Scandinavia + Netherlands
It’s been two years since I wrote in here! Gasp!! There’s been one more trip to Japan in that time with Joanna too!
Anyway, before I get too caught up in that—this year’s trip!
Copenhagen!
WAS A BEAUTIFUL BIKING UTOPIA. I loved biking there so much! Even though it was cold and around like 6–10°C the entire time, the city was so flat and the bike lines so well thought out. We never got close to hitting anyone or in the way of anything. Even when we were confused, the bike lanes were made such that you couldn’t cross traffic and get in the way if you stayed in the lines.
We ate so many pastries. I also ate the world’s most beautiful chocolate croissant at Andersen & Maillard. Ugh, it was so beautiful. That cafe was so beautiful.
Lydia and I stayed in Nørrebro, the cutest little neighborhood. We also got to enjoy someone’s tiny apartment, which they shared with a kid?? We don’t know. We had two theories going:
1. They have a baby that comes to visit often, or 2. They’re moving out of the apartment.
Because the apartment was smaller than my studio, and they had maybe 1/3 of the things that I own. Just wow. Really makes you re-evaluate the amount of stuff you have…
Anyway, we biked around, visited Assisten’s Cemetery, which apparently is a place people go to hang out in during the summer. Half of it is public, with grave sites from like the 1800s or something like that, the other half is an active graveyard, where there are memorial services. We visited Hans Christian Anderson’s grave and Niels Bohr’s grave. Niels Bohr!!
Went to Nyhavn, visited the beauuuuuuuuuuutiful public library, went to the royal Danish museum which had a cool exhibit on what “modern” life is like in Denmark now with submissions that were voted on by the museum’s FB group. Also a surprise Pika Pika booth. Visited Christiania in the dark, the time when people are there to actually buy drugs instead of be tourists, Lydia biked with a flat for like four miles (two different bikes!). Food hall was amazing, went to a Zara home I think (dat Scandinavian design tho). Also walking around the Halloween themed Tivoli Gardens at night!! They had all these cute kiosks where people were selling their wares and glögg.
Also randomly while walking around Kastellet after visiting the Little Mermaid statue, we stumbled on a drum core practicing. Copenhagen is really beautiful, especially with all the fall leaves changing colors.
I think my favorite part has to be coming home and watching Pitbulls and Parolees on our AirBnB’s TV. That and Say Yes to the Dress which I surprisingly love to watch.
Amsterdam!
Was warmer! But there was a mix up at our Hotel Not Hotel which was a little annoying, but still kinda cool. It’s a very gimicky kind of hotel. Our room door was a bookcase. One thing I like nightmare dreamed about was a fire and then for the rest of the time I was worried that firemen wouldn’t be able to find our room if they needed to… Well, there was no fire.
The canals did make it difficult to navigate since the city was shaped in concentric rings. Also, when you were around the neighborhood that was known for selling weed, you would just smell it everywhere. I don’t smoke bc I am small and I don’t like the way it makes me feel, and I really don’t like the smell. @___@
We had dutch pancakes, ate a lot of pasta, discovered Yogurt Barn which was SO GOOD. Biked some more, but in Amsterdam it’s a bit more chaotic. The bike lanes are clearly marked, but that’s kind of it. They cross each other a lot more, so it’s easier to get startled. Also on the smaller streets along the canals, it’s not clear who has right of way, so a few times there was a car coming from my left or right where I did not know if they were going to stop or if I should stop or what.
Visited the cat boat!! Walked through the Bloemmarket, also went to this BEAUTIFUL, fancy restaurant called De Kas. It’s a greenhouse in the middle of a big park, so it’s just magical because you can see all the park around you outside. Also the food was so good. It’s a set course, but my favorite was the salad. They served it with a raw egg yolk, and I don’t know where that egg came from, but it is the best egg yolk I have ever had.
Museum of the canals was super cool! A great little museum executed really well, had tons of cute stop-motion animations to illustrate how the city was built (they put logs in the ground! Just tons of logs that they imported from Scandinavia), and this dollhouse which was my favorite. One of the rooms of the dollhouse you could look into was the room where the dollhouse was. So meta.
Anne Frank house, jeez man. I don’t think I’ve read the book, so I bought it, and I’m going slowly through it.
Moco museum, a modern gallery kinda deal. Lots of Bansky which eh, I’m never really into since I can’t shake the feeling that he’s kind of arrogant, but the Icy and Sot exhibit was so good. I bought their book even though it only goes up to 2016 and doesn’t have their environmental pieces, which I think are amazing.
Tea at the smallest house in Amsterdam! IT’S SO FUCKING CUTE. Also our host was a surprise historian! He taught us about the history of the house and was a great local host. He told us about how his family was like the fourth/fifth? people to own the home since it was built. Also a proper tea house since it seems that Scandinavia and Netherlands is really into coffee over tea.
Stockholm!
I think this is the point where we were kinda tired from going out all the time. Stockholm again was way colder and even the city bikes were taken in for the season. We took a lot of busses which were expensive (~$5 for a one-way ticket for 75 mins), but the central bus station. THE CENTRAL BUS STATION. Was so gorgeous. It looked kinda like ancient greek pottery.
Stockholm is gooooorgeous. It’s the in-between of the two cities to me. I think Amsterdam was old smashed with new, Copenhagen was mostly old, but Stockholm was like modern old. It didn’t have as many narrow buildings, and way more cobblestones streets and hills. I think biking there regularly would be more difficult. But also, Stockholm is a archipelago city, spread out over small islands. The water’s never far.
Fika everywhere! Unguarded coffee!
We ate Swedish meatballs, walked around the super cute neighborhoods Södermalm and Ostermalm (I think), visited the ABBA museum which was really fun, and the Vasa Museum, which has a 17th century ship preserved from the sea. Like they literally dragged the whole thing out of the ocean and restored it. It’s crazy.
It was also at this time that I discovered that season 2 of Castlevania came out so I ended up watching it with Lydia since she was interested despite all the gore and violence. Season 2 had much more plot going on, way more people, but the animation was kinda stilted. Since it had 8 episodes, it felt like they saved up all the budget for the fight scenes, which were still really good, but I like my dialogue scenes with more than just shots of people eyes. Also, plot was a bit more messy (poor Godbran!). Still, fun to watch! It was interesting to see more of Dracula’s perspective in this one since he was missing the entire first season. I’m really glad they didn’t skimp out on the background artists though. They were A+.
Went to IKEA on the free IKEA bus from central station, which was soooo much fun ahahha. Ate at the nice restaurant (more meatballs!) there and then just walked around. I don’t think we even bought anything, just had fun sitting on things and looking at all the cute children’s furniture and toys. It was so big. So, so big.
And then home!!
I’m so jetlagged rn. It’s like 2000 but it feels like 0200. Waiting on my last laundry load, and then I’m going to SLEEP
