København

Last week London, now København! My friend Sylvia lives in this city right now with her boyfriend. She met her boyfriend while studying abroad in Istanbul and she missed him so much that she is writing her master thesis in Denmark now. They are living in a small apartment near the city centre and they are so kind to let Daniël (my travel companion and friend) and me stay in their house for six days.

My first impression of København was: wow!! This city looks so clean, nice and spacious! It remembered me a little bit of Canada in some ways. We took a long bus ride from the airport to Sylvia’s house and I liked everything I saw. No poverty like in London can be found here; it’s a world of difference. It even looks nicer than the Netherlands to be honest. We Dutch people made the mistake of building very ugly houses in the past fifty years, whereas the Danish still built their houses in the same vein as their old ones. This makes the whole city look as an organic whole. Also, there are no high buildings.

Today we just strolled around the city. Our first stop was the bicycle dude, where Daniël and I rented bikes for five days. I’m very happy about this, there’s nothing more pleasant of getting around in a city on your own. It’s not that I dislike public transport so much (although the Tube in London was quite horrendous at times), but I prefer to not be tied to buses, trains, and tubes. You are more able to move freely on a bike, and I like that.

We went to the Botanical Gardens, Rosenburg Castle and the gardens around the castle, the city centre, Nyhavn and Daniël and I even went running together. I had to bring my running gear because I’m awfully behind on my training schedule. The Dam tot Dam loop is drawing nearer and nearer and I’m nowhere near ready to run the 10 miles. It was a little to hot to go running, but we managed to not get lost and ran for about one hour. A shower is almost never more pleasant than after heavy sport activity and this was no exception. We made a nice pasta pesto salad and just now rented a movie.

Tomorrow I want to visit a museum and visit the Palace.

Here are some pictures to give you a general impression of what I saw today.

The last picture was taken in the city centre, where you could find the ‘living statues’. This man was the best one I have ever seen! He was walking his bicycle, apperantly on a very windy day. This guy payed attention to the tinyest detail of ‘looking windy’. His scarf, the fake smoke blowing from his pipe, his coat…awesome!