Monday 9/14/09

It is a very cold rainy day in Prague today...kind of matches my mood :( I got back from Copenhagen at about 12:30 today. It was hard leaving Ryan.

I had a ton of fun this weekend! I found my way to the airport in Prague on Friday with no problems what so ever. The flight over was uneventful (thankfully) and I was able to find the metro station in the Copenhagen airport to meet Ryan perfectly.

It was so nice to see Ryan! I don't think we've gone a month without seeing each other ever! Ryan bought me a metro/bus pass for the weekend and gave me an itinerary of our weekend. It was so cute! At the top it said "Ryan Kimmel and Susie Marceau: Itinerary for “Best Weekend in Copenhagen Ever”" and the line below it said "Travel Agency: Ryan is Picking Susie up at the CPH Airport, Inc." :) Ryan's a goof and I love it!

So we started out touring Copenhagen on Friday, we went to the National Museum first. It was a really cool old building and it had a TON of good stuff in it. I love museums so I really enjoyed this first stop. Then we walked the streets a little and ate a lunch Ryan packed in the middle of a big square in front of the Parliament and Stock Exchange buildings. I was so grateful for the lunch since they didn't offer anything on the plane!! It was pretty nice weather. A little cool and windy but the sun was out so it was nice. Much like the weather of my high school cross country races.

Next we went to Strøget and Nyhavn, two really cool streets in the city. Strøget is State St. (in Madison) times 100. It's a huge walking street with hundreds of shops, restaurants, etc. There were really pretty old buildings, squares and fountains and it was great for people watching. Nyhavn is a really pretty historical street that lines a cannal. Its where all the fancy, expensive restaurants are. It's really pretty and great for people watching as well!

Then we went up the round tower, a really old tower that has a spectacular view of the city. It used to be a church, observatory and library. It's old, I think from the 1600s, I have a brochure with all the dates and info about it...anyways, it had breath taking views! After that we wandered our way to the train station that took us to Lyngby, the city that Ryan lives and goes to school it. Its about a 15 minute train ride to his house. Then we made an excellent dinner and watched a movie. Ryan's "dorm" has a HUGE kitchen! All Danes cook because eating out is so expensive! I cut my finger trying to cut potatoes and ended up just watching Ryan make the rest of our meal. It was delicious! Ryan is getting to be quite the cook!

Saturday was another busy day! We explored Lyngby, the city Ryan lives in. They have a huge mall called the StorCenter that we walked around for a while. I got two scarfs and Ryan got a sweater. Then we bought and ate lunch at a flafal (sp?) stand and made our way back to Copenhagen. We went to the Jewish Museum, which was really cool. It was rather small but it had plenty of good information and really cool architecture. The Danes were very sympathetic to Jews during WWII. They helped 7000 escape to Sweden while only 481 got sent to a concentration camp. Ironically, they got sent to a camp right outside of Prague!

Then we went to the oldest amusement park in the world, Trivoli. It was really nice. We walked around, went to the aquarium, saw a small orchestra play and watched a marching band! It got rather cold and we got rather hungry so we didn't stay there as long as we planed to. Instead we got ice cream and went home. Ryan made another excellent dinner!

Sunday was even more full of activity! We started out the day in the Botanical Gardens of Copenhagen. Besides a quick little rain shower, it was a beautiful and very romantic walk. The garden was full of so many trails and plants we could have spent the whole day there! Then we went to Christianshavn, which is a small part of Copenhagen across a channel. It is pretty much a hippie town. We found the BEST pastry shop in Christianshavn, the pastries were sooo good! We went to Christian’s Church, but it was closed so we couldn't go inside. Then we went to Amagergade, which is a little street with old houses on it. It was cute.

Next we ventured out to find Lille Molle (little Windmill). We could NOT find it! Instead we ended up in a graffiti ridden slum of sorts. I was a little scared but was thankful Ryan was with me. It was definitely the underbelly of Copenhagen. A fun adventure none the less! So we didn't find Lille Molle.

Then we went to Our Savior Church, which has a really tall scary steeple that you can climb up. It was closed though when we got there because they had some special service or something that morning. Kinda a bummer but it was really tall and looked really scary to climb!

Ok this is getting really long...I'll finish up later tonight!