This post is looooooong. So if you make it all the way through, you must really like me. It's a good thing I really enjoy walking because this week consisted of a LOT of it. I mapped out all of my routes over the last week and I walked approximately 75km, give or take...
Let me introduce you to a little bit of Danish culture. It's called hygge. I took the following from visitdenmark.com:
"Hygge - Hard to explain and even harder to pronounce, the Danish word hygge (sounds a bit like “hooga”) roughly translates to coziness, but that definition doesn’t quite cover it...In essence, hygge means creating a nice, warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people around you. The warm glow of candlelight is hygge. Friends and family - that’s hygge too. And let’s not forget the eating and drinking - preferably sitting around the table for hours on end discussing the big and small things in life. Perhaps the Danish idea of hygge explains why the Danes are often considered the happiest people in the world?"
So now, my week of hygge.
6/4-Wednesday
We spent this day just wandering around Copenhagen, and there are flowers...
and bicycles...
everywhere!
Apparently something like (correct me if I'm wrong) 40% of the population of CPH uses bikes to get around. That's pretty awesome! But we used our own two feet to transport us. Jake took us to this great place for brunch (so hygge) and then mapped out a route for us to take, but I don't think we saw half of what he told us too. Don't worry though, we saw it all later! Here's some cool stuff we passed along the way...
This coolio church with a detached steeple...
what the devil?...
this house that Jake thinks is oh-so-neat...
and the elephant crossing through Carlsberg...
We walked past Christiansborg Palace and Børsen, the stock exchange building, and snapped a selfie (can you tell we've both lived in Asia?)...
found some public trampolines built in to the sidewalk...
and then Nyhaven harbour...
and took a Nyhaven selfie...
found a little slice of home when we passed the Ukrainian embassy...
walked through Amalienborg where Margrethe II, the Queen of Denmark resides...
and snapped another (photobomb) selfie in front of the Marble Church, which has the largest dome in Scandinavia...
walked through Rosenborg Palace Garden where we rested up on the grass...
and saw Rosenborg Castle...
and then made our way toward Sankt Hans Torv where we were meeting my friend Julie. I had met her last summer when she was doing a help exchange for my stake president in Canada. She told me about the program and now I'm doing help exchanges in Germany and Italy for the summer.
Now let me tell you a little bit about the time of year we decided to be in Copenhagen...it's called Distortion. It's a bunch of street parties crammed into one particular area of the city, and they move around to a different area every night. It just so happened that where we were meeting Julie was where Distortion was that night. We could hear music blasting when we were still a long ways away, and we could see hoards of people when we approached the bridge we were supposed to cross...
When we got to the spot where we were to meet Julie, it took us a while to find each other for the amount of people. But we finally did, and decided to get some food indoors so we wouldn't have to yell in order to hear each other. We ate at an African/Malaysian restaurant where there was a little step up at the entrance into the restaurant. We witnessed so many people trip into the restaurant, but one girl in particular really biffed it. She fell straight forward and crashed into a guy who was seated with his back towards the door. It was one of those too awkward to laugh kind of moments, but pretty epic and I'm glad I witnessed it!
So here we are at a less crowded part of Distortion (Distortion selfie with Julie)...
and here we are a little bit later, and I'm trying to look like I'm enjoying myself but really I can't hide the anxiety and shock I'm feeling at the volume of music and size of the crowd (another Distortion selfie, minus Julie)...
Look at these crazy people, Ukrainian babushkas would have a fit seeing them sitting on the ground...
Then I high-fived this kid...
We witnessed drunk men peeing, and others fist-pumping onions. Drunk people do some awesome...ahem...stupid things.
It was a great day. Copenhagen is wonderful! I highly recommend it.
6/5-Thursday
Jake didn't have to work today so we were able to spend the day with him! He took us to this really wonderful pastry place called Lagkagehuset. We bought sandwiches (curry chicken for me and artichoke and hummus for Brendan, which we decided to share with one another) and these chocolate rye bread things (interesting and totally delish) and rhubarb croissants. Yum. If I ever lived in CPH I'd be poor and fat as a result of this place.
We took the train up to Hillerød to see Frederiksborg Castle...
Here is the beautiful chapel...
and part of the grounds...
This castle was built by Christian IV in the 1600's and was restored in 1859 after a fire. It has been home to Denmark's Museum of National History since 1878. It contains Denmark's most important collection of portraits and historic paintings, as well as some other very distinguished art. One such example is an entire room filled with original paintings of Jesus Christ by Carl Bloch, like this one...
