Cold Copenhagen

Super cheap airfare led us to Copenhagen, Denmark for President's Day weekend.   In the normal pre-trip preparation it became clear that the trip would be a relaxing one (read: not much to do!).  Copenhagen is a cute, colorful city with some grand buildings but lacked that sort of ‘wow’ factor for us.  Admittedly, the harsh weather and our uncharacteristically low energy levels probably had a big part in that… the city would probably be quite charming in the spring and have a much more exciting nightlife in summer.   Winter did allow us the chance to see the mini icebergs that filled the canals and port.   We’d stop to marvel at it and Chris would have this mischievous look in his eyes like “I want to try to run across that” or “I want to pee on that” or “I want to throw something on that.”  I’m not entirely sure that one of those things wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t there.  Haha!

Ice filling the inlet.

(I got 7 inches chopped off my hair!)

A favorite part of the trip was talking to our 25-yr old waitress about Denmark’s social system, youth, and medical care.  Quick synopsis: they earn a lot (she made ~$30/hour as a waitress in a sports bar) but pay really high income and sales taxes, medical care is socialized, and dental care isn’t covered.  We asked her what we should see in Copenhagen and her response was “Go HOME! There’s nothing to do here in the winter!  Come back in the summer.”

The next day we walked to see the Little Mermaid, a statue that has sort of become the symbol of Copenhagen.  

The Little Mermaid looking out to sea

Sooo cold.

 I usually try to see and experience everything a new city has to offer but completely gave that up this trip.  After taking a quick picture of the statue, I kissed Chris goodbye and retreated to our cozy hotel room, got under the down blanket, and watched reruns for a couple hours while he went to the changing of the guards at the queen’s castle.  He was really impressed with their 30 minutes of showmanship and massive hats! 

Changing of the guard

There's a cutout for the hat!

That afternoon the sun finally came out and convinced us to do a bit more sightseeing.  The Nyhavn (New Harbor) area was quite colorful and pretty!

New camera trick - the panoramic shot of Nyhavn

Chris in the Nyhavn (New Harbour)... with his twin?!

Having fun with statues

Pretty church, too bad the spiral tower was closed until April

Our sweet neighbors the Fewells watched Bailey while we were gone.  With all the love and walks she got from the four of them I think she had a better time this weekend than we did!  Hopefully she’s not too disappointed we’re home…

Working on the farm and discovering new English veggies has me SO excited about our garden this year.  We spread a half ton of compost the other day and I spent the entire afternoon buying seed packets and seed potatoes to plant!