Our day in Copenhagen (part 2) (Keir)

After leaving the Christianborg Palace, we joined CanalTours for a boat trip through the habour and canals of Copenhagen, seeing some of the sights.

Setting out - the boats were very long and flat so they could go under the many low bridges

 

  The new Opera House - it has a Maple centre in the shape of a heart

Opera House with maple centre visible

The dome of Amalienborg Palace

 

A better shot of the dome.

 The spire of the Church of Our Saviour - Christian IV ordered this built for Chistianshavn and it was finished in 1682.

A wider shot of the spire

This is part of the Copenhagen Royal Library, known as "The Black Diamond/Den Sorte Diamant"

A glass dome artwork

 

 

Facade on a canalside building

These next few shots show the spire on the top of the old Stock Exchange, it is made from the tails of four dragons twisted together.

This is the front of CF Tietgen's house.  He was the director of the privatbanken fron 1857-1897 and was prominent in alot of business ventures for Denmark.

 One of the ships  on the canal

 The tour went under lots of low bridges.  At one point Kris reached up to touch the roof and Tomas turned around and said "No touching the bridges! Its the rules.." Sure enough it was. Bad Kris

 A replica of the Statue of David outside the Danish Royal Cast Collection - Langelinie Promenade.

 An old crane - formally used to lift the mast sections from boats and ships

 

 The reception area for foreign dignitaries.

 Wider shot of the reception area

 Holmen (The Islet). This was the site of the former Naval Base - Cannon salutes are fired from the Batteriet Sixtus for special occassions.

 Copenhagen's Little Mermaid - made in recognition of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale.  It has had its head stolen twice.

 Decorative Roof

 One of the many bridges

 Once the harbour tour finished, we did a bit of wandering, and found this goose:

(the white one, not the one in the Onka's jacket).
The 'Nordic Goose' was created entirely from recycled buckets

Next we headed to the Tycho Brahe Planetarium but we didnt have time for the 3D movie and the displays were a bit of a letdown.  So we headed for our final destination - Tivoli Gardens Amusement park.  The park was created in 1843 and was apparently the basis for some of Walt Disney's ideas for Disneyland.  It houses several rollercoasters and rides, including the Wooden Roller Coaster from 1914, which still has a brakeman on board the train.  We didnt pay for a ride card as it was already getting late, so we just explored the park, which was themed up for Halloween.

 The big Palace - This was lit up by hundreds of small lights

 The winner and runner-up of the biggest pumpkin competition

 One of the main streets in Halloween Theme

 The Tivoli gates and massive hanging pumpkin

 One of the main dislays - but everything was covered cobweb, spiders and pumpkins

 One of the main walks

 Well we had to come all the way to Denmark, but we did finally find something with Kristine's name on it... now to find mine somewhere..

 The big lake in the middle of the Gardens, including the pirate ship

 The Tivoli Pirate ship

The two jackolanterns looking out from the Tivoli Hotel

We left Tivoli around 6pm and caught the bus back to the Copenhagen airport and then the train back to Malmo.  By the time we grabbed some quick take away for dinner we were all very tired.  The kids slept in until after 7am the next day and I got up around 9am.

We're definately going to have to return to Copenhagen another time to visit more of the attractions and maybe try some Tivoli rides.

Our Day in Copenhagen (Keir)

28-Oct-15
Today was Kristine's birthday, so we decided to make a family day of it and go on a tour of Copenhagen.  It was 300sek (about $50) for us all the catch the train from Malmo to Copenhagen across the bridge (return).  We also got a Copenhagen Card, which was a little pricy, but gave us free public transport in Copenhagen and free access to a stack of attractions.

Our first stop was Den Bla Planet, which is a new attraction and the largest Aquarium in the Northern Hemisphere:

On our way

The centre looks pretty high tech, being made of loops of metal frames and panels.  It is sea-cooled and insulated to try to make it more eco-friendly.

Inside, it was divided into three wings: The Ocean, the Northern Seas and Lakes and the Amazon/Rivers.

It was pretty awesome and had a huge selection of fish as well as a couple of Sea Otters and a massive full wall aquarium that you could walk through via a glass tunnel.

