Weekend in Copenhagen

Matt and I arrived in Copenhagen on Saturday afternoon, exhausted from the trip but excited to explore the city. We started things out with a bang: a big, fat, three-hour nap. (We essentially sat down on the bed and woke up from a coma-like state three hours later, as if no time at all had passed. It's what I imagine cryogenic sleep would feel like.)

After naptime, we were feeling pretty spry. We walked around the Vesterbro neighborhood where we're staying, and checked out some of the hip little bars and cafes. We ended up eating Indian food for dinner, and camping out at a tiny bar nearby our hotel for a few hours. It was really nice, actually. We sat at a table on the sidewalk, and drank delicious local beer while waching all the passers-by.

Copenhagen is a big pedestrian city, and bicycle seems to be the preferred mode of transportation. So, we had plenty to look at. All of the city folks riding their bikes past us while wearing ponchos looked a little like caped superheroes. All through the city there are dedicated bike lanes, and most hotels rent out bicycles for a very small fee. There are also free "loaner" bicycles at various stands throughout the city that you can pick up and drop off wherever you like. It's nice, really, because although Copenhagen is a fairly big city, the use of bicycles makes it seem that there isn't much traffic, and the city itself is very quiet.

Another nice thing about Copenhagen for us as tourists is that everyone here seems to speak perfect English, and are incredibly friendly and helpful. We haven't had any trouble at all navagating the city, despite the fact that we don't speak a lick of Danish. We've been trying our best to soak up some of the local culture, and made a point to have lunch yesterday at a very traditional Danish restaurant. One of the Danish specialties is an open-faced sandwich called "Smorrebroad." The name basically translates to something like "smeared bread," or "bread and butter." They take a slice of heavy rye bread, smear it with butter, and then top it with any number of weird and unusual toppings: herring, beef thigh, capers, and so forth. We went to a smorrebroad restaurant near the waterfront, and I ate a sandwich with whitefish, lemon, and red onion. Matt had a very odd sandwich with salted beef, pate, and beef jelly. (It was actually much better than it sounds.)

The waitress also brought us each a glass of Aquavit, made in house, which was strong and delicious. Made me want to take a nap, though. Instead, Matt went back to the hotel to work on his Swedish presentation, and I went to the Danish Design Museum. I love Danish Modern design, so I was really excited about the museum. It turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment. The museum itself was somewhat interesting and I learned a lot, but didn't have nearly enough examples of Danish design for me. I wanted to walk into a wonderland of Danish modern furniture so I could drool at all the fabulousness. The museum was mostly text-based, almost like a history textbook pasted to the wall. For my design fix, I had a much better time at Illums Bolighus, a super-swanky department store on the main shopping street called Stroget. Illums Bolighus was completely dedicated to selling Danish designs, and had level after level of the most beautiful and interesting furniture and housewares that I've ever seen. It was like Ikea for millionaires.

I had a blast walking through the store, sitting in chairs that I had only ever seen before in museums. It was one of the most enjoyable things I got to do in the city. Real Danish Design heaven.

After a nice Thai dinner last night, we went back to the hotel and watched a movie together. We're winding things down here, getting ready to check out of the hotel and hop the train to Lund. There's some sort of international bicycle race going on outside the hotel, so hopefully we'll get to the station without too much trouble.

Next stop... Sweden!