We just returned from a wonderful Thanksgiving trip to Hungary (challenge: figure out why that is funny) and this blog is sorely out of date. For that we apologize but life just happens sometimes. We're going to be better at making updates but, for now, here's what we did a month-and-a-half ago in mid-October! We visited the wonderful city of Copenhagen in the nearby country of Denmark.
Starting things early
We had to drop Laska off the evening before because our flight to Copenhagen left early in the morning at like 8:40am. Getting up early is not our strong suit. It's not actually our suit at all, more like a costume. So what I'm really trying to say is that getting up early is not our strong costume. Luckily we did all get up early enough to make it to the delayed train (which we even would have made if it wasn't) to the Stockholm Arlanda airport...with about an hour to spare. That was due to Andrew's miscalculation of exactly how long it takes to traverse all the everything and make it through airport security. So we decided to get some breakfast...I mean it wasn't even 8am! So we looked at the available places and, lo and behold. Swedish venues only really had Swedish breakfast, aka sandwiches, cold meats, lots of bread, fish, you know, just all the yummy things you think of at breakfast time. So we surveyed the options and opted for a pub that we thought had an egg (breakfast!) sandwich. It didn't so we just got a normal sandwich you'd expect to eat at lunch. And a bloody mary and some champagne with some orange juice. Of note: this glass of champagne + the orange juice was the most expensive drink we have yet to purchase on our trip. I guess we were starting out early.
Kitty was awake this whole time. We had thought she would sleep on the train. Then we thought she'd fall asleep before our flight. Then we thought she'd sleep on the flight. Well she didn't each time so it was quite the active morning. Flying with Kitty got significantly more difficult when she became accustomed to conscious movement. I always liked the phrase "Infant In Arms" but Kateri has grown out of it. It was a good thing Stephanie and I had that drink instead of coffee because it definitely didn't make us feel
more tired ;)
We arrived in a rain cloud, tired but ready to see what we could see. We would find that, despite the consistently poor weather and initial tiredness, we'd come to really enjoy Copenhagen.
What is Copenhagen like?
Copenhagen is a flat city. Very fat. Notably flat actually. As in, apart from bridges, you very rarely felt like you were walking up or down an incline. Our hop-on-hop-off bus tour actually mentioned it because it is indeed notable. This is quite different from Solna (where we live), Stockholm, and basically every other place in Sweden and every other place we've visited since being here. It made walking around a bit less strenuous but we've confirmed that we are rolling hill people, we like our bumpy topography.
The height of the buildings reminded me of Washington DC. There seemed to be a "no higher than" limit on the buildings that was similar to DC's (though definitely . It made things seem more open and, though we never once saw the sun while here, the streets all received brightness from the sky. It was super pleasant just like the pleasant aspect of building height you get walking around DC. It somehow speaks to age and, in a way, respect or at least a kind of consideration for something that we appreciate. I guess it's just easiest to say it's pleasant and that Stephanie and I both prefer that feel to the downtown of a city. After also visiting Budapest (more on that later) I realize this feel is definitely European, which makes me rethink what I typed - rather than Copenhagen reminding me of DC, I think DC now might just remind me of Europe!
Copenhagen doesn't really have an "old town." Meaning that it doesn't have a specific section or area or location that is uniquely different from the surrounding areas where older buildings are preserved. So there is nothing like Stockholm's Gamla Stan (Old Town) or the Old Town of Tallinn (
where we stayed while we were there). What we found was that, rather than having the "new" surround the "old," Copenhagen seemed to have preserved and gently updated the old to be the new. This isn't to say that some modern architectural elements don't exist there as their new opera house is super not-old looking, but the general feeling of the entire city we ventured around to felt older than new but not medieval. Once again, it was a pleasant feel.
