Copenhagen

It was the first weekend trip we had planned that didn’t start with an early wake up call. Our flight to Copenhagen, Denmark was leaving London Luton Airport at 11.15am and we had booked a train from Kings Cross St Pancras at 8.48am. It was the usual smooth journey but as excited as we were to check our Denmark and also see some incredible Ice Hockey it was promised to be a lovely hot weekend in London. If you didn’t know already the Men’s World Championships Ice Hockey was being held in two locations in Denmark this weekend - Herring and Copenhagen. After discovering this on Facebook back in February we quickly snapped up some tickets one being for the France vs Belarus game today and the other for the Czech Republic vs Sweden game tomorrow. With it being a bank holiday weekend in London we also had Monday off to explore the city for an extra day. We got through the airport efficiently and were well and truly early for the flight thankfully as of course there was one man at the Ryanair check in desk and a reasonable queue beginning to form in front of him. Boarding with Ryanair was nothing out of the ordinary as we were herded into a holding pen where we had to stand for awhile since our plane hadn’t even arrived. When they finally let us on straight after the priority passengers the hadn’t got the carry on bag collection in place and the man in a truck with a trailer drove past us all telling us we had to leave our bags at the front entrance only as we walked to the back. Lew told me to ignore him and I subtly ripped the manual bag tag off before we entered the plane. It would speed things up at the other end having our bags with us and if they are going to be that unorganised it’s their issue. The flight went smoothly despite being surrounded by children who for some reason continued to let the tray tables behind fall and wiggle around so much it was like having small elephants unwillingly tied up behind us. The flight was beautiful as we got a view of the island/sand bars off the coast of northern Netherland. As we approached Copenhagen we could see a long bridge which is called the Øresund and connects Copenhagen to the Swedish city of Malmö. The cable-stayed bridge is 8km in length and from the plane we could see where it meets a small artificial island and disappears into a tunnel that runs for another 4km as it approaches Copenhagen. Once we had landed and got off the plane the airport itself seemed pretty modern and wasn't too hard for us to find our way through customs (the happiest customs officer I have seen so far!) and find our way out to the train station within the airport. We asked one of the attendants what was the best deal for price as we weren't sure if it was beneficial to buy some sort of unlimited pass for public transport or just single tickets. There was an option for a city pass for 72 hours but this would cost us 200 Danish Krone (dkk) (£47.45 / $91.53 NZD). Once we had converted it into pounds and discussed how much public transport we would be requiring we decided to give it a miss and buy single tickets instead. So for 71.65 dkk (£8.50/ $16.40 nzd) we bought a one way ticket for both of us into Copenhagen central station. Lew headed for platform 1 which I could already see was heading across to Sweden and certainly not into Copenhagen and it took a few stern calls like trying to steer a dog away from something it really wants to sniff before I could convince him that we actually needed to go to platform 2. He proceeds to complement me on how much better my navigation has got since we begun travelling...but all I did was read a sign. The train was stuffy but it only took us about 20 minutes to get into the central station before we were out strolling along the streets of Copenhagen in the borough of Vesterbro. It was a 7 minute walk to out accomodation from the station but with it being around 3pm we were both absolutely starving and Lew had already made a decision that we were having burgers for lunch and had even scoped out two good places on our way home. The plan was to get takeaway burgers but after struggling with my wheely bag over the cobblestone, trying to to dodge people in the paths just to keep up with Lew I was keen just to sit down and not have a cold burger or a broken one by the time we got it home. We decided to stay and sat in a seat in the corner. The menu was interesting with a lot of different types of fries including avocado fries. salt & vinegar, herb, garlic, chilli etc etc! The burgers also sounded fantastic with homemade chili mayo. We went with the salt & vinegar fries with two burgers and tap water....you have to specify "tap" otherwise you end up with bottled water that you pay for (#Europetip). Since we were going to be a little later for the hockey game which started at 4.15pm and it was about 3.30pm by now with a 30 minute train journey out to the rink still I went to freshen up in the bathroom and also repacked my handbag so all I had to do when we got to the Airbnb was brush my teeth. The burgers arrived and we both launched into them (only just got a photo!) knowing every minute counted if we didn't want to miss much of the game. The burgers reminded us of the good old Kiwi burgers we make at home with lots of lovely fresh ingredients but the patties always need a little bit more flavour though. It was less than 10 minutes since the waiter dropped us the burger and the time we got to the counter to pay. We fast walked to the apartment and easily picked up the keys from the nearby dairy and found the place based on the photos our host had sent us. We had to walk all the way up to the 5th floor of an apartment block and unlocked the door. For a moment we were both very confused as we had walked into someone else's house with their stuff and an unmade bed visible. Then I clicked that our host had told us we go into another apartment before getting to hers tucked away in the corner. I figured it would have just been a joint corridor but we were literally standing in the middle of these other peoples house! The door to our apartment wasn't even locked and it felt like we were just about to enter a bedroom but an entire small apartment came into view with a lounge, full kitchen, bathroom and bedroom all separate. It was very cosy, hipster place with furniture that looked like it had come from a second hand sale but somehow worked and looked great! We didn't have much time to admire it before we were back out the door and fast walking to central station where we brought another lot of train tickets for 47.80 dkk (£5.66/$11 ) and got on the train to Ørestad Syd which is where the Royal Arena is. This is where group A for the World Champs is being played which includes the teams: France, Sweden, Slovakia, Russia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria and Belarus. We had bought tickets to France vs Belarus this afternoon which were super cheap at 270 dkk (£32/$62.20 nz) for almost front row seats. We went through bag check in which I was super happy to get my drink bottle through since they had sent us a information sheet about what your not able to bring and your own water was one! The arena was massive and it wasnt even that busy as we walked down the stairs to get to the front of the rink. We had missed about half of period 1 so the game was in full swing by this stage. The funny thing was that the general layout of the tournament was similar to the women's tournament I had played in last year but the money clearly had been pumped into this and Lew joked that the massive poster on the wall was probably worth the entire budget of our tournament. Taking our seats we were pleased it was such a pleasant temperature inside and when Lew had told me it wasn't going to be as cold as the rinks at home I removed my merino top, singlet, gloves and hat before we left London. Sure enough my T-shirt and jacket were the perfect warmth and Lew hung out in a t-shirt and vest comfortably the entire time. We quickly noticed we had managed to get seats with the French supporters on out left and the Belarus supporters on our right so it was rather a loud place to be sitting. The Belarus supporters were indeed rather enthusiastic about their team and with a beer in hand they never ceased to be cheering their country on. The beer was on an easy pour it yourself tap just before you enter the rink too! Every time the French team scored their supporters would turn around and celebrate in the face of the Belarus supporters and vicer versa instead of focusing on celebrating with the team out on the ice which we thought was a little stupid. During the period break they had two very quick and quiet electric zambonis that zipped around the ice with their blinged up wheels. We also used this time to through the roster to see where each player is currently playing. Unfortunately there was any members from the Lyon Lions which we had