Last weekend my family took a trip to Denmark to visit my host sister, Thea who is studying there until December.
November 11
We left our house very early Friday morning to catch our plane. There was some mix up and we had tickets, but didn't have assigned seat numbers, so we had to wait until everyone else was seated then fill in the gaps. I sat in the very first row with Johan and Maren (my host brother and his girlfriend). The flight from Stjørdal to Copenhagen was about an hour and a half.
Thea met us in the airport. It was so nice to see her again! She was only here for the first two weeks that I was here, so we didn't get much of a chance to get to know each other... but that changed last weekend!
We waited for a cab large enough to bring all six of us to our hotel. We had three rooms. Thea and I shared one, but when we got to the hotel, only two were ready so Mamma and Pappa put their bags in our room. We rested for just a little while and then we decided to go get lunch. We went to a nice little cafe and had breakfast for lunch. It was eggs and bacon and a bunch of other food on a huge plate. It was so good! Out side the restaurant there were a lot of Christmas vendors selling various things, ranging from chocolate dipped waffles on a stick (I never did get to try one of those...) to knitted sock-monkey hats.
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| I really should have bought this.. |
It was nearly noon, so we went to the Palace to watch the changing of the guards. It was very interesting to watch. One set of guards had white tassels on their uniform and the others had red tassels. They stand in front of red guard houses and you are allowed to take pictures with them, but if you get to close they hold their hand out and make you stop.
Friday afternoon we went shopping! There were so many stores! So much to look at! Copenhagen is a really beautiful city, but it is also a city that is under a lot of construction at the moment so there were areas all over of road work or renovations.
Walking down the main shopping street with Thea I realized that it felt like a month since I had woken up that morning. It was starting to get pretty late, so we went back to the hotel to rest for a little while before dinner. On the way we stopped at a candy store that sold a lot of American candy. Of course we bought some, then went to the hotel and ate some chocolate chip cookies I made on Thursday afternoon. Mamma and Pappa's room was ready, so they moved their bags out of our room.
We didn't really know what to do for dinner. We went into the Hard Rock Cafe, but the wait was two hours, so we decided it would be better to go somewhere else. We walked another block down and found a little pizza place, and we all agreed it was good. The sign out front said "Eat All You Can".
I took that sign as a challenge.
The pizza was actually quite delicious and there were a bunch of people eating there that were dressed up in costumes.. Don't really know why though...
After dinner we went to Tivoli!
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| It was quite fantastic! |
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| "Avery, what the heck are you doing in that picture?" "Uhmm.. It looks like I'm being excited.." |
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| I wasn't the only excited one :) |
Tivloli is all dressed up for Christmas now, so everything was sparkly and light up and just generally gorgeous. There were amusement park rides, there were little shops selling all types of Christmas stuff and there were food vendors... some of whom were selling gløgg, which I truly think may be the most amazing thing I have ever smelled.
Thea, Johan, Maren and I went on one of the rides. It was one of those spinning swings, but this one was very tall and when we started spinning, it lifted up high so you could see the entire city! I probably should have paid more attention to what the city looked like from up there, but Tivoli was so beautiful from above with all of the blinking lights and people walking around, so mostly I paid attention to that... and concentrated on not losing my hat. After the ride was over we were walking along the different paths and just looking around. We went into a gambling place, but couldn't really figure out how the machines worked, so we left. We tried claw machines, but failed. We were walking into an area of the park that was decorated with paper lanterns and dragons:
Like this
And that's when it happened:
I smelled gløgg for the first time. I stopped in my tracks. It was the most heavenly thing that had ever reached my nose! I really wanted to try some, but I didn't. A few steps further down the path revealed Mamma and Pappa sitting at a table... Drinking gløgg! So I got to try some!
It wasn't as good as I had hoped, but I coped with the disappointment and moved on.
Thea and I took a walk around the rest of the park. It was absolutely gorgeous!
During our walk, true to form, little five year old Avery begged her big sister to get ice cream.
Oh, did I mention that it was absolutely freezing out?
Thea just looked at me.
"Avery are you crazy??"
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| Yes. I am crazy. |
Ben&Jerry's ice cream!!!
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| Best thing ever! ♥ |
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| I shared mine with this thing.. |
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| Like turtle surfing! |
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| And giant clams! |
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| A field of Christmas trees! |
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| Comet? |
Tivoli was a great success!
November 12
We got free breakfast at the hotel, and let me tell you: It was the most amazing hotel breakfast I have ever had in my life. The bacon and eggs were great and the cinnamon buns were superb. I ate a lot.
We decided to go see the little mermaid statue, so we took a nice long walk through the city. It was gorgeous!
There are two things that are very notable about Copenhagen. First, it is so flat. There are no hills at all, and second is the number of bicycles. There are billions of bikes.
Our walk was very nice. Johan felt sick, so he stayed at the hotel, but after relaxing for a while, he took a cab and met us at the mermaid statue.
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| Found a guard house you could actually stand in! |
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| Proof that Johan did eventually meet us. |
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| Me with the Little Mermaid. She is really little.. |
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| We took one glass before the museum |
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| Found some cool looking trucks. |
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| Old-school beer ads |
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| I successfully made a new friend! |
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| Carlsberg's Laura |
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| After the museum we took our second glass It was very delicious beer |
We took a taxi back to the main part of Copenhagen and guess what Thea and I did?
Went shopping more! I got a new pair of shoes and tried on about a million pieces of clothes, but didn't really find anything I wanted. For dinner we went to a very nice restaurant. I got a burger and everyone else got ribs. On our walk back to the hotel, most of the stores were closed, but we found Santa!
Mamma, Pappa, Thea and I played cards and drank beer for quite a while that evening. It was a lot of fun. :)
November 13
Sunday morning we had breakfast an hour later than Saturday. All the walking and being up late really had us tired out. After breakfast, we walked around the city. Most of the stores were closed, so we found other ways of amusing ourselves. We went to find the colorful building, we climbed on statues, made some funny faces, found an "Occupy Copenhagen" camp and a post that has the name of the town Thea is living in, found cool looking bikes, a beautiful doll, a Ben&Jerry's cow that had a speech bubble that said "Shall we go home together" (or something along those lines) and finally a toy store that was open
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| Roskilde |
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| lovely.. |
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| Shall we go home together? |
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| Perry the Platypus! |
We went to lunch then climbed a tower and saw all of Copenhagen. It was very lovely, and the tower was so much fun because there were lots of places to hide and jump out to scare people!
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| The word above my head is "Kissing bench" |
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| Copenhagen ♥ |
We chilled and played some more card games until 6, which is when we had to leave our rooms.
We spent quite a while in the airport because our flight was after 10. Thea spent some time with us, but then she had to take the train back to Roskilde. Our flight was delayed by a little while, so we just hung out in the airport all evening. There were a lot of stores and things to look in so it wasn't bad. We got home very, very late Sunday night.
Copenhagen is a beautiful city and I really hope to make it back there some day. I had a wonderful time bonding with my family, and especially my older sister. I can't wait until she comes home in December!
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| ♥ |
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