The weather, however, was not so very pleasant. Rainy and cloudy with a touch of wind. Andrew (i.e. the person writing this, it helps to refer to myself in third person when I'm offering a critique of myself) didn't pack optimally for this weather but luckily Stephanie and Kateri did. It really only hampered some of the views or the sites rather than
Tivoli Gardens
Not your typical "gardens," think Disneyland, Busch Gardens, Six Flags, or Valleyfair. But smaller (like 1/20 the size) and more distinctly European (as in a bit more confusing, I think both genuinely and also because we're used to how America does things). We were told it is second in the world only to Disneyland in popularity (i.e. number of seasonal visitors) for a theme park. It's also the second oldest theme park in the world and is said to have inspired Walt Disney in his design of Disneyland. So why did we go here? Well, we initially went because we thought there was a children's show that we could take Kitty to. This wasn't the case but we did see a pretty funny show (in Danish) about a super popular Pippi Longstocking type character named Rasmus Klump (renamed Petzi in English for who-knows-what reason) - a gigantic bear that's a mix between Curious George and Barney. Kitty was enthralled with the show but didn't quite know what to think of him in person:
We also just wanted to visit the place because, after all, it's second only to Disneyland. We only spent a couple of hours inside but we really did have a wonderful time! They were all decorated for Halloween and the Fall so that was an interesting overlay to the attractions.
The best part was walking along and seeing a mountain! I'm not too sure if you remember me mentioning but Copenhagen is flat! Leave it to an amusement park to add topography:
On our way to searching for this peak (never did find it) we found a wonderful German restaurant crammed in a tiny alleyway with so many other shops and restaurants. It was a really wonderful walk that actually led us directly out the door and on our way to church (it was Saturday but were headed to the only English mass we found in the outskirts of the city).
Oh yeah, side note: right outside the entrance to Tivoli was the restaurant where we ordered for Kateri off the kids menu for the first time! We still have that menu actually, one of her favorites. For those that care, it was a ground-steak-burger-patty that Andrew and Stephanie ate most of :)
A boat ride
We did take a hop-on-hop-off bus tour that was a little "meh" but the boat tour we took was very wonderful. I think this is an example of how Stepanie and I greatly prefer a tour guided by a live human (boat) rather than a recorded human (bus). The height of the boat itself was extremely low so it could go underneath bridges with low clearance (also true in Stockholm and I assume other cities like Amsterdam) but the windows extended into the roof so you could roll them "up" (i.e. up and inwards) to actually be able to stand up and look around with a full 360 degree view. Pretty nifty.
The boat ride took us all around the main sites: the Opera house (that people "cliff dive" off of sometime), Christianhavn (an island district that doesn't seem like an island and contains all the hipsters), the Little Mermaid (yes, she was actually quite little), and lots of important buildings (royal palaces, parliamentary buildings, etc.). I don't have any specific memories except to say that we're glad we did it.
We actually got off the boat tour one stop early so we could take a free tour to the top of the parliament building. The free part let you get a 360 degree view of Copenhagen from up on high. It was quite hazy and overcast (we couldn't see Sweden which you can on clear days, specifically a building in the nearby town of Malmo called the "Turning Torso") but it was still great nonetheless. Here is where a true sense of the height of the buildings was quite apparent. You'd probably have the same view in DC as if you were standing on the top of the Washington monument. We ended up having a drink in the fancy-pantsy restaurant that's in the Parliament in this area that seemed like steps to nowhere (just a window) but was extremely pleasant. Kitty loved the stairs. They were dusty.
Feet-eating fish
So we walked by this sign while meandering along the pedestrian shopping walkway through Copenhagen that had an interesting explanation written on the wall:
Needless to say, Stephanie desperately wanted to try this out (Andrew not so much. Kateri was ). Well, I'll leave it to this video to describe the whole experience.
Note: Stephanie got to drink a nice glass of Champagne as these little fishes made her feet all soft.
In conclusion...
We did more than what we mentioned here, but in summary we really thoroughly enjoyed our time in Copenhagen. We both thought we'd prefer living here than in Stockholm in the realm of hypothetical "what if." It was just a very pleasant city that felt accessible, dynamic, aged, and not hugely intimidating. Now if the weather was always the same, we'd probably change our opinion but for now we're sticking with it :)
