Denmark Pictures

So I finally got my camera and spent last week wandering around to get pictures of some major sights around Copenhagen.

These are thumbnails of the pictures, just click on them to get the big
version. After looking at them I noticed that the big version is quite
big, let me know if you think I should try to edit the pictures a bit before
I post them next time.

Here’s a picture of the canal outside my kolligium. The big building is
the town’s movie theater.

[[popup:canal.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

I tried getting some pictures of my room, but due to the way it’s setup
I needed three different pictures to show anything. Instead I’ll
descibe it a little. The kolligium is a group of 16 buildings each with
24 rooms in them. The buildings are kind of boring on the outside, just
a long grey buildings with a courtyard between each one. The inside is
a longhallway with two kitchens in the middle, one on either side and
down a set of stairs. Above one kitchen is a area with couches and a
TV. On the other side is a bar. Most of the kolligiums seem to have a
foosball table, including the one I live in. The decorations in my hall
are mostly random movie posters. The individual rooms are broken up
into blocks of four rooms with 2 above and two below. My room is on the
bottom which is kind of nice since the window opens like a door
directly out into the courtyard. When you walk through the door into my
room there is a short narrow hallway with two closests on the right,
and a bathroom on the left. The window is directly across  from
the door. I have a desk to the left of the window.  My bed is to
the left at the end of the hallway. I also have a book case that is on
the floor to the right. There are two chairs, one by the desk and the
other moves around a bit, but is usually next to the window. On my
walls is mostly pictures I took from home, but I also brought two
posters, and bought a poster that is a reproduction of a map of Denmark
from the 1600s.

Ok back to the pictures.

Here is a picture I took from the top of the Round Tower, a big tower
that’s round. Actually it’s connected to a church, and there’s an
observatory at the top. I might try to go back sometime in the evening
when the observatory is open. It’s a kind of cool building since there
are no stairs, to get to the top you walk along a spiral ramp the whole
way to the top, which seemed kind of an interesting design, especially
in such an old building. The picture itself is in the direction of the
area where most of my classes are, so this kind of gives an idea of the
neighborhood where I spend a lot of my time.

[[popup:roundtower2.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

Another picture from the same place, this time towards the ocean. In
the distance there’s a bridge, which is the bridge between Copenhagen
and Malmo, in Sweden.

[[popup:roundtower3.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

This one is the Gammeltorv, meaning
the old square. It was where the town center was back when Copenhagen
first was founded. This place is just down the street from where the
program’s office is and I tend to eat lunch over here most days. Since
I haven’t  talked about this yet I also want to point out the
bikes in the picture. There’s a lot of
bikes in this city. It’s weird to see people riding their bikes down the
street dressed in nice clothes for work. The other thing about bikes
here is that people don’t lock them up. Sometimes people may put a lock
on the wheel and frame but not attach the bike itself to anything. Most
people don’t seem to lock them at all and it’s not strange to see bikes just left on the sidewalk while people go into a store.

[[popup:gammeltorv.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

Here is Nyhavn (“New Harbor” though it’s not very new). It’s an area of
town next to the water where there’s a lot of cafe’s and restaurants,
though the kind of places I wouldn’t generally go to except for special
occasions. It has a lot of cool looking buildings around, and places
where you can just sit and eat a lunch you bring from home.

[[popup:nyhavn.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

Here are two significant buildings, though from this angle they kind of
look the same. On the right is Christiansborg. This used to be the
residence for the royal family, but it burned down and they moved
somewhere else. It was rebuilt to house the parliment. On the left side
is the old stock exchange building, which was actually designed by one
of the Kings, I think it was Christian IV, but for a long time the
kings just alternated between Frederik and Christian, so I get a little
confused. This king designed a lot of building around the city.

[[popup:christiansborg.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

This is one picture of Amelieborg Palace, the current royal residence.
The building in the center is a Cathedral that was modeled after St.
Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The buildings on the sides are the four
buildings that house different members of the royal family. Right now I
can’t remember exactly who is in which building.

[[popup:amelieborg1.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

One of the Guards at the Palace. Sorry for making this sideways. 
I’ll have to remember to edit those pictures that I have my camera
sideways for. Would it be possible to fix this now Druid?

[[popup:amelieborgguard.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

Here is the old wing of the royal library. This is the one that I
mentioned in my first e-mail I wrote that had the old wing attached to
a new modern one. Right behind me is Christiansborg. The garden is the
Soren Kirkegaard garden. There’s a big statue of him on one side and
statues of some other philosophers at the entrences.

[[popup:library1.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

This is the new wing, called the Black diamond, from across the canal.
Unfortunatly you can’t really see that the way it is shaped allows for
the windows on the side to reflect the water, which is a really cool
effect to see in person. Pretty weird how these two buildings are actually connected.

[[popup:blackdiamond.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

Here is the statue of the Little Mermaid. It’s not the most impressive
statue around, but it’s a big deal here since Hans Christian Anderson
was Danish and he wrote the original story. By the way, if anyone has
the chance they should look up the original story if they haven’t heard
it. It’s a lot less happy then the Disney version.

[[popup:littlemermaid.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

Another statue in the city and again sorry for being sideways. I thought it was cool because it is of a
scene from an obscure Norse myth that I happen to remember. One of the
goddesses (forgot which, ShortSpeedFreak, you might be able to help on
this) made a deal with some giants that she would have control over
land that she could plow in one day. She turned the giants into oxen
and used them the plow some land that was then dragged out to the sea
to make the island of Zealand, the one that Copenhagen is on.

[[popup:statue.jpg:(thumbnail)::center:1]]

All right, hope people like the pictures.

2 Responses to “Denmark Pictures”

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All fixed up (if you already saw them sideways, you may have to refresh the page to see them right-ways).

Very cool pictures!! I didn’t notice they were sideways because I tried not to peek at them while uploading, so that I’d get the cool explanations along with everyone else.

Regarding the bikes– Yeah, no one in Italy locked up bikes either. What’s wrong with America that we need to use locks? Maybe it’s another case of
“If a country is governed with tolerance,
the people are comfortable and honest.
If a country is governed with repression,
the people are depressed and crafty.”

Paradoxdruid - September 13th, 2004 at 10:51 am

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Great pictures, Nice to see what you have been talking about. I think I have a picture of the little Mermaid just like that one. I took that about 35 years ago when I was there.
Dad

Michael - September 15th, 2004 at 2:36 am

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