The Epitome of Chill

GOOD MORNING COPENHAGEN. I get into Copenhagen at 11:30 am on April 21^st, and find my best friend waiting for me at my baggage claim! At last we are reunited, and off to our hostel we go. We take the metro to our hostel and it was super easy to get there. It took us about 2 hours to check in cause the hostel was so slow and we wanted to check our emails and stuff before exploring. But eventually we leave the hostel, and are on our way. We walk around our neighborhood which is filled with cute restaurants and shops. And then we walked across the river to the center of the city. Copenhagen had a much different feel than any other city I had visited. Maybe it was because I had no plans, no expectations, no one to meet up with, no huge tourist sites to see, and no time schedule or agenda, but it was such a relaxing trip. The city is so calm and quiet, and we spent the day just walking around and enjoying the scenery. We were both starving and so we ended up in this market place where we ate the best sandwiches of my life. Then we walked into this hugeeee park where people were lying out and having picnics and playing soccer. I think the reason I liked it so much was because it kinda felt like a huge college campus, and it reminds me of home. It was beautiful and I took lots of artsy pictures that I must say I’m pretty proud of: take a look!

Me eating that great sandwich i was telling you about

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Street performer blowing mass amounts of bubbles!

And yes, we played with bubbles in the streets with our our 8 year old friends

Once we got to the point when our feet were killing us from walking all day, we walked back to our hostel for power hour! 2 drinks for the price of 1. Yeeahhhh. At power hour we met a kid from Australia who had just moved to Copenhagen and was staying at the hostel while he searched for a place to live. We didn’t do anything too crazy that night, just out to dinner with our new friend, and then to this cool local bar where I drank Danish beer and learned how to play Danish pool! Well I didn’t really learn to play but I watched some people play for a long time. There was local music and a band with both a washer and a banjo, can’t get much better than that.

The next day we woke up and went on a free walking tour of the city. Our tour guide was a young college student studying in Copenhagen but originally from Olso, Norway. Her English was impeccable. As is all Danish and Dutch people, sometimes I couldn’t even tell if they were American or not! Most of the time they weren’t, they just spoke English so well. It was a great walking tour and we got to see the longest and first pedestrian street in the world! (cause the Danish invented the pedestrian street). Also I learned that the city had been destroyed 2 times over because of fires that burnt everything down. So almost nothing in the city is original. Everything about the tour was great except the weather, it was sooo cold and rained off and on throughout the day.

Walking down the first ever and longest pedestrian street in the world

After the tour we walked to the Municipality of Christiana. Christiana is this little town on the other side of the other river that has independence from the rest of Copenhagen, they make their own laws and rules and definitely have different norms. So we went and saw that which was really cool, and we ate at this cool shack place with homemade food. That night we went back to the hostel and napped a bit because we were so tired. After our nap we found out from our hostel about this cool reggae concert that was happening. So we went to this concert and thought that getting there an hour late would be perfect, but no, we were still the first ones there. We just hung out until it got more crowded, but it didn’t matter cause we kinda sat in the back the whole time anyway, just observing the scene.  After about 2.5 hours we decided to go back to the hostel to hang out for a while and then go to sleep.

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Entrance into Christiana

The next day we woke up and went to Tivoli gardens! (The second oldest amusement park in Europe). It was small, but beautiful and the weather was great. We didn’t go on any rides but just walked around and took a little nap on the lawn chairs in a field. Me and lily joked about how chill of a weekend it was, we were never in a rush and didn’t do anything to strenuous, and even went to an amusement park to take a nap. Yes, the epitome of a chill trip: going to an amusement park and taking a nap.

After Tivoli we walked 45 minutes to get to the little mermaid. It was a far walk for such a little monument, but it was a beautiful day and lets be honest, there wasn’t much more to do. We didn’t do anything exciting that night, just went out for dinner and called it a night. I was sad to leave the next morning because this was one of my favorite trips all semester. Copenhagen was no less than I expected, the people are all so nice and friendly, the atmosphere is so chill and relaxing, the city has a lot of parks, a lot of bikes, is environmentally aware, and the people are just happy. Not that I would ever move to another country, away from family and friends, but if I had to, Copenhagen might be a place to consider. Not to mention, this is the city where Andy, Shane, and Silas move to in Weeds. Just a little fun fact and, embarrassing as this is, it's the reason I first heard about and got interested in visiting.

This is the touristy spot of Copenhagen. Its a small canal that leads into the river where there are restaurants and really pretty water-side properties. This used to be a port for boats, but when the bridge froze over one year all the boats were stuck! So they decided to turn it into a permanent wooden boat museum instead from that point forward, and the boats never left again.

Tivoli Gardens!

Lily and me in Tivoli Gardens

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The little mermaid