Copenhagen, Denmark/Malmö, Sweden

Finally, the last leg of the trip. I think part of the reason I've been procrastinating on this one is because I'm not quite sure how to tackle it. Katie and I both left Copenhagen somewhat disappointed (her more than me). I think there are four major reasons for this:
(1) Copenhagen is not quite as touristy as Edinburgh or Amsterdam. This can be good, but in a country you don't know much about and where you REALLY don't speak the language, it's nice to feel like you have something to fall back on.
(2) For what tourist-friendly stuff there is in Copenhagen, January certainly isn't the high season. Being outside and wandering around wasn't all that pleasant because it was cold and kind of dreary, and things like Tivoli Gardens, outdoorsy kinds of attractions, weren't even open. Also, in the summer they have a free bike rental system, but in the winter you have to find a bike rental shop and pay a sum that came out to be about $15 (not bad, but still...).
(3) Scandinavian countries have really strong economies, and therefore everything was quite a bit more expensive than we were ready for after the rest of our trip (even Edinburgh, which is on the pound, was cheap in comparison). To give you an idea, we spent upwards of $20 on mediocre take-out Mexican food, and breakfast at our hostel was $8 (compared to less than $4 in Edinburgh and free in Amsterdam). This kind of killed the fun wandering around window shopping mentality that we had the rest of the trip, not that there was much good shopping anyway.
(4) I think we were both kind of burned out by the time we got there, which made the previous three things, and any other negative experience, seem a lot more serious than they were.

So when I look back on Copenhagen, I feel like there's a slightly negative haze that has fallen over it, even though we actually did have some really good experiences there. Another thing I'm kind of disappointed about is that we didn't make it out into Denmark, partly because of the cost, and partly because of the tired. We planned 4 days there because we expected to have to do a certain amount of discovering. I was also thinking maybe we could do a day at LegoLand (because, who doesn't love Legos?!?!) and/or a day trip the Viking Ship Museum or to Helsingor (aka Elsinor...Hamlet, anyone?) Castle. I think it was cost that decided they were prohibitive, although we were totally just guessing on LegoLand (amusement parks tend to be heinously expensive even in crappy economies, so we could just imagine what kind of a twist Denmark could take on that). I also wasn't too sure about how much Helsingor would be open. Winter openings for things like that were seriously reduced. Alas, we had 4 days to wander around.

We did manage to see quite a bit, though. On our first day out wandering around, after chilling in a coffee shop and reading for about an hour, we passed City Hall, where a huge group of people wearing Danish flag hats and carrying around Danish flags, and even with Danish flags painted on their faces (two really cute little girls were running around with their faces painted). We timidly found some women who spoke a wee bit of English and asked what was going on. Turns out the Danish handball team had one some big competition and they were going to be there. It was pretty cool that that many people were gathered, although, really, who plays handball? Anyway, we weren't really in the mood to stand around, so we wandered off and went to the "Black Diamond," which is the Royal Library. They had a conceptual photography exhibit, which I found kind of interesting, but Katie was not terribly impressed. So we left there and were thinking about grabbing a bite to eat, when we passed by City Hall again, which had turned into a crazy place. The team had finally shown up and were showing off their trophies and the crowd had basically tripled and were going crazy. We were sort of wandering looking for affordable food and half paying attention when they started shooting off fireworks literally across the street from where we were standing, so we oohed and ahed until that was over and the crowd started to disperse. Then we ended up at a bagel sandwich shop and ended up sitting there for a while watching Battlestar Gallactica (I do not understand the obsession) before going back to the hostel and crashing.

The next day we asked about bike rentals and were directed to this little shop, where we rented bikes from the day. And I think our favorite Copenhagen person was the guy that worked there. He looked about 19 and was kind of this skater gangsta looking guy (plus 50 Cent was playing in the back) who, while getting our bikes did something that led to him saying "fuck," to which Katie asked why he swore in English. His response was just awesome: "Of course I swear in English. We don't swear in Danish." Ok, so maybe it was something of a you-had-to-be-there moment, but we were quite amused. He seemed like a cool guy. Anyway, equipped with bikes, which are a really good idea because things in Copenhagen are pretty spread out, we went to the National Gallery, which had a really great collection of modern art, and we had a really good time there, and then to the National Museum. This was a jewel of a museum, really. We started in the children's section, which, much like in Edinburgh, was quite the experience and photo-op for us. They had dress up and things you could play with and all kinds of good stuff. Then we wandered through the anthropological treasures section, which was a really impressive of artifacts from all of the world and all sorts of ancient periods. Katie was in heaven because she's an anthro major, and I was also really in awe of the whole thing. So our museum experiences were actually quite positive, and on top of that both of those museums were free admission (score!). Next we made the trek out to the Little Mermaid statue. Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote the Little Mermaid, was Danish (and is actually buried in the cemetery across the street from our hostel), and this statue is probably one of the most famous things in the whole country. After crossing that off our list, we dropped our bikes off, headed back to the hostel, and feasted on take-out Indian food, which wasn't cheap but was delicious.

The next day, we met up with Katie's roommate-to-be, who just happened to have arrived in Copenhagen the week before to study (thank goodness for facebook!). Our plan was to visit the Free Town of Christiania (which started as a hippie commune in the late 60s, and the Danish government decided to let it stay that way), and then the Carlsberg brewery, and then Katie and I were going to catch a train to Sweden on a suggestion from a friend of mine from Lyon, and spend our last night there. Things didn't quite go as planned. First of all, we got to Christiania around 10:30 am...bad idea. The only activity in the whole place were a couple of little shops selling weed and other paraphernalia. Apparently they don't get out of bed til about 2:00 in the afternoon. We admired the graffiti/murals and disappointedly set out in the direction of the brewery. We paid the equivalent of about $10 for a self guided tour of the old brewery, which was actually pretty interesting, and also got two tickets to taste the beer in the bar at the end of the tour. Well, we hadn't eaten, and we ended up talking to 2 Aussie guys who let us know that the bartenders really didn't care much about the tickets, so two beers turned into too many beers, and, without going into the details, Katie and I didn't make the train to Sweden and were asleep at the hostel by about 9pm. Good times...

The next morning, we decided that we were going to clean up a bit and take the train to Sweden, because our flight wasn't until 8:00 that evening. It was a seriously palpable change, oddly enough. We walked out of the train station and were both immediately happy and doing good. Malmö is a really cool city and I'd love to spend more time there (maybe in the summer, because, as cool as it was, it was kind of dead). We saw a bunch of IKEA-esque stores, ate sushi, checked out the graffiti, hit up H&M #3 along with some other fun stores, tried to go to a free modern art museum, which was closed, went to two different cafés to avoid the cold, split a "Red Latte," which is a latte made with rooibos tea and was AMAZING, and...I think that's it. It was awesome. A really really great way to end the trip.

And then we got back on the train, went to the airport, and got on a plane to Lyon. We were both totally exhausted and giddy to get back home, and even to hear people speaking French on the plane. I got back to my apartment around midnight and fell into bed. It was very very nice.

And there you have it. Finally. Now all I have to do is catch up on the craziness of back to school and I will be good to go (HOME!). But that is for later because now I have to get ready to go to the artisans market and do some wandering. And I need to finish the organizing/cleaning of my room, which started yesterday, and is unfinished, in the form of random stacks of paper and other things on the floor. Joy.

Biz!

(4 DAYS!!!!!!!)