The following excerpt is taken from carlbloch.com:
"After seeing many of Bloch paintings that were coming out of Italy, the Danish maecenas of the time, brewer J. C. Jacobsen, commissioned Bloch to paint 23 new paintings for the King's Praying Chamber in the newly restored Frederiksborg Castle Chapel (which was ravaged by fire in 1859). This commission came toward the end of Bloch's time in Italy.
The assignment of this commission was to illustrate the life of Christ, and Bloch worked on this monumental project for nearly fourteen years.
The commission to paint the 23 paintings for The Praying Chamber changed not only Carl Bloch's personal life but also his artistic legacy.
Today, some have recognized Carl Bloch as perhaps the greatest artist ever to interpret the life and death of Christ. Contemporary artists, working with this difficult subject, pay tribute to the old master."
These paintings are known world-wide and within the LDS Church. This was definitely a highlight for me. Thanks to Sister McCauley for giving me the heads up about it!
It was pouring rain when we left the castle so we got soaked on our way to the bus...
Then we took the metro, which has a window in the front so you can watch your ride through the tunnel (warp speed!)...
and then outside once the train emerges from the ground (metro selfie)...
and we ended up on the outskirts of CPH to admire some new and award winning architecture. But it seems like we were more entertained by the so-called exercise equipment...
When we got back into the city we walked through Rosenborg Palace Gardens again...
found a nice window display...
then ate some awesome Thai food before making our way to Bertel's Salon for what I might be able to call the best cheesecake I've ever had! The licorice cheesecake here is sooooo good...
they had some really awesome dinnerware too...
and I was stuffed but Jake and Brendan decided they could both eat a hot dog...
and then we passed by Tivoli on our way home...
Tivoli is an amusement park that opened in 1843, and it's said that Walt Disney received a lot of inspiration from Tivoli when creating Disneyland. We didn't go, unfortunately. It's supposed to be a pretty good time, so I guess I'll just have to come back to Copenhagen, dang it.
On the way home we walked through Distortion again. No pictures this time. But we did manage to witness both drunk men AND drunk women peeing...lucky us.
We decided to watch Cabin in the Woods when we got home. Brendan and I had been talking about watching it for a while now. Neither of us had seen it and, although I'm not normally into watching scary movies, we had heard good things about this particular movie. Too bad we both thought it was absolutely ridiculous. No joke. If you haven't seen it, don't waste your time. Not scary, just stupid.
6/6-Friday
We had a late start today but I was not even mad about it! We had a pleasant morning and it's nice to not be rushed to do things. Jake had the day off again so we he was nice enough to hang out with us again.
Jake and Aabjørn live in an area called Valby which sits a little bit outside of Copenhagen proper. We walked into the city through Frederiksborg Park...
where we got to see the tree where toddlers come to hang their soothers in retirement...
We had lunch at a burger place called Halifax, where I had a burger, of course, but also some really wonderful mashed potatoes! I like mashed potatoes to begin with, but these...these are something to write home about! Apparently a couple guys from Copenhagen Business School opened this restaurant (there are actually a few of them around CPH) and named it Halifax because they had been to Halifax. Cool?
We then went to the Church of Our Lady which is home to the original Christus and statues of the twelve apostles.
Bertel Thorvaldsen was commissioned to decorate the interior of this cathedral with images of Christ and the twelve apostles. The Christus was completed in 1838 and has been here ever since. It has been replicated many times, and the majority of the replicas belong to the LDS Church. We sat in here for a while and admired the work of this talented artist. Not long after we arrived, an organist came and began to play so we just sat and listened to the music for a while. Thanks again to Sister McCauley for the recommendation!
We headed towards the water to see The Little Mermaid...
and then got some ice cream and sat at the edge of the water...
and Jake fed a swan...
then made our way back to Valby and went for dinner at an Indian food buffet, even though none of us were very hungry and definitely didn't eat our money's worth. Oh well. At least the food was good!
Here are some little things I enjoyed along our walk...
6/7-Saturday
We had planned on leaving for Sweden today, but there is a transit strike in Sweden, making transportation there expensive and difficult. We thought about hitch hiking but I had to be in Germany on the 10th and there was no guarantee that we could hitch hike there in time for me to leave for Germany. And I didn't want to spend all my time getting to Stockholm and not even getting to see the city. So we decided to stay, and Brendan would go in a few days when it was time for me to head to Germany. I was kind of sad I wouldn't get to go to Sweden, but sometimes it's just nice to stay put for a bit (says the girl who's been galavanting around Europe for the last 5 months...)
