europe 2013: day five

On Friday night, we flew into Copenhagen and took the train to our hotel. The rest of my family had already arrived and were doing their own thing so David and I walked over to Tivoli Gardens and had a late dinner and walked around for a little bit before going back to the hotel and going to bed.

Most people in Copenhagen cycle as their main source of transportation and I was dying at the sea of bikes everywhere. At first it looked like none of them were locked up and David and I were marveling at the fact that people were trusting enough to do that. Then we later saw that there are tiny locks on the wheels. I wish I could bike around town but it's just not as safe in the US (at least where I live). I have seen so many bicyclists get hit by cars that it scares me. Anyway, enough of that random tangent.

The next morning we woke up early and had a big breakfast in the hotel with my family (we did this every morning and it was a really fun and delicious way to start the day). Beautiful Sarah and funny Mark with a mouth full of breakfast. Mark is one of the family clowns in the family and had us all laughing lots.

Then we all hopped on the train to Frederiksborg Palace and toured the castle. I love the cooper roof and the detail of the chapel was stunning. It was really beautiful inside and out. We also had a very helpful tour guide who told us all kinds of interesting stuff about the art.

This palace holds the Carl Bloch paintings of Christ and since my church uses them in their media and in our church buildings, it was a special thing to see the original paintings of the art I am so familiar with. They are beautiful in real life. I didn't get a good picture of them because the room they reside in is very, very dark. We were all commenting on how we wished that there had been better lighting because we couldn't see very well. Then we found out later that they purposely made the room's lighting dim because the artist wanted the main source of light to be through Christ. I thought that was really special.

Then David and I had our very first Polser. I think just about every culture has their version of the hot dog and in Denmark, it's the red skinned hot dog with grainy mustard, remoulade, pickles, chopped onion and crispy onions on top. It was delicious!

via

After Frederiksborg, the rest of my family went on to Kronborg Castle (a.k.a. Elsinore - which is known for being the castle for Hamlet) or the Open Air Museum. I had been to Kronborg the last time I was in Copenhagen, but I'm sad I missed the Open Air Museum. I heard it really interesting. Even though we missed out on that, we had our own fun plans. I finally got to meet my blogging friend, Senja! I became friends with Senja a couple of years ago (she even sent me this adorable onesie for Fritz when he was born - she's the best!). We have been e-mailing back and forth about potentially meeting up with her in Malmo, Sweden on our last day of the trip since she lives on the south west coast of Sweden but her plans changed so she, her husband, Mikael and their adorable baby, Matilda, came to Copenhagen for the day.

While walking around Stroget (the pedestrian shopping streets), David and I shared a Belgian waffle with chocolate sauce. You guys - it was heaven. I enjoyed it thusly. I realize this is an unattractive picture of me but you need to grasp just how delicious it was.

We found the cutest little children's boutique called Karrusella and I wanted to spend every last dollar I had and buy up everything they sold but I resisted. It was fun to browse with Senja and Mikael and die over the adorable baby shoes that Senja found for Matilda. We had a great time walking around the city and window shopping. I basically mugged on Matilda the whole time because I was missing Fritz something fierce and she is also one of the world's cutest babies. We ended up at Nyhavn and got to see the beautiful, colorful buildings along the canal. It was such a beautiful day and we were so lucky that we got to meet Senja and her family!

adorable Senja and me.

That night we went to Mother Pizza for dinner. I had been put in charge of finding restaurants for us to eat at and everyone really enjoyed it. It was such a cool restaurant with a great Scandavian vibe. We loved it (even though this picture looks like people are annoyed - don't worry, I'm pretty sure they were just involved in really interesting conversation, which was plentiful on this trip).

My poor mom was so tired and jet lagged that she was doing some major head surfing at the table. This was such a "classic mom" thing that we had to get a picture. We were all laughing pretty hard and then she'd wake up and smile weakly and within 30 seconds, she was out again. It was sad/funny. She's the best.