Copenhagen (with a side trip to Malmö) – Part 1 of 7

3rd of July – The beginnings

We woke up bright and early, way too early for vacation, to begin our trip to Copenhagen (CPH from now on). After breakfast I had a few “I think we are forgetting to pack something”. Then we said goodbye home and headed for the first leg of our lengthy trip. Two buses and a train later we arrived at Brussels Airport to drop off our luggage and take our flight to CPH. We landed an hour and 15 minutes later, about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. But it’s ok, the baggage drop-off made up for that time making us wait 20 minutes for our suitcase.

We walked out of the luggage claim area into what looked a very disorganized check in area, to find our way to the train station. A nice Danish girl sold us tickets for the train and gave us instructions on how to get to Dybbølsbro st., the closest S-train stop to our hotel, the Copenhagen Island. We walked the 100m to the hotel and checked in. Luckily they didn’t complain we were too early!

View from our room

We took possession of our room and unpacked our things and then we headed to the bar to enjoy our Velkomstdrink (sic) and look on our guide & map what we wanted to do that afternoon. We decided to head to the center to walk around and do some people watching sitting in a terrace having a drink. Around 6pm we were both tired and head back to our hotel to drop off some weight and rest a while. Our first meal in CPH was a tomato soup with sour cream and a pasta with season vegetables (served with a side mixed salad! First time ever I have a pasta dish served with a salad) at The First Lady, a pub located in the shopping center next door, Fisketorvet.

Klip Card

After eating we asked our nice waitress where we could buy a bus card (klip card) and headed to the kiosk to buy one so we could go to Nyhavn to have a drink. After a while we took the “hotel bus route” to go back to our hotel for the night. A nice shower and we crashed in our soft bed and manage to sleep despite the brightness that came in through the blinds. Like all Scandinavian countries, they don’t really care about proper light blocking blinds.

See all the trip pictures here.

Forty days without meat: 45 & 46 – the end!

So, the last two days! It was fun posting so often, now I just need to find another reason to do it more often without having to write a book every time. It was interesting seeing how I eat on a day-to-day basis, since I really didn’t change anything in my habits. Menus:

Breakfast:

  • Oranje juice
  • Musli with milk

Lunch:

  • Sammiches

Dinner:

  • Curried cauliflower (oven baked), oven baked sliced potatoes, veggie burger (45)
  • Veggie burger with provençal sauce, fries, apple pie (46)

Forty days without meat: 41 to 44 – look, more crocheting happened!

image

Today was Knit Flanders again, so I went there, had a great time, relaxed, talked, laughed, and even got around to crocheting two hexagons. I might even attempt to make a whole bunch of them and join them into a blanket some time!

The boring menu stuff:

Breakfast:

  • Orange juice
  • Musli with milk

Lunch:

  • Usual sammiches

Dinner:

  • Spicy lentils with tomato (from the freezer) (41)
  • Mushroom & carrot “meal soup” (42 & 43)
  • Mac `n cheese with mushrooms, veggie schnitzel (44)

Snacks:

  • Cookies
  • Drink yogurt
  • Apple pie with vanilla ice cream (as a treat)

Forty days without meat: 38, 39 & 40

We’re done! Well, not really, because I didn’t tale Sundays off. So there are six more days ahead of us. Lent is a tricky period ;) Menus for these past three days:

Breakfast:

  • Orange juice
  • Musli with milk

Lunch:

  • Sammiches (38 & 39)
  • Freshly baked bread buns with assorted fillings (40)

Dinner:

  • Whatever falls in the pot dinner: pasta, peas, mushrooms, tomato pieces & cheese (38)
  • Garlic bread, Garden Lovers pizza with barbeque sauce (PizzaHut) (39)
  • Spaghetti (veggie) bolognese (40)

Snacks:

  • Mandarins
  • Drink yogurt
  • Cookies
  • Crisps

Forty days without meat (36 & 37), plus some crochet

Let’s start with the crochet. I taught myself to crochet last summer. Before that the holding of yarn & hook and the movements never clicked. It might have helped that I also taught myself to knit holding the yarn on the left hand instead of on the right (although the latter is still my preferred method). Since today I didn’t have class (yay!) after studying some in the morning I decided to pay a visit to my dear Knit Flanders. I’ve missed them terribly! I finished the sleeve on my cardigan, but I couldn’t cast off because I forgot to bring a bigger needle (silly me). So I moved onto practicing some crochet. And the results are these:


My first flower motif. It doesn’t look too bad.

My first granny hexi. It was actually supposed to be a square (right on the picture) but I failed miserably at counting to four and ended doing six repeats… Oh well!

On to the menu:

Breakfast:

  • Orange juice
  • Musli with milk

Lunch:

  • Baguette with brie, tomato & rocket from Exki (36)
  • Sammiches with Delhaize veggie salads, cheese & nutella (37)

Dinner:

  • Salad :(ettuce, carrot, tomato, cucumber, mozzarella cheese, hardboiled egg, olives, yogurt dressing (36)
  • Whatever falls in the pot dinner: pasta, peas, mushrooms, tomato pieces, minced quorn, white wine, smoked paprika (37)

Snacks:

  • Banana
  • Drink yogurt
  • Cookie
  • Coffee
  • Iced tea
  • Piece of chocolate

Forty days without meat: 32

Breakfast:

  • Orange juice
  • Musli with milk

Lunch:

  • Fresh baked bread with assorted cheeses & “mediterranean spread” (Delhaize)

Dinner:

  • Veggie bbq!

Snacks:

  • Coffee, tea
  • Drink yogurt
  • Cookie
  • Scone, jam & clotted cream (what can I say, we were at Huize Colette!)

Today we made our first every bbq. We have gone to a couple, but never lighted one ourselves. We had bought a portable one a couple years ago (pretty much like this one) and today was so nice outside that we finally decided to use it! We bought the stuff we still needed (lighting fluid, food, aluminium trays, we already had the bag of coconut bricks for a while) and did it.

Lighting the barbie was a new experience. We starting using way too little lighting gel. Which means it didn’t really get hot enough to get the coconut bricks red. And once we had added enough and let it burn, we didn’t wait long enough to put our stuff to cook. Next time we know that it needs half an hour instead of the ten mins the instruction leaflet says.

Onto the actual food. Big pieces of courgette and red bell pepper, whole white mushrooms & pieces of seitan. All marinated in 2tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tsp dry thyme, 1/2 tsp dry rosemary, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp garlic powder for as long as the barbie takes to get hot at least. More is always better. Once the barbie is hot (coals are covered in white ash – wait for this, not like us that started cooking too early), put a disposable foil bbq tray on top and put your marinated food in one layer. Chances are you have to cook in several times. Anyway, cook for about 10 minutes, getting everything hot and golden, turning a couple of times at least. Serve with a nice boiled potato (forgot to put these on the barbie!) with a pat of butter.

And that’s how you make your first barbie, veggie, in a balcony, with a mini grill!