Copenhagen, Denmark

Nov 20th-Copenhagen

Since I last wrote, Scott and I visited Copenhagen, Denmark. Scott had to go for a work training and I went for fun. I spent a few days exploring the city, despite it being cold and windy. November is not the perfect time to visit, but at least there was no waiting on lines for museums. I visited the Jewish museum, Museum of Resistance, three of the royal palaces, Museum of Copenhagen, Museum of Denmark, and the Geology museum. Unfortunately the famous landmark of the city, The Little Mermaid is in China for 2010, so I couldn’t see her. They had a copy in the airport so we took pictures. See above. I took the hop of hop off bus tour and for one of the routes; I was actually the only one of the bus. Interesting experience to be on a huge bus all alone going around the city. I was very impressed with all the palaces. We even were able to see some of the royal jewels, which they have on display. On Thursday night I arranged us to see a comedy/musical show at Tivoli, which is an amusement park with restaurants and theaters, and very famous in Copenhagen. It was put on by an English speaking theater company and was hysterical. We didn’t understand all the jokes as they made fun of some Danish things, but overall we had a great time. I was unimpressed with the Jewish museum. It was designed the by famous architect Daniel Libeskind, but I thought it was a weird setup and there actually wasn’t many artifacts to see. The Museum of Resistance was much more interesting and showed what the Danish did to resist the Nazis during WWII. Amazing how they helped save the Jews and only a small amount were killed. Makes you think what other countries could have done to help save people during the war. As we decided to stay for Shabbos, I got in touch with the local Chabad to see if we could join them for meals. What an experience we had. There is an active Jewish community in the city, with two shuls. The shul near chabad doesn’t get so many people on Shabbos, but the other has at least 100 active families. The chabad is very active with many ongoing activities and every shabbos they get close to 100 people and in the summer the number is even higher. They feed people for free and just ask you to give a donation. The chabad rabbi and his wife were so nice and friendly and we enjoyed their company. The rabbi had just come back from a Chabad conference in NY, so we got to hear about his experience. We were even fortunate to meet an elderly man who grew up in Copenhagen visiting from Israel. He shared his experiences of being in the City during the war. He spoke in Hebrew and most I was able to understand, but thankfully the rabbi translated all afterwards. We had a very lovely Shabbos and I am sure will go back again.

Now we are getting ready for our first Thanksgiving outside the US. We arranged for a turkey from Amsterdam and are having 10 adults and 4 kids for dinner tomorrow. Should be fun!!! Just hoping our turkey defrosts by tomorrow!!