Being a tourist in Copenhagen

As I said in my last post, my Knox friend Bess Cooley flew over to CPH from Scotland to spend a few days with me.  We met in the airport and I taught her all about the transportation system as we rode the metro and S-tog back to Bagsvaerd.  Karina picked us up from the train station because she is the best host mom ever.  The kids were away at their mormors (grandmother's) so I showed Bess around and we ate some smørrebrød with Karina and Jesper.  The next day we went into the city and saw some of the big tourist attractions: Amalienborg Castle (where the Queen and her royal family live), the Little Mermaid  (she is adorable, but so little!), Tivoli from the outside, the Roundtower and 

I forced Bess to let me take some "typical tourist" photos of her :)

The statue made to resemble Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale character

H.C. Anderson himself!

In the roundtower. Note the energetic little boy zooming up the ramp!

Copenhagen and Rachel!

Bess and I on the top of the Roundtower. We could see so far!!

We were pretty tuckered out from walking all over the city so we went for pastries (of course!) and then headed home.  Karina and Jesper had gone to Karina's mom's to stay for a few days for the easter holiday so Bess and I made some food, drank some wine and just relaxed and chatted about all the important things:  Knox, Scotland, swimming, senior year and boys.  

On Friday we were very excited to go on a canal tour.  I hadn't been on one yet and I do know quite a lot of the harbor pretty well, but I was really looking forward to seeing it all from the water side.  Unfortunately, before we could go sit in the direct sunlight for an hour we needed to pick up some sunscreen.  Bess is a little too fair-skinned to not get burned and I should probably wear sunscreen so I don't add to the skin cancer I probably already have from so many hours lifeguarding by the pool.  Keep in mind, however, that this is good Friday.  Nothing is open. Well, a few places are open but they are mostly little kiosks with ice cream, candy, beer and soda.  The only place we even found a single bottle of sunscreen was after we asked the worker and she climbed up on a ladder, grabbed one bottle and told us that it cost 130 kroner! That is about 27 dollars or so, for just one small bottle...of SPF 20! Yeah right. No way we were splurging on that.  We decided it would be better if we just rubbed chapstick with SPF 10 all over our faces.  As we were discussing this we were just really wishing there was some way to find something Bess could wear on her head that would perhaps shield her face from the sun...oh wait! A hat!  We decided to look at a little tourist shop for either sunscreen or a hat.  No sunscreen, but we did find some cute, super touristy Copenhagen hats.  I told Bess that I would buy one, as a souvenir for myself, and she could wear it for the day. She wanted me to get the one with little cartoon mermaids, but I opted for the cute, pink, frayed-looking baseball cap.  I think it is fairly stylish although Bess was pretty reluctant to put it on, haha.  Maybe Bess just isn't quite the pink baseball hat kind of girl.  Wanna see how swell I looked in it...this is while we were standing in line and I was making the worst fashion statement ever.  But hey...you gotta do what you gotta do to stay comfortable

Sorry it's sideways...computers get the best of me sometimes :(

Besides me looking a little silly, the canal tour was fantastic! We enjoyed the sun, saw a lot of awesome buildings (a few of which I got to tell Bess about because of my architecture courses!)  It is fun having the inside scoop on the area and getting to show someone around.  After the canal tour we went and got hot dogs (very popular street food in Kobenhavn) and then went to a film in the city at the Copenhagen Film Festival.  Because my Milan video won runner-up, my prize was a gift certificate to the theater in the amount of two tickets.  It was perfect that Bess enjoys foreign films; there was even a film called Poetry (Bess is a poet) so I took her on a date to the theatre : )  It was a sort of sad movie, but it was very, very good and I am glad we experienced some cultural art in the city.  It was late when it got over so we walked around the city a bit and enjoyed the lights of Tivoli and the night people as they wandered around.  I always love walking around Copenhagen at night. I did quite a bit of it at the beginning when I was getting to know the city, so it was really nice to do it now that I am so familiar with most of it.

Saturday the family came home from their Grandma's.  Bess and I went on a bike ride to a really beautiful cemetery near the city.  It is more like a park with tombstones than just a cemetery. People were pickicing and sunbathing all over the place.  We walked around, saw Hans Christian Andersen's grave and enjoyed the spring flowers in bloom.  Then the whole family was back when we got home so Bess finally got to meet the kids.  We had a very nice Easter dinner and celebration in the evening on Saturday.  We had some neighbors over and ate lots of traditional Danish smorrebrod.  I even shared some of my precious peeps (which I got in a package from my Aunt Karla!), although I think most of the Danes found them a little too sweet.  What can I say-- I have quite the sweet tooth.

Sunday we went to the Glyptotek, it is an art museum right beside Tivoli.  It is free on Sundays and I have been wanting to go there for awhile so this was perfect.  We saw many beautiful sculptures, lots of renaissance paintings and we even walked up to the roof and saw Copenhagen from above...which was a great view of the neighboring Tivoli, with the rollercoasters full of screaming kids and everything.

Bess fits right in with the book shelf! 

After the Gylptotek I took Bess to a cafe I knew she would absolutely adore.  Like I said earlier, Bess is a poet...and a writer...and a lover of books. So I took her to the Paludan bogcafe...the book cafe.  It is full of delicious-smelling old books and I think she was very happy to eat dinner while soaking in the wonderfulness of the surrounding bookshelves.  That is definitely one of my favorite places to study and now that I know they have the most delicious chai lattes, I might have to plan a few more book cafe dates into my schedule before I leave.

Monday was unforunately Bess's last day in Copenhagen. We had not yet visited Christiania and it is definitely a must-see when in Copenhagen so that is what we did after Bess bid farewell to my host family.  It was the most beautiful day for a walk around the interesting society that is Christiania so we went for a long stroll along the water, looked at all the cool houses and then got some food and organic Christiania beer and sat by the water while we ate.  We also went shopping for some Christiania souvenirs.  I found a gorgeous hacky-sack and a little pin to add to my small collection and Bess found the perfect Bevar Christiania! tshirt.  That means "preserve Christiania"  because it is currently struggling to stay out of Danish government control.  Actually, the debate has been going on for a long time but just this past month or so, they did vote to overtake Christiania, which is so sad because it is such an iconic Danish landmark that stands for the freedom of speech and an alternative lifestyle.  The government is trying to buy the land from them but I certainly hope they stay strong and that people help them to buy the land themselves so the essence of Christiania can remain the same.

One last thing needed to happen before Bess could leave Denmark: she needed a Danish pancake.  We went to the city, right to Stroget (the pedestrian street) and finally found a place to get pancakes (which are pretty much like crepes).  Bess got one with jam and sugar and I got one with nutella and banana.  We even got to watch her make them right in front of us.  Absolutely delicious.  Although I did not want to see Bess go, we then had to get to the airport for her flight.  I was so incredibly glad she could come visit.  Not only was it great to hang out with a Knoxie, and a Knox swimmer no less!, it was also really fun to be a tourist in my own city.  I don't get to do that everyday!  It was the perfect end to a really wonderful spring break

And then it was time to hit the books.  Not too many exciting things happened in the next two weeks because most of it was going to classes, writing papers and finishing projects.  It was a pretty crazy few weeks.  There were definitely a few exciting things in the midst of the work though, so I will write more about those later.
Thanks again for following me on my adventure. Sorry for the long posts- just trying to get caught up!
Again, happy mother's day to all!
Vi ses.