Copenhagen
Aug 10 - 16, 2000
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Our Travel Experience
We are so glad that we chose Copenhagen from the airport departure board
in Glasgow! We enjoyed an extremely relaxing, stress free week because
we'd been to Copenhagen before and didn't
feel any need to go out and see everything and do everything. We didn't
even have a pre-planned day on which we had to leave Copenhagen. Seth especially
cherished our time in Copenhagen since our World Tour's first month had
been packed full of plans. Tara, of course, was the one who scheduled the
first month of our travels. And because of so much planning, we were able
to see eight sets of friends who we otherwise would not have spent time
with. But, now was the time for absolutely no plans and absolutely no stress.
How nice it was!
Relaxation in Copenhagen meant::
- sleeping until at least 10 or 11am everyday
- reading fiction books
- working madly on web pages like this one
- leaving home everyday after 2pm - many days not until 5pm
- seeing movies (Me, Myself & Irene and Galaxy Quest)
- spending hours and hours at a CHEAP internet cafe
- walking leisurely between our apartment and the city center
- not worrying about going over our daily budget (even though we're
in Scandinavia!!)
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We ended up in Copenhagen unexpectedly since Seth decided to follow
his instinct. Originally, we were heading to the South of Spain. But, nooooo,
as we were signing the credit card voucher for a 548.76 British Pound week-long
package tour, Seth started getting a bad feeling. At first this feeling
was not extremely strong, but after walking to a nearby bookstore and buying
some books, Seth really wanted to go back to the travel agent and cancel
the trip. Unfortunately, it was now past 5pm and the tour company had closed.
The whole night we wrestled with ignoring Seth's feeling and going to
Spain vs. not going to Spain and losing the money we'd just paid. Finally,
sometime in the wee hours, Tara made the executive decision and vetoed
Spain. She figured that even if the flight to Spain didn't crash, maybe
the bus to the hotel would and that we'd always be looking over our backs
if we ignored Seth's bad feeling. |
Thus, we arrived in the Glasgow airport as scheduled at 5am, but did not
board a 6am flight to Spain. Instead, we chose Copenhagen from the list
of planes departing, bought a ticket and boarded a plane bound for Copenhagen.
We are glad we did!
We ended up staying in a very nice lady's apartment. Sometime previously
we'd seen a Lonely Planet TV show explaining how rooms in private homes
are rented to travelers in Scandinavia. Therefore, we headed straight to
the Tourist Information desk with the hope of staying in a private home.
Tourist Information was mobbed at 10:30am on a Thursday morning. Our number
was finally called and we were quickly assigned a room in someone's house
for two nights at a cheap 350 Kroner a night. The owner wouldn't be home
until after work at 5pm, so we would have to wait. No problem. The guy
from tourist info told us we could leave our packs just behind his desk
and come back for them whenever. In a huge leap of faith, we deposited
our packs in this relatively unsecured area and headed out into the town
burden free until 5pm. Thankfully, we found that the cheap NetPoint internet
cafe in the nearby SAS Radisson hotel held our interest for hours.
| After retrieving our packs from Tourist Information, navigating the
bus system and finding the address of the building assigned to us; we found
ourselves a bit hesitant about ringing the doorbell. It was odd to think
that we'd be staying with a person in their home. We had no idea what to
expect. We were excited about doing what we'd seen on the Lonely Planet
show and happy to be spending such a small amount on accommodation, but
we were also nervous.
Thankfully our hostess, Jette, gave us a warm welcome into her absolutely
a gorgeous home. We immediately felt more at ease. Throughout the week
that we stayed, we reflected on that fact that this lady, living alone,
regularly opens her house up to total strangers for extra money. It was
like we were friends just staying in the spare bedroom. All three of shared
the same bathroom and the same front door key. We both figured that you
couldn't do something like this in America because of everyone's concern
for personal safety. |
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| We spent a huge amount of time lounging around at home.
