I'll admit it...... I'm a big science nerd. I'm the person who loves watching the astrophysics shows on the Science Channel. I have a plethora of science facts at my disposal..... did you know that if you string all the viruses in the oceans end to end, they would extend about 100 times the distance of our galaxy! Pretty crazy, right? Don't worry, this post is not going to be musings about viruses (even if I think they are awesome!).
While science usually means long hours in the lab, there are definitely some perks to my job. This includes getting to travel for conferences. My most recent trip was at the end of the summer to attend the International Symposium for Microbial Ecology. This year, it was in Denmark! Hooray!
Spiral hallway leading to the top of the tower View from top of Rundetårn
Copenhagen is a beautiful city and was a wonderful destination for my debut trip across the pond. The first
thing that took me in about the city was the sense of history to it. It's easy to forget how young our country is in relation to the rest of Europe. Everywhere you turn is a historic church, tower or castle. Towards the end of my trip, my wonderful couchsurfing host Sofie took me to see Rundetårn, built in the 17th century to serve as an astronomy observatory. Today, it offers tourists some of the best views in the city!
Second is all the bicycles! Biking is very popular for getting around town and they have put in a lot of effort to make the city as bike-friendly as possible. At first, we thought they were pedestrian sidewalks..... no they are for bikes, almost learned that the hard way a couple times!
About a 40 minute train ride from Copenhagen is the town of Helsingør, home of Kronborg Castle. You may know it better as Elsinore, immortalized in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet. The castle was absolutely spectacular to see in person. You can even climb to the top of one of the towers and get a beautiful view of the adjacent city and the rest of the castle.
Every great city has a statue that is the symbol of the pride for the people who live there. In New York, it's the Statue of Liberty. For Copenhagen, it the statue of The Little Mermaid which can be found in Langelinie Park. While there has been a fair amount of vandalism to the statue in the past, most tourists place flowers or other sentimental objects near the statue. I've never been keen on living in a city, but Copenhagen has a different feel to it. I wasn't the only person at the conference who mentioned that they could picture themselves living in this city. It's amazing, but you feel immediately at home.
Soon, I will share with you my more humorous finding in Copenhagen. Till then, stay classy. Cheers!
Love the post and pictures! I now want to go to Copenhagen!
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