Before we left I said I forgot what it was like to stay in a Hostel since it had been four years…but I quickly remembered the first night when I didn’t sleep at all. We were in a four bed shared room with an older Asian couple, easily the oldest people in the whole hostel. The man was little, less than five feet, but boy could he snore! He was sawing wood all night and even threw in the occasional fart. The combination of travel excitement, late night coffee, snoring and farting kept my mind racing all night. Needless to say, I was ready to get up and out ASAP so we did so bright and early at 6 AM our first morning and went on a morning walk to get pastries at a gluten free bakery. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because not many people were out, except for all the runners. Other than that first night, we enjoyed our stay.
Afterwards we went on a free walking tour through our hostel which was great. Our tour guide was a local Dane who knew his stuff! I was impressed to learn that the Danes actually helped to save thousands of Jews by escorting them to neutral Sweden during WWII. We also learned that overall the Danish people are very down to earth and trustworthy. They don’t employ heavy security at government buildings in the city and there aren’t as many police patrolling. Our guide said most Danish people don’t feel safer just because there is more security or more police personnel.
After napping for a couple hours we met up for dinner with my childhood friend Stacey and her Danish boyfriend, Kris. We ate Indian food, grabbed a six pack and headed to one of the bridges at the lakes (there was some Red Bull skydiving competition going on). We learned a lot talking to Kris since he was born and raised here. He told us that healthcare and education are completely free for Danes and that he actually got a monthly stipend to go to school - WHAT?! Here the gap between rich and poor is very small, and women get one year of maternity leave. During our entire time here I don’t think we saw one person begging for money and very few homeless people. Although none of this comes for free, income tax in Denmark ranges from 40%-60% and the VAT (sales tax) is 25% on purchases. It was great getting to experience Copenhagen through the eyes of some locals and catch up with a childhood friend.
The next day we took a 35 min train to Malmo, Sweden and had lunch with my friend Lovisa who I met while she studied at Cal Poly. Sweden is a little more conservative than Denmark but they employ very similar lifestyles and socialist policies. It had been four years since I saw Lovisa - it was great having an excuse to go to Malmo because I’m not sure we would have otherwise. After, we went to a local park, people watched, took a nap and had an ice cream.
The rest of the time in Copenhagen we were able to get solid nights sleep (melatonin and earplugs helped a bit). Some other things we did included a canal boat tour, visiting hippie commune Christiania (people selling weed on every corner), night stroll at Tivoli gardens (an amusement park that Walt Disney visited and got ideas for Disneyland from), visiting Rosenborg Castle, eating a pastry at Saint Peder’s Bakery (the oldest in Denmark). We tried to be conservative with our money so we didn’t pay for too many tourist attractions and just enjoyed people watching and learning about Danish culture. We lucked out with the weather as it only sprinkled one morning and supposedly this was the worst summer they’ve had here in years, there hadn’t been much sunshine. There were lots of coffee shops, sandwich shops, Seven Elevens and really a diverse restaurant selection. We had Indian food twice, Turkish kebabs, sandwiches and hamburgers. People here seem to eat pretty healthy and stay fit.
Although we were only here for four nights, we feel it was the right amount of time and we got to do everything we wanted to (that we knew about at least).
On to Amsterdam!