The apartment was bright and sunny with nice wood floors. We had our own
bedroom and also could use the common living room. There was never any
hurry to get outside since our time in Copenhagen was not restricted in
any way. Our hostess told us that we could stay as long as we wanted. Every
day, we paid her up front in cash. And actually, we had the place totally
to ourselves over the weekend since our hostess went away to visit her
daughter. So, imagine, you open your house up to total strangers, they
stay three nights and then ask to stay a fourth. You tell them "I'm going
away for the weekend actually, so if you'd like to stay one more night,
I'd actually prefer that you stayed three more nights so that I can stay
away longer instead of coming home." It worked out fine for us, but, again,
this scenario was something we feel would never, ever happen in America
due to the perceived possibility of coming home to a totally burglarized
apartment. |
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Even though we did end up spending hours and hours and hours and hours
relaxing at home, we also did get out into the city. Our apartment was
well located. We found a small number of shops and restaurants nearby and
we were approximately a fifteen minute walk from the city center. Our immediate
neighborhood's better features included a very nearby 7-11 and an extremely
yummy Thai restaurant. We only managed to eat at the Thai restaurant once,
but we did go to the 7-11 every evening before returning home. It was nice
to have breakfast available in our room every day without leaving the room.
Except on days when we were extremely lazy, we would walk into the city
by mid-afternoon to use the internet, see a movie or explore the town.
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When we weren't lounging around our room, we spent a large amount of
time in the basement of the SAS Radisson hotel next to the train station.
The NetPoint internet cafe was a huge find for us. We had been without
easy internet access for a month, so Seth was feeling the need to play
hours and hours of Sanctum on line and Tara was feeling the need to upload
digital photos and web pages. Most days we would pop into the internet
cafe for an hour of two. One day, we both spent over six hours online!
It was tons of fun and we got a lot uploaded to our web site. |
| We also spent a bunch of time just walking between home
and city center. We found Copenhagen to be a very beautiful and convenient
city. We'd often take different routes when we walked, but we always had
to cross this large lake between home and the center. We'd frequently stop
and sit along the banks to talk and enjoy the view. On one especially memorable
day, both Tara and the ducks were treated to watermelon. |
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| We also got out of our room enough to leisurely explore the tourist
sights of Copenhagen. We mostly explored by foot, but one day we were ambitious
and rented bicycles. We revisited the little Mermaid, Tivoli, the main
shopping street and even the same Italian restaurant in Nyhaven where we'd
eaten six years before. Copenhagen really appealed to us this trip. We'd
enjoyed ourselves when we visited last time, but it had been bitterly cold
outside in late December. We had nearly frozen when we went to visit the
Little Mermaid. Being here in summer did mean busloads of tourists, but
not so many that we ran over anyone on our bikes. Since our first trip
to The early August weather was almost warm enough for shorts if
you really wanted to wear shorts. However, most days we wore jeans. |
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| Copenhagen was almost all fun and games, but we had to do laundry sometime.
This was our first trip to a public laundromat since leaving on our travels. |
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When we finally decided to leave, we activated our EuroRail pass and
took the train to Stockholm. Our first trip confirmed our decision to buy
a 3-month first class pass. We loved our little personal compartment! We
had four seats, a table, a lamp and two electrical outlets for only the
two of us. We were especially lucky as well since the previous passenger
had forgotten their U.S. electrical adapter in the train.
As we settled into our luxurious train surrounding, we thought of how
neat it was to be riding across the bridge connecting Denmark with Stockholm
since we remembered reading a magazine article about the bridge's construction.
We were also not worried at all about arriving into Stockholm with absolutely
no accommodation plans since Tourist Info had been so good in Copenhagen. |
Tara, possibly, was coming around to Seth's point of view on not scheduling
everything beforehand since we had such a fun, relaxed time with no plans.
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Tourist Info
1 British Pound = 12 Danish Kroner
Stay in a private house or apartment. The Tourist Information center
can find one for you! We paid Tourist Information a one-time reservation
fee of 50 Kroner and then the owner of the apartment 350 Kroner a night.
