Easter Staycation

In Denmark, where religion is mainly left for the royal family to pretend to be involved with, we ironically get 5 days off. To worship the holy ghost, most Danes leave town to their vacation homes or to vacations abroad. I had planned a trip to Berlin, but decided to cancel the trip and hang out in Copenhagen, tackle the mound of work I had hanging over my head, and to hang out with Paola before she moves back home to Italy. Overall, it was actually quite lonely, and I spent a lot of time sunning myself and reading in the King's Gardens, but nobody is interested in hearing about that. On to more exciting stories....

While Copenhagen was devoid of Copenhageners, it was flush with tourists. Paola had some friends visiting from Hamburg and Malmö, and invited me to hang out with them and play tourist for a day. The weather was absolutely wonderful, so I got to experience many touristy things that I never bothered to do during the winter.

In the center of town, there is the Rundetårn, a tower observatory built in 1642. From here, you get excellent views of the Latin Quarter, the same views Tycho Brahe the famous Danish astronomer would have had if he lived 40 years longer.

Here's the gang I hung out with. From left to right, Paola, her friend from Sweden that I think is called Erika, Elmar and Devon from Germany (but Devon originally from Texas). I believe the girls worked together at the European Parliament.

After the tower, we went to Nyhavn, a touristy harbor in the center of town where people hang out, drink beer, and eat ice cream. Paola got me my first hot dog from one of the stands you find all over the city, and we all fought our way to the front of the line for ice cream.



After Nyhavn, we made our way over to the Amalienborg Palace, where we caught the changing of the guards. It was about 4PM, and there was an extremely drunk man wandering the plaza. We were kind of hoping he'd run into the guards, so we could see what would happen, but unfortunately he avoided them.




Finally, we made our way over the the Kastellet, a fortress that used to protect the harbor of Copenhagen. Everyone was tired, so they took a nap in on the grass. I wasn't, so I relaxed while sitting on top of one of the cannons. About 15 minutes later, a soldier with a machine gun dropped by to tell us to stay off the grass, and not to sit on top of the cannons.

Fountain at the edge of the Kastellet. The end of our city tour.