Copenhagen, Crime dramas and Couchsurfing

So, it turns out that updating a blog is kind of hard when you're moving from place to place and couch to couch almost everyday. And when you're meeting new people and being invited to do fun things in incredible places, finding somewhere with internet access doesn't seem so important. Who knew..?! But apologies for the delay.... right now it is a rainy night in Bergen, I have a flight to Stockholm early tomorrow, am curled up in a beautiful apartment overlooking a fjord and I have access to a laptop so I can update.... :) I'm going to continue where I left off and try to catch myself up, slowly!

So I did get an early night in my third night in Copenhagen, however the Australian in the bed below me did not. She stumbles into the room at 2am and launches herself onto her bed fully clothed. Ok, fine. But then she proceeds to make retching sounds, like she is or is about to be sick. Slightly more worrying. The door slams, she runs for the corridor. That's better. She stumbles back, but then begins to make more noises, before falling absolutely dead silent. Not so great. I lie for a bit, wondering if she's choked on her own vomit and what the procedure is if someone you don't know ends up dying on the bed below you. I end up sticking my head down from the upper bunk and shining a torch to see if she was breathing. Luckily, she was. Average night in a hostel. At least this Australian wasn't taking any pictures of me though.....

Horse riding through Dyrehaven just outide Copenhagen

In a Copenhagen bar.
You can't get a better mosutache than that, surely....

The rest of Copenhagen was cool, as I am lazy I am just going to use a few pictures to show what I did. Went on an organised pub crawl thing on the last night which was good fun- for about £12 we got a shot in each pub, entry to the club, and 45 minutes of free beer in the last pub. Yes, I did take that as a challenge. Not sure if I won or lost though. But, the people I was with were....  alittle weird. Lots of Australians, and a few english people. Overall, Copenhagen was I think just a strange experience. Our hostel was a little out of the centre, the people were odd, and I was kind of just getting used to the travelling alone thing. I'm not going to romanticise it. There were some times I felt fucking lonely (even in Malmo I think this was the case), and there were some times I was wondering what the hell I was doing here, by myself, and I actually considered a few times just getting a flight home (not too seriously, but still, I felt kinda homesick). (But it's okay, I am happy now!! :) ) But the sad thing was that I spent alot of money on a hostel, and came away not actually having met a single Danish person. Cue couchsurfing conversion.

But before that, Scandinavian crime dramas. Anybody else but me love them? The area I was staying in in Copenhagen was the setting for alot of the filming of the Danish tv series The Killing. Another favourite is the Swedish and Danish production 'The Bridge' which was on BBC 4 a few months ago.  It is set on the Øresund bridge which connects Denmark and Sweden. I would say that the reason I decided to visit Malmo wasn't just because I just wanted to go over that bridge.... but um I guess that would a lie. I love that bridge. (Wow, what a pathetic thing to say) but truthfully, I did get sort of excited! If anyone hasn't seen 'The Bridge' I highly recommend it.... if nothing else it has an amazing soundtrack:

Full song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ZQ-lYoS34&feature=related

Needless to say, Choir of Young Believers provided my soundtrack as I crossed the bridge into Sweden..... :P Although I should warn any other groupies, the actual crossing proves extremely anticlimatic. However if you head to the Vastra Hamnen area of Malmo you get an awesome view ;)

 

Øresund Bridge from Malmo

Alex! And my lasagne :)

So, armed with my amazing travel app (GuidePal! Download it! It has offline maps, and because GPS works over phone signal not data or internet it shows you where you are on the map but is still free! And it has loads of information about places to see and do!) and also armed with a bagful of lasagne ingredients I made my way to the address in Malmo of my first couchsurfing host! AHHHHH! I was greeted with a hug and a huge smile by the wonderful Alexandra in a beautiful area of Malmo. She lives with two other girls in an amazing apartment near the Folkets Park (the 'People's Park', an awesome park that as well as the usual prettiness of most parks has several nightclubs in it...!) They all instantly made me feel at ease, and we exchanged stories and chatted while I cooked them all my (rather famous) vegetable lasagne. Anybody who knows me will be smiling now when they read this. My veggie lasagne is my failsafe dish, it is what I cook when I am making an effort, when I am trying to impress, and it has become a little bit of a legend among my housemates and philosophy friends. It did not disappoint! :D
We had an awesome evening, they were each such interesting people. Alex had been travelling by herself all over south america, and has been couchsurfing for years. The favourite story she told me was of an 80 year old woman she surfed with in Argentina- her son had signed her up to couchsurfing so that she'd always have some company and somebody to talk to and cook for...!!!!

I had a really comfy mattress in the living room, complete with fresh sheets and a duvet and pillows and had an amazing sleep. No drunken australians coming in in the night, no rustling or snoring.... and I woke up in the morning to find Alex had made her own sundried tomato bread and had set out breakfast along with fruit and yogurt. Amazing. She and her housemates had lectures all day but she
lent me her bike and off I went to explore Malmo. It was beautiful day and I spent alot of it on the beach (YES, Scandinavia has beaches!) but also exploring the different areas (including the new green 'neighbourhood of tomorrow' which is run entirely off renewable energy and produces zero waste) I kind of fell in love with Malmo. It was so pretty, parks, beaches, beautiful buildings. And with strawberries swinging from the handlebars of my bike, and chocolate in my backpack I cycled back to my hosts with that as desert.

Malmo beach and its iconic twisted skyscraper

Pretty sqaure in Malmo

Alex's friend (also a couchsurfer host) came round to cook us dinner in the evening. Everyone was vegeterian so was so incredibly easy. We had a lovely evening talking about anything from travelling to relationships to stereotypes to sex. Hilarious time, and I felt so happy and positive about the entire thing! Also, loving the fact that everybody here speaks PERFECT english. :)

That is without, also, romanticising couchsurfing. There's some fucking weird people on that site and you need to be picky about who you stay with. More on that in my next post, but I think I'll leave this one for now and do a separate one about Oslo. Maybe tonight. Maybe when I next get the time (and a laptop and internet). In any case, miss you all, keep in contact, come and visit, lots of love. :)

I leave you with a video that will forever now remind me of Bergen (this wonderful beautiful city that rains 280 days of the year.) Yes, this happened to me. Several times. I have no dry clothes.