The Metro in Copenhagen is usually quite reliable. Sometimes snags do happen and when they do, they’re fixed up pretty quickly. On Tuesday afternoon however, one of the metro trains headed for the airport (lufthavn) got stuck on the tracks. As a result, all of the other metro trains were being diverted to Nørreport Station. For a while there was no Metro service to the airport while they sorted out the problem. I was on my way to the library and it took twice the time to get there due to the delay. At one point, between Christianshavn and Kongens Nytorv, the train I was in stopped completely and shut down. All the lights went out and everything. It was also a packed train. But after a few minutes the train rebooted. It was actually pretty cool to see how it restarted, the little red display that tells you which station is coming up next was displaying all sort of boot-up messages. A computer controls the entire system. It’s really interesting.
As for the train that got stuck, I guess they had to have the people file out of the train, walk down the little platform along the tracks and into the station.
Over the next few weeks, I plan to write a series of posts about the different public transportation options in Copenhagen and so I will write much more about the Metro when that time comes. :-D
Pictured is part of the crowd at Nørreport Station. It was packed!!
Denmark’s currency is the Danish Crown, called Danske krone in Danish (abbreviated DKK). At the time of this writing, 1 USD is just under 6 DKK (~5.98). Last fall, 1 USD was about 5 DKK. So to get an approximate value of how much an item costs in USD, you’d divide the amount in kroner by 5. So 100 DKK is about $20 (actually it’s less than that since the exchange rate is about 5.98-ish, but I’d rather overestimate the value by a few dollars than underestimate it).
The plural form of “krone” is “kroner.” Krone is the Danish word for crown. When I first arrived last fall I kept saying “kroners” to make it plural but that’s a redundancy because “kroner” is already plural. Saying “kroners” is like saying “dollarses.”
Well, there are quite a few coins. Sometimes I still struggle to remember which is which. To alleviate that problem, I am going to sort all of my coins out and place them in separate bags according to value. I will then clearly label each bag (e.g. 5 DKK). The Danish coins are (clockwise, starting from the smallest silver coin at the top in the picture at left): 1-krone, a 2-kroner, 5-kroner, 20-kroner and 10-kroner. The 1, 2 and 5 kroner coins come with nifty little holes in the middle. I assume it’s so you can string them together and wear them as a necklace so you’ll always have change with you?
There are also 25- and 50 øre coins. 100 øre = 1 krone. So 50 øre is half a krone and 25 øre is a quarter-krone. But the 25 øre coins went out of commission in October 2008 and are no longer in use.
The Danish paper money is also quite interesting and colorful to boot. You can get a 50 kroner bill, 100, 200, 500 and 1000. According to Wikipedia they are going to redesign the bills between 2009 and 2012, with Danish bridges as the theme.
Note: The paper money pictured at the top is actually part of my rent money. I snapped a photo of it just before I took it down to the post office to pay my rent for the month. ;-)
No, no more snow on the ground, but here are some pictures of snow days we’ve had in recent weeks.
Now the weather is mostly cloudy, although on Wednesday we had a few lovely hours of sunshine. The world was doused in color. I didn’t have my camera with me then, but next time we have sun I’ll grab my camera.
Little snowman outside of my kollegium blok.
My school is the building on the left! Snow doesn't shut THIS city down!
You can see MANY more pictures at Flickr!
