Copenhagen!

Hello!

It's been a while since I last blogged (almost 2 months ago!) but I've been busy since I landed in California. I spent the first three weeks helping my parents move houses and spent the last four weeks starting off my third year at UCSB! While everything has been very exciting, I haven't had the time to sit down and write my last few blog posts. It might take a while, but my goal is to get at least 1-2 more blog posts out by the new year!

Since Gothenburg is on the southern west coast of Sweden, a bus ride to Copenhagen only takes four hours - making it perfect for a day trip! So Alex, my fellow intern, and I decided to go on August 30th (ages ago) and spent a slightly rainy, sometimes sunny, day in Copenhagen.

One of the first things we saw in Copenhagen was people swimming in this canal. I'm still not sure what the race was for, but we saw well over a hundred swimmers. It is really cool to see so many canals/rivers/public water spaces in the Scandinavia that are clean enough for people to swim in, even in capitol cities like Stockholm and Copenhagen! 

Then we accidentally ended up in front of the Royal Palace in Copenhagen. It was huge! While things in America are often bigger, we don't have any official palaces to compete with those I saw across Europe.

After seeing the palace, we walked through the shopping district of the city and even saw a Disney Store! It was really cool seeing so many brands that I recognized, but I had to stop myself from shopping since I had a weight limit for my luggage on the trip back to the states. 

This little cafe had the best chicken sandwich I've ever had! The chicken was cooked perfectly and the sauce on top was slightly creamy and absolutely delicious. I can't remember what the name of the cafe was - but part of the fun of traveling is finding new places to eat, even if they are good or bad. 

I had a random mission when I was in Copenhagen - I have a teacher from high school who collects Rice Krispie boxes from other countries. I knew she already had a box from Sweden and Norway, so I decided to get her a box from Denmark. I went to three grocery stores before I found it and then put the box in my backpack. Trouble was that it rained a bit later that day and the box was a little water-damaged when I got back to Sweden. Luckily it made for a good story, and it turns out that my teacher was in Copenhagen that same summer and went to three grocery stores, and still didn't end up finding a box of Rice Krispies! 

It turns out there was a Gay Pride festival in Copenhagen the weekend we visited. Below are some pictures from the Gay Pride parade. It was so cool so see so much support for the LGBTQ community and people in the parade looked like they were having so much fun! People on the floats were tossing out fliers and other random stuff and each float had their own theme and music playing. 

Our next stop was to visit Old Town Carlsberg where we got to see the Elephant Gate! The Carlsberg Brewery was founded in 1847 which was the same year this gate was completed. There was a lot of cool artistic looking buildings on this part of the city. 

Our last stop before catching the bus home was Trivoli Gardens! This enchanting park is the world's second oldest amusement park and its surprisingly close to the train station, making it the perfect last stop!  

Trivoli Gardens is known for it's amazing restaurants. We decided to visit Wagamama where I had this delicious spicy curry. I would definitely recommend the food here since everything is made fresh to order and delivered to to you as soon as it's made!  

This park was just magical! It was really cool to see some amusement park rides mixed in with some old style restaurants and carnival booths. I actually went on the spinning ride (pictured 3 pictures above) and got a great view of the city! When I saw this palace lit up at the end of the night, I really wished I was a fairy tale princess so I could live in a place this pretty! 

The day trip to Copenhagen was really fun, but it's crazy to realize it's been about two months since I've left Europe. I have plans for most likely two more blog posts - one about Gothenburg (one of the best cities everrr) and one about my life back in California post-Sweden (I presented some of the research I did in Sweden at a conference last weekend!). So I have some really exciting things I want to talk about, but I'll just have to post them when I can squeeze in some free time between classes and work! 

Thanks for reading! 

-Dilpreet