Becoming a Tourist

Audrey arrived safely early morning and we have been going pretty much ever since. She arrived bright and early at 8am, sunny smile beaming as she entered into Copenhagen. I looked like I could have been living in the airport for days with my shaggy hair covered by a hat, my gold digger hoody I threw on, and some sandals. The morning is not really my best friend these days. We got back and threw her stuff down and went out to visit Copenhagen. I acted as a tour guide and we walked the city. We started at City Hall by Tivoli and made our way up to the Little Mermaid. We walked the Strøget seeing many different street performers and food carts. It's quite a different pace than in March/ April when I've been there. We walked to Nyhavn and walked the harbor I guess, seeing the Opera House and stopping in at Amalienborg Palace. Our next stop took us up to the Little Mermaid, and we finished the afternoon with a sandwich at the train station taking us back into central Copenhagen to get on the metro home. Esben made some pasta for dinner and we enjoyed it outside with a nice evening and chatted for a while.

Friday, Kim picked us up and took us to Roskilde to visit the Cathedral and the Viking Ship museum. We had original planned on going up to Helsingør and touring Kronborg Castle, but it was raining cats and dogs, so we chose Roskilde. Let me start by saying the Vikings were some badass dudes. They went everywhere and did what ever the hell they want. We got an idea of what their ships were like and if you saw a bunch of those coming up on the horizon, you'd be pretty scared. The viking museum houses 5 ships that were

 found like 50 years ago, but they weren't brought up for a couple of years. The story behind these is actually pretty neat. The Vikings knew the fjord had certain areas that made it easier to get through. In order to make it more difficult for anyone getting in, they sunk some ships to block off a shorter passage, making it extremely difficult to get through. The ships are basically in there as pieces put back together, nothing too whole, but you are able to get the idea of just how huge they can be. It was astounding. We were able to get an English tour, as no one was there for the Danish tour and our tour guide gave us a special one. Kim bought me a special book called "How to be a Viking in 13 Easy Steps". The first one is call yourself a viking, so I got that one down. The next is milk a cow. If anyone wants to help me with this one, let me know because it's really holding me back, and I want to be a viking so bad! Next in Roskilde was the Cathedral. It basically seems like the Westminster Abbey of Denmark, as it is home to all sorts of dead royalty and important people. Some of the tombs are just nuts, and others really got the shaft. It was a pretty sweet day in Roskilde.

After that, we stayed with Kim and went back to his apartment to ultimately eat dinner and watch the World Cup of American Football game between Germany and Mexico (Mexico won by a TD, pretty good game). We also watched America's Funniest Home Videos and some youtube videos and had a blast. We were cracking up like little kids with some of the videos. The winner of the night was great---it was two baseball players like maybe 8-10 years old who are wearing cups for the first time in their baseball uniforms. They have a baseball and are basically taking turns holding the ball and whacking their own and each others nuts to prove it doesn't hurt. It's just funny because that really what you do when you put one on for the first time.  Overall, it was a magnificent Friday.

Saturday, we started off the day by heading to Rosenborg Castle. I had already been earlier, but I couldn't hide this gem from Audrey. We bought a tour book to go along with it, as most interesting pieces have numbers that correspond to the book. The basements houses the crown jewels dating back to Christian 4 I believe. It is a pretty cool place. Saturday was a terrific day, so we went to one of the sausage vendors and hung out in the gardens by the castle for a little while. In the evening, we went out to Esben's parent's place for some BBQ with his parents and some family friends. Esben made a smoke some time ago and had smoked some trout, ribs, brisket, and lamb. It was freaking fantastic. His parent's live in the super cool farm outside Copenhagen, and they are beyond welcoming. They house has been in the family, and they feel pretty lucky to be able to live in it. They evening, food, and company were fantastic. Everyone is so welcoming, and when conversation would go on in Danish for a while, someone would also kind of summarize what was going on. It was a marvelous evening. We went back to the apartment briefly, then out to the Happy Pig in Copenhagen. Lars came and met us there and we sat and drank and listened to the live music until about 3:30. The performer was playing everything, from Jack Johnson to Lady Gaga, so it was some good tunes.

