It was finally happening! I couldn’t believe it, getting on the plane, watching as we flew out over the ocean, stepping out into Europe…the first thing I did was walk into the women’s bathroom. I don’t really have an excuse. I think it was pretty well signed. I wasn’t trying to be creepy. I think I was just overwhelmed by the change and I felt obligated to do something stupid. Anyway…after some drama in finding dad, Katherine and Martin were there waiting to welcome us to Copenhagen. We headed into the city and to the Airbnb where we met up with the rest of the crew. Family reunion!
I felt like I was in another world for the whole first day. There are so many similarities to the US but everything is different. The toilet paper is different. The fire escapes are spiral stairs. The buildings are all flush with one another. I felt like I could do the most basic things, just go grocery shopping, and be wildly entertained. Katherine gave me some great advice for long term travel: “Don’t loose your American eyes”.
We grabbed a Korv; you know how it’s tradition that hotdogs come in packages of 8 and buns come in packages of 6? The Danes were like, ‘That just makes too much sense. What if we also made the hot dogs wayyyy longer than the buns?!’ That’s what a Korv is. Korv down the hatch, we went on a low-rider boat tour of the city. The tour boats have to have extremely low clearance in order to sneak under all the bridges. We grabbed some excellent food at Street Food, a huge building filled with various vendors and outdoor seating along the water. I got a danish meal of rye bread with salmon lox and goat cheese. So good! We walked around Copenhagen afterwards, grabbed some gelato and so on. Copenhagen is an unbelievably beautiful city. There is a famous school of architecture in the city and as a result there are a number of buildings designed by famous architects. Add to that the stunning church steeples and old city architecture.
The next day we parted with Jill, Jason, Drew and Lauren, and then headed up to Malmö Sweden. We spent most of our days walking and biking around the city and doing my-now-favorite-activity: fika. It’s a swedish tradition where you get coffee and not-quite-a-meal, so some sweet pastry or an open-faced sandwich. Mininote: frozen fruit is in a cooler than you can open and scoop out as much as you like, like nuts in the states. Cool. Moving on. After taking the train over to Malmö, we had fika at Katherine and Martin’s. It was rye bread, hard boiled eggs, mustard, really good pickles, amazing swedish meatballs, sweet peppers and Bertil-cheese (you either know what I’m talking about or you don’t). You just make mini open-faced sandwiches with whatever you want, but according to Martin, you can’t mix the eggs and the cheese. I did.
One of the days we walked past thing rather ridiculous setup in a small lake where a wire ran above most of the lake and a bunch of pipes and jumps ran in parallel with the line. It turned out you could grab onto a handle attached to the line and wakeboard across the lake. Of course I had to try it. We also got to enjoy a nice day on Katherine and Martin’s sailboat, my first time sailing. I was surprised out how demanding it could be. I could definitely see how it can be a hobby that people get really into. Eventually our time came to an end, and I headed on the train to Copenhagen where I would meet up with Eimi. Thank you so much for the amazing time in Sweden Katherine and Martin!
Adventures of Gallivanter Ganter 