📍Copenhagen, Denmark 🇩🇰

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but as Americans we only get 90 days out of every 180 days in a region of Europe called the Schengen Area (confusing, I know). This is important because around New Years, it had dawned on me that we had been in said region for a good amount of time…turns out I was right. We had 25 more days to explore before they would kindly ask us to visit elsewhere. When I found that out, I quickly booked us on a wild schedule to see as many places as we could…this also explains our 3:45 am wake up to make an early flight and make the most of our remaining days. Our first two stops were Slovenia and Luxembourg, which we recently published. It was now time for Copenhagen, which we had heard great things about.

Day 1: We arrived at our hostel, Next House. Seeing as it was 8 am, our room was not ready for check-in. The hostel was insanely nice and had a movie theater, gym (that I imagine is comparable to where Tom Brady trained), an indoor sports court, comfy chairs all over, and fire places throughout the place. I found myself very comfy on one of those chairs and before I knew it, I had taken a 30 minute power nap.

J, not a napper, decided it was time to get something to eat so he woke me up for some lunch (breakfast? Unsure). We quickly learned two things: it was going to be a rainy, gloomy, and very cold day and Copenhagen is EXPENSIVE. We found some open faced sandwiches called smørrebrød and since they looked good, we ordered three to share. Again, these are opened faced…like only three pieces of bread and some meat. Pictures below before I continue.

Looks good? Yes. Tastes good? Also, yes, but nothing to write home about. Felt good paying $47 (yes, 47 US DOLLARS)? No. No it did not. I mean, for that price you could have given us the other half of the bread. Or maybe a massage to go with it. In fact, this three sliced bread debt inducers were more expensive than some of our hotel rooms. Let’s move on.

We ate and decided that we had to explore in the rain because we only had a few days in the city. We went to see a few of the sculptures because, well, they tend to look the same in the rain as they do in sunshine.

We had heard about the Little Mermaid statue, but there is also The Genetically Modified Little Mermaid so we went and saw both.

We then roamed around the town, finding a few more art pieces…I’m not sure when we became so into art?

After an early morning and very wet clothes, we decided to head back to the hostel to check in and dry off. We had learned the city was expensive, and cold, so when the hostel told us they offer a group dinner for $7 a person, we signed up…real quick. We hung out in our room for a bit and then had dinner with 8 other people downstairs. Again, I would like to emphasis we did not need to bundle up or offer to wash dishes to afford said meal AND it tasted great!

We ate with four guys that were from Denmark and come to Copenhagen every week for work, one guy from Mexico who loves spicy food (this comes into play later), and a few other very nice people. We were eating some sausage and potatoes when Angel, the guy from Mexico, decided to put hot sauce on his. Me and one of the Danish guys followed. One of the other Danish guys did not, explaining how sensitive he was to spicy food. We ate our meal and had a good time…until sensitive (to spice) Sally decided he actually wanted to try the hot sauce. He put a drop of sauce on his potatoes, ate it, and died. Had to remove himself from the table and proceeded to suffer for at least 25 minutes after. Things did not go well for him, but at least we all got dinner with a show.

Day 2: It was sunny!! We got up and had some breakfast at O12. (From here on out, all food was expensive, but we were expecting it so I will refrain from reminding everyone.) Side note, this was J’s 50th country visited!!!

We needed to take full advantage of the sun while we had it so we ran over to Nyhavn. Please note, when I say ran over, I mean walked, probably slower than most.

There is a little shed-like building called Kosmik Rum that has a stained glass kaleidoscope interior, so we popped in for a few pictures before continuing on.

We walked through Freetown Christiania, which is the “Amsterdam” part of Copenhagen. Weed is not legal in the country, but it is openly sold on the streets in this area. It’s like an “anything goes, no questions asked” type place. Unfortunately, there were no pictures allowed, but if you imagine a food truck park with weed carts instead of trucks, you’re practically there.

Our next stop was a power plant that had a view overlooking the city…and grass skiing. Yes, you read that right. We didn’t see any skiers because the day we went the run was closed, but we did see the lift and can confirm this is in fact a real thing. This place had a full on ski lodge as if it was an actual ski resort. Mind blown.

It was getting dark, but we wanted to walk around a bit more and, to no ones surprise, J was getting a bit hungry. We had signed up for the hostel dinner which was in a few hours, so we found a nice snack, walked around a bit, and then made our way back to our hostel. We had a great dinner with new friends (though for some, J could have been their dad. Age doesn’t matter, right?).

Day 3: The weather wasn’t too great, again, so we decided to take it easy. I used the fancy gym, J finally got antibiotics (yes, he was STILL a bit sick), and we just relaxed. I had some good food from Sticks n Sushi but was apparently very hungry when I ate it because I did not take one picture.

For anyone wondering, we did want to go to Tivoli but, unfortunately, it was closed while we were there.

We completed our time in Denmark and it was time to pack up and head to Sweden! Like I said, jammed packed few weeks.