Journey to Copenhagen, Denmark

A couple of months ago, I was wrapping up in school and Jenning and I felt like going on a vacation. I finished my last placement on August 22/08 and the plan was to take a holiday sometime in September, so that I could study for my National exams all of October. At first, we were thinking of going on a crusie in the Caribbean [*for some reason, my brain thinks it's spelled Car-rib-ean?-- just googled and I was wrong!]) , but as we searched for deals on the days we were available, there weren't many. Most of the cheaper packages were during hurricane season, so we decided to ditch that idea.

Jenning was telling me that his sister G & brother-in-law K, who are currently living and working in Copenhagen, Denmark, were only going to be here for one more year, so we should take advantage of this. Since I just finished my studies, and could only go on holiday with a budget, I thought this was a good idea. I have been to Sweden [which is just north of Denmark] a couple of times and really enjoyed the slower pace of life. The both of us were interested in going on a relaxing vacation, so we decided that two weeks in Denmark would be relaxing.

G&K were asking us if we were planning on going anywhere else in Europe, we said that we'd be interested, only if there were deals. K found a roundtrip airfare deal to Paris for only $80 [taxes included], which we were excited about, so G emailed and told us to look for hotel deals. We spent about a week searching for deals and quickly realized that hotels in Paris are uber expensive (decent hotels avgeraging over $200/night!). Then after all the searching, G emailed back and told us that all the seats had jumped to over $300/person, so we scrapped that idea.

Jenning and I have not created an itinerary for this trip and decided that we would just wing it. So, we have no idea what we will be doing in the next 2 weeks, but we do know that we want to go out everyday and explore as much as possible. We also have a goal of doing a lot of walking and cycling. Copenhagen is one of the world's most friendly cycling cities, I think almost all the roads have bike only lanes, which will make our goal easier to achieve. Also, G&K do not have a car, which is good, because that means we have to walk to get around.

Our journey began on Friday, September 5th. Jenning had to work a half day, so I ended up spending that time packing our bags. G&K had asked us to bring crappy lugggages so that we could chuck it out when we arrived and they would send us back to Canada with nicer luggages which we would give to family on behalf of G&K. We searched for crappy luggages, but no one had any, so we decided on using duffle bags. Luckily, I found one in my parents' basement and Jenning already had one of his own. I managed to cram two weeks worth of clothing for the both of us into one bag and the other was used to store gifts of G&K. Jenning's parents came early and we took them out for dinner. We ended up eating Indian, which they enjoyed, and they dropped us off at the airport.

Jenning had printed our boarding passes at work and realized that our seats were not together (mine was infront of his). We went into the check in counter and the lady told us that we had to go to the gates to ask to switch seats. When we got to the gates, another lady told us to return to the gates 1 hour before departure to switch. K had given us some Air Canada lounge passes, so we went around looking for this lounge. I took us almost ~1o mins but we finally found it. The lounge was really nice and relaxing. The perks included a lot of complimentry food & drinks [including alcohol, but since the both of us don't really drink this wasn't much a perk for us, however, we really enjoyed their finest, Minute Maid Cranberry cocktail!]. The lounge also had shower facilities, business centers where you could use computer/internet/printers, quite areas for sleeping, and tons of magazines. I browsed the shelves for a bit and ended up taking 6 complimentry magazines for the both of us, since we would probably have lots of time to read during the trip.

The flight was not very eventful [thank God] compared to the trip to India. I brought a neck pillow, which was such a very good idea [I find the airplane seats to be not very accomodating for those like myself, who are vertically challenged], for the first time, I was able to sleep for a few hours at a time on the plane [there was also no crying babies this time!]. We all had our own t.v. and were able to select whatever movies we wanted to watch. We watched Just for Laughs, which was hilarious. We started watching Kung-Fu Panda, but only saw less than 30 mins of it cuz the plane was going to land [It was pretty funny, so I need to remember to rent this when we return home]. We had a stop-over in Frankfurt, Germany for 2 hours. The security there was much more strict than Pearson. The little metal button on my pants set of their alarms, but never set off anything in Pearson. Also, I forgot to take out a second bottle of water which was left over from my first flight so that got thrown out. They also opened Jenning's bag cuz they saw funny squares. Jenning told the lady that they were moon-cakes and she read the box and said "Muun-cakes Ah!" and let us go. I think she had no idea what it was but she seemed interested. Our flight to Copenhagen was less than an hour and the plane was not full. All I remember is that we ate a lot on both flights. When we arrived in Copenhagen airport, we went to pick up our bags. It took a long time for the first bag to come out. We waited for ~10 mins and started to think that the 2nd bag [with our clothes] was not coming [I learned to pack a few days of extra clothes in our carry-on, so I was not worried too much if our bag was in fact missing], but since we saw a bunch of other still standing by the luggage belt, we were sure that one more load was coming and it eventually did arrive. The airport was quite busy when we arrived and there weren't any more luggage carts available, so we had to carry the duffle bags on our shoulders. We met G at the arrivals gate and she helped me carry one bag. We took the metro from the airport to their part of the city and the walk to their apartment was not too far.

K met us just as we walked through the front entrance. Surprisingly, I was not too tired and a little bit hungry! G said that she stocked the fridge and that we were going to make Pad-Thai for dinner. The first thing we did was open the gift luggage and gave them all the gifts, we got G 2 pairs of New-balance running shoes which she fit! She told us that her old running shoes were over 2 years old and worn down, so she immediately threw them in the garbage. I went to take a shower after this and once I was done, I helped G&K cut a bunch of ingredients for the Pad-Thai, we finished cooking really fast and had dinner. Jenning had brought hot choclate from Soma, and G selectd the nutty flavoured one, which was very delicious, I thought it was like a mousse [google says I spelled this correctly!]. G had also bought an almond cake, which was pretty delicious and light. I am really looking forward to tasting the famous Danish pastries in the next few weeks. I also have a mission to buy over 10 boxes of Mozart choclates for my family/friends. After dinner, I was supposed to go and unpack our luggages, but when I saw a bed, I said I just need to lie down for a bit and ended up sleeping for ~4 hours. I ended up waking up at around midnight and had trouble falling back asleep. I decided to start blogging to help empty all the thoughts on my mind so that I could fall back asleep. That's why this blog is super long now.

Anyways, the day before we arrived, K emailed and told us that he has to go on an emergency work trip to Hong Kong for 2 days. When we arrived, he told us that he will actually be gone for ~4 days but will return before the weekend. K also told us that he just found out that his company gets discounts on flights, but wherever we go, he has to come with us for the discount to apply. G mentioned Paris again, so we'll have to do some planning in the next couple of days. I found a hotel deal on TravelZoo and will have to see if there are rooms still available next weekend. I hope my mind is relaxed enough now for me to fall back asleep!