Snail-y Sweden and Kindred København

Monday, August 12 - Saturday, August 17

Copenhagen, Denmark & Southern Sweden

It was a busy week for the Hawthorne family, and I'm writing this post now, as 3/4ths of them travel home on an AMS-MSP flight. I am now set up at DIS, and boy, am I glad I got to spend some time with my family exploring the city beforehand!

We stayed at Hotel Moxy, in Copenhagen, and I would 100% recommend. It's upscale without being business-y. It was fun and full of... Character. For example, this was plastered on the elevator wall. 

There was a big bar and lobby, with lots of games, coloring books, seating areas, WiFi, computer games, a ukelele... It was kind of like an upscale hotel but with private rooms, better amenities, and really cute boys at the front desk. The property is under Mariott, as one of its boughten out boutique hotels. 

Now leave it to the Hawthornes to land in Denmark, and then be in Sweden one day later. It's a very easy drive of about 20min to cross the border by bridge. We drove over to Kaseberga first, to see Ale's Stones, a group of ancient standing stones in the shape of a ship, set up on a high bluff above the sea. It was a little bit of walk. Nothing you'd need hiking boots for or anything, but I also wouldn't push a wheelchair up there. I would bring a picnic and a dog with me, next time. Because that seemed to be the thing to do there. 

 Mom & Dad in front of the Ale Stones

Grady between two stones

A Swede and her pup (I saw so many pups!)

The walk back down

We then did a little genealogy digging, and in pure-Hawthorne fashion, ended up in a rainy cemetery. (We end up in a lot of rainy cemeteries, it's like the weather KNOWS we're going to visit dead people and cries its eyes out!) We traced my mom's side of the family back to Vasterstads, Sweden, and spent some time looking at old graves of potential long-lost relatives. It was cool to see the church that my great-great-great-grandfather probably attended. 

Cristiana hiding from the rain

Grady and Cristiana in the old church

The old church 

It was equally as cool to see the plethora of snails and slugs that have my Vasterstads Kyrkby Cemetery their home! I was afraid to walk for fear of stepping on one!

Lil snail boi!

We ended our time in Sweden with a dinner stop in Malmo. We ate Swedish meatballs and Schnitzel at Bullen and then walked around a festival that was in full swing. Malmo was poppin! We all enjoyed hearing the live music. Even though we couldn't understand most of it. Although they did have one stage entirely devoted to a cover-band of American country music, with a whole dance floor set up. And I have to be honest, the Swedes were dancing to it better than I've seen most Americans. 

Bullen

My Swedish troll face

The next three days we spent entirely in Copenhagen. We found a bunch of the artist Thomas Dambo's "Sleeping Giants", hidden in parks just outside of Copenhagen. They are giant wooden sculptures made of recycled materials, and similar to a geocache, you get GPS coordinates to find them. They are surprisingly well camouflaged... You don't really notice them until they're right in front of you. 

Hill Top Trine

Thomas on the Mountain

Little Tilde

Oscar Under the Bridge

We also made it to a lot of museums and art galleries. The Cisterns was an absolutely fascinating gallery located in an old water cistern beneath a park. The show that was up was dark and existential and dystopian and creepy and amazing and so bizarre. 

The Cisterns... DUH DUH DUH!

The National Gallery, known as SMK (which stands for something in Danish I can neither spell nor understand), had a lot of Danish art, which I must confess, I have heard little about until now. I learned that I love Jens Ferdinand Willumsen, and Julius Paulsen, but I am v much not a fan of Villhelm Hammershei... I don't think the man knew that there were colors beyond "depressed" and "grey". Poor chap. The design of the building itself was a really interesting combination of old and new. 

Willumesen (yay)

Hammershei (nay)

~~Cool Design~~

Our other stops included the Circus Museum, which is on my blacklist for barely mentioning Lillian Leitzel and therefore is lucky to be even included in this post! SHE DIED IN COPENHAGEN! (Look her up, she was one of the highest-paid circus stars ever, and Ringling's biggest act for ages, making almost 3x the amount of her husband, but all this museum said was "Lillian Leitzel, Cordona's wife, was also in the circus" or something totally dumb like that. They should expect a strongly worded letter from me in the near future. But also the rest of the museum was pretty good I'm just salty and butt-hurt, you should go visit anyway, especially if you're with little ones. They'd probably like it, Lillian Leitzel or no.)  

Circus Museum

The Glyptoteket Museum, which has a great collection of statues, all privately collected by some dude who's related to that dude that started Carlsberg Beer. And an oddly large amount of Degas'... The best part though was the giant indoor courtyard, decked out like a full greenhouse. I will definitely be doing some reading there in the winter.  

Me examining the coy fish in Glyptoteket

Some Degas

We spent an afternoon at Tivoli, strolling through the gardens and riding a bunch of the rides. Believe it or not, I went on my FIRST upsidedown rollercoaster! Yah. It was a big deal. And is Tivoli! It's the second oldest amusement park in the world, second only to Bakken, ANOTHER Danish amusement park... These Danes were just on top of it! Tivoli also greatly included none other than Walt Disney. It was hard for me not to go there and compare the two. Because on one hand, I'm tempted to say that Tivoli walked so that Disneyland could run. But on the other hand, it's a little different. While Disney has become very ride-centered, and story-centered, Tivoli is like entering Wonderland. It's more leisurely and park-like. It's less about running for the next ride or fast pass or show, and more about laying on the grass beneath the hanging planters and suncatchers, or feeding the ducks or enjoying a nice meal. So basically Tivoli was made for Europe and Disney for America. 

Beautiful Tivoli

And while all these museums and attractions were great, I think the best part though, about this last week, was meeting so many kind and generous people. A friend of a friend e-mail introduced us to a fellow named Kris, who took us out for a canal tour of Nyhavn (all those gorgeous colored homes that pop into your head when you hear the word "Denmark"), through Christania (which was super cool, but would've been intimidating alone) and got us into Tivoli with his membership. He also gave me some recommendations of where to buy some basic necessities and showed us one of his favorite places to grab lunch. 

Cristiana, Kris, James, and Grady

There was Anders, one of the workers at Hotel Moxy, who told me the best place to buy shampoo, always greeted us with a smile, and pointed us towards the old Meatpacking District for dinner. We went to Warpigs, and it was, I kid you not, and I have BEEN to the SOUTH, some of the best-smoked brisket I have ever had. I can't explain it, it just happened. Mom did some searching on the site Atlas Obscura. So we also poked around some of those same old meatpacking buildings to spot old Nazi graffiti from WWII! 

The Meatpacking District looks like a movie set

And last but definitely not least, we met with some of our distant cousins on my mom's side, Birthe and Jorgen, and their daughter Britt. They took us out for a great meal and brought old family photos and family trees to share with us. They took me under their wing a bit and offered to have me out to their homes for dinner and to meet Britt's children. 

Britt, Birthe, Jorgen, Grady, Lisa, and Cristiana

Everyone here has been so incredibly kind and welcoming and charming. I am so looking forward to spending the next four months here, learning and exploring and probably getting into some scraps but you know, getting out of them too! 

And now, I need to get a little sleep. It has been a long, STRESSFUL day of goodbyes and moving and meeting new friends as I transitioned from a family vacation to studies... And I can't wait to tell you all about it next week!

Peace, 

Cristiana 

P.S. OMG we've done so many things I didn't even MENTION going to Christansborg Palace, which was cool because I've never been inside a modern, working castle before, OR the Royal Theater Museum, OR going to some of Copenhagen Pride... Phew. All those things, also good. Also fun. Okay there. That's maybe everything. ;)

Christiansborg Library!