malmo & copenhagen!

ankur and i took a trip to malmo and copenhagen this weekend and it was quite fun - although also fairly exhausting... we started with a 5 hour train ride south to malmo.  this train ride was way better than the one to uppsala.  we got all the way out of the city and got to see some really pretty countryside even though we didn't have a window we meet due.

it was a beautiful ride although we were delayed by about 2 hours we ended up getting in around 2.

malmo is the third largest city in sweden after stockholm and gothenberg. we started our visit at a restaurant called cafe siesta which naturally we thought might be mexican food, but instead we both had really yummy coconut curry pasta.  after that we walked over to the kings garden (one of the many kings gardens we have been to) and went to the slott (aka scandinavian word for castle) i just love saying slot! it sounds funny!

but this wasn't just any slott this one housed six museums: art, city history, war, acquarium, royal, and special exhibitions and all it cost us with our mecenat cards was 20 sek - basically the best deal in all of sweden.  but we were quite surprised with what we saw inside.  the acquarium was probably the best part and the other parts were all just plain old ODD! there was a random fake security guard and all sorts of other stuff you can see in the slide show below.

malmo was also home to some frozen fountains and the twisting torso which are the first of which was just kinda funny and the second is the only tall building in the entire city and although architecturally interesting mostly just seemed out of place.

after we had our afternoon in malmo we took the half hour train over a BIG suspension bridge to copenhagen.  we made our way over to the hostel which was actually quite nice and met our roommates some israeli dancers who were in town to try out for a modern dance group.  we had a great vegetarian buffet in slottsholmen at a mediterean restaurant and then lucked out big time.  we found a jazz club in the lp called lafontaine we went in and although the atmosphere was SMOKEY there were 2 for 1 beers and we met some friends of the band who were playing which were GREAT and generally had an awesome time.

saturday we got up and we walked - A LOT... seriously all day.  we didn't plan our day very well and although we saw a lot we ended up criss-crossing the city many many many times.  a few of the things we visited: a wonderful coffee shop, another kings garden, another slott with a great museum and the crown jewels of denmark, the national museum, the cristiann commune... phew it was a long day.  we had a beer on christianhaven or something spelled similarly and then trekked all the way across the city again in search of a tapas restaurant we had read about... however that tapas restaurant did not exist - but it lead to us finding an amazing indian restaurant where we sat at a communal table with a french girl working for the OECD and 4 american college students studying abroad.

sunday we had to get up early to check out of the hostel.  we again walked VERY far to see the little mermaid statue as well as views of the kastellett and the opera house all of which were beautiful.  everything is closed on sundays except for museums so we had a rough time finding someplace to eat but eventually we managed and this was the view out of the restaurant.

after our long walk we went to a statue museum which had palm trees inside (amazing for this cold climate) and then made our way to the louisiana museum which was about a half hour north of the city by train.  it was a very modern but beautiful museum right along the coast.  i wasn't so into a lot of the art but it was great nonetheless.  we ended the weekend with a trip back to malmo, dinner at a chinese restaurant and another long ride back to stockholm this morning - all in all a wonderful weekend!