Hej all! I just got back last night from Copenhagen (capital of Denmark)! What a great city! Lots to do and see. I left Sweden on Saturday morning and took the train about 2.5 hours to Copenhagen. I went with a group of 12 friends from school. We arrived at the central station and took the bus to our hostel- "Sleep in Haven." This was my first hostel experience, and it wasn't too bad. The only bad part about the hostel was that it was situated kind of far from the downtown area and my bunk bed was right by the door in our room so I woke up every time someone came into the room. Other than that, the hostel was pretty good. I posted a picture of the hostel common area with the other pictures. So Saturday afternoon we walked basically around the entire city of Copenhagen and even made our way to Christiania (a free town on the other side of the city). Christiania was one of the strangest places I've visited. It was a bit like a miniature Amsterdam. It's a small town within the city boundaries of Copenhagen, with about 850 residents. Over the last 30 years, it's been the subject of several police raids due to the high amount of marijuana sales that take place there. Because of this, I also wasn't allowed to take any photos inside Christiania- they don't want any of the people in the pictures able to be identified by police. Seriously... but it was a cool place. The streets are mostly dirt roads and gravel, and vendors selling crazy clothes and jewelry are everywhere. There's also a couple small pubs, coffee shops, and little parks with benches and trees and flowers everywhere (also where the locals sit and smoke pot. no joke). It's basically a hippie village. I was SO mad I couldn't take pictures inside! It would have made for some amazing photos. I did manage to sneak one picture- leaving Christiania, the big archway reads "You are now entering the EU" (European Union).
On Saturday night we went out downtown and found a couple cool pubs and then made our way to another club. The clubs and bars in Copenhagen don't close until 5 am. So people are walking home when the sun is coming up on Sunday morning. It's crazy. What I really liked about Copenhagen was how the city didn't shut down on Sundays like most European cities. There was actually cafes and a few stores open. Usually in Europe, NOTHING is open on Sundays except the gas stations and grocery stores for a few hours. Copenhagen is a BIG city- much bigger than the Twin Cities- except instead of skyscrapers everywhere, there's 500 year old buildings and churches that make up the skyline. I'm going back to Copenhagen two more times before I leave Europe, so hopefully I'll get to see a lot more of it then. You can't possibly see the whole city in one trip.
OH, and I almost forgot to mention that my weekend in Copenhagen also happened to be the same weekend of the Denmark-Sweden soccer game- that took place in Copenhagen. So Saturday was CROWDED. And there were tons of crazy soccer hooligans running all over the place. The Swedish fans even took over an entire park and hung up blue and yellow flags and played music and blew these big fog horns every 10 seconds. So that was a pretty fun thing to see.
Hope everyone is well, Hej då!
-Sara
