København, Denmark
another day, another hangover. i haven't made it home sober successfully since i've been here. you would think copenhagen would have provide the requite i so desperately needed before berlin, and, well, after amsterdam, but it seems to be the exact opposite. despite mathilde insisting that she wouldn't be able to go out since she works every day that i'm here, she has only gone into work once since monday and has been out with me every single night. granted, i stay out a few hours longer than she does, but she has been right there with me for the most part.
as soon as she and her mother picked me up at the train station, we went to check my pack in left luggage then hit the streets walking. we went down strøget, the walking street, and stopped for lunch on the canal at nyhavn, where mathilde's mom graciously treated us to lunch. oh, and to my first carlsberg...the first of many, many more to come. then we caught the metro to christiania. we had coffee at the 'world's safest cafe' (due to the fact that they have had something like 2000 police raids in the past decade) and then walked around the water looking at all of the self-built homes. then we caught a bus to see the new opera house and then headed back to the train station to grab my pack. then we were finally headed to mathilde's apartment, phew.
mathilde's mom left us money for dinner and went with mathilde to run errands while i organized my pack. i took a nap after mathilde went to pick up philip, which was nice because i had just spent eighteen hours on trains and more than a few hours on my feet walking around copenhagen. when i woke up it was to a fully cooked dinner, a box of wine, and then a bit of reminiscing about amsterdam. philip was really sweet, but his english got weaker and weaker has his sobriety diminished. ultimately i had to go to call it a night once the wine started to settle into my veins...and i drifted into sleep with every intention in the world of making it an early morning.
early turned out to be 10:30 by the time i showered, ate, and attempted to make iced nescafe, which was disastrous and awful. i got to the station, spent ten minutes staring at the ticket machine that was only in danish and apparently only took change. i went to a coffeeshop in the little strip near the station to get some change, a cappuccino to get things going, and then a friendly conversation with a barista later, i was on my way. i went to the national museum, and i was absolutely blown away. this place definitely made up for everything that amsterdam had been missing. i completely geeked out and ended up staying until it closed, a good six hours later. after that i went to the round tower, took a bunch of photos and stressed over the fact that my phone was not working. after getting on the wrong line in the completely opposite direction of mathilde's apartment, i finally made it back half an hour late.
we tried to go to this traditional danish restaurant, but when we finally got there the kitchen was closed, but they sent us to another place - rio bravo. we were told if we took a certain bus and got off right near tivoli we would see it, but we ended up walking around the same few blocks over and over again. eventually we found it, and it was definitely worth the walk. i had the same thing as mathilde (she ordered for both of us) which was this pork and potato dish (gasp! i was put into a culturally awkward situation where i had to eat meat. eck) which was surprisingly good, but between that and the beers...and the fact that it was a more than generous portion, i was absolutely satiated. surprisingly, the meat didn't really make me that sick, just sleepy. we ended up walking around looking for a place to go out, but it was a tuesday night. we found a 'student' bar with cheap take away beers, and after struggling to make it up to the bar, we finally got some tubørgs and made it out to the street where i sat on the curb chatting with some guys we had taken to be from central or south america. it turns out that they were swedish! between them and the germans, i was some kind of side show being from texas, and after a while it got really old.
eventually mathilde said it was time for her to head home and get some sleep before work in the morning, and i wasn't so into staying with these tourist boys by myself, so we grabbed a taxi home together. come the next morning i somehow managed to have my first real hangover of the trip, though i probably drank the least that night. i woke up around nine, got ready for the day, and then headed over to øosterport to see the danish resistance museum for world war two. it was really well done and very moving, but i couldn't help but laugh when there would be ten lines of danish captions on an exhibit and the english translation would be all of five words. after that, i walked into the nearby church, anglican with pointed arches and all, and then walked around churchillparken for a few minutes, taking in the swans, water lillies, and heaps of tourists. then i walked over to the stork fountain at strøget and waited to meet up with mathilde for lunch (she hadn't gone to work after all).
we grabbed pizza at a little hole in the wall place near a whole strip of secondhand and new age stores which we had dropped into. we then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, then headed over to nørreport where we stopped at a cafe for a coffee, which turned into another coffee and then a few beers. we ended up running into a few of mathilde's colleagues at the cafe and her friend sara , all of whom were very nice. sara wanted us to stop by her art exhibition, but by the time we had gotten ont o the internet at the hovedbibliothek, it was time to head back to valby, where we got ready for the night in a grant total of five minutes. we then headed to darlings to meet up with stephan, whom mathilde had met at roskilde, and who had graciously offered to take me out for the night. when we got to darlings, leigh was there and he ended up leaving with mathilde for the art exhibition when i left with stephan for vega to see tv on the radio.
