A brief itinerary of my trip:
20-24 jan : Copenhagen
25 jan : Dresden
26 jan : Leipzig
27 Jan -- 3 Feb : Berlin
Wonderful Copenhagen
20 Jan 2008
Welcome to wonderful Copenhagen!!!! Arrived Copenhagen airport at 8.30pm. Jacob and Lisa picked me up soon after.
Copenhagen Airport (Terminal 2). Copenhagen airport is the busiest airport in Scandinavia, it serves nearly 60,000 passengers per day; 21.4 million passengers passed through the facility in 2007 (data from Wikipedia.)
I was drunk for the first night (I'm so not used to alcohol at all), had two bottles Tuborg and few glasses of water (in case i got hang over the next day), Jacob made me White Russian (brown Russian to be exact)....Luckily i didn't have hang over...
So stayed in Ama for a night.
"Behind the scene"
--Was a bit worried i couldn't reach Copenhagen 'smoothly'. Before my trip, there were some bad incidents happened, such as friends were refused to enter Norway. I didn't know what exactly happened, but heard that either Russian custom or Norwegian custom/police thought that Malaysians need visa to enter EU countries...My friends missed the flight, and also the connecting flight....
--Another bad news was 24 Malaysian students were locked up in prison/jail (????) somewhere in Latvia for day(s) to wait for the verification of their Malaysian passports. What???? Malaysian passports have chips in it, wonder how people managed to fake them...Some rumours said lots of Asians fake Malaysian passports to enter European countries illegally, and some rumours also said two Malaysian students are waiting for penalty because someone sponsored their europe trip in condition that they helped that someone to smuggle drugs :S ......
--Whatever the rumour or cases...This year is just not a lucky year for travelling....Some many victims, and who is going to compensate them for the missed flights, hotels, etc????
--5 of us , when we passed through the Russian custom, we had a bit of problems too. We were told to wait (for what??)....The custom lady asked us questions like, "why do you go to Oslo?" (we were taking Norwegian air and we were going to transit in Oslo Gardemon airport just for few hours!!!) , "Are you coming back to Moscow after that?" .....Do we look so much like terrorists or illegal immigrants?! Well, i do understand they're doing their jobs, whatever.
21 Jan 2008 (Mon.)
Yes, officially started my Copenhagen trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Been longing to visit Copenhagen for a long time....Apparently it's a wonderful city, according to several surveys, it was rated as the best Nordic city to live in, city with very 2nd low crime rate in Europe (after Edinburgh/Glasgow), top 10 city in the world with best quality of living, etc....Further details can refer:
http://www.meetincopenhagen.com/content/professional/congresses_and_conventions/why_copenhagen/reasons_why/copenhagen_-_one_of_the_best_cities_in_the_world
So i started off my journey by walking along Stroget street, the longest European pedestrian street --> Kongens Nytorv/King's Square --> Nyhavn --> Amalienborg castle --> Little mermaid statue --> take a train back from ostreport back to Central Station. then, --> Christiansborg castle --> walked passed Black Diamond royal library --> walked to Christiania --> bus to Central station to meet Adrian.
Met Adrian's norwegian friends, blockmates....Nice people.
Fountain along Stroget street
Side street from Stroget
Kongens Nytorv/ King's Square
Nyhavn
Nyhavn
The scene in Nyhavn looks a bit like in Amsterdam, this is due to the influence of the Dutch when they occupied part of Denmark last time.
Hans Christian Anderson used to live here (1846-1864) , in Nyhavn.
Danish Royal Opera House
Dog, " I snoore, do you?"
Frederick church
Amalienborg Palace, the winter home of Danish royal family. (photo from wikipedia.)
Statue of Frederick V in Amalienborg palace, he was the founder of Amalienborg palace.
Harbour
A church somewhere near Kastellet
Little mermaid and I
Kastellet fortification , it celebrated its 344 years old birthday this year,2008.
Tivoli!!!! Ti-vol-i = I lov it!!!!! Tivoli gardens is one of the oldest amusement park in the world, dated back to 1843 ( 165 years of history now.) (the oldest one which survived INTACT till now.) It was founded to distract people's attention from politics to amusement :D
City Hall. The observation tower is only open at 12pm sharp, and people are only allowed to go when there're a minimum of 4 visitors. So, try your luck (I'm sure there'll be much more people visiting Copenhagen in summer). For my case, i 'sacrificed' my trip to see the changing of the guard (i went there yesterday, but today, the Queen Margaret II was back, so there would be a marching band accompanying the changing guards. I rushed to City Hall, hoping to get up there and take photos of Copenhagen, but unfortunately , there were only 2 of us, and by the time we got another 2 visitors, it was 1215pm and we weren't allowed to go upstairs anymore....
inside the city hall:
-people get married here too :)
Christiansborg palace is the home of Denmark's three supreme powers: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. It is the only building in the world which is the home of all a nation's three supreme powers.
the Danish parliament -- You can only get in via guided tour, which is held every Sunday. (i forgot what time, so, please check it out on the website.)
Borsen , the old stock exchange house, famous of its spiral spike.
The black diamond (on your left side)-- the new royal Danish library
22 January 2008 (Tues.)
Royal Art Gallery --> Rosenborg castle --> city hall --> Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek/New Carlsberg Art gallery --> Danish National Museum --> Round tower --> shopping :D --> went back to Adrian's place to have dinner and packed my stuff --> met Rasmus and Ulrik at central station and 1015pm and off we went to Roskilde.
