Copenhagen/København

This weekend I went on a mini-cruise to Copenhagen, Denmark.  The company DFDS Seaways offered chances to win free tickets for a 2-night trip, and I got a cabin! (Well-I shared a cabin with another international student)

On Sunday, the day of departure, it started raining sleet-the first official snow in Oslo!  Strange how it snowed back home in Michigan before here-weather is a strange thing.  Here's the ship:

It had 11 decks (2 just for cars).  Here is me on the top deck as we're leaving through the Oslo fjord (did I mention it was cold.  And rainy.  And slippery):

 On the ship there is a duty-free shop that sells stuff at Danish prices (read: lower than Oslo), so I bought chocolate: many of the brands/varieties I had never heard of before, such as Daim, Kinder Bueno, and Ritter.  Also, alcohol, because prices are very high in Oslo (this is why many Norwegians frequently cross the border to Sweden, Denmark, or other Northern European countries to buy food), so many of my fellow travelers took this opportunity to stock up.

The next morning, I got up really early (6:30? am, don't judge, I like to sleep!) to catch the coast as we passed Helsingør.  If this sounds familiar, that's because it sounds similar to Elsinore, the English version of the castle where Shakespeare set Hamlet.  There's a castle there called Kronborg Castle, and they give tours of it (sadly, many museums here are closed on Mondays), but no tour for me.  So, the ship passed by it on the left side (Danish coast) at about 8 am.  Here's a map, and the castle!

The castle was built in the 16th century in this area because it's at the entrance to the Øresund strait, a great area to collect tolls from passing ships!  You can also see the castle going out from Copenhagen at 6pm, but the ship is more toward the Swedish coast at that point, so it's a little farther away.
The ship docked in Copenhagen (or København as it's written in Danish) at 9:45, where travelers get less than 7 hours to see the sights-luckily, many things are within walking distance.

 

I walked around with a group of friends: thanks for navigating so I didn't have to!  The first thing we saw was Kastellet, a fortress.  The second thing we was was the first sight that many visitors associate with Copenhagen-the Little Mermaid statue (Den Lille Havfrue:

Hans Christian Andersen, the famous compiler of fairy tales, was Danish, and you can find his house in Copenhagen, too.  The statue was made by Danish artist Edvard Eriksen and placed by the harbor in 1913.  The original story is kind of depressing (no Under the Sea songs here): spoiler alert-she dies.  The Little Mermaid was always my favorite Disney movie as a kid, but I never understood why she wanted to leave the sea anyway.  I just wanted to be part fish and live underwater (don't pretend that doesn't sound awesome)!  And sing catchy Jamaican-style music.

Also seen in Copenhagen:
Churches, lots of churches (St. Alban's, Russian Church, Marble Church, Copenhagen Cathedral, Hellingaa? Church-don't blame me, blame the rain, my map has started to fall apart).  And castles (Amalienborg, Rosenborg, Christiansborg).  And metal statues of guys on horses.
Here is Nyhavn, the Old Harbor area with beautiful colored houses, which reminded me of Painted Row in Charleston, SC.

The water was remarkably clear, which meant I could see this chair: good party?

We had lunch at a bakery, where I did indeed eat a Danish pastry in Denmark (no omelets, though :)

We also saw Christiania, the "free town" within Copenhagen where selling and smoking hash is "de facto" legal, although not technically legal, so there are signs warning you not to take pictures or run in the central areas.  Still, Christiania has it's own flag and trash system, and signs saying you're entering the EU (Denmark is part of the EU, although Norway is not) as you leave. 

I also saw some creepy statues in the canal waters:

And cool streets:

And a cute dog (oh, I miss Booger....)

This is Rosenborg Castle, my favorite, probably because it had a moat.  No alligators, but it did have a giant fish (too bad there's no scale, this thing was probably as big as that dog):

Here is leaving Copenhagen:

My second European country: Denmark!  Copenhagen was a lot busier and more urban than Oslo-many of my European friends said it felt a lot more like a European capital.  I think I prefer Oslo; maybe I'm not a city person at heart.  Also, I like mountains, and as you can see from this picture, Copenhagen is flat.