With the opportunity to sleep in, of course I was wide awake at 530am! Lots of street sounds from below, as we have the windows open as no air conditioning. It’s another beautiful day, expected temperature to be about 28 degrees and very little wind.
I spent a bit of time catching up on emails and info for my blog, and a messenger call with my daughter Kelly.
Our room at the Hotel Strand
Then downstairs for breakfast. I love the Danish food, once again delicious cheese and bread, plus a really nice ginger drink – and to make my breakfast complete lots of English breakfast tea, big tea cups, and milk.
After breakfast I did a bit on the blog, and sorted out what needed to be washed and what can wait until I get home.
We then went out to have a look around the town, we wanted to find a ATM and the LEGO shop.
The LEGO shop was much smaller than expected but was still pretty interesting, and I bought a couple of boxes. I also bought a painting which I liked off a street artist who was selling his wares in the square ($90 NZ).
We then went for a Canal cruise around the canals of the city. It was really interesting but I was struggling to stay awake.
On board the Canal Tour
We went past the Amager Incinerator, an interesting shaped building which is part of Denmark’s plan to be carbon neutral by 2025. This plant burns household rubbish and turns it into heat for 160,000 houses and electricity for 62,500. Plus it has been built in such a way it has an all year ski slope and climbing wall down the sides that will be operational by the end of 2018. How cool is that.
The tour guide pointed out a bungy jump from a crane, and supposedly a free jump if you jump nude. I say supposedly as I couldn’t see anything about this on the website.
There were lots of people sunbathing on wharfs and along the canals, and slipping into the water when too hot, for a swim. Apparently this is unusually hot weather for Denmark, and last summer it rained all summer so the locals are making the most of it.
We went past the navy area and then past the George Stage sailing ship with 3 masts. In Denmark children go to the same school from 6 to 16 years old and then go to Gymnasium from 16 to 19, which is like our secondary senior school. If Danish school leavers don’t want to go to University or into trade they can apply to go on this ship for 6 months, and provided all goes well they are then admitted into training in the navy.
So the teenagers in the trucks yesterday – this is part of the graduation from Gymnasium celebrations. The student wear a peaked cap to show they have graduated. There is a lot of pride associated with this and they can be seen for a month or two afterwards still wearing them in public. The celebration in the truck can last for hours as they go to each classmates home for food supplied by the parents.
We also got to see the Copenhagen iconic Little Mermaid, but from the cruise ship it was her back only, will have to walk along the wharf to get the picture from the front.
We also got a great view of the Stock exchange building. Then back to the hotel time for a quick nap before going out for dinner.
We met up with Tony and Michele at the hotel at 6pm and went along the wharf. We stopped at a bar on a boat called The Tipsy Mermaid and had a beer. We talked to two of the other people at the bar – one called Camille who was from Brazil and had lived in Denmark for 5 years, and Marc who was from France and has been there for two years. They were both very friendly and gave us a few tips on where to go.
Denmark is such a bike culture that Christina* had biked 6 km to meet Marc and he had biked the 800 metres from his place. It was really nice siting on the boat on a lovely summer evening, hard to believe that in 4 days I will be back in Wellington and it is winter.
We were going to go along the wharf for dinner but Camille and Mark* recommended a couple of places in the town so we decided to walk in. (*Editor’s note: I’m not sure if Christina is the same person as Camille, and if Mark is the same as Marc . . . )
Camilla onboard the “Tipsy Mermaid”
We went past a statue of the World’s Tallest Man and I took a photo of Tony and Brett to compare. The World’s Tallest Man was Robert Wadlow, born 1918 and died in 1940 at just 22 years of age. Robert was 8 ft 11. inches tall or 2.72 metres and weighed 220 kg.
We also saw a street busker who had made two sand dogs, they were pretty impressive.
We found when we arrived at the Mikkeller Pub, which was a Mike Coo recommended as well, that they didn’t serve food. They did have some some interesting brewed beer so we had a small glass each. There were two bar staff, an Irish girl who was quite friendly and a guy who was in the wrong job. We asked him where he would recommend for food and he was like “Well what do you want Asian?”
We ended up going to a place called Warpigs, that also brews its own beer and some of the beer for the Mikkeller bar as well, plus it was five minute walk away and we were getting quite hungry.
Interesting place – not fine dining but clearly very popular, everything apart from pork shoulder had sold out. We decided to stay there and eat. I wasn’t keen on eating the pork but they did have some really delicious bread called hush puppies, they were like deep fried corn bread with a yummy spicy paste which you spread on them once you had cut them open. They were great! However I had expected there would be one each but instead there was a box each with, about 5 of them. The servings were large and we decided to take the left over pork and hush puppies in case we saw a hungry dog.
By the time we were walking home it was nearly 11pm and still warm and light. We didn’t see any dogs on the way home, but we did bump into some TDA staff sitting outside by the canal who were happy to have the pork and hush puppies donated.
Making friends with a local:
Kaye's Awesome Adventures 