København, Denmark

Jake and I decided to travel to a Scandinavian country to have a different European experience.  We searched all the flights on RyanAir and Easy Jet and found the cheapest one to Denmark.  We left early on a Friday morning and came back Saturday evening (the night before Jake's Birthday).  We loved Demark.  It is the land of tall, thin, beautiful people!  We felt a special connection to the land and people because the Torgersen side is from a few Scandinavian countries.  Also, little did we know when we went, that on our paternal side, our great, great grandfather Christian Frederick Bernard Lybbert was born in Copenhagen.

We arrived in the morning and walked from the train station to our hostel.  When we checked in, the woman read my credit card and pronounced my name like "Christine".  In this country, Kristin spelled with an I is most common and is the equivalent of Christine in the United States.

The city itself is quite small and easily walked.  It has been a while since I was there so I am just going to post a few pictures with captions to show you what we saw.

This is Jake with Thorvaldsen's Christus in the Church of Our Lady.  This church is a Protestant church which is evident by the white walls, ceiling and floor.  On either side of the pews were sculptures of the Twelve Apostles also done by Thorvaldsen.  We had the opportunity to also visit the Thorvaldsen Museum to see the molds of his works that are throughout the world.  His most famous piece is the Christus and I now understand why.  I have see the replica in the LDS visitors center in Salt Lake but it does not compare to this.  The detail make it life like and Jake and I stood in front of it for several minutes just pondering.

 

Jake in one of the many squares.  The buildings were all very brightly colored and they were already starting to put up Christmas decorations!

At night in another random square.  Jake and I run ourselves into the ground trying to see as much as we can.  No one sees as much as we do in so little time.

 Along the river at night.  The National Library is on the right and I believe a university is behind Jake on the left.  

Day one is usually full of running around trying to see all the major sites.  On the second day, we usually try to take it easy by wandering down random streets, stopping in stores or pausing in squares to take in the culture and feel the city.  This is on the second day when we had more time to watch the tour boats maneuver in the canal. 

We stopped for hot chocolate on Nyhavn Street to warm up.  It is the best we have had in Europe.