Day 11 - December 27th- Shopping

     We got up early today because we only had two days before departing Denmark. By 10:00 a.m., we had gotten a quick breakfast near our hotel at Café Karisma. Afterwards, we take a short bus ride to go to dennis Saaby Nielsen bike rental. We decided to rent bikes for the day so that we could get around town quicker. It takes over twenty minutes to get to the Helsingør Bycenter, or shopping center. It takes a longer time to get there because Alex barely knows how to ride a bike.
Culture Event:
     Its nearly 11:30 a.m when we arrive at the shopping center, we park our bikes and take time to look in many shops. We bought key chains, magnets and mugs from Inspiration Helsingør. Then, it was almost 3:00 p.m. and we took our bikes and rode toward the coast. We biked along the beach after grabbing lunch at Baran Kücük Yildiz. The beaches aren't overly crowded. When it is nearly 6:00 p.m., we get dinner at Frelsens Hærs Hovendkvarter.
     We get back to the hotel around 8:00 p.m., and fall asleep quickly. We were very tired!

Bikes in Denmark

Day 10 - December 26th - Danish Museum of Science and Technology

Today, we will change hotels; we will leave the capital of the country, Copenhagen, and go to another large city, Helsingor. When we wake up around 10:00 a.m., we get dressed and eat breakfast quickly. We are ready to leave by 11:00 a.m. The five of us walk to the bus stop with our suitcases and wait for the bus. It takes over an hour to get to our second hotel, Hotel Skandia. After we check in, it is nearly 1:00 p.m. We are tired and hungry so we decide to get some lunch.

Science and Technology Event:

We stop at Radmand Davids Hus before visiting another attraction, the Danish Museum of Science and Technology. We explore the interactive exhibits about engineering and industry advancements. After we spend three hours here, from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., we become too tired to continue. It took about twenty minutes to walk from the museum to a fancy restaurant in the Marienlyst Castle, Restaurant Marienlyst.  
Danish Meal: 
     For dinner, we all enjoy a traditional Christmas meal in Denmark, a flaeskesteg. This meal consists of roasted pork, boiled potatoes and red cabbage. The restaurant is located next to the Kronborg Castle, which we will be touring on December 28th. We strolled for ten minutes back to the hotel and got a glimpse. When we arrive at the hotel, it is nearly 9:00 p.m. After talking in the lobby for a while, we go to bed.

Day 9 - December 25th - Christmas in Denmark

     It is Day 9, and Christmas in Denmark! Everyone was up by 9:30 a.m., so we all decided to get some breakfast at the nearby cafe called Sweet Treat. We arrived by bus at about 10:00 a.m. and tried an assortment of muffins, pastries, and coffee, which was much to our liking. We left to go walk around the streets of Copenhagen, exploring many different shops. We noticed the spirit of Christmas was in the air. We had walked from about 10:30 a.m. to about 11:30 a.m. until we decided to go to the Christmas hotspot of Copenhagen, Tivoli Gardens.
Festival Event:
     We arrived at, "Christmas in Tivoli" (our holiday on the trip) at about noon and it was a beautiful sight. The giant Christmas trees go on for as far as we can see and we are nothing short of amazed. We ran into Santa on the way and he said Taylea was on the bad list, and that everyone else would get whatever they wanted for Christmas. We enjoyed a sample of some Danish cookies and other Christmas treats, which went well with the cold weather. Christmas spirit was surely in the air and we enjoyed staring at the beautiful lights and taking in everything Tivoli had to offer. We left at 1:00 p.m., but decided to return to finish our experience once we had finished eating.
     Axelborg Bodega was the restaurant we decided on for lunch, for a Denmark style lunch. We all got the marinated herring, which tasted different but we all still had our fill of it. We stayed from about 1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m., and fulfilled our promise to go back to Tivoli and ride some of the rides.
Sport Event:
     We stayed until 4:00 p.m., and left to go to the famous H.C Andersen Castle. After posing for pictures with the statues, and walking around the site, we left at 6:45 p.m. to go enjoy some dinner. Wallmans Circus Building was the final choice, and it was a great one. We enjoyed a some wonderful Angus steaks and an inspiring gymnastics show along with it. Morgan is a talented gymnast, so she really liked the show. We stayed awhile, and when was over it was about returned to our hotel to wind down and dream about the days to come in Denmark.

H.C Andersen in statue form

Christmas at Tivoli

Day 8- December 24th Botanical Gardens

     We woke up at 9 A.M. to get ready to take on the day. Once everyone got ready, we all went downstairs to eat breakfast. Until 10:30 in the morning, we talked to each other and ate. After we finished eating, we headed to the bus station to get a ride from our hotel to the Botanical Gardens. It was a fourteen minute ride, and it's worth it because the gardens are the most beautiful site we had seen on our trip so far.
Natural Environment Event:
     In the gardens you can see many different types of flowers that are indigenous to Denmark. There were so many variations of the flowers we could see, we were all amazed. We finally finished walking around the Botanical Gardens, so we headed towards the Kaffe coffee shop to boost our energy.
     We took a bus to get there and it was a fun ride. We could have walked, but the weather wasn't the greatest so we decided against it. It was about 4:50 PM when we arrived to the coffee shop. Everyone got some weird coffee that they couldn't pronounce the name of.
     We headed back to the hotel after that to get some rest before dinner. For dinner we decided to order some pizza again, just for convenience. Throughout the night we watched Christmas movies since it was Christmas Eve! Then we finally decided to get some rest so that we wouldn't be tired tomorrow!

