With a personal objective to see as much of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe as possible before I leave Amsterdam, I have compiled a list of Must See locations. Maybe I won’t have the chance to get to all of them, so technically let’s call them Might See’s, but I’m going to give it a go. Stockholm, Budapest, Krakow, Croatia, Denmark, the Norwegian Fjords, and on. As luck might have it, KLM had a cheap flight to Copenhagen on a weekend when my Danish friend from fitness camp was going to be in town. I haven’t been to Copenhagen in over a decade and it’s less than a 2 hour flight – so I booked it!
I landed into Copenhagen late on Friday night and went straight to my hotel located on the famous Nyhavn. I enjoyed a stroll up and down the wharf and had a midnight dinner sitting on the water all cuddled up in a blanket with an outdoor heater burning bright. Doesn’t get much better than that.
In the morning I went for a run and conducted a self-coached boot camp that took me through the Botanical Garden. That’s where I was stopped by security and told I couldn’t run there. Why not? Because it’s like a museum. Really? What happens if I just walk really fast and do a few pushups?
Not even a twitch of a smile. My luck was changing.
Next up was a canal cruise. I had great memories of cruising the waters of Copenhagen the last time I visited and enjoyed it again this time, rain and all. Following a lunch of herring (herring is so much easier to find in Copenhagen than Oslo) and beer (beer is easy to find anywhere in the world as far as I can tell) I was ready to continue sightseeing. Being a very confident cyclist now, I rented a bike from my hotel and went off to explore the city.
 |
| Triple herring delight covered in red onions (yuck) on dense, dark bread. |
 |
| I am NOT a shopper. I hate shopping. But I spent almost an hour in the Royal Copenhagen drooling. I love this place. |
 |
| Canal cruise sights. I forgot my camera again so this is all from my mobile. |
Cycling in Copenhagen is much different than Amsterdam. First of all, there are a lot more cars and busier streets. Also the bikes are faster and have gears! After a while I started to notice several people wearing bike helmets and I wondered if I should be wearing one too. Even though Copenhagen and Amsterdam have approximately the same population of 700,000 people, Amsterdam felt like a small cobble stone village in comparison.
I got lost biking around, as I usually do, and ended up on the outskirts of town before I eventually headed back to meet my friend for dinner. I admit I nearly fell off my bike a few times – I wasn’t used to the hand breaks and didn’t bother to fit the bike seat to my height.
Although I’m not good at foreshadowing, I’m pretty sure you know where this story is headed. Even if you don’t, I would rather not relive it. I fell of my bike and broke my foot while cycling to dinner on Saturday night. The irony is that the last time I fell off my bike was over a year ago at Fitness camp with the same friend! Fortunately that time I only skinned up my legs. This time I got a bit unlucky.
 |
| Breaking my foot was a real pissoir. I thought those were only in France, but apparently they're in Denmark too. |
I had no idea I broke my foot until I woke up in the middle of the night and it was huge and green. That seemed odd. I still managed to get through the Copenhagen airport AND the Amsterdam airport. I wasn’t going to go to the doctor (you can’t walk on a broken foot, right?), but decided I might as well have it checked out. Sure enough, I broke the far left metatarsal. Shit.
The bad news is that I had to cancel my triathlon this weekend and the open water swimming holiday in the Greek Islands next week. With no refunds for either event.
The good news is that I’ve caught up on a lot of reading, my emails, trashy celebrity magazines and I've discovered parakeets fly around the pine tree outside my flat.
Back to the bad news – I am a pathetic patient. I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt this sorry for myself or vulnerable. Over a broken foot. Surely I’m learning a life lesson here and I just need to take a few more days of lying in bed pondering to figure it out.
Fingers crossed, I will be out of my cast by August, and it’s going to be the best gosh darned final summer month in the history of 2011!
 |
| Still smiling. On that day anyway. |
