København

     This adventure was the first of soon to be many adventures for Meghan, MoMo (Meghan’s creepy doll), Simba, and me! Our adventure began Tuesday night after practice when we went to Växjö to stay at Jaz’s apartment. On the drive there, we were talking about different wild animals in our area. Jaz was talking about a ‘grävling’, but she couldn’t remember what it was in English. She described the creature as being black and white which my immediate response was skunk. Meghan’s immediate response was zebra! We later discovered that it is a badger, so I guess Meghan was the closest?! When we got to Växjö, Jaz made us a fantastic dinner, and we all passed out pretty quick afterwards.

     We woke up in the morning and headed to the train station. Sidenote: Meghan and I were both wearing our newly purchased skinny jeans so we were looking very Swedish! 

Jaz was our mom at the train station making sure we had our tickets and making sure I had another warmer jacket. :) Of course, we were giving her trouble for this, but we appreciated it all. This is how everyone on the team is. They are always looking out for us and making sure that we are happy and have everything we need. We boarded the train at 9:06 on our way to Copenhagen! We even successfully switched trains at 9:19. Our adventure was starting so smoothly. (Jaz told us a story about 2 other American girls that we taking a trip to Copenhagen, but they never actually made it out of Sweden!) Our first stop in Copenhagen was 7 Eleven for doughnuts and coffee. Meghan and I had both been craving American doughnuts.

We sat on a bench at the train station waiting for my friend, Tara. I met Tara when I came to Europe on the trip this past January, and we became instant friends! As soon as we saw each other, we both started running towards each other and shared a big hug. It was just like a scene you see in the movies!

     We then headed out to the streets of Copenhagen. There were a couple places/things that we knew we definitely wanted to see, but we decided to just wander instead of searching. We walked past Tivoli Gardens, but decided not to pay to go inside. 

Multiple people have instructed me that I need to go there at Christmas time so we decided to hold off for this trip. We continued to wander, and we found ourselves on a shopping street. We looked in some stores, but none of us made any purchases. Of course, we continued to talk about the European style and our individual progressions towards having style. We soon found Nyhavn, which is a famous canal street, lined with different brightly painted buildings.

We continued to walk along the water until we found the statue of the Little Mermaid! This was very exciting, especially for Simba! It was his first encounter with another Disney character while in Europe (continue to read to hear about his second encounter).

We wandered back through town to found a place to eat lunch. On the way, we saw lots of beautiful buildings and churches. We didn’t always know what we were taking pictures of, but we still saw some amazing sites. We concluded that our decision to wander the city was perfect! We saw everything that we wanted to see plus so much more. It was just so great to walk around a new city with good friends!

    Carlsberg is a Danish brewing company whose headquarters are in Copenhagen. After lunch, we hopped on a bus to go to the Carlsberg brewery for a tour. As we stepped off the bus, another bus pulled up behind us, and Jessica, Tara’s friend that was meeting us, stepped off of that bus. Everything was still working out perfectly! The only downfall of the trip happened now. We made our way to the Carlsberg brewery (after a little bit of walking the wrong direction). The man at the desk informed us that we missed the last tour of the day by about 10 minutes! He gave us all a consolation prize though of a Carlsberg lanyard with a bottle opener on it. As we walked away disappointed, we decided that we would create our own tour! We stopped in the nearest bar for some Carlsberg suds. I asked for some kind of dark beer. As you can tell, the guy lied to me!

So naturally, I was not satisfied. I asked if he had anything darker. This time the bartender delivered!

The Carls Porter was absolutely what I wanted. Good company and good beer just can’t be beat!

     After a bus ride back to downtown, we found a little pizzeria for dinner. I honestly don’t think I will ever get tired of eating pizza here because it is all so good. We decided to walk around some more as the city was getting dark. This is when Simba ran into more Disney characters! They were on their way to a themed party.

We walked around Copenhagen a little more before taking a train to Tara’s teammate’s apartment to sleep.

     The next morning, Meghan, Tara, and I took a train back into Copenhagen. We sat at a coffee shop talking until Meghan and I had to catch our train back to Växjö. It was sad to say goodbye to Tara, but we will be seeing each other again this weekend as we play in the same tournament. We had a non-eventful train ride back. In Växjö, we got hotdogs, french fries, and Coca-Cola for lunch before getting on a bus back to Ljungby.

     The trip was absolutely great! It was so nice to see a great friend and experience a new city and country. And after all the trains and buses that we took the past day and a half, I think we will be able to travel anywhere!!!