blog #24

copenhagen

day 1. monday.

i went there with my course last week. monday the 16th june. i had to get up at 4am to catch the 5am bus to town and the 6am train to london. which i managed. met some of my course mates for the train journey, as well as the lecturers taking us.. the journey was nice. talked to claire and phil and then i slept for a bit of it. off in london and braved the tube and the stansted express. and got to the airport a bit early. it was nice walking around seeing all the people we knew though. nice to see hannah :)

checked in and had a lovely flight sat next to jess who was nervous. we were both a bit jittery but we landed in sunny copenhagen all fine.. once there, we went onto the train network with our newly purchased 'clip cards' to 'kopenhavn h', the station nearest out hotel. rooms decided and
keys given out, then we dumped our stuff. i was with jess, charlotte and claire.
we went for a wander through the streets and realised that we were in the red light district, and a few of us hungry ones settled for chips and pizza in an ok place.
watched germany play austria with the lads in the 'living room' type place in the hotel and went to find the jennys at half time.

few drinks and chatting led to happy drunk and sleeping well. in bed at 12.30.

day 2. tuesday

good showers in the hotel. like a whole room all tiled and waterproof with a good blast of water. breakfast was also good. danish pastries, cos we were in Denmark.. and lovely soft bread. coffee - took me a while to locate it, but it was good. met in the lobby at 9am.

walked through town with everyone, being led by helen and anna, and reached the water edge. we got a boat across to the island where christiania is, the free state with no planning laws. i liked christiania. got some photos of it, despite the photo ban - it took me a little while to realise, and then when i did, i was ultra subtle.
the graffiti was amazing. really incredible. and it reminded me of places i used to know when i was a child. a kind of hippy feel. charlotte didnt like it and we had a minor run in about it - me defending christiania, her dissing it.

we got back to the main part of copenhagen and went to the outside swimming pool. it was the sea, but a section of it had been surrounded by a platform so you could swim in it safely. didnt keep the jellyfish out though.. it took me ages and ages to get in. i jumped in in the end.. and i had a moments regret just before i hit the water. it was so cold! and i think i touched a jellyfish. i swam from one set of steps to another and climbed out.

we then headed back in our separate groups, and got pizza and went back from the pizza place via netto, where i bought alcohol and a pair of shorts. nice shorts. we drank ourselves merry and all headed out to town. we ended up in a nice bar, and were all shocked how expensive it was. a pint here is about £2.50, and a shot and mixer is around £2/£3. in copenhagen, a pint is £5, as is a shot and mixer. madness.
there was a really good music pair playing in the pub we were in, and they asked us where we were from and then when we said england, they played us the kinks, for englishness. was lovely. and the they did requests of fairly obscure songs - we would name a band, and they would play a song that wasnt the most popular of their songs. it was great.

at one point, me and hannah went on an adventure and had our photos taken with the tivoli theme park guards (in a moment of madness) and then went to 'ye old english pub' or whatever, where we had photos take outside that with a couple of blokes sat outside! it was great fun. we also got directions to a club for the next night from the english barman.
we went back to the pub somewhat hyper, and me jenny and jenny left soon after out of boredom and tiredness. emailed the gf, and was in bed by 1am.

day 3. wednesday.

another 9am in the lobby start. we spent the day with helle nebelon, a landscape architect involved in childrens play spaces. we visited an adventure playground type park first, where we were let lose on the play equipment. there were go cart type things and lots of routes to take. it was a lot of fun, and all of us were about a decade above the target age. after that, we headed to a series of circular gardens all with different planting. these were all designed by different landscape architects along different themes. every year they have a day where the designer stands in their garden and people come and ask them things.

we then headed to a school yard to look at the play area, and to have lunch. they playground was amazing. there were wooden sheds for the kids to play in, a huge slide, a tree lying on the ground to climb on, rocks to jump on.. loads. it was so much better then in england where the playground is a concrete square. its like they werent as worried about the children getting hurt. helle was saying that in one of the lay spaces she designed, she intentionally made the flooring uneven and rough so that the children had to concentrate on where they were treading because it was good for their concentration generally.

after that we went to a public park and looked at that. they had a dog playground which was weird. after walking through that we stopped off for ice cream, and then headed off to our final park. this one also had the fallen tree for people to climb, and rocks to jump on. it also had a secret path through the wooded area, where there were damaged statues hidden.

after this, the group separated into those who wanted to go to the first ever adventure playground, and those who had had enough. i was i the had enough group, so me and both the jennys walked back home via town. it was nearing 2.5 miles and by the time we had walked along side 2 huge ponds, found hannah, walked through half of town and were standing in a shop, i gave up. i single handedly managed to create peer pressure and led them home.

despite our exhaustedness, the walk home was enjoyed and i was glad i had done it, rather than visit the park that other people went to.

day 4. thursday.

today we visited grave yards and the rose garden. but ive run out of writing steam now, so i shall be back to edit this and the rest soon.

day 5. friday.

norrebropark. louisiana, and tivoli.

i wrote this right after i got back and forgot about it, so now i cant remember any of it. so i may as well just publish and then add some pics later..

cheers