København is really pretty.

Ice Skating! See below :)
Yes those are ski gloves. Yes that is a Tardis beanie.

Canals

So the other day after Danish class I went wandering (read: got lost) around the city. I live pretty close to the ‘touristy part of town’ as it was described to me, but then again there are only 560,000 people who live here (and 5.5 million in the whole country—Sydney itself is 4.5 mil), so relatively everything is pretty close. I got off at the metro station I was told and went walking to the right… turns out that if I went left I would have made it where I was trying to go, the longest walking street in the world, Strøget. 

Well anyway, I went right. Went past a few intersections and started heading towards an impressive looking building. Walked all the way around it, then back through it. Thanks to Google (now set for ‘Google Danmark’) I was told it is Christiansborg Palace, which houses the Parliament, PM’s office, Supreme Court, and the Royal stables.  It actually has its own little island, which is cool because there are nice canals that run alongside it.

Strictly regulated trees.

Christiansborg Palace, across the parade ground

Christiansborg Entrance

I left there and went back to what looked kind of touristy, and found my way to Strøget. It’s quite pretty, lots of shops either side. 

Strøget

Found my way to the main town square, Rådhuspladsen, picked another direction to walk, and found my way back to where I was before. 

At Rådhuspladsen (sorry, I didn't take one of the actual square).
I didn't know where I was when I was there.

I then spent a few hours in the National Museum of Denmark, which interestingly has an exhibition on ‘People of the World’, namely not Danish people. So I skipped through that part and went to a Danish section. It was amazing. They had a few rooms where the whole room was a replica of what a room would have looked like in whatever year it was. They had gold treasures and altar carvings and tools and gemstones and original tapestries. And I’ve only done one floor—the Renaissance and Middle Ages. I’m planning on going back soon to do Danish pre-history.

Now that is what I call a drinking horn.
Risking getting evicted for the museum
for taking this picture.
Totally worth it.

 Helpfully, the signs were printed in both Danish and English. The only annoying thing was that there were so many rooms that didn’t really flow logically—and I couldn’t tell which way to go to see everything (like in a dungeon in a video game where you don’t know if the path takes you to a bonus treasure room or if it is the way you are supposed to go to get to the main goal). So I think I skipped a few bonuses as such along the way. Literal ‘get lost in for a day’ material there. I did notice a fold out floor plan map when I entered. I really should have picked one up!

There are also really cool statues and fountains all around town.

I really don't know who any of these people actually are. I should probably find out.

So by this time it was pretty damn freezing outside so I hurried back to the metro station [post about public transport to come!] to come home—being set upon by Amnesty International volunteers in the process. The other end of Strøget pops out... at the metro station, where I would have been had I turned left. But that's cool, I found Christiansborg! 

As part of our University regulated fun (which has actually been really fun), we had an International Buffet that night—everyone was supposed to bring something from their home country. Team Australia supplied Pavlova (made from scratch which kind of collapsed but still impressed everyone {there is no one from New Zealand here}), fairy bread (that I had to explain to various people), lamingtons, ANZAC biscuits and vegemite sandwiches [the lattermost being my contribution].  It is always funny watching people eat vegemite—they kind of screw their face up funny then either keep it that way, or smile, nod and say ‘I think I like it… is that a bad thing?’ It was pretty awesome. By popular vote, Team Mexico won. Their food was pretty nice. Team Denmark had some really nice traditional cake, and there were lots of other good things on offer!

Friday we went ice skating at an outdoor rink. Apparently, it is an athletics track in summer that they freeze over in winter, but I’m not sure if someone made that up or if it is actually true. Either way it was pretty fun. Extremely cold, but THE SUN CAME OUT FOR A BIT AND IT WAS FANTASTIC. We even saw blue sky for most of the day, which was amazing.

It was so cool! (Literally and figuratively).

Anyway, again, I don’t know how regular my updating is going to be once school starts (after next week) but I’ll try to keep you informed. They'll probably get shorter too. Tough. Also you should leave comments if you can! I like comments :)