The last city I visited on my eurotrip was Copenhagen. I got one wonderfully sunny July weekend (20-21/7) in the cool of the Scandinavian capitals. It is also the only city that I didn’t get a map of. I didn’t need one, I had a great, full-time guide in Markus.
Markus and I were in the same class at the international school during the year I lived in Tanzania 1999-2000. We weren’t close in any way, but friendly, and when Facebook spread out over the world like a pandemic, we became Facebook friends. (I was actually the first among my Swedish friends to become a member of Facebook, because I got invited by one of my other Danish Tanzania friends, Rikke. Unfortunately, Rikke had just gone abroad herself, otherwise I would have met up with her too in Copenhagen.) When I wrote to him about maybe grabbing a beer or something during my stay in Copenhagen, he offered me to stay at his place – and that, my friends, would just have been rude to refuse. And it was a great decision, because he and his three roommates were so laid back and made me feel at home – completely confirming my prejudices about Danes.
Having a personal guide is great in most ways – but what I realized afterwards, when going through the photos, was that I’ve very much attached my memory of the names of places and what the guidebook had to say about them on those maps. Now, when I didn’t have a threadbare free tourist map covered in notes to glance at, I no longer remembered the names of the places that I had been to. So, I’ve had to guess and google. In case of mistakes, forgive me. I was completely whacked by this point, and just floated along in the heat, happy to be able to rely on Markus knowing where we were.
Nyhavn. Probably the most photographed spot in Copenhagen.
During the summers, Markus works as a waiter at a restaurant here. According to him, this guy sits there almost every day, playing the same songs over and over and over. Markus does not like him.
Some ocean kayaking in front of the new Copenhagen Opera House. 
Me, by the monument in the middle of the square that is surrounded by the Danish Royal Palace, with the marble Frederiks Church in the background.
Strøget, where all the shopping is being done.
Some more kayakers in a canal.
The Christiania post office. Further than this, I couldn’t go with my camera. I was kindly asked to put it away. But it was a very hippie kind of area to walk around in. Very much the rebellious Danishness that we hear so much about in proper Sweden.
Katja Malmborg 