S'More Smørrebrod
Please!
Copenhagen, April 2001
Language. The trip went smoothly, with my main difficulty
being all the dumb foreigners who don't speak American. If they can't
learn the language?! Oh wait, I'm the dumb foreigner. Nevermind.
Danish is quite difficult, particularly the pronunciation. Fortunately,
almost everyone speaks English. So my feeble attempts at Danish ended
in two results: (1) I mangled it so badly, that they just started
speaking English to me; or (2) I actually got it reasonably correct, and
they started rambling in Danish, and of course I had no idea what they were
saying.
Bikes. Bikes are everywhere. Major roads all have wide
bike lanes and it often seems like there are more bikes than cars on the
roads. But despite the Danes' obvious love of biking (or disdain for
paying $4/gallon for gas and 200% tax on auto purchases), they rarely lock
up their bikes - often they just leave them along the sidewalk. This
is not because crime is non-existent (although it is quite low) but rather
because the bikes are generally quite (putting it politely) antiquated.
There are very few new and/or high quality mountain or road bikes with aluminum
frames, shocks, gears, etc. Most bikes are simple single-gear affairs,
often with rusted chains, which look at least 20 years old. The Danish
bikes are to American bikes as Mexican cars are to American cars (to use
an SAT-style analogy).
Trains. When Danes aren't biking, they are often taking the
trains, which run amazingly on time. If you are a minute late for
a train, you can bet on missing it. Bikes are allowed on the trains.
Smoking is allowed in some cars. It can be difficult to tell which
cars allow smoking and which don't, but it can often be defined as 'the one
Walt gets on'.
Danes also love to take their infants out in their perambulators (or prams
as we commonly call them). You don't see any strollers, only prams.
Prams, often with crying babies, are also allowed in certain cars of the
train and while they are not the same as the smoking cars, they amazingly
can also often be defined as 'the one Walt gets on'.
Food. Perhaps the most amazing thing of my trip is that it
took me 4 days, 2 hours, 32 minutes, and 22 seconds (or thereabouts) before
I saw a McDonald's in Copenhagen. Even though I pretty much only went
to and from work for those 4 days it is still a rather remarkable feat.
Of course, after seeing that first one, I saw 2 more within a half hour.
By the way, even though they use the metric system here, the Danes do know
what the heck a quarter-pound is - they call it a 'Quarter-Pounder'.
I don't know about a Whopper though - I didn't go into Burger King.
The best meal I had in Copenhagen was seafood paella. Second best
was lasagna, and third best was shawarma (a popular sandwich here which Americans,
particularly Detroiters, will know better as gyros). Now, you're wondering,
is this Danish food? It sounds rather more like Spanish or Italian
or Greek? Traditional Danish dinner fare is meat and potatoes, which
many modern Danes have tired of. So, ethnic food is very popular, particularly
Italian (lots of pizza places - I'm two blocks from a Domino's), Chinese,
and Thai.
However, I did enjoy a lot of traditional Danish food. This has fallen
mainly into two categories: pastries and smørrebrod. You may
think you are familiar with Danish pastries, but you are not. The 'danish'
one gets in America is but one (and far from the best) of a wide assortment
of pastries that are very, very good. Smørrebrod is the traditional
Danish lunch. I believe it translates into English as 'bread with mysterious
toppings'. Actually, it literally means 'buttered bread', but it does
come topped with often strange, unidentifiable toppings of meat and veggies.
It ranges in flavor from savory to, uh, weird.
Drink. They serve beer in the cafeteria at work. They
serve beer during meetings. Is any further explanation needed for why
one could easily conclude that Denmark is a superior country to America?
American Embassy. Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet
wave?? Yes, indeed it does. Over the American Embassy, 5 minutes
from where I stayed; I passed it every day on my way to work. So, if
any problem would've arose, such as an American sub sinking a Danish fishing
vessel or a Danish fighter crashing after colliding with an American spy
place (like what are the chances!), and the Danes got a bit mad at Americans,
I could've quickly sought refuge in the embassy, except for two difficulties.
[At this time, the U.S. had recently collided with a Japanese fishing
boat and a U.S. military had collided with a Chinese fighter, leading to
protests iat the U.S. embassies in both countries - WM, 2004].
First, it's the ugliest embassy building I've ever seen, so I would've
had to decide whether to stay in such an unæsthetic building or take
my chances on the outside. Second, I would've needed to get past the
security, which includes a high fence, cameras and guards outside - by far
it is the most fortified embassy. Of course, if I didn't get in there,
I could've always tried the Canadian Embassy which is right next door and
has, to put it mildly, somewhat less intense security. In fact, I
could've easily gotten in one day when, as I walked by when a car pulled
in and the automatic gate took about ten minutes to close afterwards.
Danish Culture. While Copenhagen is generally not thought of
alongside, say London, Paris, or Rome as a major European center of culture,
three of the world's great museums reside in the center of Copenhagen:
Ripley's Believe It or Not, Guinness Book of World Records, and Tussaud's
Wax Museum. Actually, there are some nice art museums, including a
very good Greek, Roman, and Egyptian sculpture museum.
