Copenhagen & Roskilde

In the last few of weeks, I have been working in Madrid and in the midst of the sunshine and warm weather, 2 colleagues from Denmark kept repeating that Copenhagen was '15oC and raining', '15oC and raining'... So, with a couple of days to the weekend, I checked the forecast - 23oC and sunny! 'You are soooo lucky!', says one of my colleagues. The weather held up all weekend and got up to 27oC on Monday.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon in the midst of bright sunshine. Koufu and Kum Mo arrived a couple of hours after we did. We went to a typical Danish restaurant for dinner and had herrings (pickled & marinated with egg yolk) for entrees and meat for mains ('the Danes eat a lot of meat', said the lady at reception). This simple meal cost ~DKK400/person (~A$85). Such exorbitant prices! Just incredible how much food costs in Denmark. I don't know how much they must have to earn to survive.
On Sunday, we took a canal cruise in the sun and saw palaces, the royal yacht, cruise ships and expensive houses and apartments converted from old navy barracks and torpedo factories. The Little Mermaid is off to Shanghai next year for the expo but for the timebeing, she is still in Copenhagen. She's very overrated but looking very well given that she has been attacked several times and had her head and limbs hacked off at various points. We stopped of in Nyhavn (New Harbour), home of the old docks and sailors' watering holes, for lunch. We had a smørrebrød, an open sandwich, which was very rich and very nice.
In the afternoon, we visited the Danish Design Centre, which had an exhibition on Light and talked about how LED lighting was going to be the way of the future because of its clarity and environmental benefits. We also visited the Glyptoteket, the art gallery, which has a large collection of Impressionist paintings, Rodin sculptures and Egyptian, Roman & Etruscan statues.
That evening, we went into Tivoli to have dinner. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it is not a tacky amusement park as most others are but is actually quite elegant.
On Monday, we met up with Yi and Jerry and went to Roskilde for the day. It used to be the seat of the Danish crown and its cathedral contains the remains of most of the Danish kings and queens. It is quite morbid to see so many tombs. A couple of them were especially morbid with a marble skull wearing a crown perched on the end of the tomb.
Roskilde is also home to the Viking Ship Museum. 5 Viking Ships were found in the fjord where they had been sunken to protect the harbour from enemy invasion. These 1000 year old ships were excavated and preserved. The museum had the replica ship that was used to sail to Dublin and back in 2007/08. It also had smaller replica viking ships that they took people out on. We ended up being the crew, rowing out of the harbour before the captain raised the square sail. It was amazingly easy to row despite Ma, Yi & Kum Mo declaring beforehand that they weren't going to row, there being 2 children as part of the 12 man crew and the guy in front of me being worse than completely useless and tangling his oar up alternatively with mine and the guy's in front of him. The captain managed to get the ship back to port without our having to row again, which was probably much better for her given her useless crew.
So, the forecast for this weekend in Copenhagen? 14oC and raining. :)
Have just watched Roger Federer win the French Open to win a career Grand Slam and equal Sampras's record of 14 Grand Slams. Yay! He's such a beautiful player to watch, I'm so happy for him.