The first leg on our Europe trip was Copenhagen!
I found tickets for $300 one way from New York on Norwegian back in April, so that's when I started to book the whole trip basically.
Day 1
Alex and I landed in Copenhagen on June 4th at midday. One of the first things I noticed at the airport is how cheap the pain au chocolats were!!! Actually everything Copenhagen was super expensive, except the pain au chocolats which were priced how I wish they were priced in the US *__* guess the Danish do danishes and pastries well haha. It took us a whole 3 hours to actually reach our Airbnb, which was slightly outside of town in another city called Hellerup (I imagine the relationship is similar to Cambridge to Boston -- they are really close but technically different cities). Like Boston, Copenhagen is a really small city; we got by the whole time by basically walking across town.
We met up with Tony at Ströget, which is the main shopping area, after we dropped off our stuff at the Airbnb. Stopped by a sneaker store that had a sneaker cleaning station outside! But everything in the actual store was way more expensive than in the US, I guess because of importing and also because of the 25% sales tax in Denmark!
We walked around for a bit more and stopped for some snacks at a place called the Royal Smushi Cafe. At this point, I thought Smushi was a uniquely Danish thing, but it turns out this was just the one restaurant that decided to make a fusion between the traditional Danish smørrebrod and sushi... lol. So it was mini open sandwiches with fresh fish. It was still tasty though! They also had some bomb ass cakes that were delicious and so worth.
We kept walking around the city and exploring after that, eventually making our way to Nyhavn! The classic Copenhagen picture, haha. The colored buildings were so cute! And the feeling of people hanging out by the canal was also really nice. We sat and hung out there for a bit before moving on and trying to find somewhere for dinner. Eventually found a semi reasonable pizza place... though everything is expensive so we still weren't all that happy, but oh well.
Day 2
The second day, we planned to do the Design museum in Denmark, since Denmark is famous for its design. Before that though, we wanted to get some cheap food at a supermarket for breakfast and lunch. Little did we know, it was actually Constitution Day in Denmark, which is a public holiday when many businesses are closed, and some others are only open for half a day. The idea is for you to go home and discuss politics with your family and friends! Unfortunately for us, this meant it was really hard to find an open supermarket near where we lived. In the end, 7/11 saved the day for breakfast (croissants!), and we commuted into the city before we found an open supermarket.
We took a bus to the design museum, ate our croissant breakfasts at the entrance of the Kastellet park, and then headed into the museum. It was free with our student ids, which was pretty clutch (I remembered to swap in my old ID for a new one without an expiry date when I was still a student!). We found out about the unique relationship between Japan and Denmark when it comes to design, which was pretty interesting. I didn't know that the two countries worked so close together. We also learned about Danish furniture and saw famous chairs like the Egg.
After the museum, we went to the supermarket on the corner and bought some bread and meat, which we took up to the Kastellet and ate there. Waaay cheaper than any real restaurant, and still delicious! We walked around the Kastellet after finishing lunch, and ended up walking all the way to the Little Mermaid down the port. There were so many tourists *_* I got my tourist shot though so it's ok.
Kept walking along the canal, until it was time for an ice cream break. We went to a place at Nyhavn which was actually reasonably priced, called Vaffelbergeren. The portions were huge~
After the ice cream break, we kept walking around the bay to the other island and visited Christiania -- which is a self-recognized state full of hippies and potheads, basically. There's a street where questionable substances are traded, with many booths shrouded in shadow and vendors dressed in sunglasses and bandanas over their hair and noses and mouths. All with a decidedly skunky odor in the air :P Welp, it was for sure an interesting thing to see! Obviously, no photos were allowed here haha.
We headed to Papiøren, the Copenhagen street food center, for dinner. It was by the water and really nice at sunset! Plus, there was a place at the entrance called Discow with a disco ball shaped like a cow strung up to the ceiling. Can't say I see that every day. We had duck fat fries and brazilian style pork *_* very noms very noms. Then.... we were pretty tired, so we walked back to the main station and took the train home. Phew, we sure did a lot of walking that day.
Day 3
I found tickets for $300 one way from New York on Norwegian back in April, so that's when I started to book the whole trip basically.
Day 1
Alex and I landed in Copenhagen on June 4th at midday. One of the first things I noticed at the airport is how cheap the pain au chocolats were!!! Actually everything Copenhagen was super expensive, except the pain au chocolats which were priced how I wish they were priced in the US *__* guess the Danish do danishes and pastries well haha. It took us a whole 3 hours to actually reach our Airbnb, which was slightly outside of town in another city called Hellerup (I imagine the relationship is similar to Cambridge to Boston -- they are really close but technically different cities). Like Boston, Copenhagen is a really small city; we got by the whole time by basically walking across town.
We met up with Tony at Ströget, which is the main shopping area, after we dropped off our stuff at the Airbnb. Stopped by a sneaker store that had a sneaker cleaning station outside! But everything in the actual store was way more expensive than in the US, I guess because of importing and also because of the 25% sales tax in Denmark!
