The Danes Hated to See us Leave

The above title is a reference to a beer commercial here – Dublin readers probably recognize it. And I have to comment on the above picture - that was taken while we were walking! An in-motion photo - I thought that was pretty impressive given the circumstances. Check out that enormously toothy grin of mine. What goofy kids we are.
So we just got back from a weekend in Copenhagen. Denmark was our quickest and most unexpected trip. Since it's starting to sink in that we're moving back to the states in less than five months, we’ve come to terms with the fact that we won’t see all of the countries on our wish list. It’s too bad, but we feel lucky to have been so many places as it is. Anyway, we’d pretty much accepted that we weren’t going to make it to Denmark . . . and then we caved and booked a quick flight anyway. Not good on our budget, but when else are we going to do this?!
It wasn’t as cold as I’d expected it to be in Copenhagen. We were pretty comfortable with sweaters and coats – I only had to pull out my gloves when it got dark. It’s a beautiful city with lots of tidal rivers running through it. The buildings are colourful, and there are plenty of statues hailing from Danish folklore. We made a point to visit The Little Mermaid, who gazes forlornly toward land at the edge of one of the harbors.





















We also visited the Nazi Resistance Museum, which was very interesting. I took tons of pictures for possible use in my future classroom – I especially liked the exhibit on the underground press that supported the resistance movement.
We missed the best action by a week – Copenhagen is gearing up for Christmas, but the festivities haven’t quite kicked off yet. Our biggest disappointment was that the Tivoli Gardens amusement park was closed – we missed it by four days! So unfortunately our Saturday evening was somewhat uneventful. Here’s my wistful picture of the entrance to the Tivoli at night:















Our final half-day in Denmark was spent whisking around the city doing some easy sightseeing – we climbed a historic roundtower for a great view of the city and did a final exploration of the shopping district (lots of great clothes here, but most stores are closed on Sundays). We also ran through an interesting Danish history museum for about a half hour before we had to leave.
All in all, it was a much quicker visit than either of us wanted, but we were lucky to get to Copenhagen in the first place. Perhaps we’ll be able to dig deeper if we ever make a trek out to explore the rest of Scandinavia some day. Then again, that’s what we’ve been saying about every place we’ve visited!