København!

Easter weekend I was in Copenhagen! It was so so so much fun. We left Thursday, March 28th while my mom and Aunt were still in Sweden. Here's my day by day breakdown of Copenhagen!

Thursday 3/28
We boarded the train in Uppsala just past 11am. I should tell you who we is! It was me, my two Dutch friends Silke and Dieuwertje, and my two Aussie friends Ben and Lana. We got in just past 5pm and met our Dutch friend Esther at the train station. It was so great to see her again! She was studying at Uppsala but some of her classes overlapped so she went back to Holland in February. We enjoyed dinner at an awesome British pub. Steaks and Bearnaise sauce. YUM. Our hostel was FANTASTIC. Really close to the train station and right next to the water but also within walking distance of the main shopping strip.

So delicious.

The view from our hostel!

Friday 3/29 (Good Friday)

We took ages to get ready in the morning but we finally made our way out just before noon after a breakfast with lots of Nutella and boiled eggs.

The most important meal of the day! Lana (left), me, and Esther (right)

Copenhagen has a different feel to it than Sweden so it was interesting to see the buildings and such. The first thing we say was the Royal Library. Weird and modern. But Dieuwertje played tour guide for us with her tour book and told us the fun fact that there are over 21 million books in that library. HOLY COW. The Political Science major in me thought it was so awesome to see Folktinget, Danish Parliament.

Royal Library

Folktinget

 The Danish Royal Palace in Copenhagen is called Amalienborg and is the winter home of the royal family. It was very strange. Four separate buildings with a courtyard containing the classic majestic monument of a man riding a horse in the middle. The most bizarre thing was that cars are allowed to drive through the courtyard. There's a roundabout around the monument.

One of the buildings of the palace

Fantastic hot chocolate from the nicest Danish man

We finally made it to our primary goal for the day: Nyhavn! IT WAS SO COOL. Whoever decided that buildings should be bright colors and lining a canal was a genius. Nyhavn is definitely one of my favorite places that I've seen here in Europe. It's unlike anything at home. Just off Nyhavn, we found this cute little American bar that had hot chocolate and would let us sit without buying a meal. At most restaurants and places along the canal, at least half of the party has to order food in order for you to be in the establishment. They require that because everywhere is tiny and they don't want to lose money to people just sitting down for drinks. 

Nyhavn!

We found the Danish Museum of Art and Design. It's definitely not my type of museum but we enjoyed it. After the museum we split into two groups. Didg, Ben, and I wanted to find the Little Mermaid statue while the other three went back to the hostel to rest. It was snowing!

Dieuwertje and me 

We found the Little Mermaid statue! And it was everything I expected it to be. There were heaps of tourists there and it was rather cold walking there along the water. It's really nothing special. But the reason there's a statue of a mermaid in the middle of Copenhagen is because the story of the Little Mermaid was written by a Dane, Hans Christian Andersen. He wrote tons of other children's stories such as the Princess and the Pea, the Ugly Duckling, and Thumbelina.

The Little Mermaid

One our journey to the mermaid we walked through some army barracks that would've been more interesting had it been less snowy. 

The windmill

For dinner we made a classic poor college kid dinner of pasta bolognese. Good stuff. We then got ready to hit the Copenhagen club scene! Now one ongoing joke of the weekend and has since continued in Uppsala was "Escalation Bird." It's a Dutch thing, I guess. The Escalation Bird calls and you have to decide whether you want to "answer" or "decline." What is escalating? Generally, escalating means having a good time. So declining the Escalation Bird means you want to take it easy and relax. Escalation Bird called on Friday night and all six of us answered yes. It was a very late night ending with Dieuwertje, Esther, and myself returning to the hostel at 6am. That was another difference from Sweden. The club was open until 5 so that's normal. Here, the nations typically close at 1am, 2am if it's a special event. The sun was rising. We discovered some very fun Somersby bottles. If you don't know what Somersby is, I am so sorry. It is a hard, Danish cider that actually tastes like juice. It is so good. 

Answer the call! 

Fun Somersby bottles!

Saturday 3/30

Since we had a crazy late night on Friday, Saturday was a very low key day. It was also the only day that shops were open. Since it was Easter weekend, nearly all the stores were closed Friday and Sunday so we embraced the chance to get some shopping in on Saturday. Lana, Didg, and I called it quits a little early and went back to the British pub for a late lunch of steaks and burgers. The three of us then decided that it would be best to go back to the hostel and nap. It was a gloomy day so I'm not sad that we weren't outside all day. We had a relaxing night at the hostel with tacos for dinner and just lounging. Ben, Silke, and Didg answered the Escalation Bird call but Esther, Lana, and I were too happy to stay in that night. 

Sunday 3/31 (Easter!)

Simply the best. 

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was fantastic. Esther and I got up and did the grocery shopping for the day. The sun was shining! We walked to Rundetårn, the Round Tower, and went to the top! On our walk there we walked past people doing marketing for Magnum ice cream and they were handing out FREE ICE CREAM TREATS. I HAD A PINK ICE CREAM. The outer shell was chocolate but it was sparkly pink and the ice cream was vanilla but it was pink! 

View from the tower!

At the top! Ben, Dieuwertje, me, Lana, Esther, and Silke

We then went back to Nyhavn! It was busy and bustling but we found a good spot to sit along the canal to enjoy some coffees. We also played I spy! It was so relaxing to soak up the sun!

Hanging out on the edge of the canal!

Sunday night was once again uneventful. Our Easter dinner was nothing special. Just potatoes and chicken with some mushrooms and a salad. Definitely not Mom's ham with mashed potatoes but not bad. I was definitely a little sad that I was missing Easter at home and I think the hardest part was knowing what I was missing. The egg hunt. Mom's delicious meal. Easter baskets. Church with the fam. But I'm so glad I got to spend it with my new good friends in a new place! It was an adventure. We had plans that night to hit up happy hour at our favorite British pub but we somehow decided to watch a movie so the six of us cuddled up on two twin beds pushed together and watched Crazy, Stupid Love on my iPad. It was a little lame but Esther had an early flight and the rest of us didn't feel like going all the way to the bar. It was nice and low key.

Sunday 4/1 (Easter Monday and April Fool's Day!)
We caught our train back to Sweden! Uneventful until we got to Stockholm. Our train was slow so we had to run to catch our connection train to Uppsala. Didg and Silke thought it would be fun to pull a joke on Ben, Lana, and me and tell us that they missed the train since we were separated at the Stockholm train station. Then they just strolled up to us on the platform in Uppsala yelling "April Fools!" Silly silly silly!

So that was Copenhagen. Keep an eye out for Paris, Scotland, and Birthday Celebrations!

Cheers!