food and some other stuff: Trip Report: Denmark, Day 1

On January 6th, we decided to go to Denmark. I bought tickets for the week of April 21st, Ben's birthday. I did tons of the usual research and made spreadsheets and bought the Lonely Planet and Rick Steves books, etc. And then, on February 4th, I found a lump in my breast. One of the first questions I asked my breast surgeon, who gave me the official diagnosis, was, "Can I still go on my vacation in April?" She very kindly said, "Let's think about that later after we figure out your treatment plan," which really meant, "You idiot, you have cancer. You cannot jet off to Denmark in the middle of chemo."

Sigh.

Anyway, we had to cancel that trip. After five months of fighting with American Airlines I actually managed to get a full refund for the tickets, which was nothing short of a miracle. By that time I was done with chemo and wrapping up radiation, so almost immediately we were able to re-book. This time, I bought insurance on the tickets. I think I will be doing that for the rest of my life.

So, finally, half a year later than planned. we got on a plane to go to Denmark. Ben has always been kind of fascinated with Copenhagen and I really wanted to go somewhere and stay in one place for an entire trip, rather than road tripping around as we usually do. Denmark is small with an excellent system of public transit, so it seemed the obvious choice for staying put. We would have the advantages of being a great city with lots to see, plus the opportunity to take day trips throughout the area.

Instead of a hotel, I found us an apartment on AirBnB, which turned out to be an excellent decision. It was in a great location, a couple of blocks from the Statens Museum for Kunst (national art gallery), Rosenborg Castle, and the Botanical Garden. There was a bus stop at the corner and it was a short walk to Norreport, one of the big train stations with links to all the major train lines. Perfect! It was also a great apartment.

I noticed this on the hotel websites as well - all your blankets are all folded up like this on the bed when you arrive. ??? I guess they want you to be confident they did the laundry. We each had our own comforter, too, which is a GREAT idea.

Our host, Morten, was super nice - he's a student and rents out the apartment for extra money sometimes. I thought it would be strange to stay in somebody else's house with all their stuff but we got used to it really quickly. Morten invited us over to his parents' house for dinner later in the week, too! We really could not have had a better experience for our first AirBnB.

The apartment was on the top floor (72 steps up!) and the bedroom looked out into this inner courtyard.

This is at the corner by our bus stop.

As usual, we were zombie-style exhausted when we arrived but Ben made me go out and walk around before we could go to sleep.

Danish is actually easier to read than to hear. They don't say half these letters. We met a number of Danish people and every single one was like, "oh yeah, don't even bother trying to make sense of it." Fortunately they are all fluent in English so we didn't have any trouble communicating.

Hot dogs are a big deal in Denmark, weirdly, and we were too tired to deal with a restaurant so we got some from a cart. It was moderately confusing but we figured it out.

The hot dog cart was across the street from Nyhavn, which is a very picturesque area near the harbor. It used to be a red light district but is now mostly just for tourists.