Sweet Scandinavia

Our second weekend in November was spent in beautiful Scandinavia! Guidebook in hand, Pam, Jenny, and I headed off to the airport for our flight to Copenhagen. We were going to spend half the weekend in Malmo, Sweden and the rest in Copenhagen, Denmark (Yes, believe it or not, Denmark is considered part of Scandinavia!). After a minor setback in the Frankfurt Airport, consisting of us running to the gate only to be told the doors closed minutes before, we landed in Copenhagen only a few hours behind schedule. We exchanged our Euros for Swedish Kroner, grabbed some Starbucks (!!!!!!), and boarded the train to Sweden!

Malmo is a quaint town only a half an hour train ride from Copenhagen over the Oresund Bridge. I was absolutely thrilled to go to Sweden due to my Swedish heritage! Upon our arrival, we dropped our bags off at the hotel and set out to explore Malmo. It was freezing cold, so I was grateful that my mom brought me my ski jacket when she visited. We walked around Lilla Torg, the little square, before heading over to the Malmo Museum. It wasn’t even four o’clock before the sun started to set over the little town. We walked over to the edge of the town that sits on the water and got a view of the famous turning torso building and bridge we came over. By that time it was pitch dark, so we decided to head back. We stopped by the ice hockey rink to watch a boys team practice for a couple of minutes and then jumped in a cab back to the hotel. We relaxed in the hotel for a bit and watched Twilight, the first movie in English I had seen in a while. For dinner, we ended up at Mello Yello Bar and Restaurant in Lilla Torg, written up in my handy dandy Scandinavia guidebook. The restaurant was packed, clearly a spot where the locals hang out. Upon telling the waitress that we wanted dinner, she kicked several Swedish men out of a table and sat us. The men said something to us in Swedish as they got up (I can only imagine what they said, but we really had no idea the waitress was going to kick them out!). We ordered a couple of ciders, apple and pear, our new favorite drink on the trip, and some French onion soup! After dinner we headed back to our hotel to get a good night’s rest for the next day!

Sweden at Sunset

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early, grabbed breakfast at the hotel and saw St. Peter’s Church before boarding the train to Copenhagen. Once we arrived in Copenhagen we grabbed lunch in Nyhavn, the colorful 17^th century waterfront canal district. We walked around the Christmas markets and even bought matching earmuffs to keep us warm! (Probably one of my best purchases in Europe thus far). We then jumped aboard a canal tour, which we heard was the best way to see the city. We saw basically all of Copenhagen from the water and decided that Nyhavn was definitely still our favorite area!

Nyhavn

After the tour we went to the Carlsberg Brewery, where we learned the entire process of making their beer. Our tour concluded with two free drinks, where we sampled the regular and Christmas brews, ultimately decided we liked the Christmas one the best! Fun fact: the Carlsberg USA offices are located in New Canaan! Instead of taking a cab back into town, we decided to walk. According to someone on the street, it was supposed to take us 20 minutes to walk from the brewery to Tivoli Gardens, our next stop. Well, 45 minutes later we had found the gardens (thank god we all had our ear muffs with us for that frigid walk). Tivoli Gardens is essentially Christmas Heaven. There were Christmas lights and trees galore. Christmas music was playing, people were wearing Santa’s hats, and the smell of gingerbread was in the air. We grabbed some glogg (hot wine) to keep us warm as we wandered around the Christmas markets.  It was hard to believe it was only the second weekend in November- it wasn’t even Thanksgiving in the United States yet!

Tivoli Gardens

After getting in the Christmas spirit, we were off to the Ice Bar Copenhagen. BRRRRRR…we were outfitted in giant, insulated robes and gloves, but they barely did a thing. It gives me the chills just typing about it now. We lasted maybe 25 minutes inside, dancing to try to keep warm, before deciding we needed to thaw. Just when we thought our evening was coming to an end, we were walking back to our hotel when we met a bunch of Danish boys wearing Santa’s hats. The boys had their Christmas luncheon at school that day, and were still all dressed up, explaining their hats. It was actually very interesting to talk to them, as we learned a lot about the Danish culture (they love almonds, Michael Jackson, and playing the freeze dance even at age 21). Before long it was time for us to go home and get to bed, as we were exhausted from our long day of sightseeing.

Pam, Jenny, I at the Ice Bar

New Danish Friends!

The next morning after breakfast we headed to the gardens behind our hotel and walked around Nyhavn some more. I love how Sunday mornings are so quiet in Europe, as we felt like we had the whole city to ourselves. It was finally time for us to leave, so we hopped on the train to the airport, looking forward to getting a Starbucks (with the signature red holiday cups!) for the plane ride!

xx