After a very jet lagged first day, a full day of travel with a great night’s sleep was so wonderful. Our day began at 8:00am when we had a Danish breakfast at the hotel and proceeded to see the famous Little Mermaid statue, a homage to the famous fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen. Apparently, when her head was stolen, the state counted it as murder! This shows that the iconic symbol is not only an attraction, it is also a huge part of Danish culture. We then took the bus north to Frederiksborg Castle and its Baroque Gardens, which was beautiful with its swans and lakes.
The next castle in our day of many was the Fredensborg castle, a summer residence for Queen Margaret the second. For lunch, we stopped at the seaside town of Helsingor, home of the Maritime Museum, Kronborg Castle (the castle Shakespeare set Hamlet in), and the industrial-yet-comfy restaurant we ate at. The funny thing is the all of these amazing sites were all within 100m of each other and the sea from which we could see Sweden. Outside of the restaurant was a large square that had people providing Segway rides for a price of what is about $10 CND. Obviously I had to take up the opportunity and I was quite surprised at how easy it was to control. Annnnddd there’s another thing crossed off my (imaginary) bucket list.
Our next stop was the Lousiana Art Museum which was unconventional in the else that it is a combination of art and architecture, which is a nice representation of the country itself. Danish architecture and design is incredibly unique and popular all over the world, and to see so much of the beauty of it is great. A beautiful outdoor garden overlooking the sea with statues by world famous artists marked the exterior of the unusual museum and the inside housed amazing artwork by both Danish and international artists. They were even giving out free large art prints to visitors, a fact that further highlighted the Danes’ appreciation for art and beauty.
What’s a trip to Denmark without visiting Tivoli Gardens, the second oldest amusement part in the world (the oldest is in a nearby city)? I was amazed by how beautiful and intricate the park was, having sections for different cultures. A true theme park by my standards! To end a perfect day, I enjoyed an amazing lobster soup at a very nice restaurant and ended up sleeping at almost 3am local time.
Every day I am noticing new things about this thriving country. My understandings today were more in relation to the urban landscape outside of Copenhagen since we did a lot of driving out on the highways to the north of Zealand. One of the things I noticed was that the road lines were all the same colour. Rather than having yellow and white determining which side of the road you are on, it was all white. Small things like this remind me of how different cultures can be, even in the smallest of ways.
I noticed more interesting graffiti that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. As we were driving by the underground train system, we saw graffiti that read “grow peaches grow!”. Clearly quite different from the graffitied messages of North America, though I have to give discretion that I saw some of those style too. Though this may seem like a very 21st century thing to say, I was so impressed by the abundance of free wifi everywhere. Many public locations and landmarks provide wifi free of charge or sign up to anyone nearby. None of that Shaw Open stuff we have in Canada! Even the trains and buses have free wifi. A shop that I noticed was quite popular was H&M. Even in the smaller municipalities there were H&Ms and in a few cases there will be three separate stores near each other, each being women’s, chikdren, and men’s. Today was a day of many firsts, from first Segway rides to first time having boxed water (this matters to me okay?), I am a little sad that tomorrow is our last and final day in Copenhagen before our homestay officially begins. However, I cannot wait to meet the family I will be staying with and to learn more about Danish culture up-close.
Till next time,
Hui Wen