Day 26

Wednesday August 22

6:45am - woke up. Don't know why :(

7:45am - went to breakfast.

8:15am - went to train station and hopped on the 8:38 train leaving to Helsingor (yes again I know the O should have a slash through it :p). Very quiet smooth train! Not too much in the way of countryside to see.

9:45am - arrived in Helsingor, exited the station, turned right, and BAM there is Kronborg Slot. I decided I didn't feel like walking all the way to actually go in it (it wasn't covered by CPH Card), so instead I walked around the town itself, which was just opening up at 10am. There were Danish flags everywhere. It is a very very cute little medieval downtown area. Even the train station building was pretty. Spent about an hour wandering, went back to the train station and bought my 15.75kr ticket for the ferry across the Oresund (again, O needs a slash) to go to Sweden! It's weird, the sound at that point is only about 2 miles wide - you can stand in Denmark and see Sweden :)

10:50am - got on the ferry for the 20 minute ride. Holy crap, this boat is like a freaking cruise ship. There's multiple cafes, a foreign currency exchange desk (I got 122.50 Swedish Krones for 100 Danish Krones), a Duty-Free shop, a full-service restaurant, etc. My lordy. Also, you can drive on and there were many huge trailer-trucks on it too. Huge!

11:10am - train arrives in Helsingborg. I find the City Hall which is a gorgeous building across from the train station. I get a map and walk up and down the pedestrian area. Seems very similar to Denmark really - the shopping area is the Storoget instead of the Stroget. Haha. Most of the words are pretty much the same too. Didn't find anything outstanding to buy but found a bakery called Carl Perssons Bageri and bought a little thingy which was like a cookie covered in chocolate. It was in the shape of a ball, so something was obviously under the chocolate on the cookie, but I didn't know what! It was only about 9 Swedish Krones. There are almost 7 Swedish Krones (SEK) to the US Dollar, so not bad. Prices in Sweden as a result are not nearly as expensive if you think about it in terms of dollars! I spent about an hour wandering the cute pedestrian area.

12:15pm - found the train ticket office and went up to the lady and said, "I am confused." She said "I am confused too" LOL!! Anyway, I found out what ticket I would need to get all the way back to Copenhagen, it is an all-day ticket so I could stop in Malmo on the way. Perfect. And only about 23 USD!

12:27pm - got on the train, had no clue how long it was going to take or anything HAHAHA! But the Swedish countryside was GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!! So the time passed quickly. I ate my little chocolate ball pastry, it was filled with some kind of chocolate cream, it was soooooo good :D I was considering stopping in Lund, just one stop before Malmo, because I had read about it being a nice city, but my feet were already hurting, I was starving (hadn't eaten lunch yet). So I just stayed on til Malmo and arrived just before 1:30.

1:30ishpm - got to the station and looked at the map I had picked up in the Helsingborg TI office. So like, it was really warm, and sunny, and humid in Malmo - all the opposites of the weather in Denmark LOL. So I was cursing the fact that I hadn't put on sunscreen. Ah well. Found this huge park area - with a Dutch windmill and little canals/rivers running through it, very pretty. Made my way to the main square and was so hungry and I bought an ice cream. But this is where the fun began. Right now is the Malmo Festivalen - the city's annual festival! So the main squares and streets in the old city were filled, with allllllllllllll kinds of food, amusements, music stages, and stalls to buy stuff. If I only had walked around a bit more I would've found everything from candies to Cajun food. Oh well, the ice cream was tasty ;) Found this bizarre guy selling really pretty beaded jewelry. He had earrings that he said were real silver for 80 Krones, or just under $12. He had purple, which means I bought a pair :D

So I am seeing all this food and stuff to buy and I need more money, so I find an ATM and just take out 100 krones, which means with the ATM fees it is actually a pretty bad deal but oh well, only money right LOL. I bought a big soft pretzel and this long rope sour candy thing to save for later. Was hot and thirsty so I bought a coke and then I saw these mini donuts being freshly fried - 10 krones for 6 with powdered sugar. Oh my gosh. Yum. What more is there to say. lol. So I was trying to spend all the 100 krones since they'd be useless back in denmark so I bought a Malmo magnet and after all was said and done had 10 krones left. Oh well! After a nice couple hours exploring Malmo and enjoying the festival. Amusingly enough, one of the very busiest stands was a Cajun place called Louisiana - this amused me to NO end lol!

5:02pm - hopped on a train going back to Copenhagen. This goes over the fairly new Oresund bridge - a low, 8km bridge connecting the two countries. The train ride was a little over a half hour. It wasn't covered, the train just has a lower level underneath where the cars drive over. So mom, you would not have liked it at all :)

5:40pm - arrived at the Copenhagen train station, not really hungry since I ate shitty junk food (but oh so tasty) all day long, so I just decided to walk across the street to Tivoli. Wandered around a little and took some pictures of things that didn't come out the other night when I tried to take pictures after dark and I remembered a food stand that had a "chicken wings deal" for not too much money. I remembered vaguely where it was so I found it after a bit of searching. For 64 krones I got some fried chicken wings that were seasoned with some kind of spices and very tasty, a ton of fries, and a soda. Well for Copenhagen that's about $12 which is double what it'd be in the States but hey it was tasty and not too much food (although more fried goodness LOL). Anyway it was very tasty. What's interesting is that the drink comes in this plastic cup with a bar code on the bottom. When I bought it I had to pay 5 kr extra. Then you put it into one of these red things that are all over the place, and you get your 5 kr back as a coin. The recycling machine showed things in English and it explained that it is for the environment and all this stuff. Hey, as long as I get my money back (which I did), that's fine by me. I just thought it was an interesting idea.

Sat for a while and just people-watched. The kids on the rides are so funny. Wandered around and bought a cute magnet.

7:30pm - started getting really tired. Before in my wandering I found ONE place in ALL of Tivoli that said they had CHOCOLATE soft serve. I was so excited I decided I had to have some ;) there are probably 20 places in tivoli that has what they call "Soft ice" but NONE of them have chocolate!!! Oh gosh, it was so good. Probably the best soft serve I have ever had. I took my cone, went out the back exit of Tivoli that faces the train station, went through the train station (nice shortcut to my hotel) and out the back exit, and came back to the hotel around 7:45pm. Feet killing.

Good thing I came back as it started to absolutely pour anyway. Had a very long but nice day, seeing 2 countries and 3 different cities!

I did not see an IKEA in Helsingborg or Malmo. How sad :(