Elsinore. I visited the Castle at Elsinore, where one of the
most famous stories in history was set. Yes, it is the location of
the beer factory in Bob and Doug McKenzie's film classic, "Strange Brew".
Those of you less cultured may know the name as the setting of the Mel Gibson
romantic comedy, "Hamlet", which was a decent film, but the script left
something to be desired (I believe it was by some hack named Bill - no wonder
he had to borrow the Elsinore name from "Strange Brew"!).
Roskilde. I also went to Roskilde, which is famous for a history
of violence. But, besides Pearl Jam concerts, it was once a major
center of Viking culture and they have a museum of 12th century Viking ships
that were salvaged from the Roskilde Fjord. The ships were actually
sunk on purpose to block the only navigatible route into the harbour so that
the Swedes couldn't invade.
The Little Mermaid. Perhaps the most famous site in Copenhagen
is The Little Mermaid. It's a small (and I do mean small, which makes
sense I guess - it isn't 'The Medium-sized Mermaid'). You all probably
know The Little Mermaid from the famous Walt Disney movie. Now around
here, they claim a local writer, Hans Christian Andersen, wrote the story
many years ago. That of course is nonsense - Walt Disney would never
stoop to borrowing stories for their animated films.
Bakken and Dyrehaven. This a combination amusement park and
deer preserve. This is an odd combination, and unfortunately an often
problematic one. You see, the deer always take cuts in the line for
the roller coaster. Actually, the Bakken is the worlds oldest amusement
park (I was sure it was Disneyland); it is over 400 years old. The
deer preserve was set aside originally for the king's hunting grounds (which
strikesme as a bit disingenuous).
Christiana. I did not travel much outside of Denmark, but one
country I went to is Christiania. You may not be familiar with Christiania
(I wasn't until I got here) - it certainly is not part of the European Union.
In the late 1960's, revolution was in the Copenhagen air, and some free-spirited
radicals took over an old military base just east of the city and declared
it the independent state of Christiania, where the Danish laws were no longer
valid. Cars were banned, leash laws for dogs were eliminated, and
the residents vowed to live an ascetic, communal life. They even have
their own flag and motto ('love yourself, and walk or bike' - not exactly
'live free or die'). Now it of course is completely inappropriate
that a bunch of long-haired radical ascetics, living communally and obeying
a higher law than the government, name their state after Jesus Christ?
Besides, the banning of cars and the change in the leash laws, a few other
regulations were changed in Christiania. For those who are interested,
Christiania is your one-stop shopping locale for marijuana, hash pipes,
tie-dyes, Bob Marley albums and other recreational drug paraphernalia.
I did not follow the "when in Rome" dictum while in Christiania, but for
those interested, I can report that the going-rate for pot is 50 kr for 10g
which in American units converts to uh?um?.I'm having a bit of trouble figuring
it out - my mind is a bit cloudy (honest, I just window shopped!).
By the way, Christiania has three national holidays: Independence Day,
Bob Marley's birthday, and the day Jerry Garcia died.
Von Frelsers Church. There are innumerable churches in the
city, but the best one (in my book) is Von Frelsers Church. It is
one of the most unique churches in the world. You can climb a staircase
to the top of the steeple. That isn't really unique. What is
unique is that staircase is on the OUTSIDE of the steeple. It spirals
aroundthe steeple to the top. It is a proverbial 'stairway to heaven'
(there was lady there who was trying to buy it). Of course, in a practical
sense, it's a stairway to nowhere (I tried to convince them to replace with
an escalator) - you get to the top and have to just turn right around and
try to squeeze by people who were coming up behind you.
Strøget. This is the central shopping district of Copenhagen
- a two-mile pedestrian street, it is the longest pedestrian mall in the
world (or so they claim). I have to admit that the first time I walked
down the Strøget, in a freezing rain, I thought this had to be the
stupidest idea anyone had ever come up with. Sure, the longest pedestrian
mall makes sense in Rome, heck, maybe even Paris, but in Scandinavia, where
winters last 8 months?! However, when I returned on a sunny and (relatively)
warm day I had to admit it was quite nice.
Mälmo, Sweden. Mälmo is a Swedish town right across
a narrow strait from Copenhagen, accessible by a recently finished bridge.
I sensed an inferiority complex among the people from Mälmo.
To make sure you don't mistakenly think you're still in Denmark (a
fairly easy thing to do since everything looks pretty much the same and
the languages, at least to my inexpert ear, were indistinguishable), dozens
of Swedish flags were flying throughout the downtown area.
Danish Bowling. On my last night in Copenhagen, I went bowling.
The rules are the same as in America, but they take it much less seriously
than Americans. Mainly, it's an excuse to drink beer....Come to think
of it, maybe it's really not all that much different than in America.
So, that's my trip to Copenhagen. Next, I headed off to Paris where I hoped to spend all my time at EuroDisney!