Bikes Bikes Everywhere and Not a One to Ride

Clearly someone was being too optimistic about the weather in Copenhagen because it was not the spring-like warmth we were expecting. Still, we were only freezing some of the time, so I guess that's not so bad.

We flew into Malmo, Sweden, around 9:30 Friday morning and made it into Copenhagen, Denmark, surprisingly easily. We poked around the tourism/information building for a bit before trying to tackle the public transportation system. With some difficulty, we managed to find an appropriate bus and check in to our hostel, Sleep in Heaven. Oddly enough, the entirety of the hostel had a great atmosphere and was well-decorated, lit, supplied, etc, but the bedrooms left a lot to be desired with their questionable mattresses and 3-high bunkbeds (I got the top because I call things sight-unseen). Go figure.

We walked to the Amalienborg Plads, the four buildings of the Danish palace, which had some snazzy guards that yelled at tourists a lot but didn't actually do much. Though most of Copenhagen has free things-to-do, the palace cost money so we paid up and went inside to learn all about the royal family (related to our very own Queen!). Afterward we went to the Frederik's Church, known as the Marble Church (Marmorkirken), across the street from the palace because Jessie's guidebook said it had the largest dome in Scandanavia. It had all 12 disciples, one each on a section, around the dome. Still without bikes because, according to everyone we asked "they were really obvious" and "not like other bikes" so we would "know immediately" when we were seeing the free tourist bikes as opposed to the owned-by-someone-else bikes, and we had yet to see such obviously commercial bikes, the four of us walked to Christiana. Christiana is an Ithaca-like section of Copenhagen that was organized by hippies around the Seventies. We took a moment to play in the children's park and just wandered around the area for a while. Also, Meg bought some gloves. Not having eaten since McDonalds at lunchtime ($8 for 2 cheeseburgers, fries, and a small drink - whoa!), we stumbled into an Irish pub numbed from the cold and desperately needing nourishment. We ate some more expensive food, mostly on the "cheap" side of the menu aka appetizers, and had some hot drinks. Back at the hostel that evening, we played a game of Euchre and called it a night.

Saturday morning, Jessie, Erin and I woke up bright and early determined to find these free bikes and take a bike tour around Copenhagen before meeting up with Meg at 1. Explaining to our hostel-guy that we had yet to find the bikes and perhaps were not grasping the concept quite so well, he urged us to go ask at the train station as they're usually around there and someone there would be bound to know. We walked to the train station, asked two people who were no help at all, and followed a mysterious sign toward a "Cykelcenter." You could rent bikes there! We didn't want to rent bikes at all, but we were going in the right direction. We wandered towards the rental desk and explained everything to the man who politely told us that those bikes don't appear in the city until sometime in May (everything we read everywhere lied about that) and, even if we wanted to rent bikes from him for $13, he closed in 2 hours at 1. We had wandered so long for nothing. Bike-less and disappointed, we refueled with slurpees from one of the ubiquitous 7-Elevens near the back of the train station. Seriously, 7-Elevens on every single corner.

We three decided to try a museum until meeting Meg, but it was only free on Sundays. Instead, we headed into Tivoli early. Tivoli = an amusement park in the middle of Copenhagen = amazing. We bought admission and the unlimited ride bracelet for 275 kroner, quite the deal. We did every single ride except for the kiddie rides, and we even did a few of those. We rode their best rollercoaster, The Demon, about 5 times (3 in quick succession because there were no lines when it first opened). We rode on Himmelskibet, which was the carnival swing ride plus a few hundred feet, and we could see all of Copenhagen; so we did it during both the day and night. They had a whole China section of the park that was decorated with paper lanterns and the pointed roofs and dragons as well as a Middle Eastern one that looked very much like Aladdin. On a themed ride (for children), we sat in a "flying trunk" that took us through every one of Hans Christian Andersen's stories. They also feature fireworks right before closing every night, Comedia dell Arte shows on their peacock stage, and a water/light show in the evening called Illuminations. For dinner we ate Danish food at a restaurant called The Scarlet Pimpernel (in Danish, obviously), but the restaurant part was full so we had to sit for the buffet. The whole time this wonderful old man sat on a stage and played the keyboard, sometimes the recorder, and sang along. It was great. We didn't waste a moment in Tivoli, lasting from noon to midnight, taking everything in, and enjoying every minute of it.

We slept in a little bit on Sunday before taking advantage of the free museums. We visited the Glyptotek, an art museum featuring Impressionist art, as well as the National Museum, which showed us the history of Denmark (but we mostly stuck to 2 exhibits: toys and "stories of Denmark"). We also toured the Botanic Gardens, a huge park for studying plants in the middle of the city. It had a huge 5-room palm house that was hot and humid and a wonderful refuge from the cold. We walked through the cactus house and sat in the rock garden to eat our lunch. Finally, the thing I most wanted to see - The Little Mermaid statue. The trek was pretty far out of the center of Copenhagen, but luckily, the day had warmed up a bit compared to the two previous. We took plenty of pictures of her, getting our walk's worth. Both Jessie and I hopped out on the rocks to pose with The Little Mermaid, though I was pretty scared (completely unfounded, really) and took quite some time to get out there. For dinner we ate a relatively cheap meal of 7-Eleven hotdogs stuffed in baguettes with much too much ketchup and mustard that could clear your sinuses. The way that the Danes eat hotdogs is quite something. We rested up in the evening with some hostel-provided games, card games, packing, and lots of sleep.

Copenhagen was successful, bikes or not. (Pictures without bikes)