Exploring Scandinavia.

It was now Friday the 13th and Melody and I were finally on our way out of Berlin!  We “woke up” at 3:30 AM, though I really don’t believe I truly slept at all since the night before was my birthday and it was a LONG and exhausting night.  Once Melody and I successfully got to the airport for our 7am flight our spirits began to lift.  We chose the correct and direct train to the airport this time, unlike our failed attempts on taking  the same train to the Schönefeld Airport earlier in the week to get to Dresden.  Our flight was quite pleasant considering we were flying on the “budget airline” called Easy Jet.  Our flight was a whopping $54 USD by the way, the cheapest of all our Europe modes of travel!

Once in Denmark, Melody’s friend Adrian (a boy)  met us at the airport and kindly had train tickets all ready to go for us to get back to his apartment.  As soon as I got there I ended up falling asleep for the rest of the morning and early afternoon while Melody and Adrian roamed the city.  I woke up to find an email from Jonas, my Swedish friend I had made beforehand, asking if whether or not I would be visiting him that night. Malmö  is only a half an hour train trip across the water from Copenhagen and since I knew Melody wanted alone time with Adrian, I eagerly packed my backpack and headed out on my own to the train station.  It was very cool because even though Denmark had very little English anywhere, for some reason I found the country very easy to understand in the public transportation sense.  I made it to the train station with no trouble at all and snapped a picture of me proudly standing alone ready to go.

On my way from Denmark to Sweden!

Thirty minutes later I was in Sweden!  I got off the train on the “wrong side” according to Jonas and ended up gazing up at the St. John’s Church.  It looked like a gorgeous church but since it was night I was unable to go inside.  Jonas took me to get Thai food and hung out at his apartment that overlooked the city of Malmö since it was on the 7th story. The next day I convinced him to go back with me to Copenhagen to wander the city with Melody and Adrian.  We wandered around and saw some pretty sights and I got an awesome gray hat.  A hat was one of the main things I really wanted to get on my trip so I was happy to finally find one!  You’ll see this lovely hat in later pictures.    I also got to experience the deliciousness of an actual DANISH.  I wish I had a photo of my own but here is an example of what a Danish bakery looks like:

This is similar to the bakery I went to. They had so many different kinds of goods! It was so popular you had to take a number tag and wait for your number to be called before ordering!

Sunday Adrian took us exploring to the cemetery where Hans Christian Andersen was buried and to Tivoli Gardens, an incredibly old amusement park with some very cool rides and interesting things to look at.   It was about $25 USD just to get in and then extra kroner (Danish currency) for the rides and amusement but I entertained myself just with people watching and taking pictures.  If you’re going to Denmark, I would recommend going there just because of the history and it is a beautiful place just to explore.

Hans Christian Andersen’s Grave… not as spectacular as the ones in Berlin but quite tasteful

Tivoli Gardens opened in 1843 and is the 2nd oldest amusement park in the world!

The only ride I went on was a giant three story tall swing that spun around in a circle.  It was potentially the scariest thing I have ever done in my life and made me continuously scream the whole ride through.  When we got back down the ride operator asked how we liked it and I immediately responded with “I am WAY too old for this!” and trotted off to catch my breath.

The Ride of Doom at Tivoli Gardens

That night we didn’t do much since the day was quite long from the amusement park excitement.  Plus it was super cold that day so it was nice just to lounge around Adrian’s warm apartment and relax.
Monday Jonas invited me out to Sweden again so we could go to the beach and out to dinner.  Going to the coast ended up being my favorite part of the trip because sitting there in the cold sand reminded me a lot of being home.  I have always been very much at peace along water, especially the ocean, so it was really wonderful for me to spend time sitting out and looking at the sea.  It was cool because you could see Copenhagen on the other side.  Jonas took some photos of me and we watched the sun set over Copenhagen in the West.

                                 Swedish sunset overlooking Copenhagen, Denmark

We headed towards a hidden Italian restaurant while it was still dusk and I captured the photos of the Slottsparken (The Castle Park) and had fun feeding the geese and their goslings bit of my trail mix I had made before the trip. Actually I ended up being bit by a duck but thought that was pretty cool as I had never been bit by a duck before.  At least my first bite was from a Swedish duck!  It looked exactly like the standard brown female ducks we have here too!

Slottparken (The Castle Park)

The Italian dinner was the best I have ever had. Jonas ordered a fancy Italian meat plate with mozzarella and bruschetta. It was glorious to finally have meat again since I had been eating so many vegetarian meals with Melody. Plus the waiter was super cute.  I would say that Sweden definitely had a plethora of attractive people but I might be biased.  Germany did too though!  Maybe I just have a thing for tall blond hair and blue eyed men! That night we just relaxed and went to bed early.  Staying at Jonas’s house was great because he had his old bed he was about to get rid of, a super soft queen size, for me to sleep on.  It was the most comfortable I slept on the whole trip and I was able to sleep like an “X” – completely spread out.  I had been sleeping with Melody or on small bunk beds previously so it was quite luxurious to have a whole queen size bed to myself.


I left Malmö the next morning after doing some more sightseeing and taking the photos of the city.  I really fell in love with the small city while I was there.  It had such a peaceful nature to it.  The citizens of the city smiled at me and seemed genuinely happy.  It was clean and not over populated compared to the other places I had been in Europe. I am hopeful to return again one day to see much more of Sweden!
Once back in Copenhagen, I swooped up Melody and the rest of my bags and headed out to the airport to leave for London!  And after two hours of being delayed in our plane on the runway while they struggled to “fix communications”, I finally got to actually leave for London!  Woohoo!  Go Scandinavia Air!  (That flight was $97 to London – Gatwick, an airport I do not recommend flying into because of how expensive it is to take the public transport OUT of the airport)