Hey! Remember When I Went to København?

Post written shortly after the trip taken in March...


Many months ago, possibly before I moved here, I made plans to meet Naman in Copenhagen. I hadn't heard much about it but my pal Ginia studied abroad there and she does cool stuff so I figured it was a good place.

Overall, Copenhagen did not impress me. OK it was a new European city (early in my travelling days) but I don't think it really had anything special to offer. It's a huge biking city with canals so in that way it's like Amsterdam. Bike after bike parked in each square and theft must not be an issue because in some cases the bikes were just parked and not locked to anything.

One of the unique things about Copenhagen is this commune-type village called Christiana. It's political status varies but basically it is self governed and Danish and EU laws don't apply (I've been informed that since I wrote this, the status has changed). They even have their own currency! 

No photos were allowed which was really a shame because it as quite a sight. There are a handful of cafes/bars where folks are drinking beers and playing backgammon. The natives closely resemble homeless folks minus the smell (although it was so smokey maybe they did smell). There were a couple old asian ladies dolled up and smoking drugs in the corner schmoozin with the homeless looking men. And then there were the folks like us that show up just to gawk at it all. We really stood out with our bright sneakers and clean hair.

Also a drawback to Copenhagen is the Kroner. It's not such an expensive city but when you're getting out hundreds of Kroners at  a time and burning through them in hours it starts to make you feel like your pockets are empty. We stayed at a hostel again but since the hotels are so expensive the hostel was full of adults and families, not just kids like us. Someone in our room smelled so bad I think it's still on me.

We heard they had a bike share program so that was high on the list. Unlike most cities, the bikes were 20DKK (about 3 Eur). We found where the bike stands were on a map and set out to get some. We looked and looked and went to a number of places where the stands were supposed to be but saw nothing resembling city bikes. We also didn't know exactly what we were looking for. Finally, we found it. The city bikes are locked in the same way that grocery carts are: Each is attached to a stand with a small chain and if you put a coin into a slot in the chain the bike is released. When you bring it back, you get your coin back. So basically these bikes cost 20DKK. Not much motivation to bring it back, right? We gave up on the bike idea and went for a boat tour instead. 

Brought to our attention by the tour guide was a small submarine on display outside of the water. "The submarine on your right was contributed by the Danish Navy to the second Gulf War. Unfortunately, the sub broke and had to return to Denmark". OK. so what were they using a sub for? and they sent a busted one? I think that was the Danes' way of saying "we don't support this war but we don't want to get on your bad side so here's an old sub we're not using." Funny stuff.

Next, the boat stopped at a statue of the Little Mermaid, created because HC Anderson who wrote The Little Mermaid was from Copenhagen. We weren't going to get off the boat but everyone else did so we figured maybe there was something worth seeing. nope. Just another small statue with tons of people taking pictures (reminded me very much of mannequin pis in Brussels). So we obviously also took a picture with it.

Also nearby was supposed to be a castle with a moat. Growing up playing Super Mario Brothers and building sand castles, I think moats are awesome and having never seen one in real life this  was going to be huge! Unfortunately, the moat really was not a foot deep and could be forged with your standard Oregon Trail wagon train. We also weren't able to even find the castle on the island because turns out it was a church. We crossed a moat for this? So here's a picture of the moat.

On thing I really liked about copenhagen was the Boxmaster, a sandwich at KFC. Now I don't think I've eaten at KFC more than 5 times in my entire life and usually then only on road trips but we went there twice in two days! The boxmaster was a spicy chicken sandwich with a rosti on it and you know I love rosti's since I discovered the Big McRosti at McDonalds.

We met some cool people at the hostel, including a kid named Max from Minnesota! He could have been the biggest crazy but I didn't care because he shared two traits with my good pal MAP. We were hanging out with him and these two canadian girls when we went to  KFC the second time. The canadians seemed disgusted with us and commented that they didn't think Americans actually ate at KFC, not to mention twice in two days. Ladies, first try then judge.

Sunday before leaving we stopped at the Carlsburg Brewery. I haven't spent much time with Carlsburg in the past because the bottle reminds me of Heinekin which I don't like. Actually, it's pretty good! I skipped the brewery tour since I've seen enough malted yeast in my day and went to the bar instead. 


Finally some beer variety! We sampled some of the products and then went back to catch our flights. We took public transit to the brewery and I was extremely impressed. Not only was it clean with very nice seats and televisions, but there is free wifi! and it's fast too. we rode the train two stops which was enough time to register an account (in Danish), log in, sync up email and scrabble. Pretty sure the train wifi is faster than the LAN connection at work. They've been talking about putting wifi in the NYC subway for a while but it would be for pay and probably busted.


I didn't take many photos but Naman did! link to Naman's album