København Part 2
We arranged to meet up with a college friend of mine, Phil, who
now lives permanently in København. This ended up being complex;
we had to get change so we could use a pay-phone, then the pay-phone
gave out while we were getting directions on where to meet, and
when we couldn't find him we had to borrow someone's cell phone to call him
back. In the end it all worked out.
We got to see a lot of local life while being lost. Many people
there ride bicycles. A lot of people are pushing baby-carriages, including
unlikely people like men in fancy business suits. The one thing that I found
odd was how much graffiti was everywhere.
Phil took us to the Danish Design Center,
which, as luck would have it, is free on Wednesdays after 5pm which is when we
were there.
We walked passed the city museum, which had a scale model of the medieval
city:
Nearby was an underwater sculpture, lit up at night. Of course you'll have
to take my word for it as the picture didn't really turn out:
Here is the Danish Opera House, lit
up at night:
We ate at a nice Spanish restaurant, with many courses. By this point it
was late, and Phil was nice enough to use his bus pass to speed our way
to his place. He was also nice enough to let us stay at his apartment,
a kind gesture in a place with such a high cost of living.
Here is the pleasant view from his apartment:
We had some wonderful breads for breakfast, and then split ways. It was
a shame we couldn't visit for longer. We had a pleasant walk back
to the downtown area.
We passed one of the lakes that rings the inner part of the city, this
is the Sortedams Sø:
We wanted to see Rosenborg Slot, but we were a bit early. In the park
outside there's a weird fake-tree on wheels:
This is
Rosenborg Slot, the palace that houses the crown jewels and some other
exhibits. We were some of the first tourists there, so the guards followed
us around. There were armed modern military guards guarding the jewels.
Along with the jewels, were a lot of other treasures, from Denmark's brief
time as an empire. There were a lot of elaborate things made out of ivory.
We walked some more around the city. At St Paul's church apparently
no Scotty Dogs are allowed:
We went up the Round Tower which
was one of my favorite things. At the top is an observatory (though
it postdates Tycho Brahe by a few years).
There are no steps to the top, it is a continuous spiral ramp inside:
From the top you get a good view of the city:
Nearby were some statues of famous Danish people, including
Niels Bohr the physicist:
We then walked across the harbor to a part of the city we hadn't been
to before. Again you get the pretty buildings along the water:
We were going to see the
Church of Our Savior which has a cool spiral tower. You can go to the
top of it, but like many things, in January it is closed for renovations:
We were briefly in a park like area, so I took out my GPS. In general it
doesn't work in cities due to buildings blocking the reception, which
is why you don't get detailed maps of our walks. It worked for a bit
though:
After this, we spent most of the rest of our time at the
National Museum of Denmark.
It had an impressive collection of Egyptian and Bronze age artifacts.
They had many exhibits on Danish history and culture, but sadly the
Viking part of the collection was under construction.
We did get to see the runestones though:
By now it was time to head back to Göteborg. Here is one last
night view of København. It's hard to see, but the one side
of the building is lit up as a giant thermometer, showing the temperature.
We caught the train back to Göteborg, which was uneventful. It was
snowing for part of the way back, but raining once we got in. It was late,
so we crashed at my advisor's room for a few hours. Then we were up by 4am
and caught a taxi to the airport (where there was snow) and our flight left
at 7am.
The flight was on time, though cloudy. In Paris we eventually found the
right terminal to be in for our next flight (and cleared security again).
The flight back to the US wasn't as nice as the flight over, and it took
longer due to a headwind.
Once we got to the US (and cleared customs and security again),
it turned out there were ice-storms, which had completely closed the
Syracuse airport. Trapped in NYC! We were in no shape to rent a car or
get a bus, so we navigated the annoying air-train and stayed at the Super 8
near the airport in Jamaica.
Here's a view from our hotel:
The next day we caught the airport shuttle back to the airport (with a
friendly driver), managed to get boarding passes for our re-scheduled
flight, and eventually even managed to get seats on the flight. Back
to Syracuse, eventually found our car, and made it home. Hooray!
No rest for us though. I had to catch up on a week of missed TA duties,
and then on Tuesday had a wisdom tooth out. That's a story for another time
though. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Scandinavia, and would recommend
it to anyone considering traveling there.
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