watched play last year in Lyon but majority of them were playing in decent leagues all over Europe - only one big defenceman - Yohann Auvitu was currently playing the NHL team Edmonton Oilers. Looking at the Swedish team for tomorrow though they are completely stacked with NHL players which will be ridiculous to watch. There was a lot of support from the crowd with a group of guys dressed up in tight full body lycra in blue, white and red dancing up and down the steps on the other side of the rink. The official mascot was a large duck inspired by the fairytale the Ugly Duckling which was written by a Danish writer/poet and it continually made it way around the rink dancing crazily with anyone that was interested. It was slightly out of control at times as whilst it was jumping over the rows of seats it landed on the French mans cup of wine behind us smashing the plastic cup into pieces and he wasn't too happy. The game went pretty quick with the final score being 6-2 to France although Belarus played equally as well as the French team and had a lot of opportunities so the French goalie really kept them in the game. After the game we made our way out of the arena with everyone else and followed them all across to the 'fan zone' which was set up across the road. The party was certainly continuing out here and had also already begun for the Slovakian supporters whose game against Czech Republic was starting in about an hour. It was an absolute sea of red, white and blue with this being the national colours of France, Slovakia and Czech Republic. There was a large tent set up full of merchandise for the tournament with everything from key chains, jerseys, hats and scarf to deck yourself out in. Lew managed to find a cool scarf with the official world champs logo on it and said this would be cool to hang on a wall or drape over a couch someday...I am sure this isn't what they planned this scarfs use to be for but we decided it was coming home with us. Keeping with the tradition of xmas decoration we bought a key ring puck that we would alter slightly so it would hang by a hockey lace instead and would the the decoration symbolising this trip seeing as we had booked these flights due to the hockey. emerging from the tent the smoking, drinking partying vibe wasn't really our scene and we made our way back to the train station. On the way back we literally saw about 6 different men peeing openly in public which was strange since everywhere else is very against peeing in public and I wondered what they would have thought if I did such a thing! After reaching the train station and working out which way was heading back into town we hung out further down the track anticipating everyone was just going to stand at the bottom of the stairs and pile on and we would have a better chance of a seat where we were. Taking a stretch on the bench Lew saw the train pull up stopping at the bottom of the steps miles away from where we were standing so we had to run back to where we had come from in order to make it. Not long later we were back in central station of Copenhagen and found a supermarket on the way home where we brought dinner for tonight (steak, asparagus and kumara), snacks and breakfast for tomorrow morning for 301 dkk (£35.63/$69.30). The It was a beautiful twilight at this stage as we made our way back through the area of Vesterbro where we were staying. I was absolutely exhausted since I had come off 5x 12 hour shifts (2 nights, a day and two nights back to back) with a single day off before completing another 3 x 12 hour day shifts and I think it was finally catching up to me. Despite the beautiful weather and stunning sunset I had to leave Lew to go for a run by himself whilst I sat on the couch and also made dinner. He ran though freetown Christiania which is a self-proclaimed autonomous anarchist district of about 850 to 1,000 residents, covering 34 hectares in the borough of Christianshavn which appears to be on a island surrounded by canals when you look at it on the map. He said it was full of people sitting on the riverbank smoking pot and cheering him on! He said it was a beautiful island full of trees and is completely car-less and we would have to go back and check it out. He came home and we ate pretty late but London was an hour behind so we didn't think it was all that bad. I went to bed shortly after completely exhausted and left Lew the dishes to clean up before he came to bed also.

