Copenhagen

As soon as I walked out of the train station, the atmosphere was very different here than in Stockholm. It felt like the kind of culture shock you get from arriving in New York City.

First of all, there was a lot more diversity here. People were much louder too. It didn't seem quite as "flowery", if you will, than Stockholm. Even in the way people dressed. If Stockholm is a pretty sun dress, Copenhagen is tight leather pants.

I spent half a day (which is pretty much the same as an entire day since I still haven't recovered from jet lag yet) at Kronborg Castle, better known as Hamlet's castle. It was built as protection from pirates, and eventually began to be the turnpike of the sea. They collected tolls for hundreds of years and it made the king very rich.

Shakespeare decided to use the castle as the setting for his play Hamlet. Apparently the story of Hamlet isn't even original. It was an old story that Shakespeare adapted. One theory is that he adapted it from an existing story that had very foreign words, and he replaced the setting with something locals (and actors) could understand more easily. There is no evidence that Shakespeare actually visited the castle. One of the guided tours was a plot summary of the Shakespeare's play. As he went through some of the scenes, the guide would take us through the castle. It seemed to fit the layout of the castle quite well. It was also a bit of a mockery of the play poking fun at some weak points like having only 2 real Danish names (Rosencrants & Gildenstern) with the rest being very un-Danish.

One thing I learned about advancements in indoor plumbing:

Also in this area is a very old ice cream parlor. I refrained from any ice cream for this. From bottom to top: waffle cone, strawberry ice cream, chocolate, and pistachio, whipped cream, strawberry jam. It deserves video:

There's a cheesy amusement park near the main train station that I was told had nice restaurants inside. It was kinda pretty at night.

The highlight of my Copenhagen stay was dinner the 2nd night. My host and her flatmate were preparing a big salad. I helped chop. She invited me to the dinner party they were about to go to. It was the semi-annual dinner party that the residents of the building have. For some reason, the people in the building are somewhat close to each other. Nobody really knows why, it just seemed to be like that. It seems that even the apartments are sold by word of mouth to friends of friends. Anyway, just before summer and just after summer, they all get together, make food, and eat together in the small garden behind the building. Even people who used to live there show up. It's really kind of unique. So I got to have some homemade local food. BBQ pork, potatoes, grilled onions, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cole slaw, and a semi-Asian-made salad. For dessert: grilled apples with ice cream and toppings. We sat out there for a few hours, some even longer, talking, drinking beer and coffee. This is one of the occasional perks of using airbnb.