Sunday began around 11:30 when we decided to go to the Open Air Museum. It's this huge place that has a bunch of old houses from around Denmark. If they were not on the land originally, they were moved here. Some were extremely old, and a lot of them I couldn't stand up in. The thing I thought was the coolest was the beds. There were no bedrooms. The beds were built into like cubbies in the walls with a little hole that would be covered by a curtain. It was an absolutely overwhelming place that never seemed to end. We drove to the

beach to check it out for Auds, and there was some kind of beach party going on that was pretty cool. We got back and I followed the Women's Soccer World Cup. It was a phenomenal game from what it sounds like. It seems like FIFA is trying to hose the US, but we're just like get bent and go win. American Rules! In the evening, we went to Lars' place (AG was there as well) to watch the USA vs. Germany game in the World Cup of American Football. It was a replay from earlier in the day, and Kim was doing the commentary on the game. I cannot judge how he did, since I do not understand Danish at all. It was neat since the team USA head coach is Northwest Missouri's head coach. There is a lot of MIAA connections as multiple NW Mo and a Washburn player is on the team. Team USA's defense dominated and we won 48-7.

Monday, we had some plans to check out some stuff, but as soon as we got going, it started POURING down rain. So we came home and looked into what we should do in Rome. The weather cleared up eventually and because super nice, and we headed down to the beach. I finished my most recent Dexter book, which is now the 2nd book I have read on my own in 2011 (which is 2 more than I have read on my own since probably about 1995, when I became too old for Dr. Seuss).  I made some pasta for dinner and we had a pretty chill evening, since we had big plans for today.

We got up nice an early today to head to Christianshavn and check out Our Savior's Church. There is a huge like steeple I guess you can climb up and get some pretty amazing pictures of the area. We climbed the 400 stairs to the top and it was incredible. Pretty scary overall though. We got there at a great time, as we were climbing down, we passed so many people waiting to go to the top. We peeked inside the church, which was spectacular as well, then headed out to find Christiania. We got sidetracked a bit, and I got pooped on by a bird, but luckily I had another shirt with me. We made it there, and wow, it is a different place. I'll have my buddy Rick Steves help me out, from his guide book titled "Scandinavia". In 1970s, Christianians established squatters rights in abandoned military barracks. The main street is called "Pusher Street" due the former sale of soft drugs along. Now, there are a lot of stands selling jewlery and shirts, as well as some hash and other such items. My favorite thing was watching a guy with XBox games going stall to stall to try to sell them. There are a lot of no photos signs painted, and I witness a local yelling at a couple girls for taking a picture. So, unfortunately, Audrey was not able to document this. Here is wikipedia's take on Christiania.

From there, we made use of the fanastic weather and hopped on a canal tour. It took us around the canals of Copenhagen (obvious from the name). It was pretty cool to see the stuff from the water.
For those of you who don't know, there are a lot of canals and water in and around Copenhagen, as it was a major hub of trading and such since it is directly on the water. From there, we took on a traditional Danish lunch of smørrebrød. I got a sampler kind of which was a fried fish, two types of herring, roast beef, and some thing that was like a pot pie with chicken and asparagus. Audrey got the fried fish one, and munched on the herring, since I made her try it. From there, we went on a frantic search for ice cream. After turning many corners with no hope, we found one we remembered from Thursday. I got a large soft serve dipped in chocolate, and Auds got a couple scoops of chocolate chip and chocolate, since that's all she understood and was surprisingly unwilling to ask for help. After that, we walked to Tivoli Gardens. It has been a magical wonderland since 1843. You can read some history and what not about it. Apparently the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson tried to purchase it at one point, and when that didn't happen, he built his own. We spent the evening enjoying the gardens and walking around checking out the rides. We were short on cash, so we didn't get on any rides, we just sat on benches and enjoyed the park. While walking around, we found this sweet place that you put stuff on a stick, and dip it in chocolate and add a topping, so we had to do it. We got one with marzipan, 2 pieces of nougat, a strawberry, and a piece of banana, dipped it in milk chocolate, and topped with hazelnuts. We also used the last of out krona for the day on a cup of coffee to enjoy with it. It was as good as we dreamed. We got home a little while ago, and Auds added her pictures since I am worthless with that. Currently, the US is beating Mexico by 10, which I hope becomes a final so I can talk some smack to Carlos.

Tomorrow we are hitting up the Danish Resistance Museum and we don't really know from there. In the evening we are meeting up with Sanne in Vedbæk to possibly get on the boat and enjoy the harbor. Thursday we embark on our European excursion. I'll do my best to have some updates during that time. Hope everyone in the Midwest is enjoying 100+ temperatures, as its been in the high 60s-mid 70s here, and we'll hit some 90s in Rome. Until then, enjoy!