Day 9 - Copenhagen Biking

The day of reckoning had arrived. Sure it was cold, but damn it! We were going to cover some ground on bikes!
Woke up and peeked out through the curtains to see if the weather gods would smile on us. Instead, they sort of just stared, with an unwavering, steely gaze. It was grey, but ok.

We hoofed it down to the cafe attached to the hostel (later learning that you could see customers eating lunch down there, on the security cameras in the hotel's reception). Some meats, yogurt, granola and coffee set us straight.

I couldn't finish my butter, I was so stuffed.

We walked down to the train station and rented bikes for the day. In Copenhagen, bike security is a whole different animal. Instead of Kryptonite type U-locks, the rentals had these little spring loaded things attached. They were like little handcuffs for the rear tires. The rental place guy demonstrated how to lock and unlock the tire cuff, and after exchanging incredulous looks, we pushed our bikes out onto the street. We doubled back to the hotel for some extra layers of wind-stopping clothing (I made Evan wear my American Apparel circle scarf), and pedaled over to Christiania to have a look see.

It was kind of what I'd pictured it would be - part Berkeley, part Mad Max.

There were signs asking people not to take pictures, in respect for the residents, so I don't have any from this part of the bike-about.

EXCEPT for when we got to Morgenstedet, the vegetarian restaurant. So cute, cozy and peaceful.

And awesome food for the right price! If I had a tail, it'd have been wagging after this meal.

We biked up to the Kastellet, and felt the full force of the grey spring breeze while stopping by the water to take some pictures. Then we made an arc back eastward, somewhere between Østre Anlæg - the park with the serpentine-y lake thing - and some pretty canals. It was kind of like biking by the Ala Wai - except there more bikes, the waterway was maybe 10 times the size, and the buildings lining the opposide side were waaay bigger. Didn't stop to take pictures, 'cause we were trying to get a peek at Nørrebro before the bike shop closed.

We jammed across the bridge to Nørrebro - home of trendy shops and the Danes' favorite place to riot - cuffed our bikes and speed walked up and down a couple of streets. I ran into this store because it had a cool tie-die jumpsuit thing in the window. Note the sign in the door.

We raced back to the station and made it just in time to unload our rentals!

As we walked up the stairs to the street, it started to sprinkle slightly.

We walked back to our hotel in the waning light.

And rested a bit. The white wrinkly mass on the bed is Evan-the-cocoon, power napping.

I took the opportunity to document the bathroom, an S S S - S**t, Shower and Shave. The token curtain didn't really do much to keep the rest of the bathroom from getting flooded. Whatever - I was just glad we didn't have to march down the hall for everything!

Eventually we got moving again to hunt down dinner. We came back to the same area, as it had the most promising dinner options, and I had to take a picture of the totally impressive wall at the end of J&J's street - apparently built so high as there used to be? a shooting range on the other side.

And for dinner we had my new fave - kebab!

They gave us lots of fries. One of the guys who worked there was drawn by our American accents - he was super friendly, but I could only really understand like 40% of what he was saying. And I'm not sure, but I think he was trying to convince us to look into going to school in Copenhagen. We worked on the fries for a good long while, and headed back for even more sleeping.