It all started when we finished school on Friday afternoon (at 12:45pm!), and took the bus to Middelfart Train Station. Yes, that's right, Jakob and I took the train from Middelfart to Copenhagen! We met briefly with Inger so that Jakob could drop off his backpack, and then we went to the platform to wait for the next train. Once we got on, it was very quick! The setup in the train was similar to that of a small plane, with a bit more legroom and comfier seats. Fortunately, we had allocated the seats we wanted before taking the train as it would have been hard to find a seat otherwise. As part of the train journey, we could see the surrouding countryside which as it has been for the whole trip, rather beautiful. The best thing about the train ride was that it took just over 2 hours to get from Middelfart to Copenhagen, which is around the same amount of time it takes to drive the same distance. Denmark certainly has a better train system than Adelaide and Australia, and to think that there are plans for Denmark to get high-speed trains which will cut travel time even further! If only...
Anyhow, we arrived in Copenhagen just before 4:00pm (around the time it was starting to get dark) and headed straight across the road to Tivoli. For those that don't know, Tivoli is an amusement park in Copenhagen that Walt Disney used as inspiration for Disneyland in LA. However, it is so much more than just a theme park; it also has restaurants and a large concert hall which kind of looks like a giant megaphone from the air. Because it is less than 1 month until Christmas now, the park was also decked out in lots of lights and decorations which looked absolutely amazing! It really is the prettiest amusement park I've been to. The best thing though about Tivoli for me was the rides and attractions (typical, I know), though the decorations were equally as impressive. One ride in particular that I thoroughly enjoyed was this one where you felt as if you were flying in a plane. The best part was that you went round and round really, really fast and then you did 360 degree turns and wicked stuff like that. I've been on a fair few rides in my time but none as WOW as this ride! There were of course, other rides that were amazing. Two of them gave me the chance to look across the Copenhagen skyline, though one was just seeing it briefly before dropping down to Earth, and the other whilst flying through the air with cold wind in my face. There was also two really cool roller coasters at the park, one with a lot of loop-de-loop things and the other was one of the oldest roller coasters in the world! But perhaps one of the most awesome attractions at the park is the funhouse! Seriously, I could've spent an hour in the place, it was so much fun with the moving floors and random spinny things, not to mention the slides! Overall though, the rides at Tivoli were quite awesome. Also, I'll just mention here a couple of things I had to eat and drink that were lovely. One thing was three lovely balls of dough-like stuff that you had with icing sugar, delicious with the heart-warming hot chocolate I had with a touch of cognac (don't worry, it just added to the flavour and warmth and didn't make it too alcoholic). I also had a toffee apple while in Tivoli, though this one was also covered in coconut! It was nice, but I could barely finish it as it was so filling. Poor Jakob however, broke part of his braces while having a toffee apple. Below is a few photos of Tivoli, showing the place's magical atmosphere.
After having such a wonderful time in Tivoli, we (Rene and Inger joined us in Tivoli) headed to our hotel for the night. The hotel we stayed in was a Scandic hotel near the centre of the city, owned by a hotel chain which Rene is a VIP member of. This meant free wireless internet access, which was nice to have, plus it allowed us to stay in a suite. Jakob and I shared one room Rene and Inger had another room. The beds were very nice and they had BBC World News (news in English in other words), all of which made the room rather lovely. The free buffet breakfast the next morning was also a lovely aspect of the hotel, with beautiful bacon the highlight for me! It certainly helped to kickstart what was to be an epic day.Saturday was dedicated to sightseeing around Copenhagen, and boy did I see some awesome stuff! After finding a park close to the centre of town, we walked to a nice canal, where there were a number of stalls selling a wide variety of goods. We eventually walked around to the Ameileborg (apologies if I have spelt it wrong), which is a kind of square where there are a number of palaces surrounding a large plaza. From here, we walked to a little 'garden' area where we could look across the harbour to Copenhagen's new opera house. It was also at the Ameileborg that we saw the changing of the guard at midday, which was very pompous to say the least, but very enjoyable. After watching the event, we meet up with Jake, a fellow exchangee from Adelaide, and his host family and went to the Marble Dome which is similar to the dome on top of the US Capitol Building, but much bigger and fancier. The interior was equally as brilliant with a wonderful painted ceiling. We then walked to the main square in Copenhagen where Care International had set up a number of photos relating to the upcoming climate conference, so we had fun trying to find photos from Australia. We eventually found two, one of the Great Barrier Reef and one of Perth (a bit upsetting that Adelaide didn't get a photo, but oh well). We then went to the main shopping mall in Copenhagen in a quest to find a good spot for lunch. And my gosh, there were a lot of people shopping that day! Luckily, I knew the back of the heads of all the people in our group, so we were not seperated thankfully. We then went into a department store where there was a restaurant type thing on the top floor. Unfortuanely, there was not enough space for 8 people, so we instead went downstairs to a cafe type area where we got some sandwiches. I also was able to get a cafe latte which was very well done I must say.
We then went back to the main square and said our goodbyes to Jake and his host family, before heading to a boat tour around the canals. This was truly amazing for me! On the tour, we saw a number of Copenhagen's finest buildings, along with the famous Little Mermaid sculpture. The sculpture had been made out as very small by a couple of people, so I found out much bigger than I thought it would be. The best thing about the tour though was the boat barely fitting under the bridges. I found this really exciting, especially when the gap in the bridge was the size of the cross-section of the boats! After the tour, it was time to leave Copenhagen, the amazing city that it is, and make our way back to Norre Aaby. On the way, we had dinner at Inger's sister's place, which was a very nice pork dish along with a wonderful dessert like a pavlova but with whipped cream and vanilla instead of sugar. To sum this rather long entry up, Copenhagen was awesome!
No comments:
Post a Comment