The fans continuing their celebrating in the fanzone

The deafening Belerus supporters...and Lew

Sunday 6th May

The sun was streaming brightly through our windows and thinking we had slept until midday I jumped out of bed blurry eyed to find my phone. Thankfully it was only 7.30am but the heat coming through the window really fooled me. Lew couldn’t handle the sunlight and woke up shortly afterwards. We ate cereal which we had grabbed from the supermarket last night but I had accidentally brought chocolate oat milk instead of plain as I couldn’t be bothered trying to translate it when we were there. The orange juice went well enough to make the muesli edible however and crisis was averted. We left the house by 9.30am and made our way into town via one of the canals with a bustling second hand market. There were so many families out with their children or even their wife packed into the front container of their bike enjoying the sunshine and it was warm despite the wind being a little nippy. We wandered the streets making our way to the famous Rundetaarn or Round Tower in English of where you can get a good view over the city. King Christian IV built the tower in the 1635 as Denmark was known for its astronomical achievements thanks to the astronomer Tycho Brahe. It isn’t overly expensive to enter at 50 dkk (£5.90/ $11.40 nzd) for both of us and the building is rather impressive as it has a long winding path up to the top of the tower. The white walls and small rectangular brick path make it quite unique. There was a couple of points of interest on the way up including what used to be a library room which now is used as a concert venue and gallery. There was also one of the two old privies that were in use until 1902 when proper water closets were installed but the latrine pit from the old toilets was not even emptied until 1921 when they had to cart 9 truckloads of excrement! We also saw the bell loft and there is even a cuticular hole 25m above ground which you can look down called the hollow core which is considered point zero from when astronomer Thomas Bugge in 1760's was asked to draw new and more accurate maps of the Kingdom and he did so by dividing the country into a series of triangles. Once we got to the top of the tower it certainly wasn't anything like looking over Prague and I have to admit it was rather a disappointing view. The only good things were that there was signs up pointing out which building was which so you were able to orientate yourself and you were also able to visit the telescope in the observatory on top. We headed back down the tower and discovered a hot dog place outside it which reminded me that I had read in someone else's blog that one of these stands is supposed to be extremely good. This name did not match up to the one I was looking for except for three letter so we went in search of another potential hot dog stand in case it wasn't this one. Sure enough this was the only one in the area and despite not being overly hungry myself I couldn't let Lew try what they were claiming as the best thing in Denmark behind the traditional Danish open sandwiches called smørrebrød. The place is called DØP and is an organic hot dog stand and literally everything is organic including the remoulade sauce. We both went with the traditional dog served with pickles, remoulade, onions and fried onions which came on a wholegrain bun with the sausage and it was pretty impressive! Just as we were finishing up one of out friends Nick called us from France for a chat and we continued to try and convince him to book tickets to come to Amsterdam with us next weekend (still unsure if this is happening!). He lived in Copenhagen for at-least a year so we discussed some of the popular things we need to do whilst we are here - most of them I had written down but we added a couple of things. From here we continued walking around the streets of the Strøget which is the pedestrian only shopping streets. We popped into a couple of shops - one called Plint which is a homeware store and a couple of shoe shops but nothing was coming home with us. We then made our way to the famous Nyhavn which is the picture perfect postcard photos of Copenhagen that you most certainly would have seen before. Sure enough it was a stunning canal with fishing boats large and small tied up along the edge, bright colourful houses of all heights and colours and tourists swarming around the multiple bars and restaurants along the water's edge. Originally Nyhavn was a commercial port where ships would be able to dock having travelling from all around the world. House number 9 is the oldest house which dates back to 1681 and the original design of the house hasn't been altered since. The famous Danish fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen lived at house number 20 and he wrote some of the famous fairytales we know today including 'The Princess and the Pea'. He moved around a bit and also spent time living in number 67 and also number 18! During Xmas time this is where the stalls of the xmas markets are selling all sorts of Danish delicacies so we must come back to experience this. We hung out at the end of the canal watching the cyclists, boats and other tourists whilst we attempted to tan our still fluorescent white legs. Time was running out as we had planned to get to the hockey game tonight much earlier than yesterday since we knew it was going to be a pretty packed game. We quickly walked across the pedestrian/bike bridge Inderhavnsbroen to get to an area of Christianshavn where there were a lot of restaurants and food stalls. This is where the famous Gasoline Grill is located which is considered the best burgers in Copenhagen according to Nick. The line was huge and there was no way we were waiting today so added it to our list tomorrow but I might have to limit Lew to just one burger place per trip! It was going to be a 45 minute walk home, 33 minutes by train or 12 minutes by bike but considering how bike friendly Copenhagen is the access