Copenhagen: Day 2

Day 2 in the Motherland! After sleeping an obnoxious amount (see last post...15 hours woot woot!) I was ready for more adventuring with Kun-Wei. And what better way to start the day then with a Jensen sighting! Seriously. The Jensen name was flipping everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Danish pride.

After a scrumptious breakfast of Danish pastries whose names I couldn't pronounce at the time and can't remember now we headed to Frederiksberg Slot (Frederiksberg Castle). This is not to be confused with Frederiksborg Castle which is an entirely different castle also located in Denmark. The castle had a BEAUTIFUL garden that we wandered around in for quite a while.

The highlight of the garden was probably the wicked duck fight that Kun-Wei and I got to watch at the garden's entrance. DUCK FIGHT. It was crazy vicious, and reminded me of my favorite "Mighty Ducks" quote EVER. When Coach Bombay needed to inspire his team to win despite their rather painful lack of ability, he came out with this gem:

"Ducks never say die. Ever seen a duck fight? No way! You know why? Because the other animals are afraid. They know, that if they mess with one duck, they've gotta deal with the whole flock. I'm proud to be a duck, and I'd be proud to fly with any of you."

Well, it turns out that this is probably an incorrect assessment of duck teamwork. If another animal wanted to mess with a duck, it would appear that causing infighting within the ranks wouldn't be that difficult. I've gotta say, this has shaken my faith in movies as sources of information. Aw man. However, the speech was enough to inspire a ragtag bunch of kids to win with only cooperation and cheap/painfully obvious gimmicks on their side. So that's cool!

This is a very regal statue of King Frederik VI. Sexy.

It's the castle itself! Rather backlit! It's all yellow and sunny and makes me proud of the Danes. Because it's bright and happy. And surrounded by crazy weird trees. I don't know how well you can see those trees on the side but they look like they came out of a Dr. Seuss book.

What's this? Um, this is a tree that has a crazy amount of baby...stuff tied to its branches with ribbons and strings. Pacifiers. Lots of pacifiers. I don't know what the deal with the baby trees is but this was not the only baby tree that we saw.

Update: I googled "Baby trees Denmark" and this is what I found:

"What you see here is the Pacifier Tree in Frederiksberg Gardens, close to Copenhagen. All year round the tree is being decorated by small children who give up their baby pacifiers and donate them to the tree.

In return, the Pacifier Fairy gives them a special gift.

This is a year long tradition. Often combined with a great picnic, outing to the nearby Zoo or some other activities.

In Denmark you reach a milestone when you become 3 years old. You are not a baby anymore, but just about to leave your day nursery to start in kindergarten. Which - among other things - means giving up your pacifiers.

That's pretty hard to do. So to ease the pain many parents make this giving-up-day a special day by taking their toddlers toFrederiksberg Gardens or other places, where they have pacifier trees.

Usually the children attach some small, personal and touching letters to their pacifiers when they hang them on the tree.

Next, we wandered down into the city center again. We got to see more gorgeous water. I have to say, this trip has given me mad appreciation for canals. Those things are the BOMB. Seriously. Loves me some canals.

I don't know what this is!

HORSE STATUE! Another horse statue! I think this is a statue of the apocryphal founder of Copenhagen?

Update: This is a statue of the ACTUAL founder of Copenhagen Bishop Absalon who was an archbishop and statesman in the 12th century.

This was my lunch at the Nyhavn canal!!! Oh man, Kun-Wei and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch at one of the many lovely restaurants along the canal. I had this DELICIOUS salmon on crunchy bread and this tasty sauce/dressing stuff. Oh man. It was some of the best fish I've had. Simple but om nom nom.

THIS IS WHERE WE ATE. Do you see how pretty these buildings are? So pretty. Oh man. Nyhavn canal...GO SEE IT. After lunch we left from this canal on a boat! We took a canal tour! It was fantastic!

BOAT! It's a boat! And a...famousy boat...in Copenhagen.

Canal tour!

More canal touring!

Fancy bridge on a canal tour! You have to appreciate a city that makes its bridges fancy.

This is The Old Stock Exchange of Copenhagen (Børsen). It's one of the oldest buildings in Copenhagen.

This is Kun-Wei and I in front of the Town Hall!

A noble stag! The real question here is, is this a statue in honor of Bambi and his family or Harry Potter's family? Lily=Doe, James=Stag, Baby Harry=Fawn. Much as I love Bambi, my vote is for Harry and the Potters.

The clock tower of City Hall.

I don't remember what this building is and google is totally failing me. Sorry.

UPDATE: Steven's magic iPhone (Seriously, it runs on magic) has informed him that this building is the Royal Danish Theatre. I remembered something about a musical or something and was trying to search for that but just kept getting pictures of the shiny new Copenhagen Opera House (I don't think I have a picture of that but google it to see a very sleek building on the waterfront). Thanks Steven's magic iPhone and Steven!

It's 47!!! Nyhavn 47! We saw lots of 47s in Copenhagen, thereby making it number one awesome city of awesome. Cecil totally agrees.

It's the Amalienborg Palace! The winter residence of the Danish royal family! There are four buildings but the one with 5 chimneys is the one in which the Queen actually lives.

Pretty!

Water at sunset! See the spire in the background? Apparently you can see Sweden from the top! We didn't see Sweden because we didn't make it over to the tower, but it was nice knowing that was an option.

Nyhavn at sunset! We kept going there. Kun-Wei got some beautiful night pictures of the place but...my camera decided that it did not want to cooperate.

So that was Copenhagen!

Next up...MUNICH!!! City of BEER. Mmmmm. And pretzels! Even more mmmmm.

Much love and cheers!

Copenhagen, Denmark: Day 1 in the Motherland

IT'S BEGINNING. This is my first post from my month of traveling. There are an INSANE NUMBER OF PICTURES. So, expect a lot of pictures.

