DAY 3: Copenhagen and the journey to Berlin

Monday, August 9th 2010

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.

The Marble Church, and the Amalienborg Palace

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

Day 3: Copenhagen, Denmark

August 9 2010

We woke up around 9.30. Mia was about to leave for work, but she had made breakfast for us already. Again, such a nice host! We got ready and headed out to town. She had instructed us to walk to the bus stop. It seemed like a long walk, but we didn't know where we were at all or where the bus stop really was. I'm sure if we would've walked to the bus stop more often and known more of our surroundings the walk wouldn't have seemed like such a long one. The bus was 150S and cost 30-something Kr. Our final stop was Nörreport Station.

From Nörreport Station we walked to the round tower, and then to the King's Garden / Rosenborg Castle. 

 

We walked towards Amalienborg and saw the Marble Church. It was very pretty and impressive. 

We continued on to Amalienborg and towards the sea.

The Guard at Amalienborg

We walked along the sea a little, saw plenty of ships and buildings, water fountains and such. Then we went a little into town and found a waffle place. We bought waffles, I got the Belgian waffle with powdered sugar and syrup. Brain got soft ice on hers.

 I laughed... :D Maybe we were still a little tired. 

Again... I laughed...

We walked some more and soon we were crossing a bridge and another one. We were on our way to Our Saviour's Church with the 398 or 388 stairs OUTSIDE the tower. 

It was insanely high and ridiculously windy. First we had to climb up to the tower and the part where the outside part begins. When we stepped outside from the inside of the tower we were so scared. We were so high! Then we started climbing up the stairs that kept getting smaller and smaller. There were many people as well, going up and coming down. When we got to the very top, and began climbing down, we saw our fellow interrailer's from the train to Copenhagen, the two who spoke English with a weird accent. 

From the Church we continued to Cristiania, took a couple pictures but we had to put our cameras away when we saw the no cameras-sign on the main street. (As the wikipedia articles says, Cristiania is confusing to get around, we walked one way and couldn't get out. So we ended up walking really far, and eventually found the sea and walked back to town following the river that went into town.) We saw people openly selling weed and hash brownies. It certainly was interesting. It was a weird feeling to see them selling that stuff so openly. And no, we didn't buy anything.

We crossed the huge bridge again back to the side we were on in the beginning. We were on our way to Kristiansborg to the Library Garden. We sat there for a while because our feet were sore of all the walking.

Mia had texted us that she can bring our backpacks to town for us so that we don't need to with the bus to her place and then come back to town again. We agreed to meet with her at 7.15 pm at the main railway station. We walked to the main railway station to ask about our train to Lund, Sweden where we'd take the night train to Germany. The train normally leaves from Malmö, but the entire Malmö train station was under construction, so the Berlin-train left from Lund instead.

We went with a S-tog to Nörreport St. We walked to St. Peter's church, which was already closed. We continued to a park and sat around there for a while. We soon had to go to the Main train station to meet with Mia. At the train station we had 32 Kr. left. We bought two water bottles for 25 Kr and a banana, totalling up to 31 Kr. The cashier asked us for 34 Kr. Why? Because the bottles have the bottle return fee thingy. But the cashier was a young guy, about our age, and took our 32 Kr. and said it was okay. It was very nice of him. This was not the last time that this happened though. ;) And we had spent all of our Danish money which was good, cause we couldn't spend it anywhere else of course. Soon we met with Mia and got our luggage. It was great seeing her. Then we were on the train to Lund. 

In Lund we had a little time before the Berlin-train arrived. We ate, and then got on the train. The night train had sleeping booths, 6 bunks in each compartment. We had the top bunks. There also was a guy from Switzerland, two guys from Sweden and one Somalian. The Somalian guy liked to hang out by himself, so the five of us talked and hung out in the compartment and later on the ferry. The train went into a ferry, and then everyone got out of the train for the ferry ride. Some people slept in the train I'm sure, but we were on the ferry, spent our last Swedish Kronor on beer that the five of us bought together. It was a fun train trip. 

On the ferry.

"... miles, Swedish miles..."