We took the train to the central station and our first order of business was to stop at Lagkagehuset (yummy!) again to get ourselves some amazing pastries!!!
Love this place...
Lagkagehuset selfie...
Then went to the Botanical Garden, which is a part of the University of Copenhagen's Natural History Museum of Denmark and holds approximately 11,000 species of plants.
Not all of the greenhouses were open at the time we were there but we were able to enjoy a few of them.
Here's a greenhouse selfie...
A lot of people use the open green space as a place to relax and enjoy the atmosphere and company of friends (hygge) so we joined in, and while doing so we watched Spider-Man jogging through the park...
We left to meet Jake and Aabjørn for dinner, and on the way we stopped at the Church of Our Lady one more time. We got there at a unique time, when the sun was hitting the glass in the doorway just perfectly, and I was able to stand in a rainbow...
(No pot of gold though)
We went for dinner at a great Vietnamese restaurant and treated Jake and Aabjørn for hosting us. But really, treating them to dinner is pretty lame considering everything they did for us to make our stay comfortable and enjoyable. During dinner the conversation took an interesting turn as Jake spewed out some half constructed sentences between sneezes. Regardless of how long it took for him to say what he wanted to (things take a little longer when you can only say a few words, sneeze, a few more words, sneeze...etc) what he had to say was a bit of a game-changer for me and I'm looking forward being able to take what he said and *hopefully* apply it to make some changes in my life. Don't hate me for not divulging any more info right now. Maybe I'll share more in the future...maybe.
After dinner we went back to...
Bertel's Salon! Oreo cheesecake this time, and oh-so delicious!
We photobombed Jake's picture...
We photobombed Jake's picture...
made clever use of the mirror to get all three guys in one pictures...
found this cozy little nook seat in the wall by the stairs (hygge)...
and took some awkward-family-photo-style photos...
and then headed home.
Here's what Copenhagen looks like just before midnight...
6/8-Sunday
If there's a reason we didn't go to Sweden, this whole day was it. Jake and Aabjørn quickly showed us on Saturday night where the church was so we would know where to go. I looked on google maps and it was only 4km away so I decided to wake up a little bit early to walk there. The weather was awesome and it was a nice walk. I guess there are enough visitors and English members in the ward that they have someone translating every Sunday. So we picked up our ear pieces and settled in. Here's a spiritual thought from one of the talks that was given: What is greater, the absence or the presence of the Holy Ghost? Live a life where the presence of the Holy Ghost is greater than it's absence.
The church is right next to the Copenhagen Denmark temple...
I met a great lady at church, Deidre, from the States who is living in Copenhagen. We had some really good discussions and in addition to what Jake told me yesterday, she offered some really good insight.
After church Brendan and I were invited to have lunch with some members, the Clawson's...
We left the Clawson's, walked to the harbour and took a canal boat tour...
There were some really low bridges, some you could easily touch while seated...
All in all it was a wonderful day and I'm so glad I was able to stay and attend church here. And I'm grateful to Jake and Aabjørn for being so accommodating and willing to let us stay for a few extra days. We got back to their place and spent the evening visiting and eating ice cream (hygge), what a dream! 😋
6/9-Monday
This morning we were able to enjoy the sounds of a rehearsing church choir and orchestra wafting up from the streets below (hygge). What a wonderful way to spend a morning!
Brendan packed up all his stuff to head north and make his way to Gothenburg Sweden, and then over to Stockholm. We walked into Copenhagen and went to the train station where we parted ways. I went back to the botanical gardens to enjoy the weather and nice surroundings (hygge). I walked around a little bit and then just relaxed on the grass and wrote in my journal. I was meeting Julie again later that evening so made my way through CPH to meet her.
I passed my favorite sign...
Hans Christian Andersen's apartment...
and the sidewalk trampolines again (this kid kept attempting to jump all the way across all of them; he could make it across the first 4 but always came up short on the last one, although that didn't keep him from trying again and again)...
I met Julie we just walked and talked, and found some surfer people to watch for a little bit...
It was a pleasant last day in Copenhagen! Back to Valby to pack everything up in order to leave at 5:45am to be on my way to Germany!!
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