On March 27th Kun-Wei and I left at 6:00AM from London Heathrow to Copenhagen's Airport. I was crazy excited for this part of the journey because, as some of you might know, I am part Danish. I originally thought that I was a quarter Danish, then I thought a sixteenth, now I know that I'm a full eighth Danish. So, that's pretty cool.

This is Kun-Wei and I at the airport. It was very early. Painfully early.

After a short plane ride Kun-Wei and I landed in Copenhagen and took the train into the city and found our hostel. We, ok, I was completely exhausted because I had to write two essays in the few days before we left. I was super tempted to pass out but we decided to explore the city for a while before going to bed. Because going to bed at 2:00 is LAME.

So, we explored! And it turns out the Copenhagen is crazy pretty! Crazy expensive, but also crazy pretty!!!

We passed a dude carved out of a tree because that's how we Danes do. We apparently carve dudes out of trees. AWESOME.

We then went to the Stroget which is the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe. It was really cool! There were a lot of nice shops, ranging from hole-in-the-wall sandwich and crepe shops to Urban Outfitters (or Abercrombie? honestly, all those stores blend together in my head).

We even passed my first "Jensen" sign! When I told my parents that Kun-Wei and I would be traveling to Denmark, my dad said that I should look up any Jensens that I could find and have a little family reunion. So, I dedicate all of the pictures of "Jensen" signs that I took on this trip to him. :) It was a lot. Many of which won't show up on this blog. Because it's too many and not really that interesting. But here's to you, dad!

This is a "Christensen" sign. This sign is dedicated to The Danish, my sistah from another mistah, Madeline who shares a partial common descent and partial common last name (representin' the "-sens") with me.

It's a horse statue! One of approximately a bajillion that we saw! I liked all the horses statues.

This is the Nyhavn canal. Lots of ships. Lots of different colored buildings. Lots of delicious looking food. All really pretty! Kun-Wei and I returned here quite a bit. These pictures don't do it much justice.

It's Kun-Wei and I at the Nyhavn canal! Now, the picture doesn't really show it but here's a fun story. In that picture I'm wearing a long eggplant and charcoal (please indulge a crayon enthusiast) sweater under a rather thin navy blue hoodie and gloves. This is because I packed my bag at 2:00 in the morning before we left at 4:00 in the morning for the airport. This led to some interesting packing decisions. I decided to only bring my backpack and purse because it would be less to deal with. I also decided that I only needed 5 shirts, the sweater, a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts and a skirt. Then I figured a jacket would be unnecessary, because, hell, I'm from Minnesota. In retrospect, that was a little silly. It was quite cold when we got to Copenhagen. Not unbearably so, but I wound up wearing as many layers as I could. I think a temperature thing said that it was 0 degrees Celsius when we landed. Oops.

I don't know what this building is but I liked it!

Dude. Dragon. That is a dragon. A flipping Danish dragon of DOOM.

Park! The parks in Denmark were pretty. Not super lush yet, but quite pretty.

I never thought that I would be proud of my Danish ancestry for the squareness of the trees but goddamn there were some square trees in the parks. Very sharp lines. Very impressive.

It's a little castle! In a park! More specifically it's the Rosenborg Castle built by King Christian IV. According to the internet he was quite popular. It is also where the Royal Treasury is, I think.

More park pictures!

It's a very fancy lady in a very fancy dress. More specifically, it is Queen Caroline Amalie. In a very fancy dress.

Statens Museum for Kunst. AKA an art museum! We didn't go in but isn't it a lovely museum?

I know that I promised not to post excessive "Jensen" photos but it's jjensen...Jay Jensen? Conclusion: my dad must secretly have a cinderblock company in Denmark.

I don't really know what this is. But it's cool so awesome.

Me in front of St. Alban's Anglican Church of Copenhagen! Spoiler: there will be SO MANY church/cathedral/basilica, etc. pictures in these posts that it will actually be ridiculous. You will think, "This is an altogether ridiculous number of pictures of religious buildings." And then you will get even more! You are welcome!

The Gefion Fountain! Another funny story, Kun-Wei and I spent a pretty decent amount of time trying to track down this fountain on the second day. So what is the picture doing in the first day post? It turns out that we found and photographed it on the first day but it wasn't going so...I guess we forgot about it being a fountain...that we were looking for...

Kun-Wei! Wearing a weather-appropriate jacket! And scarf! In front of a super cool column thing!

There was a lot of really pretty water. Everywhere. Oh man, I love it.

The Little Mermaid! Denmark is the proud birthplace of fairytale-superstar Hans Christian Andersen. He wrote the Little Mermaid. Which was a bit different than the Disney version. Check it out, it's actually quite beautifully sad. Or better yet! If you get the chance to ask Kun-Wei to tell you the story of the Little Mermaid DO IT. She's a crazy awesome storyteller. Oh man,I got to hear so many awesome stories on the trip. :D Thanks Kun-Wei!

A different view of St. Alban's Church! With water and sky. And trees. Mmmm.

This is an ACTION HORSE STATUE. You are welcome.

This is Frederiks Kirke-The Marble Church. It was being renovated. But it's still quite gorgeous.

Kun-Wei in her bunk-bed! We each got a top bunk in Copenhagen. So I dropped my camera from mine! It spent the rest of the time of the trip being rather unreliable. BUT NEVER FEAR THERE ARE MORE PICTURES. That evening I went to bed at 6:00PM. And slept until 9:00AM the next morning. That's right. Fifteen beautiful hours of glorious sleep.

So, there is Day 1. There are a lot more days coming! Eventually.

Much love and cheers!

IT'S MILNE

Kun-Wei, Steven, Professor Gustav Milne, Yours Truly, Ilona