Out and about with the Danes

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  Copenhagen, Zealand, Denmark
Monday, October 6, 2008

mood: chilly!

The 8 hour bus ride to Copenhagen provided me with a little surprise - an unanticipated ferry trip! Rather than go the long way round, the boat took us for 1 hour and 45mins across the ocean to Denmark! Food etc was so expensive and it was dark outside so I just chilled out until I discovered one of the TV's was playing Friends episodes, which made the trip go a lot faster considering that I hadn't prepared myself (or my stomach) for boating adventures. We arrived into Copenhagen quite late and in a fairly dodgy part of town. My friend Julie met me there and we caught a bus back to the student accommodation where she lives.
 
I met Julie the same way I met Desiree (who I stayed with in Switzerland) during my trip to New Zealand last year

church in Copenhagen

. She spent 6 months in Aus and came to Melbourne just over a year ago to stay a couple of nights with me, and I have been super excited to see her again. By the time we got back though I was exhausted and we both pretty much went straight to bed.
 
Where she lives is apartments for the uni students, 15 people share a kitchen and lounge/TV room, but each has their own rooms with an ensuite. It's quite a cool setup, I want to live there! It's great cause you can be as social or anti-social as you like.
 
Saturday morning Julie had a soccer game, so I went along as the cheer squad. It was freezing cold but no rain (luckily) and the game ended up being one of their most eventful and entertaining. On the other team was a real bitch of a girl, by the end she had been kicked off the field, she was so aggressive and was getting all of the girls on Julies team really angry. There was even a huge bitchfight where hair was pulled and punches thrown. I was loving it! Afterwards the girls were saying that they had never seen anything like it. But they got their own back, winning 3:2 in a nailbiting finish. I want to play soccer now! Every time I see a big patch of grass all I want to do is kick a footy around. Man I miss AFL.
 
After Julie got changed and we had some lunch, we went into the heart of the city and visited her café where she works. It's a really groovy little place, heaps of tourists go there and it serves up some very traditional Danish delicacies. We shared one of them, called an ćble kompot, which is stewed apple in a jar-thing, hot, topped with cream (uuugh) and sprinkled with toasted rye bread

the main shopping strip

. I also had a hot chocolate. It was all mighty delicious.
 
We wandered much of the centre, through the shopping streets, saw the queens palace and the changing of the guard, wandered along the waterfront, past the Kastel, and then out to the main attraction of Copenhagen, the statue of Haans Christian Andersons Little Mermaid.
 
By the time we got back to the apartment it was just after 7pm, and we joined some of Julie's housemates for a group dinner, where one person is allocated chef, and the cost is taken out of a kitty of money. It's not a compulsory thing, but it's a nice social gathering for them all. And it was delicious. We had rissoles, salad and baked wedges of potato/carrot/parsnip. Everyone can pretty much talk good English, and it was pretty interesting chatting to some of them. They all made an effort to talk to each other in English rather than Danish which I really appreciated.
 
Yesterday we woke up and it was pelting down with rain. Julies mum picked us up in her car and let us have free reign of it for the day, so Julie drove us to the costal town of Elsinore, which features the Kronborg castle, originally from the 1420's

æble kompot

. The castle however, was largely destroyed in a fire in 1629, and was rebuilt by Christian IV during the 1570's and 80's. It's a big old thing, overlooking the ocean and town. We saw the casemates - the dungeon and soldiers quarters underneath the castle, which were very eerie and badly lit. down there is also Holger the Dane, a big statue of the Viking which is said to be ready to wake up and go to war when needed. So far he hasn't really delivered on that, still choosing to stay quite dormant through many different wars.
 
We also saw some of the interior of the castle, the elaborate velvet drapes and furnishings of the royal chambers, plus the largest ballroom in northern Europe. We trudged back through the rain to the car and drove up along the coast to Julie's dads place, where I got to meet her stepmum and stepbrother, and we had hot chocolate and muffins and chatted about the economy. They were a really really lovely family, her dad told me about a business trip he had just been on to Iceland, we talked about the summers where it would be daylight 22hrs a day, how they open presents on Christmas eve instead of Christmas day, the differences between Europe and Australia, the presidential election in the Us - all sorts of things. It was really really cool. Plus they have an old blind deaf dog which reminded me of my little Elle back home.
 
Before we went back to Julies mums, we had some time to kill so she took me to an old summer theme park set out in the forest. As the season was over it was closed, but you could still walk around it and I found it odd but really beautiful. Out behind the rides we were walking through the forest and came across a herd of deer grazing. One was going nuts, tearing round and around like an over-excited puppy

inside the cafe - with really beautiful wall art

. And a couple of hundred metres away was the big stag, standing tall and proud, with huge wide antlers. It was really cool. Julie said she had never seen anything like this before. So I was even more impressed.
 
We had dinner at Julies mums house, and I was so excited cause she made us a Sunday roast beef! My first roast in 4 and a half months. It was so good. My mouth is watering now just thinking of it. I also got to meet Julie's sister, and was majorly surprised to see that they had a budgie!! I got the full family dose yesterday. It was a really nice change.
 
Today I head back on the bus to Berlin, but as I don't leave till later this avo we went out to an area called Christiania, which is a little hippie community living right in Copenhagen. Its very unusual and artistic, they aren't wasteful people and so they use old things to build new things, they don't care about what what people think of them and seem to be really happy. The walls are painted with huge murals of hippie things like Bob Marley, which I found really interesting. You can't take photos in there though as number 1. This is someones home, and number 2. They don't want to be caught on film doing dodgy things, like the massive amounts of pot they were all smoking (I thought I was back in Amsterdam!) or the huge ceramic pot of weed growing out the front of the general store. The only thing I didn't like was the dogs everywhere. Apparently they can get quite aggressive.
 
It's been great seeing Julie again, she's so lovely and im really enjoying creating this network of people around the world.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Copenhagen	me in the centre of Copenhagen	down near the waterfront	the quayside
looking out from the quay	looking out from the quay	Julie and I	the queens palace
the queens palace	and her royal guard	fountain along the waterfront	dusk by the waterfront
gorgeous little church near the Kastel	me and Julie near the Kastel	the little mermaid herself	little mermaid
bright red buildings inside the Kastel	church at dusk	Kronborg Castle	inside the main square of the castle
Holger the Dane	inside the royal chambers	views out over the ocean	the grand ballroom
castle surroundings	driving up the coast	inside the theme park	empty streets
the big stag	the herd of deer	me and the deer

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