to bikes is actually not very good. There was one called Gobikes I was recommended to use but there just isn't any in sight and the ones we had tried to access earlier were broken. Lew was concerned we would not be able to have a proper lunch (he was still starving post hot dog) since we would be at the game until at least 7pm but he also wasn't interested in wasting precious minutes trying to find a bike to ride. We ended up fast walking back to our apartment and picked up a takeaway wrap from a very cold place called 'Wraphouse' for where we got a lunch deal for 157.40 dkk (£18.63/$36.20 nzd) including a organic (of course!) drink. Without talking we both had seemingly decided on the exact same wrap which was chicken that came with a mango chili dressing. They were a little on slow speed as we waiting for at least 10 minutes before being able to grab out food and get back to the apartment. Once again we scoffed this down and changed before heading to the central station to make our way to the rink. Today we didn't want to be late as we had paid a lot more for these tickets at 1,286.65 dkk (£152.30/$296 nzd). We were a little more confused today as to which train to catch as Citymapper wasn't making it so obvious. We also forgot that trains don't leave every two minutes like in London and we had to wait around for a train meaning we would be pretty close to missing puck from at 4.15pm. The train arrived and with a rowdy bunch of Slovakian supporters we got onto the carriage. Arriving at 4pm we basically ran to the entrance of the rink and got stuck waiting in a queue of beer drinking fans waiting to enter also. After all that rushing we were probably going to miss the start due to this! After once again managing to smuggle my drink bottle we rain for section 114 where out seats were. Just as we came over the top of the steps puck drop was literally just happening as we squished our way past people in the row to sit down. It already had a different feel compared to yesterday's game and the stadium was completely packed. We were told later in the game it was a sold out crowd of 12,490 people and it certainly sounded like it! Whilst we have been to a few regular season NHL games between us this was unlike any hockey we have ever seen before. Team Sweden was just absolute perfection, every stride makes them go meters and the way they take control of the offensive zone is just so dominating and calm. They have an uncanny ability to know exactly where their line-mate is allowing quick passes and snipes on net. Whilst they all play for different NHL teams they manage to come together as one to represent their country. The Czech team was also very impressive and held the Swedes back rather well considering they didn't have so many NHL players in their line up. It was rough and a lot more physical than the NHL regular season games I had watched where they don't bother making a hit once they had passed the puck. But both teams were trying to make a statement since it was their countries pride they were playing for and the easiest way to do that was clearly crunching someones bones against the perspex. Lew told me yesterday at this level they probably wouldn't fight since a game suspension is not something you can afford to get in these tournaments but there were multiple brawls that were promptly separated by the referees. We were close enough that we could see the baby faces of every team member and most of them were either the same age or even younger than Lew or I. Perhaps we would be able to play hockey at a similar level if we had grown up in one of these countries. The atmosphere was so intense and we were again in the middle of both Czech and Swedish fans. At times the fans were so loud that we couldn't even hear the microphone especially when a Swedish player slashed the Czech goalie after the whistle and all the Czech players on the ice just swarm him protecting their goalie. The game remained pretty even throughout and in the last 4 seconds Czech had a face-off down in the offensive zone and got a quick shot off which narrowly missed going in and instead bounced off the post. They couldn't quite make any magic happen in the last few seconds so the victory was Sweden's but Czech certainly put up a hard fight. The supporters from opposite sides shock hands as they made their way out of the arena which we thought was very civil considering the amount of beer we had watched being consumed. Absolutely add this to your bucket list hockey fans and I know Lew and I will be trying to book tickets again next year no matter where it is. The crowd was still very boisterous outside as we promptly made our way to the train station like pretty much everyone else in the venue was. I had suggested we bought tickets when we arrived before the game since there is only one ticket machine and bound to be a crowd but we were so late we gave it a miss. Now the line was so big and thousands of people funnelled down onto the train platform. I told Lew that there was no way we were waiting hours to get a ticket and there was surely no way they would be able to enforce us all having tickets. If there was someone doing so we would plead ignorance and say we thought our ticket included transport (which it actually should!). It really wasn't set up to handle such an influx of people. We got on and off the train with no issues arriving back into central station. Once again we walked via the supermarket on the way home picking up some ingredients to make a sausage pasta. Lew had the night off from running so we ate and caught up on the last two weeks since we had barely seen each other and were more like ships passing in the night. We had both been working crazy hours and Lew promised to try and get home on time more often and I promised not to pick up too many shifts...watch this space! Tomorrow we are also spending the day here in Copenhagen since it is a bank holiday in the UK and the weather is expected to be beautiful once again - finally some proper vitamin D!

