3 nights in Copenhagen

 We left Billund and took the bus, then train to Copenhagen. The weather for this whole stint has been just perfect - approx 21C/68F and lovely. It hasn't rained on us since our camping in Northern Jutland, so it feels like we can really enjoy summer here. It also skews our opinions and make Denmark (Aarhus, Billund, Copenhagen) seem extra awesome.

But we do think Copenhagen is awesome. 

Our first day here, we arrived early afternoon and were able to walk to our hostel from the train station. Jason and Ava picked a place called "Next House Copenhagen" and it's a large hostel. We are in a small 4 person room with our own bathroom. We each have our own 'pod' or enclosed bunk. There isn't much space but we did what we could to do some laundry in the sink and dry out any dampness from our tent and sleeping mats.

There are a lot of facilities in this hostel and a lot of people. There are a couple of bars and a restaurant, a roof-top communal kitchen, a really good gym, a yoga room, social areas, pool and foosball tables, laundry facilities... it would be exactly the kind of place I'd like to stay if I was a single backpacker looking to meet others. And it works well for our family too. It's close to many of the sights in the city. 

After we settled in, we went out to enjoy some of the free attractions in Copenhagen:

1) walking along the beautiful waterfront 

 

2) The royal library

3) The view from the Tower of Christiansborg Palace

4) The museum of Thorvaldens, a famous Danish sculptor (museum free on Wednesdays, and it happened to be a Wednesday)

Jason with a statue of Jason and his golden fleece

Hercules

Bacchus

Apollo

Lupa the wolf

5) I read that on Wednesdays, a modern art exhibity in a church nearby was also free, so we went to Nikolaj church and checked it out. It turns out it was a virtual reality exhibit. Rachel spent a while exploring a Japanese experience based on the effects of the Fukushima accident from 2011.

We went back to our hostel and made some dinner in the communal kitchen. Jason worked for a while amongst people doing trivia and dodgeball at the hostel social area, too!

Our hostel room: bunk bed pods #1,#2

Ava and Joey the pig inside her bunk bed pod

 

On our second day, we went to Roskilde and enjoyed the Viking museum - see other post. In the evening, Jason and the girls made dinner in the communal kitchen and later Rachel and Jason played pool. 

I tried to figure out our best scenario for shipping our camping gear home. We aren't going to use our tent anymore, and MRA don't need their sleeping bags or sleeping pads. So I went out in the evening to look at post offices and to try and find a box. I was pretty happy at 9pm to find a convenience store person who gave me access to many boxes and let me take whatever I wanted. We knew mailing a large box home was going to be expensive, but lightening our loads seems like an excellent thing going forward!

The next day we took a bus with our large full box to the post office and sent it home to my mom's house for storage until next summer. Carrying the box on/off a crowded bus and down the street was a fun adventure in and of itself!

My third day began with an earlier wake up with the intention of doing a long run. It was a glorious morning and the city was just waking up. I ran along the waterfront and took some photos along the way. I was much more in a headspace for tourist sightseeing, taking photos, and geocaching and not pushing my distance. So I just enjoyed myself and did that. I saw the Little Mermaid and enjoyed the peace of the sunlight on the water. Many people are disappointed by the Little Mermaid statue, but if you love the fairytale like I do, it's still fun.

At the end of 7 miles, Jason and the girls came and met me at the Kalvebod Bolge waterfront, where we joined many many locals doing the morning dip in the ocean before work.

The Little Mermaid statue in the morning sun

After cleaning up, the girls and I went to the Queen's residence / Amalienborg palace to watch the changing of the guard. It's as ceremonial (and long) as any as I've ever heard of, and the girls had never seen anything quite like this. We started at Rosenborg Castle, with the intention of watching the guards walk from their barracks here to the palace, but we couldn't follow their exact route. I'll try to post some videos of parts of the ceremony - we found the whole thing quite entertaining / funny.

Jason came and met us for lunch at the street food market. Rachel had Indian, Ava had a crepe, Jason had a tofu veggie bowl and I had a beet and quinoa salad. After that, being such a hot and awesome day, we had some ice cream.

We used our transit pass to ride the ferry home so we could enjoy a little sightseeing from the water, and then had some time to pack and organize at the hotel.

We had a simple dinner at our hostel kitchen and got organized in the evening. There was a hilarious event happening just outside our lodging: Friday night skate: a 15km social rollerblade / rollerskate event. Perhaps 300 people gathered, some in great costumes, some with strollers, some with speakers and music, some with drinks to skate around the city for a couple of hours. It was fun people watching!

So that's it for Scandanavia. 

We've been inside the Schengen region for long enough, so we are leaving for the UK tomorrow and need to stay there for a while to keep our visa / travel scenario valid. We have another 1-2 weeks of tourist-y travel and then we will slow down a little.

Stay tuned...