Belated Update
Sorry for the lack of posts in the last week. I have no excuse, really. I’ve just been lazy about it.
Last Wednesday afternoon, I walked around Frederiksberg Have, enjoying myself and taking photos. It was a very pleasant, warm day of relaxation and exploring the park, though I discovered I have to go back at a time when the islands in the lake are open to the public.
On Friday, the ISUP social program brought us to Copenhagen’s largest garden party, a first annual gathering in Kongens Have. There must have been at least 1,000 Copenhageners in the area when I got there, and I got there on the late side. After 20 minutes, I got bored and decided to walk around for a while, and to buy a book for the weekend. I chose The High Lord, the third book in the Black Magician Trilogy, and was pleased when it was just as good as the second book in the trilogy, which I read a couple of weeks ago.
While in the process of finishing this wonderful novel on Saturday evening, however, I was rudely interrupted when the fire alarm went off. We’re not sure as to the exact cause, although some people had the front door open while using the grill outside in preparation for one of our dorm member’s birthday party. The fire department never came, but as I had evacuated and was outside, I finished the book out there and joined the festivities.
Sunday was uneventful as I was feeling unwell. My illness continued through Monday, but I went out on my bike anyway and decided to be a tourist for the day. I covered the following attractions:
- Frederikskirke, a.k.a. Marmorkirken, which is The Mable Church
- Amalienborg Palace and Royal Danish Collection Museum, as well as the accompanying Amalieparken
- Den lille Havfrue, The Little Mermaid statue
- Kastellet, The Citadel, a still-functioning military fortress
- The Gefion Fountain, which is based on the legend that goddess Gefion plowed out a lake in Sweden tossing the land into the sea, thus creating the Danish island of Zealand
Photos from this trip can be found at the Facebook album.
Perhaps the best part about this trip was that I did it by bike. I estimate I traveled at least 10 miles total distance on Monday, which was a fantastic cardio workout, as well as legs.
Class went by as usual on Tuesday: too long. The only other items of note are that I acquired the V for Vendetta series to read at some point and that I read many good photography article and blog posts, largely from Digital Photography School.
Today–yesterday by the way the calendar works–I took another bike trip out on my own, and went to the Rådhus, or city hall, where I saw Jens Olsen’s World Clock and climbed the tower, which is the tallest in Denmark at 106 meters. I took a series of pictures at the top and stitched them into a 360°panorama of Copenhagen (warning large image to load), which at full resolution, is over 16,000 pixels wide.
Following the Rådhus, I cycled off to the Nationalmuseet, or National Museum, where I cycled through a whole slew of exhibits, which ranged from an exhibit on ancient Denmark to modern day Denmark to an exhibit on toys. The building is quite large, giving me trouble to get through all the exhibits I had wanted to in a reasonable time, although I did manage to do so.
Leaving the National Museum at closing time, I zipped along to the Royal Library in the Christiansborg complex which resides in the district of Slotsholmen, the historical heart of Copenhagen, to which I will return for further touring. The library garden is lovely, but I quickly turned my attention to the Black Diamond, a modern extension to the library, that is situated on the waterfront and is designed to catch the noontime reflection of the sun from the river in a spectacular manner.
I had arrived far too late for this event, but I did get to enter the building, and look around, as well as see a few exhibits. One exhibit was on Danish political cartoons and was completely incomprehensible to me, although I did get a gist that I would find some quite humorous were I to understand it. Another exhibit was quite of a different nature. It portrayed the controversial photography of Sally Mann, whose subjects include nudes of her children, as well as corpses. While I appreciated her photographic skill, I cannot pretend to be unperturbed by her occasional subject choice. In the rest of the Black Diamond itself, I mostly just walked around taking photographs of various areas and books.
To see my photographs from today, please use the following links to my Facebook albums for the Rådhus, National Museum (note two separate links), and the Black Diamond.
I would have uploaded a select few–which is admittedly relative and for the sum of over 450 photos from today’s expedition would be more than usual–to my deviantART gallery, but as it was rather late and I had to choose between writing this post tonight versus uploading photos to deviantART, I chose to satisfy you wonderful people first with an update on my recent endeavors. I hope you’re happy. Since it’s 4AM now, I’m going to go to sleep and save the upload to deviantART until after my next batch comes in tomorrow night when I go to Tivoli with the ISUP.
EDIT: In my exhaustion, I completely missed out on a major element of this evening. Actually, since it’s getting light outside, I should say last evening. When I returned, I had little peace before people began to arrive for a large barbecue at our dorm, which was scheduled to commence at 7:30PM. I would estimate we had a total of 30-40 people show up, which is a rather impressive number of people to host in our backyard, as the dorm building is made for 18 people. Now that I have updated you on that, I will bid you adeui and go to sleep with the rising sun.
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