Sweden vs Czech Republic game hi-lights here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MMS5l05OHU or my video below of Sweden scoring!

You can hire these boats and they are fully electric!

View over Copenhagen from the Round Tower

Listening to the Swedish National Anthem

When you notice yourself on the big screen...

Monday 7th May

Once again the sun came blasting in at an unforgiving time is the morning. It honestly feels like you haven't even got to sleep it comes up so fast. I woke up just after 7 and worked on the blog whilst Lew managed to tolerate the sunlight for a few more hours. Just before 9 he dragged himself up and we headed out for a morning run. We did the same track that he ran Saturday night so that he could show me Christiania but it was clearly not the same in the broad daylight as there were no crowds smoking pot and cheering us on. I haven't run for a couple of weeks now since iv been at work most days and I felt a little rusty. I think Lew forgets this sometimes as I knew this run was 10km as he told me Monday that’s what he was doing. It was pretty as it wound around the man-made island of Christianshavn but we only caught a glimpse of the town with its with a small number of hippy cottages on the waterfront. We ran down the big canals and finally back into Vesterbro. Showering, eating breakfast and packing we planned to hire a bike for 6 hours since this was the only way we would get around the city and everything we still had to do. Our Airbnb host had said we could leave our stuff in the apartment until the afternoon when we were heading to the airport which was an absolute bonus. We signed up to an app called donkey republic which is the orange bikes you see around the city and you can hire them for different time periods. There was a group of them nearby our place and we walked back to grab them. They wernt cheap at 70 dkk (£8.30/$16 nzd) for 6 hours and we thought Copenhagen the center for design and innovation would have a better and cheaper public bike rental systems in place. Alas this worked fine and they even had a little phone holder at the front so I wouldn’t have to navigate whilst biking holding my phone. It was like strapping your phone into a g-string top and bottom - simple but genus. First up was a 12 minute bike to the Botanical Gardens where I wanted us to walk through to the Rosenbourg castle. We begin waking through the gates dismounting our bikes as it clearly said no bikes but we were stopped shortly after and told we couldn’t even walk them next to us. We ended up biking 2 minutes around the outside of it and parked directly in front of Rosenborg castle. The castle was built in the period 1606-1634 for King Christian IV who wanted a summer house just outside of Copenhagen. Future Kings resided here until around 1720 when they moved north to the Frederiksborg Palace which was more preferable to the royals. The castle was turned into a museum in 1833 and now you are still able to visit it to see the history of the Danish Royals. We decided not to spend time going through the castle but the grounds were free so we decided to walk around these as that’s why I had it on my list anyway. The castle was beautiful with its red brick and green roof but we decided it was quite small for a royal palace - hence why the must have moved to Frederiksborg Palace. Lots of locals and tourists were out enjoying the weather lounging around on the grassy lawns. They had massive fish in the canals surrounding the castle and they had clearly got used to the tourists since they swim around under the bridge with their mouths wide open hoping for some food to be dropped in. We decided to continue onwards to Kastellet which is a giant star shaped fortress you can see on the map established of course by King Christian IV in 1626 as a garrison to protect Copenhagen from the seaside. This fortress is Europes oldest military bastion that is still in operation today as the head quarters of the Danish Defence Intelligence but is still open to the public to walk around its green spaces. We parked our bikes up and annoyingly we could have actually biked in a lot further than we did. We walked around the grasses verges admiring some of the buildings, old machine guns and windmill along the way. Next up we biked down to Amalienborg which is the current residence of the royal family. It wasn’t as heavily guarded as Buckingham and you could actually drive/bike into the center of it where the big bronze statue of King Frederik V from 1771 on the back of a horse was. This was surrounded by four big stone buildings which are Christian VII’s Palace (also known as Moltke's Palace, used as guest residence), Frederik VIII’s Palace (also known as Brockdorff’s Palace, home of the Crown Prince family), Christian IX’s Palace (also known as Schack’s Palace, home of the Queen) and Christian VIII’s Palace (also known as Levetzau' Palace, used as guest palace for Prince Joachim and Princess Benedikte). There were guards dressed up in all the usual royal guard finery with their fluffy hats but they weren't as well behaved as the ones in London or even Prague and scratched their noses occasionally clearly