Even though I slept a lot on the plane, I still slept in in the morning. By the time I woke up, my friend and his parents were all gone. My friend went to work. His parents went out to visit their friends in town. It was raining in the morning. After having breakfast, I started reading the guidebook lying on the coach. I fell asleep again!
Rasmus got back from work early that day. In the afternoon, he took me to the center of Copenhagen by bus and started sightseeing. First stop was the pedestrian shopping street. The weather got better. Rain stopped and the sun came out. There were full of people on the pedestrian shopping street. According to my friend, most of them were tourists. Locals didn’t usually shop there.
After the pedestrian shopping street, we kept walking towards the water, where we came to the famous scene of harbor of Copenhagen. My friend said it would be uncommon to walk along the harbor without drinking beer, so we bought beer from the store nearby. We sat on the bank of the harbor drinking beer. We watched people on the street, on the boats, and of course, on their bikes.
After a beer, we kept going along the water. Here came the new opera house of Denmark, queen’s garden and palace, and the famous little mermaid.
July 29th, 2006
Today was the highlights of my Copenhagen visit. In the afternoon, I had my first ever sailing. It was very pleasant. At the night, I experienced the nightlife of youth in Copenhagen. I was impressed how much Danes can drink.
My friend owns a quarter of a sailing boat. He was very nice to invite me to go sailing with him.
As a starter, I was given an easy tour. However, I couldn’t even get onto the boat myself (I’m embarrassed to mention this). When everything was ready, we sailed the boat towards the ocean! The clear blue sky, the blue water, and the warm breezes added to my pleasantness. It would be hard not go swimming in the ocean in this case. So we did. The water was a little bit cool. It was very refreshing to jump into the water. Well, I didn’t jump into the water. I went down into the water slowly.
By 5 o’clock, it was time for us to sail back to the shore. This time, my friend suggested that I could help to hoop up the boat to the shore. I thought it should be fairly easy. I said “sure” without any hesitation. When the boat was close to the shore, I took the hoop on the boat and tried to hoop it up to the shore. I failed the first time. At this moment, the boat somehow was moving away from the shore. My feet were on the boat, but my hands were still touching on the shore. My body started to stretch. I was about to be dropped in the water! Thankfully, I was able to manage to get onto the shore quickly. I did it so gracefully that two men on the shore who watched me gave me applause.
Rasmus invited his friends to an outdoor pub that night. After the nice dinner that he made, we went out to experience the nightlife of Copenhagen. By the time we got there, his friends were already there.
When there are more than one Danes together, they will speak Danish. Now and then, they would explain to me what they were talking about. This didn’t bother me at all, as this could be the same for Chinese, and people from other countries. It took me three times or more as long comparing to others to finish one beer. By the time I finished one small bottle of beer, others might have finished 3 or 4.
According to the law, no alcohol shall be sale outdoor after midnight. The outdoor pub had to close. We went to a bar nearby where they ordered cocktails and I had a glass of water. We went on to another pub afterwards. At the pub, they ordered a big bottle of gin. Four of them finished it in less than three hours! By this time, two of Rasmus’ friends left. I thought we would call it a night. I was wrong. My friend suggested that we should go to another bar! So Rasmus, and one of his friend, and me went to another bar. We ordered beers again. I was so sleepy that I left after I finished my beer. It was 3 o’clock in the morning. It was quite interesting to ride a bike when you’re very sleepy and half drunk. My friend stayed another hour! It was half pass 4am before he got home. I was indeed impressed how much Danes can drink this time.
An article on bikes and biking in Copenhagen
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