Last weekend was my first weekend staying in Copenhagen in a month! At first I was a little bit disappointed that I was not traveling anywhere, but I definitely needed a weekend to catch up on work and just relax. My first week here, I had gone to a cultural immersion fair and put my name on the Chabad email list, not fully understanding what Chabad was. But from what I understand, Chabad serves as a central place for Jewish activities to occur, in cities all across the world. The Chabad of Denmark welcomes Jews to come for any Shabbat or holiday meals, and being as I have not been the most observant Jew during the holidays these past few weeks, I thought that Friday would be a good opportunity for me to go. Upon arriving I had no idea what to expect, but Sarina had been to other Chabad Houses before. It also happened to be Sukkot, so we shook the lulav and etrog in the sukkah and then headed into services (because we accidentally came an hour earlier than when dinner was). After the service we headed into the huge sukkah they had set up for dinner. To start there was hummus, a tomato/cucumber salad, a beet salad, a cole slaw type salad, some type of zucchini/tomato tapenade, salmon with mixed greens, and of course challah. I was enjoying it so much I could have just had it as my entire meal! Then they brought out chicken noodle soup which I could have done without, and then they brought out rice with a mix of carrots, stringbeans, onions, and meat which was actually good....but salmon and different salads were my favorite part of the meal! For dessert they had soy icecream (no mixing dairy and meat in the same meal) which was really good as well. Afterwards we hung out with other kids from Copenhagen, Israel, and Australia, as well as two other DIS kids. I talked to a girl who was working at a pastry shop in Copenhagen, and I got her recommendations for pastry shops in all different countries! She recommended Pierre Hermes in Paris, so I will definitely make sure to go there!!!
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| Christiania's huge birthday cake! |
Sunday was the 39th anniversary of Christiania, which is a hippy town in Copenhagen. They had bands performing, free birthday cake and hot chocolate (which was amazing), and a ton of people-watching taking place...on my part at least! The town is also known for selling weed openly in the streets (which I found to be the strangest sight ever), so the people that the town attracts are very interesting to say the least, and watching them can be a lot of fun. I had also read an article from New York Magazine that recommended a vegetarian restaurant there called Morgenstedet (translates to "The Morning Place"). I went with my friend Macy for lunch and it was delicious!! I liked it so much that I have already been planning when my next visit to the restaurant will be. Then we waited in a long line for free hot chocolate and traditional Danish birthday cake ...which is layer cake with chocolate shavings, and fresh bananas, strawberries and peaches in between. The quality of the ingredients in the cake was amazing, especially for the amount of people they were serving, and was exactly what I needed to round out my perfect lunch. Afterwards we watched a few bands and dance groups perform and then hung out in a hygge little cafe that had live music. I have really been loving how Danes make all the cafes and restaurants seem so cozy and warm even when its cold and dark outside, so I will definitely have to bring some candles back to Chicago with me!
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| The Princess and the Pea |
On Monday night a popular Danish radio station, Voice 10, was hosting a concert at Tivoli. I had updated my gym playlist with songs by Danish artists last week, before finding out about the concert, so when I recognized the names of 3 of the artists performing, I was very excited, and of course bought a ticket! Sarina and I went to a stir fry restaurant called Wagamama for dinner right before the concert started, so by the time we headed to see the stage it was packed!! Luckily our ticket included the entrance to Tivoli, the concert, and full access to all of the rides, so we decided to scope them out instead.
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| Walking around Tivoli! |
We wanted to go on the spinning swings but the line was extremely long and moving slowly, so we opted for the flying Trunk ride with Hans Christian Andersen's 32 different fairytales. The ride was similar to It's a Small World in Disney World, and each fairytale had little characters depicting scenes from stories. I didn't realize just how many stories H.C. Andersen had written that I know, including The Little Mermaid, Thumbalina, The Princess and the Pea, The Emperor's New Clothes, and The Ugly Duckling. (The ride ended with the quote that is the title of this post.) Afterwards we went on a rollercoaster, got icecream, and walked around Tivoli to see the different restaurants and areas. We then decided to go back to the concert area and somehow managed to sneak into a VIP area and we got pretty close to the stage....or at least MUCH closer than we were when we first arrived. We stayed for a few different artists, and I got to sing along (or mumble along, while pretending I know Danish) to a song by Medina that is on my iPod! We left around 10:30 because we were getting tired and cold, but it was a really fun night and I was so glad I went!
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