Poppin' to Copenhagen

I've just got back from Copenhagen. We managed to get tickets from Boras, changing at Alvesta, for roughly £20 so it was really cheap to hop over to Denmark for a few days. We got to our hostel called Copenhagen Downtown pretty smoothly, and it was surprisingly nice. After settling in we went for a drink in the bar downstairs and it was refreshingly cheap too. Anything would seem cheap after spending any time out eating and drinking in Sweden. We realised pretty quickly that our hostel was bang in the centre of all the night life and all the major sites. 


On a walk around town we passed one of the major canals; there were huge piles of some foul smelling pond weed from the bottom of the canal. Presumably the river bed had been raked clean a few days before or something. Although the smell of these piles of pond weed smelt disgusting in the baking heat I found them really interesting. I think the photos of them will be useful for a future project; they looked like piles of felted fabric. 


We did a lot of shopping on our trip. The vintage stores are all in one area, which was conveniently on the doorstep of our hostel. Plus there are lots of home stores that are really interesting because they are full of neat little kitchen utensils and very modern and chic pared down pieces of furniture.


We were lucky enough to go to see the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition on our second day there at the National Gallery of Denmark. I was a wonderful exhibition full of really famous prints. In the evening we chanced upon a cheap and cheerful bar called 'Floss' near our hostel. It was really busy and full of a real mix of people; lots of young and trendy types and then also a few old men. Whether or not this is still illegal there everyone was smoking and it was impossible to get out of there not stinking. 


On our third and final morning waking up in Denmark we went to the Design Museum. There was a fantastic exhibition of Danish design through the decades and also some interesting exhibits on pioneering new ideas and inventions. There was a large section dedicated to 'Unidrain' which is a long thin drain which is becoming more and more popular in modern buildings as it eliminates a plughole in favour of a long thin stainless steel strip. There was also an area on medical design and the numerous prototypes that go into a finished product. For example, there were 19 commodes (portable toilets) designed before it was sold to seven UK hospitals from Denmark over a period of 4 months. 

Gothenburg-er

Have just spent some time in Gothenburg with my parents and already want to go back. It seems like we did so much in just a few days! They came to sleepy old Boras for a day too and that was really good because we went to Ramnaparken to see the Boras Open Air Museum. So on the 10th September they arrived and we went for a walk once they'd checked into their hotel. We went to the Gothenburg Tradgardsforeningen, a small botanical garden alongside the river in the centre of town; there is a rosarium (basically a rose garden) and a palm house modelled around Crystal Palace, built in 1878. I guess it seems a bit strange to come all the way from London to look at a replica of Crystal Palace. It was somewhat annoying that you have to pay 20kr entrance even if you are just using the park to walk through to the other side towards Avenyn, but you soon realise that nothing in Sweden is cheap and certainly nothing is free! Plus the entrance fee is technically voluntary but it's the same as everywhere that claims to be voluntary, you are better off to just pay than to look mean. Then we had a lovely meal of butter baked fish and roasted root vegetables and made our way back to their hotel. On the way to the hotel we passed the famous Skanskaskrapan, more commonly known to locals as the 'lipstick building', designed by Ralph Erskine (who also designed the Sydney Opera House) in cooperation with 'White Architects' in the late 1980s. This is in the Lilla Bonmen district close to the floating hotel they were staying on. After a couple Swedish 'Mariestad' beers we ambled down the ship yard next to the hotel where there are ships from all different countries and times being repaired and exhibited. There is a lovely smell of linseed oil in the air from the paints and coatings they are using for repairs. When we reached the end of the ship yard we saw a huge hare, a surprise to me as I have never seen one apart from in cartoons and this one is as big as a dog. The other day I identified the 'Gothenburg Hare' in the Natural History Museum but more on that later.

Arriving in Boras

Well I've been here for a few days now and have a couple of things to share. It initially seemed like a really small town but actually the residential areas stretch far and wide from the centre where I've spent most of my time. Today I went to see one of the towns few attractions, which was a giant statue of pinocchio. It was somewhat underwhelming but this may have had something to do with the fact that it was pissing with rain. And may I also add that he's not that giant either. I would say a medium statue, and certainly no David. I've also been to Gothenburg which was nice but I have to go back to explore more as I feel like we missed a lot. We spent a great deal of the day walking the entire distance of the pier, enjoying the sights of freight drivers scratching their arses waiting to board the ferry, to look at a statue that was on a tall pillar (it looked deceivingly close). This statue stands at Stenpiren (Stone Pier) and it was from here that hundreds of emigrants said their last goodbyes before setting off to a "New Sweden" in the United States in 1638. The granite 'Delaware Monument' marking Swedish emigration originally stood here but this was carted off to America from Gothenburg in the early part of the nineteenth century, and it wasn't until 1938 that sculptor Carl Milles cast a replacement in bronze that stands looking out to sea today.