København (Copenagen)

29 November Friday

Amy, Haley and I were supposed to meet at the Landstraße stop around 5:10 this morning in order to get on our train to the bus at 5:24.  I got there earlier than they did, so I waited up above ground by the screen listing the platforms.  They still weren't here by 5:16 ish...so I went into the mall area to get wifi to look up Amy's number to call her Austrian phone.  She didn't answer!!  I figured they had missed their previous connection, because I would have seen them, so I started planning a back-up plan involving a "CAT" train ten minutes later, but it was an extra 10 Euros....and we had already paid for the first train which was only 2.10.  Well at 5:26 ish Amy finally answered (the previous calls didn't even go through) and they were on the train!  I must have missed them BARELY when I turned my back to walk through these glass doors...SO STUPID.  Luckily I was formulating my backup plan for us all, so I just did that.  Hahhah.  We got to the airport at about the same time, and got all through security with plenty of time.  Our flight took off at 7:10 (boarded at 6:45).  I FaceTimed with Dad in the airport--he was just driving home from Thanksgiving dinner....ahh sad Claire :(

We landed in the Copenhagen, Denmark airport around 9:15 I think...it was a bit late.  We followed Joost (Riedtfelt)'s perfect directions to get on the Metro, and then onto an S-train to get to his apartment.  There, we met up with Monika and Stephanie who flew in last night.  Joost is Odd & Mario's son, they are from Holland and Mom and Dad are really close with them.  Joost lives in Copenhagen now, and was luckily and thankfully willing to let us five girls sleep there for a few nights!  He and Vera weren't even there--they were in Amsterdam for the weekend.  So we got the whole space to ourselves, which was SO nice compared to staying in hostels.  SO NICE.

We walked around the neighborhood a little bit (we weren't lost, I promise...) before we got to the apartment...haha, it was a good walk though because the houses are SO DANG CUTE!!!!  Some lady walking her dog out asked us if were architects...hahah cause we were taking so many pictures of houses.  We just said yes.

Monika waving out the window on the top floor to us!!!

So we planned in there for a little bit, and ate some fruit Joost left for us, and then we went into the city!!  We had to take a train and the Metro to get there.  Oh, the language here is insane....not okay.

This church has a dome modeled after St. Peter's in Rome.  Very beautiful inside...I liked it because the entire chapel area inside is a circle!  There wasn't a main nave or side aisles or anything...just a big circle room.

We then crossed the street and went to the Amelienborg Palace.  We got to see the changing of the guards...which wasn't as fancy as in London BUT it was cool!

We walked across the square, and found ourselves right at the shore!!  There are shores and canals and islands everywhere around here.  That is the opera house across the way.  Just then it started to rain . . . We walked along the water for a bit all the way to where the Little Mermaid statue is.  Along the way we saw a copy of the David statue in copper, I think.

We went into this little star-shaped island that used to be a fortress, so there were only maybe two or three bridges to get onto it?  The buildings inside were RED. . . there were some guards...we weren't really sure what it was actually . . .

We found some cool churches, but this one wasn't open :(  Still beautiful though.  We were soaked by now and pretty cold (not as bad as Rome, but I had my umbrella in Rome.  I left mine at the apartment here!).

 Oh, so riding bikes here is HUGE.  Like, half the people bike instead of driving cars.  The bike lane is insane...and people just put their bikes everywhere.  It is awesome.

So we made it to the National Gallery around 2.  SO WET.  We decided to enjoy some art for free for a little while to dry off and get warm.  I found some Matisse, Picasso, and even Carl Bloch.

This one above is Picasso.  Titled: Lemon and Glass.

For a little bit I went into the more modern part of the museum in the newer half of the building and I saw this horse....and a bunch of other weird stuff, including this chair and box.  WHAT IS ART.

We left around 3:30, and don't worry, it looked like it was 10 at night outside.  WHAT THE HECK.  It was still raining....we were pretty bummed and everybody wanted to go.  Luckily we were able to find some things to do for another little while.  One of those things was this incredible poster shop.  Copenhagen is also known for its design qualities...architecture, text, ads, art, everything.  This shop had some sweet prints in it.  Amy was wet.

After that, we went along the famous Nyhavn street by the Nyhavn canal and we walked through a little Christmas market that was set up!  Amy grabbed a free poster off one of the walls.  Haha.  We got some ornaments..but mostly it was just fun to walk around.  On one side of the street were all Christmas shops set up, and the other side was just colorful buildings with cute restaurants set up with outdoor seating.

We found a grocery store and bought 100 grams of pasta noodles (wait, we actually bought 150g, but we only cooked 100), two jars of sauce, a cake mix, four loaves of half-cooked bread, and a box of cookies.  We totally skipped lunch today so we were ready for a BIG hot meal.  We took it all back with us on the Metro and train to Joost's apartment, and we COOKED.  It was so nice to be able to COOK and have a sit-down meal.  His stove was pretty much a touch-screen...and the oven was pretty confusing, but that's okay, and while we were figuring that out, Amy was figuring out the DVD player and TV in the other room.

We made the cake after, and even though we couldn't read the ingredients at ALL, it turned out really really really delicious.  We enjoyed a nice game of Shulbok (Amy won), and then we settled in all nice and cozy for a movie, I think it was called It's a Funny Story.  It was interesting...well I fell asleep.  Haha.

I slept on the couch, the twins shared the spare room with a queen bed, and Amy and Haley shared a blow-up mattress upstairs.  Yeah, this apartment was huge!  So nice compared to what we are in in Vienna.  Having an actual kitchen and dining room was awesome.  We were so lucky that this was able to work out with Joost!  Such a relaxing trip . . . we were even able to stretch and call it a VACATION, it was THAT good.