CPH-lunch prices and was good food, too! This, I shall remember.

The sun was shining when we had finished, so I took advantage of it and led Dana on a walk through Nyhavn and around and took the back way to the Statens Museum for Kunst.

The fountain is on at Amalienborg!



It began spitting again right as we arrived, so perfect timing! I had not been yet to the art museum, so I’m rather proud of myself now for not having any major “repeats” in my visits. Of course there are things I love doing over again, including just walking around the city, but I also added something new to each visit. The museum was a great museum – I loved how it was set up.





There was some cool modern art:








Some other modern art:


This was an exhibit explicitly stated to be for children, ages 6-12, I think it was. Really?

I feel like Danish children must have messed up childhoods...

And some beautiful old art:





Also, note to the U.S. – if Denmark and the UK can do it, you can do it, too – FREE MUSEUMS. Seriously. Get on that.

Days 107-108 - April 17-18

April 17

What happens when you find Bisquick at the British store? You have an American Breakfast for Dinner party, of course. It consisted of bacon, eggs, hash brown-y things, and, obviously, pancakes. I had forgotten how delicious pancakes were. Seriously.

I had extra potatoes so I tried to make hash browns, but the recipe I used made the mix a little thicker than just potatoes and onions – it had an egg and flour, too, and it ended up being a sort-of-potatoey-oniony-mush. Oh well, the real point of the dinner was to have American pancakes, and they were devoured. I need to buy more mix asap.





Squeeze-draining shredded potatoes is rather unpleasant.



I discovered multitasking was really difficult on gas stoves - the hash browns were supposed to sit five minutes on each side, but I think they lasted a minute maximum.

Pancakes!

This picture is making me hungry again.

Extra mild orange juice?

Round Two: in which my place in the kitchen was taken over and I stood there helplessly while other people cooked.

Happy eaters.




April 18
I went to Rosenborg Slot (the castle smack in the center of Copenhagen) with ESN, a group of Danish and international students that organize events and get discounts. Good thing, because while Rosenborg was really cool, it’s kind of a rip-off with price. Plus, on top of the entrance fee, if you want to take photos, you have to buy a photo pass for 20kr ($4). Really?

I was grumbling a bit about it, because I might actually have forked over the money, but they also don’t allow you to bring in any bags bigger than a book, so I’d stuck everything in a locker already, and I wasn’t going to go back for the money. They should warn you ahead of time! Well, Julia said it didn’t seem like anyone was looking, and so I took a risk and pulled out my camera. But right as I did someone walked in and yelled at me. I felt bad for a while, since technically I had willfully broken rules, but then my righteous anger at them trying to squeeze money from me took over. Living in Copenhagen is a strange mix of splurging and being super stingy. You find ways of doing things really cheaply – I never go out for food and take advantage of free things even more than I did in Boston – but at certain times, you think “Ah, screw it, I’m already paying a ton anyway” and just go all in.

The castle was actually really neat. If I HAD money, I’d go back again and buy the photo pass, but I’ll just have to rely on my poor memory. There were some really cool clocks, a mirror room, a room full of china, a room full of glass…and it also houses the royal treasury, with shiny crowns.





Annoying tourist...



A photo worth $4





The weather had taken a turn for the worse and was rather cold, so afterwards we took shelter and had some food and hot chocolate at a café called Café Klimt. The hot chocolate is a tad bit pricier than some place, but it’s a larger amount, and for the quality – it was pure heaven. The sides were dripping with chocolate sauce and it was super thick and amazing.