not able to give in to the itch. Like the rest of them you can watch the changing of the guard at midday and they march from the barracks by Rosenborg castle through the streets to Amalienborg. The Royals only moved into Amalienborg Castle in 1794 after Christiansborg Palace was burnt down. The Palace was initially built in1606 but was burnt down in 1794 with only the Riding Ground Complex surviving. In 1884 the second Christiansborg Palace was also burnt down with only the Palace Chapel being saved. Now the Christiansborg Palace that is standing today was built int 1907-1928 and houses parliment, Supreme Court and the Prime Ministers office . It still houses the Riding Ground Complex from Christiansborg Palace number 1 and the Palace Chapel from Christiansborg Palace number 2! I am still not quite sure how you manage to burn a stone Palace to the ground. You could see Frederik's Church or more popularly known as the Marble Church in the backdrop between all the Amalienborg buildings with it's beautiful green roof and gold accents but it reminded me a lot of Napoleons tomb in Paris. Lew was the time keeper of the day as usual and said we were beginning to run out of time so we biked another 4 minutes to Nyhavn where we were yesterday to catch a boat for a tour. Might I add that when we are biking it is 90% on cycle ways which are completely separated from the traffic and even have their own light signals! We talked a lot about how NZ should have such a thing if they want to encourage more people to bike - it has to be made safer. I mean it’s not even a legal requirement to wear a helmet here or anywhere in Europe it seems. Back in Nyhavn we tossed up which boat company we were going to go for and they both did the same tour so we went for the one that cost 50 dkk pp (£5.90/ $11.50 nzd) instead of 85 dkk (£10/$19.60 ). The boat pulled up but we still had to wait another 15 minutes before it left. We sat down the back of the boat with most of the other passengers and met a lovely couple and their daughter/bf from LA. We took a photos for them and they returned the favour. There were a couple of unkempt looking men sitting 2 rows behind us drinking beer, speaking loudly and smoking so the older American couple left and Lew and I covered our mouths with my jacket. We were sure they weren't allowed to do this and this was confirmed when the boat finally took off and we were told that smoking was not permitted thank goodness. Although much too late since he had already finished it by then. We started the tour going down the Nyhavn canal admiring the bright buildings from the water and watching all the tourists taking selfies onshore. The first place our attention was drawn to by our guide was the ? Theatre on the left side of the river which we were told was completely carbon neural. You can see it’s foundations jutting into the water at different angles and is black tinted windows give it such an impressively modern appearance. Further along on the right there was the opera house which is a huge building with the most incredible large counter levered roof. Finally some architecture our future generations might look back on be impressed. We passed by the Amalienborg Castle in which you could see from the water fountain on the shore front all the way down to the church past all the blossom trees. Our driver pointed out the power plant and a building with a sloped roof that they are planning to build a ski slope down since Denmark has no hills. Is this really true?! It was just about now when the acrid smell of cigarettes invaded my nose and I turned around to find the same man smoking with it all being pushed back into the boat. I wasted no time going up to our guide where I awkwardly had to wait for him to finish his spiel in another language as to what building we were currently passing. I was hoping he might just say something through the microphone but instead he promptly marched behind me and I hadn’t even sat down before he launched into telling the man off. The driver even stopped the boat and everyone else turned to the back of the boat to see what was happening. I felt a tad embarrassed but breathing in second hand smoke is not something I take lightly. By that stage I think he realised what I had gone up there to do and had put his cigarette out and had obviously denied the accusation. Another women we think defended me because this was all happening in a language that wasn’t English and did confirm that he had been smoking. The guide left but the commotion behind us continued as they spoke loudly and drunk their cans of beer. The guide had to come and tell them off again for standing up so at least they were on his radar now. They were clearly very angry at me as when I was turned around facing them he made eye contact with me and yelled something but I had no idea what he was saying anyway and ignored him. Once the boat got going again we drove up to the mermaids statue which is very famous and tour buses were pulled up and people were surrounding this underwhelming statue for a photo. Our guide did say that she had an eventful life having been decapitated a couple of times, blown up and taken to China! The boat