Copenhagen

This past weekend I took an adventure with a few friends to Copenhagen. It was relatively spontaneous, and we didn't plan anything specific out. The general response when we told people what we were doing was "well what's in Copenhagen?" To tell the truth, we didn't really have an answer! However, we definitely found out once we got there and we had a blast.

So Copenhagen. It's in Denmark, slightly northeast of London, and close to Sweden. Copenhagen is right on the water and it is straight up beautiful. The general sights to see include The Little Mermaid statue (which you have to time perfectly and pounce in to get a picture with), Nyhavn (translated to New Harbor, it's that picturesque harbor with boats and colorful houses that you always see in pictures of Copenhagen), and Tivoli Gardens (an amazing amusement park).

When we arrived Friday evening we checked into our hostel (first hostel experience wasn't so bad!), and headed into the main part of the city. We found a pub, had a good dinner, and then walked around for a while. Seeing the city for the first time at night was just stunning. The lights on the harbor, the shimmering fountains - it was just magical!

Our one real day in Copenhagen was jam packed. After a filling breakfast, we walked again towards Nyhavn and then continued up to The Little Mermaid. It's a beautiful little statue and compared to other tourist destinations like the Eiffel Tower, it's relatively set apart and left alone. There were only a couple souvenir sellers and you could just hop in and get as close as you wanted!

Before and after the statue we wandered through some sort of official building - I'm not exactly sure what it was but there was a huge statue of a man on a horse and the best part: guards in fuzzy hats. They were basically like the Buckingham Palace guards BUT they didn't care about being too stoic or quiet. When one man went to take a picture with them, they didn't spare any expletives in telling him to stop and go away. They also did a changing of the guards but unlike at Buckingham Palace, there were far fewer people and you could just follow them around while they did it which was just hilarious to see.

After we made our way back into the city, did some souvenir shopping, and then headed to Tivoli Gardens. It was so worth going despite the fact that we decided not to do any rides. However, the rides did look amazing. Besides having a ton of rides, they had a bunch of great restaurants, bars, a live band and dancing outside, and possibly my favorite part: a boys marching band - they wore fuzzy hats too! They all looked miserable and every time we saw them (three or four times) it made me laugh.