23-26 August (just 2 days really)
The WCs after party kept me up most of the night. Maria unfortunately managed to sneak out without saying goodbye or showing us her black eye, and possibly without actually sleeping at all. I managed to score a free ride down to Copenhagen with Maria Livjberg, Morten and Nanna. We were a tad packed in but I actually found it quite comfortable almost lying in the car with my feet up over the top of my big backpack. I managed to fall asleep and miss most of the exciting scenery on the journey: the big bridges, etc.
Nanna, sister of my first fabulous host Sofus (I love the Kreutzmann family!) offered me a bed which I accepted with great enthusiasm. The three nights in Copenhagen were set to cost me more than my two months stay in Egypt, and I'd found a cheap place! Nanna has a pretty cool apartment in a nice area. The only downside being the lack of a bathroom (the only plumbing is a wc and a kitchen sink), but we used that of a friend living in the same building.
We managed to entirely lose the morning of my first day in Copenhagen due to some late sleeping and grocery shopping. But, we made up for it in the afternoon. We first took a guided boat tour of the canals taking in most of the city's major buildings and the celebrated Little Mermaid sculpture from the water. We then wandered through the old town centre and visited the cathedral and town hall. There was an exhibition in the town hall that included a lot of (rather poor) elephant paintings. There seems to be an elephant obsession in Copenhagen. They are everywhere. I started to give up hope of ever seeing the elusive reindeer or moose during my Scacndinavian adventure, elephants became much more rational.
We took in the park and the dodgey part of town that included an up-side-down burnt out car, that just seemed to fit in with the landscape so well. We had a drink near Nanna's office at a funky little cafe that reminded me a bit of Wellington's midnight expresso. Then we strolled through the assistant cemetery and found some wacky graves and a few famous people including Hans Christian Andersen and Neils Bohr. We finally made it home, exhausted.
On the second day Kerian and Darryl were going to pop into town on their way through and meet us for breakfast. They arrived really quite early so they came to the apartment for breakfast instead. We all then went to explore Christiania, the hippy part of town that looks pretty well untouched since the 70s. It's strange to wander off the very Copenhagen-esque streets straight into a park-like area where people live in the nature by the water, there's heaps of graffiti art and odd sculptures plus little alternative shops where people openly sell canabis. In some spots you could see the rather contradictory golden spire of the adjacent cathedral juxaposing against this hippy commune.
We said goodbye to Kerian and Darryl and then visited the architectural centre where there was an exhibition on Foster+Partners and their handling of existing buildings in their architecture, including the Copenhagen Zoo elephant house. Upstairs there was an installation by the landscape architects SLM called elephant that outlined some of their thinking behind the design of the new elephant house.
We managed to sit down for a sammie on the water's edge before heading into the Black Diamond – the national library. The building is quite stunning over all but there are areas where the detailing isn't so fantastic. There was an exhibition called A building is not a building by a photographer with stunning enormous images of details from buildings, some of which were recognisable, others not. We popped into the Danish design centre but they were just setting up the next major exhibition so we went and hooned around the National Art Gallery for an hour before it closed – I don't think either of us were really in the right mood for it so while we saw most of it we only really looked at a few pieces.
We then went on a mission to find me a “Danish” from Denmark on the way home. I got some pretty yummy cakes, eventually – we had to take the metro back out to Christiania, slight detour.
It was a bit of a whirlwind tour but I think I saw the major attractions Copenhagen has to offer. And, I made it to the airport without yet destroying my back.
Nanna, sister of my first fabulous host Sofus (I love the Kreutzmann family!) offered me a bed which I accepted with great enthusiasm. The three nights in Copenhagen were set to cost me more than my two months stay in Egypt, and I'd found a cheap place! Nanna has a pretty cool apartment in a nice area. The only downside being the lack of a bathroom (the only plumbing is a wc and a kitchen sink), but we used that of a friend living in the same building.
We managed to entirely lose the morning of my first day in Copenhagen due to some late sleeping and grocery shopping. But, we made up for it in the afternoon. We first took a guided boat tour of the canals taking in most of the city's major buildings and the celebrated Little Mermaid sculpture from the water. We then wandered through the old town centre and visited the cathedral and town hall. There was an exhibition in the town hall that included a lot of (rather poor) elephant paintings. There seems to be an elephant obsession in Copenhagen. They are everywhere. I started to give up hope of ever seeing the elusive reindeer or moose during my Scacndinavian adventure, elephants became much more rational.
We took in the park and the dodgey part of town that included an up-side-down burnt out car, that just seemed to fit in with the landscape so well. We had a drink near Nanna's office at a funky little cafe that reminded me a bit of Wellington's midnight expresso. Then we strolled through the assistant cemetery and found some wacky graves and a few famous people including Hans Christian Andersen and Neils Bohr. We finally made it home, exhausted.
On the second day Kerian and Darryl were going to pop into town on their way through and meet us for breakfast. They arrived really quite early so they came to the apartment for breakfast instead. We all then went to explore Christiania, the hippy part of town that looks pretty well untouched since the 70s. It's strange to wander off the very Copenhagen-esque streets straight into a park-like area where people live in the nature by the water, there's heaps of graffiti art and odd sculptures plus little alternative shops where people openly sell canabis. In some spots you could see the rather contradictory golden spire of the adjacent cathedral juxaposing against this hippy commune.
We said goodbye to Kerian and Darryl and then visited the architectural centre where there was an exhibition on Foster+Partners and their handling of existing buildings in their architecture, including the Copenhagen Zoo elephant house. Upstairs there was an installation by the landscape architects SLM called elephant that outlined some of their thinking behind the design of the new elephant house.
We managed to sit down for a sammie on the water's edge before heading into the Black Diamond – the national library. The building is quite stunning over all but there are areas where the detailing isn't so fantastic. There was an exhibition called A building is not a building by a photographer with stunning enormous images of details from buildings, some of which were recognisable, others not. We popped into the Danish design centre but they were just setting up the next major exhibition so we went and hooned around the National Art Gallery for an hour before it closed – I don't think either of us were really in the right mood for it so while we saw most of it we only really looked at a few pieces.
We then went on a mission to find me a “Danish” from Denmark on the way home. I got some pretty yummy cakes, eventually – we had to take the metro back out to Christiania, slight detour.
It was a bit of a whirlwind tour but I think I saw the major attractions Copenhagen has to offer. And, I made it to the airport without yet destroying my back.
No comments:
Post a Comment