turned back and the Maersk shipping head quarters were pointed out to us of which Lew was rather intrigued by and he had to explain what that company actually does to me. The boat made its way into the tight canal of Christianshavn with boats tied up either side. We were told it can take up to 9 years to get a spot here now as it’s so popular. We couldn’t believe the amount of drunks hanging out in the city and as we passed a few sitting on the edge of the canal with a cigarette and a beer in hand the men at the back yelled acknowledgments to them and they returned the gesture. We were shown the helix spire of the Church of Our Saviour which we just caught a peak at for a few seconds after coming out from under a bridge. There was also a really well designed bridge made up of a heap of circles and was unsurprisingly called the Circle Bridge that we motored underneath. I lost my bearings completely as we went down another canal we hadn’t been near. The boat made a very impressive turn after a narrow bridge and if it was a meter longer or wider it surely wouldn’t have made it. After an hour of sitting in the hot sun we made our way back into the Nyhavn canal and the tour was finished. Lew told me to wait for the drunks to get off first and as the man who was smoking went past he yelled at me again very loudly and banged on the metal lockers filled with life jackets in front me multiple times. Clearly he was fuming but we ignoring him not understanding him anyways. We were a little anxious getting off as he was waiting at the top of the stairs since his buddy was taking his sweet time and was still on the boat. He yelled again but we ignored him and made our way around the corner to the bikes. It was a little disappointing that the company didn’t at least apologise since every other person at the back of the boat didn’t appreciate his behaviour. Lew said he would have stood up for me if necessary but arguing with a drunk man that can barely walk straight and that speaks no English really isn’t worth it. I’m all too used to be abused verbally at work anyways so this wasn’t too much different and I brushed it off. A short bike away was the food hall called Torvehallern where I planned on us eating a late lunch/dinner before we headed to the airport. It was a beautiful place and one of my top things about Denmark is that the toilets are free!!! And clean!! But I’m not sure why so many men chose to piss in public still? We walked around this place and it was lovely bit it mainly sold nice produce and goods with a few food stalls around. Lew snobbed them all but I was keen on a place at the front which had a nice menu. Only problem was it took a bit of convincing for Lew to got somewhere with that trendy world “paleo” in its name and he even had to asked me what it meant. He was adamant he wanted a burger and I went with a wrap again plus their smoothies and protein shakes looked good as well and we added one each into our order. Lew was feeling a little burnt but there wasn’t anywhere he could go to get it of the sun as we waited for our meal. Our meals were rather impressive looking and clearly I wasn’t properly aware that paleo also meant I wasn’t having a traditional wrap and instead I got almost like a thin omelette to wrap everything up in. The sauce was excellent and despite not having a burger bun Lew didn’t criticise his all that much (considering it was made of lentils or something!). We had about 40 minutes before we had to leave for the airport so we went back to the apartment and packed everything up leaving at 4.40pm which was our exact leaving time we had planned for. We walked down the main street of Vesterbro amazed at yet again the amount of drunks and even a couple of prostitutes even though the sun was still high in the sky. Using Citymapper we worked out the train to the airport but once we had boarded and the departure time came and went we sat there for an extra 15 minutes. We even saw another train on the tracks next to us leave for the same destination and just as Lew went to ask what was going on we begin to move. We still had plenty of time as we arrived into the airport and breezed through everything. My bag however was searched for a “spray” of which I was very confused about since I made sure all my liquids were in plastic and I didn’t bring anything that was a spray with me. The lady came to the conclusion that it was the GoPro attached to the handle that they seemed to think was a spray. They apologised and because we went super late I didn’t care anyways. Tonight we were flying with Norwegian Air and honestly I do have to recommend them. Some carry on bags were tagged to go underneath but majority of us were allowed to take them on the plane. They didn’t stress that people were carrying extra bags of food and the process was rather relaxed. I even saw one of the air hostesses give a passenger her work scarf to use as a blanket when she was cold! These flights always go very fast and before we knew it the wheels of the plane were touching down on UK soil at Gatwick Airport.

To carry your goods or even you children/wife in!

When you have a good pair of Birkenstocks...

ShannenMay 7, 2018