stephan and i had a few more drinks (and shots of a honey vodka) before we left for vega, and by the time we got there, the band was already four songs into their set. the crowd was a bit rowdier than i was expecting for this kind of show, but it was rather fun. i got us all the way up to the front, which made stephan ecstatic, and we just danced and danced until the show was over. we headed back to darlings and chatted with anne before we headed to jolene's in the meat packing district, where we met back up with mathilde and leigh. eventually mathilde had to leave again, and i went back with leigh much later in the night. come morning, i was really down and upset and i went back to valby, showered, got dressed, and took a nap before finally making myself get back up around 2.
i found a cafe near the round tower, which turned out to be a lesbian bar, and sat with my latte until i had updated everything about amsterdam. then, i walked around a little bit, and then headed back to valby to meet up with mathilde and to get ready for the farewell party. i was still in an awful mood and almost didn't go to the party but i figured, why not? we stopped at an italian place, and then met up with monty and all of his friends at a pub. minus the fact that most of the guys were going on in danish with no regard for the fact that i was left out (until i made them include me), it was all good fun. i had a few shots, including a round purchased by a really silly group of boys, one of whom later gave me a bouquet of plastic flowers, and i had a few really good conversations about music and the like. all of the nordic names were really giving me a hard time, so between that and the alcohol, most of what i have to show from the night are a bunch of faces and numbers without names attached. after the pub we went ot rust, which was like heaven on earth. i danced with this guy caspar for a long time, and he really wanted to go elsewhere, but louis won out in the end when i didn't want to leave with mathilde around four. i was going to crash with theis but louis (monty's cousin) convinced me i was better served crashing on his couch instead of trying to get back to valby. all of these guys are copenhagen's young elite, and needless to say i felt more than a little out of place in his apartment. i left around a quarter to 2, and then just chatted and watched tv with mathilde until she left around six to go to the festival in jutland. i had all these promises of being shown a good time, but none of them went through, but one night off from drinking wasn't all that bad. it was actually really needed, to be honest. i couldn't afford to go to the hardcore festival with mathilde anyway, so i was better served staying in copenhagen.
i got up at eight on saturday and went to the statens museum for kunst, which was really hard to taken in - there was far too much to try and absorb. from there i went to the king's have at the christiansborg palace, where i think i inadvertently saw some of the guys from the night before. then i climbed up the tower of the kirke near christiania which has stairs you can take all the way up on the outside of the steeple. it was quite terrifying, but the views were unparalleled...you could see all the way to sweden since it was a clear day. then i went to christiania, had a beer and met renee and anas. we had a few drinks, hit up one of the stalls near nemoland and then sat at woodstock before heading to the main square, where a giant show was going on for the world out games. we grabbed pizza from a stall and another beer, then smoked under the ferris wheel and i started to panic. then i headed back to valby around ten after catching a few more bands, still really out of it from all of the hash, wasn't packed, and didn't really want to see monty in this condition, so i stayed home watching reruns of weeds. woke up early this morning, went to københavn station, made my reservation to berlin, but i don't leave until tomorrow, which i am kind of bummed about, but i think that means i will get to see mathilde one more time. i feel like i am wasting my time here today, but i am trying not to dwell on it. each passing days means one less adventure in my travels ahead, which makes me a little sad. i haven't been having the trip i was expecting at all, but it has still been nice. if nothing else, i probably wouldn't be able to afford to stay in copenhagen this long if i had come by myself, so i guess using this opportunity while i have the chance isn't really a waste after all. plus, i love mathilde so so much...i don't want to leave her.
after leaving the train station i went to øosterpark, back to churchillparken, did the tourist-y thing by going to see the little mermaid, walked through kastellet, then down along the canal, past the opera house, and then just happened to be passing through amalianborg palace during the changing of the guards. then i went to the marmorkirken, walked back to strøget, which brings me all the way up to the present - sitting at a cafe, writing. i realize now that i'm missing two events in my recollections - one, some kirken i dropped in during the day that mathilde and i went shopping and two, going out by myself on friday, seeing another out games concert near the round town at the antwerpen stage, and then having a large cappuccino in the square near the nørreport station. those incidents aside, i think my accounts are complete. at the next place i stop to write, it will be time to reflect, not just document.
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