"...let me consultate my map..."

-Pinky

DAY 2: Stockholm and Copenhagen

Sunday, August 8th 2010

At 5:30 (CET), there was an announcement that breakfast is starting, so we got our stuff and went to the buffet. Both of us ate a lot, although we were disappointed that there was barely any fruit left when we got there. I did find pancakes, croissants and donuts though! We arrived in the harbor at 6:30 - just had enough time to eat and brush our teeth. We got off the ferry, and got on a bus heading for the central station of Stockholm. The bus driver talked funny: he gave a little welcoming speech to all the passengers and the way he said "Welcome. Bye bye" made a lot of people (including myself) laugh. I don't know if that's just the way Swedes speak English, or if it's just that bus driver, but it was amusing.

We got to the central station around 7:15, and tried to find an info-desk, where we could ask whether or not we need to exchange our ticket (purchased in Finland) for a different one. Turns out there is no info-desk, or at least we didn't find one. There was just a lobby where they sell tickets, but that opened at 8:00 on Sundays, so we found some free seats and waited. We managed to spend most of the Swedish crowns that we had in the kiosk. When Pinky was at the kiosk, an old lady was going to sit down in her seat and I spoke Finnish to her, and when she replied in Swedish I realized we're not in Kansas anymore.

At 8:00 the ticket booth opened, but there was such a rush of people that we decided not to bother and just boarded our train hoping that our tickets are valid the way they are. And they were. The train was scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen at 13:30, but it was late (as trains in Sweden tend to be). The scenery didn't differ much from Finland, although there were more horses and cows out in the fields :) The bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark was pretty cool, although the view would've been better if it hadn't been so cloudy. When we were getting ready to get off the train, we met more weird people: some guy asked us if we're American, and said that the way we use the word "like" is very American. I don't know if I should be offended. 

The weather in Copenhagen was quite bad. It was very gray and gloomy, and rained a little. We left our luggage at the train station security lockers, and then headed for the S-tog platform. We were supposed to go to Hellerup, which is where Experimentarium is located. We were promised free entry through some connections :P The S-tog stopped at a stop before Hellerup, and it turned out that it wasn't going any further because of construction work, so we'd have to take a bus the rest of the way. We got there in the end, and followed the road signs to Experimentarium. It was raining quite heavily at that point and we had to walk for at least 20 minutes. It was pretty easy to find though and we did get in for free. There were a lot of kids everywhere (it was Sunday, after all). We went to the Brain exhibition first, and didn't really understand much of it, so we moved on to the activity section, which was self-explanatory and fun.

We then went upstairs and ate at the cafeteria. We both had pasta salad and a brownie, which were tasty and affordable. Then we started exploring the upstairs, which was the most fun - we should've gone there right from the start. The section with the bubbles was definitely my favorite. I tried making a bubble around myself and got to my waist til it popped. We also blew large bubbles, roughly the size of our heads, which was pretty damn cool.

Then there were other fun activities - standing in front of a green screen with different backgrounds, making power by biking, and so on, and so forth. We could've easily spent the whole day there, but the place closed at 17:00, so we only got like an hour and a half. We met up with Pinky's friend Mia, and she drove us back to the main train station, where we picked up our luggage. Mia then drove us to her place, and their friend Majken was waiting for us outside. The four of us ate a traditional Danish dinner, prepared by Mia - ox meat with a wine sauce with mushrooms, hasselback potatoes and tomato salad. The food was delicious. The meat was medium rare and with the wine sauce it was incredible. The potatoes were slightly salty and spicy, and amazing. And the salad was awesome too: mozzarella, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and onions with balsamico dressing. I wish I could eat like that more often. Hands down the best meal of the trip.

After dinner we took a walk around the lake, which was very pretty in the darkness. Before going to sleep, Mia took our map and circled all the buildings and landmarks in Copenhagen that we should see. We also weighed our rinkkas: mine was 11 kg and Pinky's was 12 kg. They sure felt heavier...

-Brain

Day 2: From Stockholm to Copenhagen.

