- Most children under the age of 7 or 8 seem to wear snow suits. There’s no hint of snow, but snow suits are popular anyway. I mean, I saw very few of them not wearing snow suits.
- English is even more prevalent than I expected. It’s woven into everything.
- I’m staying near the “red-light district,” so I went to check it out. It turned out to be a few fairly discreet strip clubs over about three blocks. Amsterdam this is not.
- Bicycles everywhere.
- I missed Rosenborg Castle and the Roskilde Cathedral, and of course Christiana, but I think I did pretty well for three days.
- But where is Reptilicus?
Tag Archives: copenhagen
Nyhavn
Limping to Christianshavn
After the Viking Ship Museum, my plan was to take the train to Christianshavn and visit Christiana, the hippie squatter enclave that’s been there since 1971.
With all this walking, though (32 miles so far this trip), I seem to have strained a tendon on the left side of my left foot, which has me hobbling along like Inspector Clouseau in his salty sea dog disguise.
The bus didn’t show up to take me back up the hill to the train station, so I limped up the hill, detouring a little to walk through the main shopping area and get some money out of an ATM, then took the train and metro out to Christianshavn.
Christianshavn has historic ties to Greenland, and there are three statues depicting life in Greenland. One of them shows someone disemboweling a seal.
Seal guts
From that point it would have been another 20-minute limp to Christiana, plus a walk around, then 20 minutes back, so I would have had another hour of walking, at least. I stopped in a nearby Joe & the Juice to get a flat white and consider my options.
I like weird offbeat jurisdictions and living situations, so I would have liked to see Christiana, but it now has a sort of official status, so it’s less like Sealand and more like a giant Synergy House. Interesting, but not worth destroying key foot tendons to see it.
So I took the metro back to Nørreport station and walked down the Strøget, stopping in a Christmas market to get some gløgg along the way. Maybe a half hour of walking.
Viel gløgg!
Now I’m having brisket and beer in Warpigs for the third night in a row. This is my last night in Copenhagen. Tomorrow I take the train to…?????
Warpigs
Don’t Hæssle the Høff
Tivoli Night! Oh, What a Sight!
Based on the musical interlude from Reptilicus, I was expecting something a whole lot cheesier, but Tivoli Gardens is really nice. It’s the world’s original theme park, built in 1843, and in various ways resembles Disneyland, the old Knott’s Berry Farm, the Santa Cruz boardwalk, Santa’s Village*, and Solvang.
There are restaurants and food kiosks of all types, amusement park rides, midway games, shops, bars, and shows. It somehow manages to appeal to all ages, and even to goofball foreigners wandering around by themselves. I would definitely go again. Several thumbs up.
* The one that used to exist in Skyforest, California, not the real one.
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid is here, but Sebastian is nowhere to be found. WTF, Copenhagen?
The LM
Wandering Through Copenhagen
I took the Rick Steves walking tour, approximately. I saw a palace and the ruins below it, drank some gløgg, wandered through pedestrian shopping streets and Christmas markets, drank some more gløgg, saw the Little Mermaid, got lost in the meatpacking district, and now I’m having brisket and pilsner at the Warpigs brewpub. I haven’t found Reptilicus yet, but I saw a gorilla playing an accordion. I gave him ten kroner.
Christiansborg Palace
12th Century Toilet Drain
Purveyor of Gløgg
Somewhere in or near the Meatpacking District
Not Reptilicus
Copenhagen Central Train Station
Denmark: Fabled Land of Reptilicus
It’s December, so it’s the logical time to go to Copenhagen, because…um…well, I don’t know. But anyway I’m here, staying at an Airbnb in the center of town.
The flight was straightforward enough: Seatac to Heathrow to Copenhagen, then a train to the central station (they all go to the central station), then a short walk to the apartment. Sarah, the owner, wasn’t going to be there, but her friend Shami was going to meet me at the gate and let me in. She gave me his number and I sent him a text when I was on the train.
But he never got the text. Google Maps sent on a bizarre (but undoubtedly efficient) path through the back alleys of downtown Copenhagen and got me to the apartment building, at which point the battery died. I remembered Sarah’s name, but not Shami’s, and I couldn’t see his phone number, let alone call him. And he wasn’t at the gate.
Someone was just coming out of the gate and she helped me track down which apartment it was, but with no one there that didn’t get me very far. So I walked back to the train station and charged the phone in a Starbucks, then walked back to the apartment and called Shami. I had assumed that he lived there, but he lives about 15 minutes away, so I waited in the courtyard until he arrived.
Apartment courtyard
The walk was easier the second time. All I really needed to do was walk straight down from the train station and turn left at the cow. You’d think Google Maps would know that.
This is the cow.
The apartment looks like an American apartment from the 1940s. It’s charming and has everything I need, but it’s small and the walls are thin. The neighbors were having a party when I arrived, and it sounded like it was in the kitchen. It almost was, because there’s a (blocked-off) door to their apartment in the kitchen.
But it didn’t matter, because I hadn’t had anything to eat all day except for an orange and two crackers, so I went out wandering through central Copenhagen without any sort of plan except to eat something.
I mostly just wandered around lost, but I found a small Christmas market and had some currywurst and gløgg. Gløgg is spiced wine, and they added some rum to it, so I’m going to say that’s why it took me so long to find my way back to the apartment.
In 1962, Copenhagen was nearly destroyed by the monster Reptilicus. That’s a true historical fact that’s documented in the movie Reptilicus. Anyway, at the end of the movie, a piece of Reptilicus’s tail was all set to regenerate into a new Reptilicus, and that was years ago, so there must be another Reptilicus around somewhere. My quest is to find him. I will begin my search today on the walking tour from the Rick Steves guidebook.