We walked around for a bit more and stopped for some snacks at a place called the Royal Smushi Cafe. At this point, I thought Smushi was a uniquely Danish thing, but it turns out this was just the one restaurant that decided to make a fusion between the traditional Danish smørrebrod and sushi... lol. So it was mini open sandwiches with fresh fish. It was still tasty though! They also had some bomb ass cakes that were delicious and so worth.
We kept walking around the city and exploring after that, eventually making our way to Nyhavn! The classic Copenhagen picture, haha. The colored buildings were so cute! And the feeling of people hanging out by the canal was also really nice. We sat and hung out there for a bit before moving on and trying to find somewhere for dinner. Eventually found a semi reasonable pizza place... though everything is expensive so we still weren't all that happy, but oh well.
We were planning to stick around til 11.45pm to watch the fireworks at Tivoli, but then we walked by at 9pm and saw that it cost $20 to get in... plus we were all pretty tired and ready to go to sleep (travel is tiring!), so we decided to call it a night and go home.
Day 2
The second day, we planned to do the Design museum in Denmark, since Denmark is famous for its design. Before that though, we wanted to get some cheap food at a supermarket for breakfast and lunch. Little did we know, it was actually Constitution Day in Denmark, which is a public holiday when many businesses are closed, and some others are only open for half a day. The idea is for you to go home and discuss politics with your family and friends! Unfortunately for us, this meant it was really hard to find an open supermarket near where we lived. In the end, 7/11 saved the day for breakfast (croissants!), and we commuted into the city before we found an open supermarket.
We took a bus to the design museum, ate our croissant breakfasts at the entrance of the Kastellet park, and then headed into the museum. It was free with our student ids, which was pretty clutch (I remembered to swap in my old ID for a new one without an expiry date when I was still a student!). We found out about the unique relationship between Japan and Denmark when it comes to design, which was pretty interesting. I didn't know that the two countries worked so close together. We also learned about Danish furniture and saw famous chairs like the Egg.
After the museum, we went to the supermarket on the corner and bought some bread and meat, which we took up to the Kastellet and ate there. Waaay cheaper than any real restaurant, and still delicious! We walked around the Kastellet after finishing lunch, and ended up walking all the way to the Little Mermaid down the port. There were so many tourists *_* I got my tourist shot though so it's ok.
Kept walking along the canal, until it was time for an ice cream break. We went to a place at Nyhavn which was actually reasonably priced, called Vaffelbergeren. The portions were huge~
After the ice cream break, we kept walking around the bay to the other island and visited Christiania -- which is a self-recognized state full of hippies and potheads, basically. There's a street where questionable substances are traded, with many booths shrouded in shadow and vendors dressed in sunglasses and bandanas over their hair and noses and mouths. All with a decidedly skunky odor in the air :P Welp, it was for sure an interesting thing to see! Obviously, no photos were allowed here haha.
We headed to Papiøren, the Copenhagen street food center, for dinner. It was by the water and really nice at sunset! Plus, there was a place at the entrance called Discow with a disco ball shaped like a cow strung up to the ceiling. Can't say I see that every day. We had duck fat fries and brazilian style pork *_* very noms very noms. Then.... we were pretty tired, so we walked back to the main station and took the train home. Phew, we sure did a lot of walking that day.
Day 3
The third day, we packed up and checked out of the Airbnb in the morning, then lugged our giant backpacks to the main train station where we locked them up so that we wouldn't have to carry them around all day. Our flight to Berlin was in the evening, so it would have been really annoying to carry them the whole day (not to mention exhausting).
We had breakfast at Andersen bakery opposite the main train station, which was nomnomnomnoms -- also we found out that Andersen Bakery is actually a chain originating from Japan (look! the Denmark-Japan link!), and of course it's called Andersen because he's considered a 'national treasure' of Denmark! In fact he gained this title before his death, and was actually being paid by the government during his lifetime as a national treasurer. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. We also looked him up and discovered an uncanny likeness to Nick Cage.
But really though.
After breakfast, we walked over to the Rosenborg Castle, where we did the castle tour. It's really grand and pretty on the inside, and the gardens outside are also pretty nice. Makes you realize how rich rich people are *_* Or I guess it's just royalty. But I was really amazed by the skill in turning ivory -- it seems like a difficult skill, especially since the pieces are all so intricate and small! The young royals used to have ivory turning lessons, they even had an ivory lathe on exhibit in one of the rooms which was pretty neat.
After going through the castle, we had a small nibble of supermarket food again on the lawn, which was nice! After that, we walked to the Amelieborg plaza where we saw the blue guards with the fluffy black hats walking back and forth and being guards.
We eventually decided to try this chain we kept seeing called Joe & The Juice. Actually, it's way more popular than we thought and it's actually opening in San Francisco very soon, lol -- unfortunately it's also exorbitantly expensive (I believe I paid $10 for a juice), so I'm unlikely to have it ever again, but it was indeed tasty.
We had dinner at a kebab place called Kebabish with some bomb tikka masala chicken before heading back to the train station, picking up our bags again, and taking the train to the airport where we flew to Berlin and checked into our hostel!
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