Copenhagen
The next 2 days, I explored Copenhagen armed with a guide book from Inge - which was in German, coolly enough. I walked to places, first to the Søndermarken (featured in the film I Kina spiser de hunde (In China They Eat Dogs) as the best place to bury somebody if you kill them accidentally), and from there on east towards the city center. I visited the Tyco Brahe Planetarium because the guide book said it was really good, but what a waste that was! They did have an IMAX theatre, which showed the vistas of the Swiss Alps and made me thought "Hey, maybe that's a cool place to go on vacation!"...
Come to think of it, Copenhagen is probably the only city I know where they have a lively amusement park is in the city center.
Next I walked to probably the real center of the city: the big square outside the City Hall, which was also close to the main train station, and Tivoli, a big amusement park (this was conveniently across the street from the train station, making it a great destination for tourists). There were Hare Krishnas there, making a recruiting effort. The guy on the stage claimed because he's a Krishna, he can read your mind.
I walked further to where the most tourists go, the old city center. It felt more chaotic there, probably because of the density, architecturally old buildings and twisty roads. And the hordes of people there!
After this I saw to the popular harbour of Nyhavn, an area (to quote Wikipedia) popular with tourists and locals. Wikipedia was correct; there was a lot of people there. I didn't stay there long though; trying the local food wasn't high in my list. I walked further to the nice, modern harbour area, the Indnerhavnen (i.e. Inner Haven, Inner Harbour), went through the park at Amaliehaven (which, Inge later tells me, she didn't get; it looked weird to her. It didn't feel like a park to me, more like a green area you had to put to pretty up an urban city), and saw the yacht "Double Haven".
The yacht was a cool one. It was long, colored clean white and just slick looking. Next to it I saw a man in blue overalls smoking, looking like a machinist, so I approached him and asked "So, is this your boat?".
Of course not, but he works on it as the second engineer. Unfortunately I didn't write his name, he had the look and manners of an Englishman, but he said, to my bewilderment, he's from Hong Kong. (The fact that I can't believe this, surprises me.), and so is the boat, and her (the yacht's) owner. I thought of asking who the owner is, but I thought I would've forgotten it, and I can just google it instead. Apparently it's a mystery, but I'm pretty sure it's not Jean Claude Van-Damme as some people in the internet guess). But the man told me the owner's very rich (well, duh, obviously), he and his wife have at that time (Summer 2007) been travelling on the ship for two years, and he manages his business from the ship. Damn, two years! They came from Hong Kong to the U.S., then South America, and its previous port was Oslo (the internet provides so many things, including its itenary).
The yacht was docked in front of a 5-star hotel, so I asked the man, "So do they sleep in the hotel or on-board the yacht?". His answer: "Oh they're in Berlin at the moment. Flew there with a private jet.". Flabbergasting!
After talking to him, I wondered what else I could see. To the north is the statue of the Little Mermaid, but I've seen it before, when I went with IAESTE in 2004. Besides, by this point my legs were hurting, and I realized Copenhagen was bigger than the impression I got from the map. Adding to the problem was the fact that Inge was going to be out to have dinner at her friend's until about midnight, and it was only 9:30 PM at this point.
So I walked around a bit more, and took some pictures. With my tired legs I just ended up sitting on a bench at the square outside the City Hall (where the Hare Khrisnas were). It was a warm night, despite how north we were. Sitting there I saw something astounding: every few minutes, a person would show up, each time a different one. He or she always looks Chinese, carries a shopping bag, and a battery-powered bicycle lamp. Then this person walks to each garbage bin, turns on the lamp, and looks inside. They were collecting cans and bottles for the refund. Damn, I wonder(ed) who these people are, homeless people, illegal immigrants, legal ones? People collecting bottles also exist in Germany, but I've never seen them with bike lamps before!
Finally it was time to go home (luckily earlier than I thought). After chatting with Inge for a while, we slept.
The next day I set out to walk to Christiania. The weather was changing all morning, so when it looked like it stopped raining, I finally went out.
The first stop was to a cemetary near where Inge lives. Yes, a cemetary. It's a nice one, with some famous people buried in there. Gee, I wonder why that would be interesting at all, actually. Interestingly, it's called Assistants Cemetary (Assistens Kirkegård in Danish), because it assists the (probably full) main cemetary. Most famously, Hans Christian Andersen, the famous author of children's books. There's also Niels Bohr, the famous physicist.
After the cemetary I walked (my legs feeling the ache, having had not enough rest) to the direction of Christiania, which is on the other side of the city centre (east). (Copenhagen's really big!) But on the way there, it started raining. Badly. Really badly. After waiting and taking cover, I ended up going the Round Tower. It's a unique tower, in that it doesn't have steps going to the top, but it's all a smooth incline. Legend has it it's so people can ride up the tower on a horse and carriage. On top of the tower there is an observatorium, an old one where most of it was made out of wood! I tried to step out to the platform to take pictures, but it was so wet that it just annoyed me. The scenery was cool though, with the city spread out, every once in a while church towers would stick out of the landscape of roofs.
After spending a few hours there waiting for the rain to stop (it didn't), I braved it and went out again. Walking across the abandoned city centre, it started raining again, so I got fed up and went back to Inge's place.
We spent the evening cooking (or Inge cooked, a cool, I think Bulgarian it was, recipe for soup) and eating. The next day I was to embark on the next leg of my journey, to Oslo! After managing 628 km between Karlsruhe and Hamburg in a day, I was optimistic that I would be able to do Copenhagen to Oslo, 608 km, in the same time. How wrong I was...