Copenhagen

Today I arrived in Copenhagen, where I’m spending the (Swiss) holiday weekend with Emilie, her mom and her sister. The trip got off to an auspicious start, as the bags that Emilie and her family had checked were literally the first ones to come off the conveyor. We took the metro from the airport to city and it was very comfortable and efficient.

From the metro stop we walked the relatively short distance past the Nyhavn canal towards our hotel. The weather was a bit cold but fortunately it wasn’t raining. Supposedly, May is typically a good time to visit Copenhagen as the weather starts to get warmer and more stable. Perhaps not this year, though, I guess. Regardless of the weather, though, I was able to get some nice pictures.











We’re staying at the Admiral Hotel, which apparently used to be some type of factory / storage facility. As can be seen from the picture below, it definitely doesn’t look like your standard hotel. It’s quite nice, though, and in a way kind of feels like you’re on a boat given the small windows and proximity to the water (on the other side).

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel, we walked back along the nearby Nyhavn canal and found a nice restaurant to have lunch. There were plenty of outdoor spots available with space heaters and blankets, but we decided to find a spot inside instead. In warm weather, the outdoor seating would have been ideal but not so much when it feels more like winter.

Here are some more pictures along the canal...










...and from the restaurant.










After lunch we walked around the old town section of Copenhagen. Despite the cool weather, there were tons of people out. Here are some pictures that I took along the way.




























My first general observation about Copenhagen is that there are bikes everywhere. I had heard that it was a “green” city, but I was amazed at how many people were actually riding bikes for transportation – despite the inclement weather. I can’t imagine how many people use their bikes when the weather is actually nice. And as can be seen from the following picture, theft doesn’t seem to be much of an issue as no one seems to bother locking up his or her bike.

Here's a group of street performers that we saw during our walk. Without a doubt, the guy was playing the biggest guitar (?) that I'd ever seen.

For the evening we had tickets to see My Fair Lady. We made the quick walk along the water from the hotel to the new opera house and arrived with a couple of minutes to spare before the performance was set to begin. One problem – we soon learned that the performance was actually in the old opera house, which was a 10 minute walk away.

We covered the distance in about five minutes, but nonetheless arrived after the show had started so we weren’t able to go to our seats until after intermission. Instead we were escorted to a separate section where all the latecomers are herded in order to minimize the disruption to those who respectfully arrived on time.

The show was interesting, but there turned out to be another unexpected twist – it was in Danish. I’m not sure why we assumed that it would be in English. Perhaps because the whole premise of the play involves the English language! I’m just glad that I had read Shaw’s Pygmalion and seen My Fair Lady before during high school. Otherwise, I would have been completely lost. That said, it was still funny to hear Danish analogy of a cockney accent.