row row row your boat

06 August 2008, Wednesday

So well, after danish class last week, the exchange students went on a Canal Tour in the Nyhavn waterfront (: It was damn touristy yes, but well, it was pretty nice (: we did find the brightly painted townhouses that we saw on every other postcard, and we did see the little mermaid's backview and a lot more scandinavian-styled buildings that i snapped 3082402 photos of because of their damn cool designs but can't identify hurhur.

So while out in the harbour, we also saw the Royal Ship Denneborg (complete with damn cute sailor who waved at us haha) and some Danish naval battleships (or at least that's what I think they are haha). Oh, and the goddamn Little Mermaid which is damn small (the postcards lied!) :/ I don't know why so many people flock to see it though. But anyway trivia time — my guidebook says that, "the mermaid has sufffered over the years at the hands of mischevious pranksters, even losing her head and an arm." I wiki-ed her and tada, apparently she has been draped in a tudung and burka before, got covered with pink paint, lost her head a couple of times, had a bra painted on her and a dildo put in her hand...

We also saw (clockwise from top right) the Black Diamond (named after its shiny black granite facade) which is the home of the Royal Library, the Royal Danish Playhouse, the Copenhagen Opera House, and erm a host of other unidentifiable but damn nice buildings haha.

There were a lot of houseboats and luxury yachts in the canals as well. Oh and random smiley danish people just relaking on their boats with beers in their hands... And random kayakers!

And because this is Denmark, of course they have floating bars in the canal! Calsberg, no less.

More pictures of colourful buildings... I wonder if the individual owners of the various buildings did actually decide to collaborate with each other to make sure that the colours turned out nice and cheery, or was it just a random thing hmm. Anyway yeah we also saw the Børsen, which is Copenhagen's old stock exchange. Oh and an interesting juxtaposition — random old building juxtaposed against grafitti along the canal banks.

Okay end of post, gotta go do my laundry and attempt to study for the danish test tomorrow :/