We woke up at 9:30, took our time to get ready and had some yummy breakfast (the food at Mia's was definitely better than at any hotel :)) and then took a bus to the main bus station of Copenhagen (Nörreport). We looked at the Round tower, but didn't go in because we didn't have a lot of Danish crowns with us. Then we walked around the King's Gardens, which were very pretty, and looked at the Rosenborg Castle. The castle was impressive, but again we didn't go inside because we were saving our Danish money.
Then we walked towards the Amalienborg Palace, and on our way stumbled upon the Marble Church (aka Frederick's Church). It was pretty both from the inside and the outside. The Amalienborg Palace wasn't nearly as cool as the Rosenborg Castle. We also saw the Opera House, which was visible across the canal.
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| The Marble Church, and the Amalienborg Palace |
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| The Opera House |
We turned and started walking towards Christianshavn, and on our way snacked on Belgian waffles :) Slowly but surely we got to Vor Frelsers Kirke (Church of Our Savior). We had already decided that we'd climb up to the top, so we went for it. The outdoor winding staircase was freaken terrifying. There was no safety net or anything - just the railing, which wasn't even very high. I was holding on to it for my dear life. The views were breath-taking though, so it was definitely worth it. Getting down was a bit tricky too, but we managed.
After that near-death experience we walked over to Christiania - the self-governed hippie commune. There were some interesting statues and graffiti, and the whole place had a very bohemian sense to it. Pusher street was a bit scary, there were actually people selling drugs. Openly. Naturally, we didn't buy anything, just walked through and tried not to act too touristy. We got out on the other side and eventually got back to the old town and walked past some churches that were already closed, as well as Christiansborg Palace. There was a pretty garden on the palace grounds and we rested our legs there for a bit. After some more sight-seeing we made our way back to the central train station, met up with Mia, who was kind enough to bring our luggage :) We then said good-bye to Mia and went to the platform to wait for the train heading for Lund, a small city in Southern Sweden.
We got to Lund safely and found the platform that the night train to Berlin was supposed to depart from. The train arrived, and we quickly found our compartment. It was for six people, and of course it was just our luck to get the bunks at the very top. We somehow managed to throw our stuff up there, and I almost lost our ticket :D There were four guys in our compartment - one from Switzerland, one from Somalia and two from Sweden. The guy from Somalia wasn't very social - he kept to himself and talked on his cell phone a lot. The rest of us went to sit in the compartment and small-talked. Time passed pretty quickly and we soon arrived in Trelleborg, and the train entered a ferry. It stopped, and everyone was free to exit the train and hang out aboard the ferry. The five of us did just that, and continued socializing. It was already very dark, so all of my attempts to take pictures of Swedish city lights from the upper deck were completely futile. We got a spontaneous idea to buy some insanely cheap beer at the tax-free (24-pack of Carlsberg for 95 SEK) and split it between the five of us, which was a nice way to spend our remaining Swedish crowns. Time flew by, and soon enough we started seeing the shore lit by city lights of Sassnits in the distance, so we got back to our compartment. It was around 4:20 at that point, and the train was scheduled to arrive in Berlin at 6:04. I got very little sleep that night, so when we arrived at the main station of Berlin I was pretty dead. Nevertheless, it was the most memorable train-ride of my life.
-Brain
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