My first reaction when I passed the airport door and see all that snow was a mixt of sensations between being admired and amazement in the middle of all that agitation with 2 dogs, a suitcase, skykennels and my handbag... My first thought was "Not that cold!"... Yes in my head it should be a huge almost unbearable coldy weather. I even exchange emails with my host who told me it was cold and snowing like it wasn't for a few years and so, for me someone accustomed to beach life and not snowing weather, that means unbearable weather. But I was wrong, I must cretaed this horrible weather to prepare myself, because if I went there with a 'nice idea' I surely would be dissapointed and noticed much more the diference. I know here in Portugal, with mediterranean climate, the weather is different...

Beside I left Lisbon early, around 16h, I arrived Copenhagen very late and lockers service was already closed! This little detail made my trip plans a big turn, because I was supposed to leave the skykennels on the lockers and take the subway to my hosts house... it was 2 skykennels very big apart the weight. With the lockers service closed I needed to change my plans and take a cab and here I tasted for the first time Denmark lifestyle. One cab trip, not very long or extraordinarie trip, I paid almost 35euros!!! Later I had a chance to see that in Denmark the prices are near the double comparatively to Portugal. Even later, when I was talking to my hosts, they told me the crisis - yes that big economical crisis - didn't had big effects in danish lifestyle and only recently people start to feel the effects of the crisis. They also asked me if in Portugal we felt it and who long we had it, etc., which illustrates the effects of the crisis in different countries.
But lets forget crisis and speak something more interessing!

Copenhagen it's a beautiful city full of rivers and brigdes and docks - many of this docks were built by one of the Denmark King - parks, statues covered by snow on that winter day and of course snow!

Seems to me Danish people are proud of their culture and history, once it's commum to see on top of the building an statue of dragon or other national symbol commum in their myths and legends or even to see statue of national figures of danish poet or novelist or writter in the middle of the square been glorified, like in this case: Hans Christian Andersen's Statue surrounded by other statues of his own caracthers creation.




I walk around Copenhagen for almost 7 straight hours, looking for souvenirs, the city and trying to go to the most important places there, and I stablish in my mind next time I only will see museums and I really need to try more typical danish food.
Well, Denmark has a very strong raising pigs and therefore it's very usual to see little kiosks with hot dogs with one amazing sauce maned remoulade which is divine and mandatory to eat!! But danish recipes and tradicional food aren't just sausages, and on saturday dinner, my two hosts prepared specially for me a typical 50 or 60's food, very famous back then. It was small fried meatballs with slices of potatoes oven-cooked with cream sauce. They also introduce on potatoes a small variation and put celery which gave it a nice touche. To drink we had typical beers - my favourite was Didrik and we had also applejack, which was my first time drinking cider and I just love it!
And with all this I spent my day in Copenhagen walking around, still I had strenght enough to see nightlife.

From Copenhagen itself I kept on my memories only good ones. I would like to visit again, attend to museums and taste more Danish food.



My way back trip had a few mishaps... In Copenhagen airport everything was chaotic because of the snow and bad weather and because the airplane maintance forgot to fill the water tank of the airplane and because of all that my flight was delayed almost one hour and half! When I arrived at Palma de Maiorca airport the connection flight was already landing in Portugal and I had to go to Barcelona, where I had to switch terminals and wait another 1h30 minutes to boarding. It was stressful and I only could wish to finally go home.

Beside all this disastre, I had a chance to fly with TAP, a portuguese air company. And yes, what is national is good (I'm sorry for this, but this is a portuguese marketing slogan) and in this particular case it's VERY GOOD! Between all companys I already fly, TAP is by far the best one, not only in physical conditions of the aircraft but also in service of the flight assistances and the food is just divine! I had one sandwich with smoked meat, letture and an special bread... that really made me want to eat more.
And this little details can really make a difference, the food, service and they also had an mag from TAP to offer, with very nice and interessing articles and all this points in favour for TAP put it in another level of excellent. And in my humble opinion, TAP deserved to be mention for that.

Nota: fotos e texto da autoria de Ana Peres. Todos os direitos reservados.