This week started early Monday morning with my first class of the semester. From Monday to Thursday, I spend a good majority of my day in class, often starting at 9 am and ending around 4. On Tuesday I have a cooking class which is a lot of fun. There are around 12 of us that all cook traditional Czech cuisine together and then have good conversation as we eat our meal. Having this cooking class along with a Czech language class is starting to give me a good grip on the culture here.
On Friday, two of my friends from Miss Halls School (Emma and Sandra) and I planned to meet up in Copenhagen for the weekend. I was very excited to see them again since it had been almost four years since the last time I had seen one of them! I spent quite a bit of time at the airport on Friday, but was so happy to see the girls again.
After making our way out of the airport and to our hostel, we headed out on the town in search of dinner. We walked to the center, near the City Hall and Tivoli Gardens. After dinner, we met up with an former counselor from camp, Jeppe, and he walked around with us for a while, showing us a bit of the city, and giving us advice and tips for seeing the most of Copenhagen. It was so good to catch up with him and meet his girlfriend.
The next morning, we decided to rent bikes from our hostel. This proved to be the best decision we would make during our whole trip. Copenhagen was a bit more spread out than I was imagining, so having the bikes made it so easy and fast to go from point A to point B. Our first stop on Saturday was to the stork fountain that we saw the night before. We had been told to use this as a landmark to get to Nyhavn, so from there we headed to the colorful houses.
Nyhavn was absolutely beautiful. Luckily we got some blue sky while we were there which just made the bright colors of the houses even brighter and warm. When I first thought about going to Copenhagen, this image of the colorful houses was on the top of my mind. I low-key thought all of Copenhagen looked like this, but made me appreciate it even more that it was just this small canal.
From Nyhavn, we rode our bikes to Christiania. Christiania is self-proclaimed autonomous anarchist district that is most well known my tourists for cannabis. We weren’t interested in that aspect of Christiania, but it was interesting and eye-opening to see this community of people just doing there own thing in the center of Copenhagen.
After being a bit intimidated by the atmosphere in Christiania, we quickly headed to to the Amalienborg Palace (the home of the royal family), to witness the changing of the guards. It was a traditional ceremony of the new guards marching down the street and taking the place of the others. It lasted quite a bit longer than I was expecting, but afterwards the square in the middle cleared out and we were able to get some pictures.
We started to get a bit hungry, and decided to meet up with one of Emma’s friends for a late lunch. We hopped onto our bikes and rode out of the center to a very cute cafe called Mad & Kaffe. It felt very cozy, or as the Danes say, hygge, and the food was absolutely delicious. After sitting and chilling for a bit, we asked for some recommendations on what we should do next and planned to see Copenhagen from above.
We rode our bikes to the Christiansborg Palace which is the tallest tower in Copenhagen, and the home of the Danish parliament. Since the tower is free to enter, there was quite a long line, but after about an hour of waiting, we finally made our way to the top of the tower. The sun had just set and the views were gorgeous.
After visiting the tower, we headed back to our hostel to hang out for a minute and get ready for dinner. Earlier that day, we discovered that we had another friend from Miss Halls who was studying in Copenhagen for the semester and decided to meet up with her for dinner. We went back to the center to meet up with her and had dinner at the Tivoli food hall. It was nice to catch up with her and meet some of her friends who she met while in Copenhagen, but Emma, Sandra and I were completely exhausted from a full day of touring the city.
The next morning we checked out of the hostel and headed towards the water to tick off the last item on our Copenhagen bucket list: The Little Mermaid. We walked for about an hour to this relatively small sculpture, which we were told would be slightly disappointing. The sculpture is a Copenhagen icon and is based on the story by the Hans Christian Anderson. I’m glad we made the trip out to see it, but I probably won’t go back if I venture to Copenhagen again.
After visiting the mermaid we walked with our suitcases back into the center to the central train station. After some advice from Jeppe to take the train rather than a taxi, we all agreed that we’d rather save a few bucks and walk for a bit than shell out some cash for a taxi. The train was super cheap and relatively easy and I’m glad we made that choice.
My flight didn’t take off until around 9 pm, so I had a lot of time to chill in the airport, but I enjoy both my own company and airports, so I was content. I shopped around for a bit, found a deck of cards to add to my collection, and watched a few movies before my flight took off. Then I was back in Prague, making my way back to my housing all by myself on public transport. I’m really starting to get this city living thing down. Mom, you’d be proud.
This weekend I’m heading to The Netherlands to visit my family and to show my friends around Amsterdam. I’m super excited to see some friendly faces and to finally hold my Dutch passport in my hands! Its gonna be a good few days.
Sorry that this post was a bit late, it was another great week in the books! I’m starting to count the weeks until my parents come and I get to show them around Prague. This whole experience is going by so quickly!
P.S. I’m updating this blog weekly, but you can follow my day-to-day adventures on Instagram: @aninavdv
CHASING BIG DREAMS 