The national art gallery. The first museum/ art gallery i visited in Copenhagen. Well, the security guard told me to put my bag and jacket in the cloakroom. I was very shocked when she told me i needed to deposit my bag in the locker, which costs 20 danish krone (about RM12)....That was so so so expensive!!! rm12 just for a locker for that few hours in art gallery??!!!
so, guess what, i tried my best to squeeze everything into my jacket, including my sandwiches, water bottle and my day bagpack :S I tried so hard, and eventually, i gave up. So I 'sneaked' into another gallery where i hid my bag under a chair.... =.=llll ....And guess what happened next, i realised that lots of people just hung their bags together with their jackets without extra charges...and if i did put them into the locker, I could get my money bag after that, the money was just deposit, not service charge....Damn, i should have found out that earlier, pity my jacket which i tried to squeeze everything into the pockets.
One more thing that 'impressed' me, was the cloakroom was actually 'self-service', and i needed not to have the number/tag. Didn't people scare their jackets will be stolen or what? Ok, i guess living in a low-crime rate city, people trust the one another. Great!!!
A new building/wing was built at the backyard of the old art gallery, and they were connected by a few bridges. It seems like the old building is covered by a new glass house (the new building).
Rosenborg slot/castle, another example of Christian IV's project. I heard that he was a king who had a great interest in architecture. Wherever he went, he would bring a ruler/ measuring tape with him; and when he saw carpenters or workers working on the construction site, he would measure the wood/ pillars, etc, just to make sure the workers follow the accurate measurement.
Rosenborg Have/ Castle Garden: Denmark's oldest royal garden and was embellished in the Renaissance style by Christian IV shortly before the construction of the main castle. Today, the gardens are a popular retreat in the centre of Copenhagen, and attract an estimated 2.5 million visitors every year.
Rosenborg Castle Garden
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (outside)
Inside Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
This art gallery is a good example of money from beer company put into good useful, good contribution to the society. I like the 'tropical' design a lot.
Like the National Art Gallery I have visited few hours ago, this art gallery was fulled of school kids too. My friends told me when they were young, they were 'forced' to go to these art galleries, lol. But i was impressed how Danish kids are educated, they are exposed to art since they are young...
Oops, forgot to take a photo of the Danish National Museum. Well, i saw heaps of school kids there too, some of them were very friendly, they said 'hej' to me, haha.
It's good to learn the language of the country you are going to visit. Well, i did learn some simple basic Danish words and expressions.
While leaving the museum, i saw a group of school kids were lining up to enter the museum. The teacher said something in Danish which i couldn't understand, but soon after, a kid said, "jeg thirsty!" and followed by lots of 'jeg thirsty' yelled by other kids....haha. i know, i learned this one too: I'm thirsty!
round tower: there're 7.5 turns, the distance from the street to platform is 34.8m, and the total height of this tower is 41.8m (34.8m-tower + 7m-observatory = 41.8m; excluding the antenna? stick? flag pole)
Round tower: Tsar Peter the Great was the only one who went up this tower by riding a horse carriage.
views from roundtower : How could i not falling in love with such a lovely pretty cute little city?
23 Jan 2008 (Wed)
To Frederiksborg --> Elsinore --> Helsingborg (Sweden) --> Louisiana museum --> meet Lisa and her friend,Frederikke in Lygnby station --> back to Roskilde.
Frederiksborg castle
a hall in the castle
Kronborg castle (in Elsinore) -- a setting in Shakespeare's play "Hamlet".
I took Scandlines from Elsinore/helsingor to Helsingborg(sweden). Obviously not because that it is the most frequent ferry line, but because i got discounts from my Copenhagen card :D
Guess what's inside the luggage? yes, beers. Apparently Swedes travel to Denmark to get beers, coz beers are just so much cheaper. See, the guy with the red luggage carried an extra tray of beers too (just had to try his best to get as much beers as possible, haha.)
Helsingborg
helsingborg
Helsingborg
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I then rushed to visit Louisiana museum, then to Lyngby to meet my "old" friend, Lisa. Lisa and I were hosted in New Zealand under AFS in 2004/05, in south island. We went to trips together, such as to Stewart island, and also to north island. It's so great to meet back Lisa, apparently we both haven't changed much, Lisa is still adorable, and she grows taller too!!! (erm...a bit embarrass to say, she's taller than I am...)
Lisa and I
Lisa's friend, Frederikke and I
Lisa shouted me a cup of nice coffee. I went to Roskilde after that, and found out Rasmus had his guests around because it was Thomas's birthday that day.
24 Jan 2008 (Thurs)
Cycled around Roskilde with Rasmus, went to Roskilde church, Rasmus's high school and we met his history teacher --> Roskilde viking ship museum + viking ship work shop --> went home and made sushi, later had a nice dinner with Rasmus's blockmates and rushed to the Copenhagen airport to continue my journey.
Roskilde railway station
Roskilde Domkirke
Viking ship workshop. We wanted to visit the Viking ship museum, but we found out that I had not discount/free entrance with my Copenhagen card, and neither did Rasmus with his student card. Rasmus told me that a friend of his used to work there , as a carpenter/ship maker....and we found this workshop and had a free tour, lol.
some fun facts:
1. It takes 2-3 months for carpenter to make a viking ship.
2. A viking ship ( a ready set sail one) costs 200,000 dkk. (??) (can't remember the exact price now....it was two weeks ago when the carpenter told me about it.)
Rasmus and I
Rasmus's blockmates. We had a 'fish' dinner. I made sushi for them, and I was glad that some of them liked it. (well, i know Mr. Volkov loves my sushi a lot, wahahaha.....)
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