Copenhagen

Hotel: Belaegningen Youth Hostel Avedorelejren, Avedore Tvaervej 10, 2650 Hvidovre, Denmark Phone #: + (45) (0)36 779084 Fax #: + (45) (0)36 779587

I woke up very early this morning, 6:30, and decided I should take a shower as there were only 2 showers for all the girls in the building (the hostel had us spread out into 3 different buildings). At 8:30 we left for the city and started with a driving tour of the city to orient ourselves. The city seemed much nicer this morning, between the sun shining and not being lost, I almost liked Copenhagen. On the driving tour we were shown Tivoli, Christiansborg Palace, the National Museum, Radhuspladsen, Nyhaven, Amalienborg Palace (photo stop), Rosenborg Palace, Geffion Fountain (photo stop), the Little Mermaid (photo stop) and had a drop off at Tivoli for those who were not going on the tour of Carlsberg Brewery. I was excited to see the Little Mermaid, but not nearly as excited as Jilly, it was like a pilgrimage to her, and that made it even more exciting.

We had an 11:00 reservation for Carlsberg Brewery, and did the self guided tour. I don't think I learned much about making beer, but the tour included 2 free beers, which made it a good deal. First I had a Semper Ardens Abbey Ale, which was aweful, and decided to cut my losses and get a Fanta after that. Though I did try someone's Winter Something, which was a little better, but I really just don't like beer and a tour of Carlsberg Brewery wasn't going to change that. We left a little before 1:00 and were dropped off at Tivoli for our free day.

A bunch of us headed over to the Church of Our Savior (AKA the inside out church) for a view of the city. On my last tour I missed one or two sites with views of the cities, and I regretted it, I didn't want to make the same mistake again. Che warned us that it might be closed, but fortunately for us it was open. The stairs up were rough, all those days I spent on the stair master didn't seem to make it any easier, but the view was great and worth the stairs. Right after leaving it started to rain, and where do you think my umbrella was? At the hostel, so I ended up spending 40 Dkr on an umbrella. But I did trade the umbrella with Kevin for most of a danish, cutting some of my loss. Eventually we found a place to eat lunch - McDonalds, it was raining on and off and it was quick and easy. Leah D. was confused when she ordered the cheeseburger meal and it came with 2 cheeseburgers, instead of one. Apparently in Australia a cheeseburger meal only comes with 1 cheeseburger, well I saved her by buying one of the cheeseburgers off of her. But I was apparently the only person in our little group that was used to getting 2 cheeseburgers with there cheeseburger meal, see McDonalds can be a cultural experience!

After eating lunch we headed down Stroget for shopping, then to Nyhaven and back to Magasin (department store) to look at the legos, they apparently have the largest collection of legos in Copenhagen outside of Lego Land - I expected it to be a bigger collection. I bought a lego police man to add to my collection, one more thing to check off my list of things to get/do. In Magasin we found a little Hans Christian Andersen museum where we watched a little video about his life. Then it was time to head to the all you can eat pizza place most people were meeting at at 6pm. For 66 Dkr you got all you can eat pizza and salad. Then we went to an Australian bar to kill time until our 8:30 pick up. Unfortunately we never made it to Tivoli, since it rained on and off all day, and it was a bit pricey to enter Tivoli (and more to go on a ride) it didn't seem to be worth it. We had a good time at the bar, and I got to know people a bit better, so far everyone seemed cool and the group was starting to gel.

We were picked up at Tivoli at 8:30 and were back at the hostel by 8:50. I hung out in the hallway for a bit talking to Samar, Danny, and Skye, then met Karl in the TV room for a glass of wine. On the way back to my room I got on the internet for a bit, so I could let everyone know that all was well and finally got to bed at 11. Overall Copenhagen wasn't as bad as I thought it was the first day, but for some reason I still didn't love Copenhagen, something about it just didn't grab me.