August 8 2010

The night was interesting. We spent the night at the little room with train seats. At some point of the night I took my sleeping bag and went on the floor. I had Brain's mattress on the floor and her sleeping bag as my pillow. I managed to sleep. Which was a miracle. For the entire night before moving to the floor I hadn't been able to sleep at all.

We went to have breakfast in the ship's buffet, and ate so much that our bellies were full of food. So good.

We go the bus from the terminal to Cityterminal, where our train to Copenhagen via Malmö goes from. We were the last ones to get on the bus. We put our backpacks to the luggage rack by the front door. I had to put my bag on top of another bag, because a lot of the space was taken by bags that were light and small and could have easily been placed on the space above the seats. I'm just saying. Our bags probably could've fit above, but no one could've lifted them up, well we couldn't have.

The bus driver welcomed all of us to Sweden. He spoke with a funny accent and he was a little weird. He seemed to be in a very happy mood and the passangers were chuckling as well.
We soon got to Cityterminalen and found our way to the train station. It was really hot, humid in there. The weather in Stockholm was humid and foggy.

Brain was in the ticket office trying to find out whether we'd need to change our tickets that we got in Finland. We went with the train to Copenhagen. I saw we went through Nässjö, the town where my favorite band Backyard Babies is from.

I fell as sleep at some point. I missed Lund and woke up in Malmö. When we were on the train we noticed two guys with weird English accents, not really American, but not British either.

Once we were in Copenhagen already a guy on the train asks us a question, that being, are we American. Because apparently our way of using 'like' is very American.

We left our luggage to Copenhagen's trainstation. Kr 55.00 was what it cost. The trainstations bathrooms are quite a sight. And not necessarily a nice one... It was raining outside.We found the S-tog platform and went on our way to Experimentarium. Mia, who I had met in England couple weeks earlier, had a friend working there and got us in for free. We stood in the entrance and pondered, eventually the ticket sales person asked us if we were Pinky and Brain, and well what do you know, we were. ;)

The Brain exhibition was strange, we didn't really understand. The Sports & Spinach was awesome. You could try all these things and Brain tried 'kill the frog' where you stomp on these things on the floor and try to kill the frogs.. Until we noticed that thing was out of order, so it didn't really work. I tried pedalling. It was a short round course, with uphill parts and downhill parts. You only stood on the pedals, and held onto two strings that were hanging from the ceiling. It was awesome.

At one point we found a life size body, where you could take it's organs out and stuff. Brain tried to put them back, but it was really difficult!

It was 5 pm already and Mia picked us up from the Experimentarium. She drove us to the trainstation and we got our luggage. After a little detour that is. Who knew that one rectangular shaped room, a huge one that is, can be confusing. We took a wrong turn and had to walk all over that place. The Bagagebokse were big enough to fit both our bags in one.

Mia drove us to her place and there was Majken, who I also had met in England a couple weeks earlier, waiting.  Mia has the cutest dog, Chilli! It was awesome to see Mia and Majken again! We drank some champagne and played with Chilli. She's the center of attention really.

Mia was cooking dinner while the rest of us played with Chilli. Mia made the best meal. Seriously we didn't eat this well anywhere else on this trip. It was so delicious. Everyone took couple servings at least and oh my goodness it was good.

At one point there was a funny incident. Majken was explaning what Mia was cooking. She couldn't remember what the meat was in English, so she made horns with her hands and made a sound, like 'moo'. I for some reason immediately thought of moose, and Sasha thought of cows, but it was an ox. Okay, it was funnier there and then...

Brain and I stayed at Mia's for the night. After Majken left Mia took our map and circles places for us to go to, she even called her dad to think of places to see. We had a wonderful host. So thoughtful!


-Pinky

Copenhagen, Denmark

Denmark may be part of Scandinavia, but this idyllic oasis to the north of Germany has a character entirely its own. Danes have more in common with Germans than with the rest of Scandinavia, and are proud of their relaxed attitudes on subjects like alcohol and smoking. There is, however, one element of Danish culture that is utterly unique: Jante Law, which to some extent governs Danish behavior. In a nut shell, Jante Law is: "Nobody is anything special. Don't try and stand out or pretend that you are better than anybody else at anything". Danes were always great storytellers, and fairytales are a particular specialty. Amid the gentle Danish landscape you will find countless treasures: ancient monuments and the remains of ancient civilizations; glorious castles and fine manor houses, and, of course, the dark impenetrable forests - all of which inspired the fairy stories of the most famous Dane of all, Hans Christian Andersen.