Cameron has a close encounter with a shark - well this one was a model 

 A Lionfish

 Super-photographer in the glass tunnel

The Amazon - waterfall into the pirahna tank

 Looking around outside - the white marks on the horizon are a wind farm near the bridge between Denmark and Sweden

 Which fish are you? Our kids checking to see how they measure up

 You can't go past a good Dumbo-Blaeksprutten.  All exhibits were in Danish, Swedish and English

 Looking down into the Amazon water exhibit - you can view from above or below

Butterflies in the Amazon/Rainforest exhibit

  A school of Piranha - Kris wanted to video this as her screensaver

 A snapping turtle - this guy was big!

 Looking into the big wall tank

 Kristine's favourite - a Japanese Pinecone fish. I wonder how it got its name

 My favourite - these sea snakes anchored themselves in burrows and then swayed like sea-grass

 

The puffins getting ready to jump

And underwater..

 

A gif of the wall aquarium

Once we were finished here we decided to head into the centre of Copenhagen and check out the Christianborg Palace.

The Palace has a pretty long history - it was the site of several castles (Absalon's Castle - 1167, and Copenhagen Castle 1300s) before the first Christianborg Palace was built in the 1700s.  It burnt down in 1794 due to a build up in pipes behind a heating stove and 70 people were killed as well as countless treasures lost.  They then built Amelienborg Palace as a temporary home, while the Palace was rebuilt.  It was started in 1803 and finished in 1828 by King Frederick VII.  The monachy decided to remain living at Amelienborg Palace and the Palace was used for entertaining.  In 1884 the Palace yet again caught fire, possiby due to another backed up pipe.  This time they had installed firewalls, firebreaks and hydrants but there were so many secret passages that the fire brigade couldnt get it under control.  The fire is believed to have started under the Great Hall and the Palace Guards refused to allow the firemen into the Hall as the floor had just been polished.  Eventually they realised that the Palace was lost so they blew up the passage between the Palace and Hansen's Chapel to save the attached church.  This time there was only one casualty and most of the treasures were saved.

A contest was held to see who would design the third Christianborg and this was won by Thorvald Jorgensen and the Palace was built from 1907-1928.  During the construction the builders came across the ruins of Absalon's Castle and Copenhagen's Castle and these ruins were made part of a tour in 1924.

 One of many wall designs

 The door to the audience chamber

 Heading into the audience chamber

 One of the statues

 The roof is held up by a series of statued columns

Its either really heavy - or he saw our kids coming...

 One of the Palace towers

Statue of King Fredrick

 Statues outside the Audience Chamber - Herkules

 Minerva

 Nemesis

 Aeskulap

The Ruins - The Two Secrets - Believed to be drains from the orginal castle

 The Ruins - An old well

We had a quick lunch at the Palace and then it was off to the Canals for a boat tour.  I'll update the boat tour and Tivoli in the next post

We have been out and about!

So, when you say to your husband "We are going to someone's house tomorrow. No, I have never met them, but we have been chatting online", the wheels of dread start to turn in their head.
In my defence, I had 3 tubs of vegemite and a mega pack of timtams to deliver!

We were able to catch a train and a bus (Thanks to the fantastic directions of Rose- the internet friend) out to Lund, where we were made to feel very welcome and able to relax knowing that there were 2 other aussie kids in the house for ours to run and play with, and Rose and David who are 11 weeks ahead of us in this crazy "lets move from Australia to Sweden" thing.

Rose and David took us to the Skrylle Forest, ( www.skryllegarden.se ) where we were able to let the kids run off some steam, chase falling leaves, scare a deer, find red spotty mushrooms and eat raspberries straight off the bush!

Playing around where we stopped for lunch

The many colours of the Skrylle Forest in autumn (thanks Rose for the photo)

On our walk, we discovered the adventure playground with a fort, a flying fox and lots of other bits that would be removed from a playground in Australia for being far to dangerous (and fun).

Waiting for the flying fox

The kids all sat nicely waiting for the flying fox. Unfortunatly we, adults, realised that it was broken and told the kids- or they could have sat there for another 15 minutes if we let them!

