A Different Denmark

Anyone who knows me will know that I love to travel and that one of my particular favourite places to go is Denmark. Admittedly, my adventures in Denmark have been more about the people than the place but during these trips to spend quality time I have grown to love the country incidentally. 

 So why - you ask - was this trip different? 

Let me answer that with a picture: 

That's right! It was my first holiday over in Denmark with my husband! - our first trip abroad since our amazing honeymoon. 

The honeymoon was a LOT warmer. The highest temperature we saw in Denmark was about 2°C!!! 

Then again, it was a LOT further away so took way more time to get there and....

....The honeymoon didn't have these people!

One of the lovely things about being able to go places together is that we can visit couples and have an extended double-date for a weekend. We went to visit and holiday with Seb & Monique - my best friend and her boyfriend.

I've written a blog post before about Mo and her many wonderful qualities. She'll probably appreciate me doing so again, so I will!

I met Seb & Mo both in 2008 when Mo & I  started university in Birmingham so I suppose I've known them both for some time. They were so generous this weekend - hiring a car and taking us to stay at Seb's family's 'summer house'. We just had such a great time chilling, going for wintery walks and playing endless games of Jungle Speed (if you haven't played it get it and do!!).

It was quite hilarious to see the girls completely showing the boys up as we raced for the totem. I came back with scratch marks on my hand that were, however, caused by Seb in his wild grabbing for victory!

I'm not really one to appreciate the cold. I like to be as warm as possible most of the time! However, you can't really make any complaints when you're walking down a snow-covered beach in order to get back to a log cabin where the fire is burning brightly.

In my humble opinion, there is nothing like a proper log fire. It's my idea of heaven!

Of course, heaven has to include spending time with Ben and one of the great things about him that I was able to appreciate on this trip is the way he really makes an effort to pick up words in other languages. He is a great mimicker and as such has a bit of a talent for it. I can't even try to pronounce the names of the places we were in or near (I just change it to some sort of weird anglicised-version rather than making myself look silly as I don't have the same skills!) but it was really fun to hear him try even if it wasn't always hugely successful!
Denmark is such an interesting country.

As Ben pointed out about Copenhagen "it's such a clean city". I guess that might not be the impression that the people who live there have but as tourists its an impressive thing to see.

I remember when I went there the first time noticing homeless people picking up glass bottles that had been left on the streets and thinking it was strange. I soon realised that they were collecting them and then recycling them in shops where they could get money for doing so. The incentive seemed to be working!

One of the less attractive things about visiting Denmark is the cost. Flights to Denmark are pretty reasonable (though annoyingly not from Birmingham!), so that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the cost of things when you get there.

When we changed our krone back to pounds at the airport the man at the exchange said, "You'll get more for it in pounds than you would have done in krone!" He was so right. Food is expensive. 'Things' are expensive. So, while Copenhagen has the longest shopping street in Europe, I don't think I'll be going shopping there any time soon!

After our snowy walks and when the weekend was nearly at an end, we headed back to Copenhagen. I've been wanting to walk around the city for so long with Ben. I've spent quite a few days roaming the streets there and I feel almost at home. I guess it must be the blonde hair and blue eyes or maybe some of my ancestors were Vikings. Either way, I can certainly navigate at least the touristy parts of Copenhagen now with no map. It's all fitting together like a big jigsaw puzzle inside my head, so it was really exciting to share that with Ben. He's heard so much about Copenhagen from me and he saw the millions of photos that I took last time (May 2012) so I suppose for him I had massively built up expectations. I think he liked it, though, so I think the city managed to live up to them.

The one thing that I really DIDN'T raise his expectations on was 'Den Lille Havfrau' which is perhaps Copenhagen's most famous tourist attraction. In my opinion, it's the most disappointing! It's interesting that cities often become known for one thing- (the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben to name a few) - that doesn't always seem to be the most remarkable. I would take Mon Sacre Coeur over the Eiffel Tower any day! Nevertheless, Copenhagen is known as the home of 'The Little Mermaid' though she often travels and has had many replacement heads. Ariel just didn't seen that one coming. Despite the disappointing statue, I love finally having a picture of being there with my wonderful other half.

For your viewing pleasure below are three photographs of things about Copenhagen that are in no way disappointing:

1) The Amalienborg Palace (yes, that's right, Denmark have a monarchy!) & The Marble Church

2) Nyhavn

3) The English-Gothic style St. Alban's Church