May 30 . Copenhagen & Køge

Today I took a train from Helsingør to Copenhagen to meet up with my Urban Planning cohorts -- Jill, Matt, and Joe -- from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee (Photo, Right). We toured the Royal Danish Library which has a beautiful expansion onto the harbor in the central region of Copenhagen. We had lunch on the canals and then I went to Køge so I could get a final excursion out of the remainder of time left on my 24-hour train pass.

On my way back into Copenhagen, I decided to visit the large square near City Hall. I bought myself a Carlsberg beer and sat down on a bench to enjoy some live Columbian music. The music was a part of a larger festival called Carnival that was going on throughout the city of Copenhagen the entire weekend. After several unsuccessful attempts to open my beer I met three friendly travellers who had sailed into the Copenhagen harbor from Malmö, Sweden. They offered to open my beer and to take me sailing that afternoon!

Later that evening, all of the students who had arrived (at this point) in Copenhagen for the study abroad program went out to find Carnival. We danced to a live Brazilian band and enjoyed ourselves in an enormous park called Fælledparken. If you asked me how to pronounce this, or most Danish words, I would have to admit that it is very difficult and quite a trying experience! Unfortunately I was too busy dancing and having a good time to take any pictures on this particular evening.

I did find out (the hard way) that Copenhagen's night buses do run well into the evening, albeit with limited routes and frequencies. After waiting for a very long time at the bus station, the entire Milwaukee crew decided that it might just be easier to walk back downtown. After hearing that this walk might take forty-five minutes, my foot being as sore as it was, I decided to try to take the train. After finding that the train didn't run I was left by myself to figure out the night bus schedule. I saw the appropriate bus coming down the lane and hopped on. Little did I know, it was the bus heading in the wrong direction and ended back at Carnival where we had originally started our journey home. Disappointed and realizing it was approaching 3AM, I waited at the bus stop with about 50 other passengers. I met a nice Nigerian filmmaker (Kingsley) who spoke perfect English and he kept me company for the hour that we had to wait for the next bus.

I arrived back at the hostel just shy of 4AM!