The entrance of the Botanical Gardens.

These are plants you would see when visiting the Botanical Gardens.

Day 7 - December 23rd - Genforeningspladsens Ice Skating Rink

     We woke up at around 9:30 AM and sluggishly walked down stairs to have breakfast at our hotel. After eating a wonderful breakfast we rambled back up to out room at 10:15 AM. In our rooms we spent about an hour getting ready for our day ice skating at Genforeningspladsens Ice Skating Rink (sport event). At 11:15 AM we walked to the M2 Metro, and at 11:30 AM we took a 35 minute ride over to the ice skating rink. We had to get off halfway through our journey and get on another metro to go to the rink.
     Once we got to our destination it was about 12:00 PM and time for lunch. We walked a ten minute route from the ice skating rink to Big Ben's Pizzeria for lunch. We ordered two pizzas, one peperoni and the other a Newroz, which is a Danish pizza with tomato, cheese, kødstrimler, mushrooms and gorgonzola. After eating for about 45 minutes, we left the pizza place and headed back to the ice skating rink at around 12:45 PM.
Sport Event:
      By the time we got back, it was 1:00 and we bought rental skates for $13 to skate on the ice for two hours. The Genforeningspladsens Ice Skating Rink was a beautiful place to be in December because of all the snow and, especially, the hot chocolate. We all bought some hot chocolate, provided by Genforeningspladsens Ice Skating Rink, and enjoyed skating. This is the largest ice skating rink in all of northern Europe and it is right in the middle of Reunion Square in Copenhagen. Genforeningspladsen is actually the Danish word for reunion square.
     After having fun skating around we hung up our skates and got back on the metro to return to the hotel. We arrived back at the Copenhagen Downtown Hostel at around 3:45 PM. When we entered our room, we decided that we were exhausted from our day of walking and skating and that we wanted to order room service for dinner and just relax. We could not wait for our next day in Copenhagen tomorrow!

Big Ben's Pizzeria where we ate lunch.

Genforeningspladsens Ice Skating Rink in the snow.

Day 6 - December 22nd - The Royal Danish Opera House

     Earlier in the month, we had all bought tickets to Romeo and Juliet at The Royal Danish Opera House. We had read the play in Ms. Whitsett's English class and were really excited to see it performed. The show started at 8:00 p.m. so we had all day to spend in town.

We woke up around 10:00 a.m. and had breakfast in our hotel again. Then, around noon, we left to explore the streets of Copenhagen. We slowly walked in the toward the Havnebussen Ferry that we would need to take to the Royal Opera House. It took us about 2 hours to reach the ferry; we had taken a lot of time to look in shops and we stopped for lunch along the way. We ate at Told Og Snaps, a restaurant known for its traditional Danish food and paintings on the wall. We all enjoyed are meal and continued toward the ferry. We spent a lot of time in a souvenir shop, Copenhagen Souvenirs. After we paid $25.15 for our ‘I love Copenhagen’ sweatshirts, we headed to the Havnebussen Ferry to take us to the Operaen.

Cultural Event:

     When we get off, it is almost 4:00 p.m. So, we walked around the island and, as we passed "Copenhagen Street Food", we got a snack from several different food vendors with various dishes. As we walked back, it was almost time for Romeo and Juliet to begin. We showed our tickets and found our seats. We all really liked the performance and understood the story even better!

    Pictures: Copenhagen Souvenir Shop, Told Og Snaps Resaraunt, and The Royal Danish Opera House

Day 5- December - 21st Tivoli Gardens

Natural Environment Event:
     Today has been extraordinary! After we had all gotten some rest, we went down to the cafe at 10:00 a.m. for breakfast. We spent an hour talking about and all the fun we had been having, and how excited we are for our upcoming activities. After a great meal, we took a short walk to Tivoli Gardens, one of Denmark's most visited attractions. The weather was very cold, so we all had dressed warmly. It was about 36 degrees Fahrenheit, but with the sun shining, it felt about 40 degrees.
     At 1:00 p.m., we decided to go eat lunch. Not far from the gardens, was a Caribbean themed restaurant called "Pirateriet" which we all decided was a good choice. Alex just had a hamburger, but everyone else tried some of the chicken and salad dishes. Once we finished our meals, we headed back to Tivoli  to explore from 2 to 5 o'clock.
     There were so many decorations and dedicated actors to watch, and we all had so much fun seeing all of the beautiful scenery that the gardens had to offer.
Science and Technology Event:
     Before we completely got lost in the gardens, we left to go to the Tycho Brahe Planetarium, where we stayed until about 8:00 p.m. We learned and saw amazing things about our universe that we had never known before. After we all had our fun, we headed back toward the hotel to try out a diner for a late dinner. Before we knew it, the cooks had let us back into the kitchen and let us help prepare our own food! It was a great dinner to say the least. To top it off, it was just a short walk to our rooms, where we all went to sleep easily, exhausted from another amazing day in Denmark.

Tivoli Gardens on a beautiful afternoon.