On top of the fort

After we had worn all the kids out, we headed back to Rose and David's, where the kids settled into building lego and Rose and I took off to the shops so Rose could show me what was what, and what to avoid. I am very thankful for all the information Rose has given me since we have arrived- everything from how and where to get a SIM card, where the nearest doctors office is, through to what to use in cooking to replace golden syrup! With her information on where to shop and what I am looking at when I am there, Keir and I were able to confidently head out to Emporium (at Hyllie) to have a look around and do a real grocery shop. Whilst we were there, we found a shop that covered everything except clothes and food (it had bikes, hockey sticks, sanders, lego, everything) and were able to get a clothes airer! The excitement with this seemingly simple device stems from the fact the dryer in the apartment makes our clothes smell like something crossed between vomit and rotton meat- yummy :(

But after a decent scrub, it looks like we fixed that problem. A nice fried rice for dinner, eaten crowded around the iPad listening to the live audio stream of the Wallabies vs Argentina world cup final for a little taste of home. (It's not shown on free-to-air TV and all of the legal streaming options are zone locked and dont work for Sweden.)

Anyway its now off to bed for the kids and time to do a quick sweep and mop of the house before sitting down to work on school enrollment papers and planning some trips to keep everyone sane next week.

Look out Sweden, we have arrived!

I think the words "Oh my, what have we done" have run through our heads at least 20 times a day since we got to the airport.

The flights over were fairly uneventful, I can say that with a clear conscience as I was not aware Keir had been battling motion sickness the entire way from Adelaide to Dubai - due to being unable to unblock his ears! We got to check out the new gadgets on the plane- they have nose and ground cameras, so you can watch the take-off and landing from the nose of the plane, or during the flight, you can check out the view from directly below the plane.

The kids travelled well, they did sleep a little bit on the way to Dubai, probably about 6 hours of broken sleep throughout the 16 hour flight. They were awake for all of the flight from Dubai to Copenhagen. They took this opportunity to try out all the games and movies on the in flight entertainment in the back of the seats. Keir and I slept a little bit, pretty much taking it in turns as to who was awake, so to describe us as shattered on arrival is an understatement!

Once getting to Copenhagen, we got through the airport quickly (for anyone wondering, you don't have to declare 4.4 kg of Vegemite, or 6 packets of Timtams), and we managed to cram our 16 pieces of luggage and ourselves into a tiny 7 seater taxi (which proceeded to demonstrate that speed limits and indicators are optional extras) and zoomed over the Oresundsbron bridge from Denmark into Sweden. The part where we got to our hotel was straight out of a Griswold Family movie. We were dropped off at the place to get the key, only to find out that the apartment was another 1.6km away. Normally this would not be a big deal, but after 22 hours of travelling, and carting nearly 200kg of luggage, it nearly broke us! We did eventually find the apartment (behind the Red Cross refugee staging area- we must have really looked like we belonged there at this stage), only to find that it was on the 5th floor (and we found the service elevator after the first mammoth fully laden stair climb had happened).

After realising that there was nothing to eat in the apartment, we bumbled through getting some bread and milk (i think we cut in on the line at the shop), and stumbled back to the apartment.

But, we found where we were staying, made up all the beds and collapsed for a well needed 14 hours of sleep!

That was yesterday, and today we have been brave enough to go out and walk to the Malmo castle, go to the electronics store and buy an adaptor plug, find a chemist for some much needed Panadol, and find an ICA to do an almost normal priced shop for real food for dinner (last night it was Vegemite on toast). We only got slightly sidetracked once or twice- we never got "lost", we could find ourselves on the map we had, so no damage was done! There may be a few annoyed cyclists around- the kids keep stepping into the path of them!

The never ending "to do" list!

First of all, many thanks to those who came and saw us at the going away party. It was good to catch up with you all before we got too busy to think, let alone socialise! We did plan of having some pictures to put up, we even took the camera, but it stayed in its case the whole time- oops.

In the two weeks since the party, it has been an endless stream of tasks on the never ending "to do" list. Anything and everything has been on the list- from cleaning out the cupboards to cleaning out the vegi patch (if you want any seedlings, they are out the front- help yourself). I am sick of seeing boxes, piles of "stuff to sort", and bugging the neighbours for space in their bins!

We are still waiting on our final papers to clear before we can leave, but we are at the 2 weeks stage- 2 weeks and we will be in Sweden! We are also getting emails through about houses in Sweden, so we are moving one step closer to knowing where we will be living once we get there!

Tomorrows "to do" list is already a mile long, so this is just a short update, sleep needs to fit in somewhere.

Kris.

PS- if you are sending us a Skype request, please drop us an email with the Skype name so we know who you are :)