Day 24

Monday August 20

8:00amish - woke up, went downstairs and got the internet code. Caught up online, they give one free day so it's 60 kroners for 4 days, not bad.

9:00am - went down to breakfast - wow. Full array of like EVERYTHING. Many kinds of cheeses and meats (including what looked - and tasted - like American pepperoni!), many kinds of breads (including loaves like chocolate) and pastries, fresh juices, coffee, tea, cereals, yogurts, cereals, soft-boiled eggs, spreads, and even a couple kinds of chocolate. It is all organic and is served on this Mexican ceramics. Wow.

9:30am - set out for the Rick Steves walking tour. Went up to the City Hall Square and had a look around and inside the City Hall, which is really quite lovely.

Set up the Stroget, a series of pedestrianized shopping streets, browsed, found the biggest H&M ever and bought a shirt for 30 krones, or a little over $5, took some detours per the walking tour and saw a couple churches, and made it to the end. It had started raining and of course I didn't bring my jacket OR umbrella so I passed the time in a big department store til it stopped. Then I made it up to the square at the other end Kongens Nytorv, and took the bus back to the train station, outside of which I bought my first polse, or hotdog - they are famous here. Only 17 Krones. Pretty tasty but not quite as good as I was expecting. I'll have to try another from a different cart. Came back to the room for a few, then went out to get some water at the supermarket, where it was cheaper, a pastry at the bakery next to the supermarket, and bought a Copenhagen Card for 72 hours for the expensive price of 429 krones - expensive but should end up to be a good deal over the 3 days because it includes Tivoli, etc.

2:30pm - went to Christiansborg to see the Reception rooms - they only let you in via a tour and it was at 3pm. I barely made it. The tour was run by an older woman and she was really sweet and funny. Got to see all the fancy schmancy rooms that they still use today.

4:15pm - tried to figure out what to do - looked in the CPHCard guide to see what else I could get into for free - found the Danish Design Center, which was right near the train station on my way back to the hotel so I figured I would hop in there since it was open til 5. Oh man if I had paid 50kr to get into that I would've been so pissed lol. The best part was the shop, which had all kinds of neat stuff with the theme of traveling light. The exhibits themselves were mostly clothing design - shoes by the ecco company, etc. Not at all worth almost $10 but hey it was free for me LOL.

5:00pm - went back to the hotel for a while. Took my laptop to the lobby and hung out there, getting my free welcome glass of wine - some organic greek white wine. Whatever, it's all just wine to me. LOL!!!!

6:45pm - went to Bryggeriet Apollo for dinner, which is right outside Tivoli and right next to the place I ate last night. Had chicken which had been marinated in herbs and stuff. Was huge and filling, it also came with TWO baked potatoes (seriously, see the picture). To save some money I just got a glass of tap water - they even put some ice in it without me asking, woohoo! So total was 170kr including a small tip, or about $30. Ah well. Lunch was really cheap. LOL!!! (looked it up when I got back to the hotel - Bryggeriet Apollo is owned by the same people I ate at last night. HAHA! Oh well, they were both tasty :) )

8:00pmish - went into Tivoli (normally 75kr) with my CPH Card. Ahhh. It's so cute. I mean it's an amusement park but hardly like any we have in the US. It has lakes and gardens and a whole area designed like Chinese-style architecture. Food all over and there are rides too but those cost separately. There are also performance stages (saw two different classical type things going on in the hour and a half or so I was there). Got a berry-type of sorbet for 17kr - very tasty. Just walked around and wandered and pretty much saw the whole park - it is not all that big, not compared to US parks anyway. But it is different. It is… well, very Danish. LOL. Classy and understated but cool and fun in the same time. Anyway it was nice. There was an illumination show over the lake at 10:30 but I was getting tired and didn't want to be walking to my hotel that late so I just left around 9:30 and came back to the hotel.

9:30pm - came back here, Skyped with my mom, and ate today's pastry which was sort of like a cinnamon roll or something with some chocolate goo on top. Very tasty - better than the one from yesterday actually. Lots of pictures, they will be up tomorrow :)