A Big Day in Copenhagen

There were elections in Denmark sometime around the time of my trip, which meant lots of campaign signs. I can't find anything about when they were, but I did find a sign for someone of my clan running for office. Too bad she is a Social Democrat.

If it was any question based upon the name of a popular breakfast pastry, breakfast in Copenhagen was very good. On the way to our bus stop (to get to the city centre) we saw the sign of great things to come: the golden pretzel sign. That's the sign of a bakery. John and I bought half of kringle (which wasn't quite like the kringle my mother makes most Christmas mornings). There was no real filling, but it was supremely moist and creamy while still flaky.

Walking through the city centre on the main pedestrian street, we ran into an exhibition about green energy - biomass, wind, water, solar (yeah, right 55 degrees north latitude...). They were giving away hot chocolate too! I was a bit shocked when they served it in the epitome of unsustainable materials, styrofoam. At this point, I started sensing a theme of sustainable energy in my weekend in Copenhagen.

We made our way to the Tivoli Gardens - one of the oldest amusement parks in the world. With Christmas a month away, it was all decked out with holiday cheer. There were some rides in the park, but they were expensive, so John and I stuck to the seeing of sights. For a reason unknown to me, there was a parade of youth dressed as Danish beefeaters and (maybe?) literary figures, but none of them looked particularly happy. Once those fun-suckers were gone, the shops and decorations exuded a merry attitude. The Christmas decorations were just superimposed on the park that was already there, though. There were several different sections, each with a different theme. I saw the Orient, India, and traditional Scandinavia. There was also something that proved to be undeniably awesome, although supremely confusing: the Trojan Reindeer. It was probably 30 feet tall and made out of wood and just in the middle of the park. I didn't get the story on it, but it was kinda sweet! Also confusing was the floating ice island in the koi pond inhabited by snowmen.

We found it kind of hard to find traditional Danish food in Copenhagen. I'm sure it was somewhere, but there can't be a large amount of it. There is American, Asian, Mid-Eastern, etc, but they seemed to have moved beyond potatoes and Smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches). It was profoundly disappointing not to see tall, blond people chowing down on smoked herring Smørrebrød. But, John and I found some great traditional Danish food in Tivoli. We started with some Æbleskiver, which are similar to pancakes, except shaped into small balls by a special hemispherical pan. They are served with (at least at Tivoli) powdered sugar and raspberry jam. Man, were they good - just get a cup of good coffee with them and you're set. Next, we NEEDED smørrebrød. It was almost an obsession at this point. We got to a sit-down restaurant in the park and found some. The menu, though, was in all Danish. Using our superior skills of logical deduction and Latin roots, we kind of figured out what some of the smørrebrød were made with. John was boring and got a roast beef one, but I was exciting and ordered a liverwurst, bacon, pickles, and picked beet one. Good choice, Alex! It was almost the perfect meal - but it didn't come with a blank check made out to me (this was also the point at which I realized I was not an Irish politician).

On the way out of Tivoli, we walked by the wonderful city hall building. It was very typical of Copenhagen architecture - red brick and an oxidized copper spire - and very beautiful. Just down the street (as if Tivoli and city hall weren't enough) was the Danish Design Centre. It had to be one of the coolest museums I've been to, even though it was fairly small. The first main gallery was focused on praxis (putting theoretical knowledge into practice) in creating productive urban spaces. I didn't figure out how some parts fit into this mold, but all parts were very cool. The highlights included: a quiz you could take to determine how active you would be for your neighborhood (I was a downright scary revolutionary), swings hanging from the ceiling, free Danish flag tissue paper, some art, white spaces, and above all a series of spinny things that look like they were stolen from a carwash. When you walked by them, they started spinning, encouraging you to run through them like a child through a sprinkler. On the edge of the next gallery were about a dozen scaled sculptures of new concepts for buildings created by the Danes. There were things like building that corkscrewed as they went up to avoid wind sheer and formed canopies over shady central courtyards. Upstairs, there was a large exhibit on the electric car. To see the videos for it, you 'made your own power' by blowing on a small windmill to charge a small card that you connected to the monitors along the way. And, as always, the gift shop at the end was full of really cool things that I didn't quite like enough to buy.

Very near to the Design Centre is the National Museum of Denmark, where we went next. The main exhibition was a walk-through of Danish history. I learned many things about the Danish kingdom and its history. For example - Denmark and Norway were a joint kingdom for several hundred years. I saw a house like the one that my Danish ancestors might have lived in. One of the houses from Christiania that was donated a few years ago was also there. There was also a long struggle with democracy there as well. Just as we got to the last of the galleries, the museum was closing, so we looked at the shop. I bought a Danish cookbook, partly because one of the recipes was called Burning Love (mashed potatoes with fried pork and onions on top).

That night, I looked on my tourist map at the top 20 sight-seeing adventures (original, I know). The first one listed alphabetically was Amalienborg. I wasn't sure what it was, but we went. As it turns out, that's the palace of the royal family. The complex is made up of several ornate buildings around a huge roundabout (that people are allowed to drive through) with the statue of a king on a rearing horse in the centre. Every 100 yards or so was a guard marching quietly, dressed like the guards at the English palaces. Across the street from the complex on one side was an incredibly awkwardly proportioned church. It was about 80% dome, 10% steps, and 10% church. The thing was looked massive, although I'm sure the scale made it look bigger. On the other side was a little courtyard that looked across the river/canal (I'm not really sure what it was) towards one of Denmark's modern architectural wonders, the Opera House. There wasn't much to do there besides look at stuff, so we started to walk back. We spent the rest of the night having a few Christmas beers (that's right - they brew a beer especially for Christmas. The day that they release it for the season, they hand out a tonne of it free too!) and watching silly American TV shows like the Office.

PS - here is some photo proof of the crazy amount of bicycling that goes on in Copenhagen.

PPS - I made some Burning Love last week and it was great.