Copenhagen the second time around :)

Hello everyone!

Looks like I’m coming down to my last and final adventures here in Europe. I still can’t believe my time here is almost over! It went by so fast but I honestly couldn’t have asked for a more amazing and wonderful summer. (Maybe not crashing my bike last week would have been nice but that aside it’s been awesome!)

So for our last weekend here in Europe, well my last weekend here with Joe, we decided to go back to Copenhagen to see some of the stuff we missed like the National Museum and then go to Hillerød to see the Frederiksborg Castle. So on Saturday morning we got up and headed over to the train. We had a nice easy train ride and arrived in Copenhagen around noon. Our first stop was the Georg Jensen silver shop so I could buy my Christmas tree ornament that I wanted to get last time we were here. So I picked out the one I liked and then we headed towards the National Museum. We stopped on a bench and had our lunch I packed. (Gotta love PB&J with chips!) and then headed into the museum.

Entering the National Museum

The National Museum is really amazing (and free!) We started in the Danish Prehistory section which was really cool. We saw all kinds of old artifacts including the skull of a woman who lived in 7000 BC! What’s really cool about all these artifacts is that they’re so well preserved. Apparently the people who lived in Denmark liked to make sacrifices to the Gods into the peat bogs. These bogs did an amazing job preserving everything so now we get to look at all this cool stuff! The room with all the gold was really amazing too. I loved the necklaces they used to wear. It’s so much fun to think about how people lived back in that time and what life must have been like. We also got to see the burials of several people as well. They would make little coffins out of oak logs and place the people inside. Some of them were so well preserved and others not so much but it was still really cool to see. Apparently after thousands of years your hair will still be around though which is kind of crazy to think about! All in all it was a really cool part of the museum.

Cool horns in the Prehistory section

The Gold Room

After that we walked through the Middle Ages and Renaissance section which was also pretty cool, then we stopped at the cafe for a drink then headed upstairs to see the toys and stories of Denmark. The toys sections was really neat and they had some amazing doll houses on display. The Stories of Denmark went from 1600 to the present day and was really interesting as well. We saw how Denmark progressed over time and what life was like for many people way back in the days. The small towns were very small (1000-4000 people) compared to Copenhagen (40,000). I don’t think I would have liked to have lived in the 1700 or 1800s in any place just because life was so difficult. We learned that women had an average of 4 children but 60% of children under 1 year old died. Another thing that was interesting is that when a couple was betrothed they sometimes ended up getting pregnant prior to getting married. In Denmark the child was still considered legitimate if the couple made it to the alter prior to having the baby.

Then we learned about the 50s and 60s and how Christiania was formed in the 70s. The people who started that area of the city basically wanted to do their own thing and instead of fighting with them the government just let them be. (We did go visit Christiania on Sunday and it was an experience) Then we got to the late twentieth century and Joe and I was amazed to discover that one of the display cases was titled the 1990s! Inside was an old PC and a Playstation 2 along with some video games and a huge cell phone (we used to use those big things?). Let me tell you, there is nothing like seeing a display case with your childhood toys in it to make you realize that you are getting old! The worst part is how much the PC and PS2 looked like they belonged in there! Joe and I realized that sadly we’re not so young anymore and this is just the first step towards getting older! The whole thing was a little sad.

1990s display case..oh we're old!

We finished up with the museum and headed over to our hotel which was close to the train station. I had found a new hotel that was really very nice and so after relaxing for a little bit we decided to brave the weather and go find some dinner.

Earlier this week is was suppose to be a beautiful day in Copenhagen on Saturday, that quickly changed and it was a down pour when we left for dinner. Throw in some thunder and lightening and you have a great evening. We wandered around for a little bit trying to find one restaurant that I had seen in our Denmark book but didn’t pay enough attention to to know where it was and finally decided that we were too wet and would just go to Jensen’s Bøfhus, which is similar to Applebee’s but I thought way better. We got some nachos to start and we both had burgers and fries for dinner. It was really delicious. We stopped at a 711 for some drinks and chocolate and headed back to the hotel to just relax for the rest of the night before getting some sleep. :) It was a really fun day in Copenhagen! :)