Easter Holiday in Copenhagen/ Stockholm

I wrote my previous post I was heading out the door to go to Copenhagen where I would rendezvous with my parents and sister and then together we would travel to Stockholm for Easter weekend. I have so much to tell about that trip that I am going to split it into several parts. The first part will be my time in Copenhagen which consists of Tuesday night to Thursday afternoon. Due to length I will most likely also break the part about Stockholm in half however I have not completely decided that yet. I have yet to load all the pictures onto my computer but I had some time to write this text so there are no pictures in this post but I will have another post shortly with the pictures for this part followed by the Stockholm posts.
First I have to say that with the except of one or two days, every day since my birthday has been in the 60s or 70s and sunny here in Denmark which has been awesome. Tuesday was no exception and was in fact possibly the hottest day thus far. I decided to pack a light sweatshirt and rain coat just in case but I could not help thinking that they would be useless because I knew the weather was going to be similar in both of my destinations for the remainder of the week. One interesting thing about the weather here is how it is predicted compared to the US. In the US they choose the model with the most shocking or "exciting" weather because that increases ratings and makes more people check therefore more revenue from advertisements. However this weather is very frequently incorrect. However here in Denmark they do not advertise and can not make any revenue via that media type which is why websites like Pandora or Hulu which excuse copyright information for use of advertisements are blocked. Therefore there are no ridiculous weather forecasts and I find that they often under predict the weather if anything rather than exaggerate it.  For instance if they say it will be 15 and sunny it is likely to be 18 or 19 and sunny or if they say snow showers it is will briefly be dumping snow then nothing other than cold wind.... Anyways so I knew it was going to be warm. Having already familiarized myself with the procedures at Aalborg International ( much like Burlington international in size...) I knew there was no rush getting there and if I arrived a mere 30 minutes before my flight I would have no problem getting on. Unfortunately for reasons I do not know my flight was delayed nearly a half hour however before long I was in the air peering out at the danish countryside of cut into farms with wind turbines popping up like the daffodils that were now in full bloom. Unfortunately for me when the plane docked there was an issue with the jetway so even though I was in the closest part of the terminal to the metro they had to off load us onto buses then drive us to the farthest away terminal so I had a 1 km walk back to where I had just been. However it was still quite warm and sunny out despite being after 7 pm so I got my metro pass and met my family for dinner at a cozy little restaurant off of Nyhavn. The next day (wednesday) we ate breakfast at a little bakery they had found that offered up a nice selection of pastries, juice, and coffee. I showed my parents the traditional danish breakfast of a bun with butter or cheese on top. There was also a nice selection of what Americans call Danishes and what the Danes call Weinerbrød (Which would be Austrian bread? I wonder what the Austrians call it...)
After breakfast we got some additional metro passes and headed north to Helsingør a small town with one of Denmark's largest and possibly its most famous Castle, Kronborg Slot. This castle is made additionally famous because it is where Shakespeare's Hamlet takes place. The castle is perched at the corner of Zealand (The island that Copenhagen is on) closest to Sweden and the Swedish town Helsingborg (Used to be a part of Denmark). It was built because there is a choke point in the water there and it was a good location to build a structure that could control boat traffic into and out of the Baltic sea from the Atlantic. In fact from the early 1600s when the original building was built until the 1850s Denmark charged a fee to any boat passing through the waters and any boat that tried to avoid it would have to deal with the guns of the Castle as well as the Danish Navy stationed near by. (Punishment for a captain that did not pay the fee was extra fees for each cannonball fired and beheading of the captain). Due to the modernity of the castle it did not have quite as tall or majestic walls as some in say Portugal or France but it did have an impressive star fort around it along with two moats. The castle was only once captured by an enemy force and that was during the war with Sweden. It served as a giant source of revenue for Denmark as well as the residence of many of the Danish kings. During our visit we went under the castle to the basement where the ever famous Hølger Danske sleeps. The Danes consider him the protector of Denmark and when Denmark is threatened he will wake up and defeat Denmark's foes. In addition to him the dungeons are where many of the soldiers who defended the castle lived, worked, trained, ate and slept. In the dark cold and musty space below the castle 1000s of men were kept only leaving and entering the world when they were summoned to battle. Possibly the only thing that kept these men sane were the 12 liters (3.25 gallons) of beer that they were rationed, daily... We also saw the Royal Apartments in all their splendor including paintings and tapestries the size of the wall and luxurious furniture. After touring the castle we enjoyed the nice weather and shopped around Helsingør until we took the train back to Copenhagen.

The next day we only had a few hours after checking out of our hotel until we had to make our way to Kastrup Lufthavn (Airport) to fly to Stockholm. After checking into the Jewish museum we found out it did not open until one. So we decided to go to the church with the spiral tower on Christianshavn's island. For a small fee you can climb this church and the spiral stars on its steeple and get one of the most impressive view of Copenhagen. After climbing several flights of "normal" stairs we next moved into the bell tower area and climbed some steeper and more tight and windy stairs and ladders to get to the steeple. In fact we climbed right past all the bells but unfortunately I never got to see them ring. I would have liked to even though they would likely have been deafeningly loud. Finally we emerged outside and what a view. It was possible to see an unobstructed view of the entire city and even as far away as the bridge to Sweden. Despite the clear skies it was a little hazy so we could not see Malmø more than just shadows. However our climb was not done and we then climbed up the slick brass stairs around and around the spiral. Impressively my mother, who is terrified of edges continued upwards even though there was a good 100 feet between us and the streets below. However possibly the very tall guardrail had something to do with that. I climbed as high as one could go... The stairs became so small I could no longer fit and the handrail was much lower so it was a little scary up there especially when you could feel the tower swaying due to the slight breeze. On are way down we bumped into Ari a guy who is from Missouri and is studying abroad in Aalborg with me, he was just returning from a trip to Budapest and Prague and he said they are places I must go, so hopefully I can see at least one of them. After the tower we went inside the church which had a magnificent pipe organ that was one of the most ornately decorated I have seen. We then crossed back over the water and headed over to the Jewish Museum. It was small but interesting, mostly concerning the arrival of Jews in Denmark and their escape during WWII.  It had some cool artifacts and was a very interesting design because it was done by some famous architect. My dad calls them "starchitects" because everyone wants them to design some ridiculous structure. After that we headed over to the airport via the metro and boarded our plane to Sweden.