"Hygge" is an often-used, uniquely Danish and untranslatable term. It is most often described as a kind of cosiness or homeliness to be found at the heart of Danish life.

Danish cuisine features the products suited to its cool and moist northern climate: barley, potatoes, rye, beetroot, greens, berries, and mushrooms are locally grown, and dairy products are one of its specialties. In other words, fairly similar to Finnish cuisine. They even have salmiakki in Denmark, in fact, some of the world's strongest liquorice is produced there.

• Official language: Danish, although English is widely understood and spoken
• Currency: Danish krone (1 € = 7.5 DKK)
• Railway info: InterRail passes are valid on the DSB (Danske Statsbaner) and also DSB S-Tag, DSB-FIRST and Arriva
  

It seems like the easiest way to get to Copenhagen from Sweden is by taking a train from Malmö - there is a train every 20 minutes and the trip should only take 35 minutes. There is also a high-speed train from Stockholm (X2000) but tickets would need to be reserved in advance and there is a reservation fee.

And now for some info about Copenhagen.

Denmark has only one major city - Copenhagen - home to just over 1.5 million people, almost a third of the population. Copenhagen is the most vibrant capital city in Scandinavia. The city is uncommonly user-friendly, with many of its attractions within easy walking distance. Getting around the city shouldn't be a problem - if we get tired of walking, public transportation is supposed to be reliable and there are city bikes in the city center. Copenhagen is strewn with castles, churches and other historic monuments. All this is enlivened, particularly in the summer, by a vibrant street life, with outdoor cafes, restaurants and entertainers everywhere, especially along Stroget.

Places to see:

• We definitely have to see the palaces in the old town: the Amalienborg Palaces, the Christiansborg Palace and the Rosenborg Castle

The Rosenborg Castle

• There are many interesting buildings in the old town besides the palaces, like the Frederick's Church (also known as the Marble church) and the Round tower, which has an observation deck at its 35-m summit with a view over the city
• St Peter's Church: the oldest building in central Copenhagen. It is Gothic with Baroque features and Rococo spire.
  
• We should also pay a visit to the Christianshavn (artificial island not far from the old town) and climb the top of the very tall church - Vor Frelsers Kirke (according to Wikipedia, there is "an external winding staircase that can be climbed to the top, offering extensive views over central Copenhagen" - One word: Yikes.) The self-governing community, Christiania, is also found in Christianhavn. It was founded in 1971 when New Age squatters took over a disused army barracks. We should check it out at least from the distance, if we don't dare go in. :D

Vor Frelsers Kirke

• Those were just some of the places that caught my attention, but there are also many beautiful parks and churches that we'll definitely have to visit if we have the time.
  

And, naturally, you can't go to Copenhagen without visiting Legoland! Going there was one of my dreams when I was little, and now it's finally going to come true. What can I say, I am excited and I just can't hide it. I'm still a bit unsure about what's the best way to get there from Copenhagen, because it looks like there are no direct trains OR buses, but I could be wrong.. I did read somewhere that it's possible to take a train to Vejle and from there a bus to Billund, which is where Legoland is located (I don't get why it has to be so far away from the capital!) I'm pretty sure we'll figure it out when we're there at the latest though.

And finally, where to sleep:

• Overall, hostels seem to be quite expensive in Copenhagen, so I think camping might be a better option there. BUT the Sleep-in-Green hostel seems quite nice, and eco-friendly.
• I also found two camping sites: City Camp is very close to the city center and Bellahoj Camping is only 4,5km from the central station (can easily be reached by bus)

So that's about all the information I have about Copenhagen, but it should be enough for starters.

I got most of the information from Wikipedia and "Thomas Cook Travellers Denmark" by Martin Symington (2007)