Copenhagen

Since our Easter trip to Paris last year was so successful, and to take advantage of the 2 days that Matt gets off for the holiday, we decided to try out a new city again this Easter. Given how terrible the weather has been in northern Europe, and how unpredictable March weather is in general, we opted for a place where we knew the weather would be crap and thus, we would not be disappointed. Enter Copenhagen.

We flew out on Thursday night, and got a bit delayed b/c of the bad weather. When we landed at Copenhagen, for the first time in both of our lives our bags were one of the first ones out. After some high-fives, we ran out of that stinky baggage carousel where there was actually a hotdog stand, and a shocking number of people were eating slimy gray hotdogs. When we arrived at the hotel at around 11pm, the guy behind the counter told us in perfect California English the sites to see, and where we could grab a drink that night. We dropped our bags, and headed out into the freezing rain to explore.

The bar that the hotel guy recommended was definetely not our style. It was actually pretty terrible and college-y. At one point, these two Danish guys were trying to pick up the 3 highly made-up, tube-topped girls (in zero degree weather! i was still wearing my scarf and fingerless gloves!) sitting next to me at the bar, and were practically shoving me off my stool to get at them. So when a booth opened up we scooted right over to it. About 20 minutes later, Matt realized he didn't have his knit cap. He was scrambling all around looking for it, and when he couldn't find it he concluded that he must have dropped it en route from the bar to the booth and that someone must have taken it. I responded with, "Why would someone take your...is that it?" I'm looking at this cracked-out bum tripping about the place, and sure enough, he's wearing Matt's hat. Matt goes, "That's my hat!" and walks over to the guy and takes the hat right off his head. The guy looks at Matt very drunk and confused and Matt shakes his hat in the guy's face and tells him, "This is my hat". The guy then pulls out a handful of worthless kroners and asks Matt if he can buy his hat off of him. Matt says, "No. It's cold. I need it." It was all surprisingly civilized. Meanwhile, I'm practically on the floor laughing my face off. Who else in the world would that happen to, if not Matt? And for the rest of the trip, despite it being below freezing, Matt was hesitant about wearing the hat that was on that bum's head.

So for some reason, Matt and I became total party animals whilst in Copenhagen. It's really a city focused on its nightlife, since the weather is so terrible for all but a few weeks during the year, and so there is not much to do. We got home that first night at nearly 3am.

The next day, we woke to find the same freezing rain as the night before. We went down for the organic hotel breakfast. Since it was Good Friday, all the shops were closed. We decided to take one of those guided boat tours around the city, which was really nice, and heated. You can see so much of the city that way. We passed by all sorts of cool old and new buildings, and went all the way up to the Little Mermaid sculpture, which, true to what everyone else says, was a bit of a disappointment. It's very small. But since that is pretty much Copenhagen's most famous site, we had to take a look. While on the boat, we passed through the Nygavn canal, which had a ton of little restaurants off the water, Honfleur-style. We also passed through the canals of Christiana, the famous hippie commune of Copenhagen. It looked very similar to the Amsterdam neighborhoods, though not as "gezellig" (cozy). On the boat there was a large Spanish family sitting in front of us that were disturbingly affectionate. The older brother who must have been around 30 and with a probable case of ADD sat behind us calling out to his "mama" the whole time and trying to snap pictures of her through our heads. The little 10-year old girl looked like she kept trying to make out with her other older brother. Just like the famous English saying goes - Spain. It's just different there.

After the boat ride, we walked back to the Nygavn canal for lunch. We found a warm little cafe where we had sandwiches and yummy beers. After we ate we went to a very small art museum nearby that had some interesting exhibits, with one showing works by students of Matisse. We walked around the empty, cold city a bit more before retiring to our hotel to warm up with some tea and the Nat-Geo channel. After a nap (for me) and some various monkey and shark shows (for Matt) and showers, we headed down to the hotel bar for some organic whiskeys, then hoofed it up to the Copenhagen Jazz Club, where we saw a 4-piece Danish band perform Brazilian jazz songs. The lady singing actually had a very good Brazilian accent, and they performed some classic bossa nova songs. It was a really good time, and we even left with a copy of their CD. After the show ended at around 11:30, we stuck around for some drinks at the club. We again found ourselves hungry and wandering the streets at 2am, just like the night before, since we were too full from lunch to have dinner before the show. We satiated ourselves with some greasy falafels.

The next day we woke up to snow. Since it didn't look like it would let up, we decided to take the train up to Humlebaek and see the famous Louisiana museum. The 35-minute train ride was really nice. It rode up the coast, but we only caught a few glimpses of the water. When we arrived at our station, we had to walk about 15 minutes up this little town to where the museum was, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The building was very sweet though, right on the water with beautiful green gardens around it. I would say that if you ever find yourself in Copenhagen, this museum is a real gem. Matt and I have declared it one of our favorites. They were having a special Cezanne and Giacometti exhibit with some quite famous pieces. They also had some cool po-mo exhibits by Candice Breitz. Forunately the afternoon turned out to be bright and sunny, so we could walk around the gardens outside. We had some enormous salads at the museum cafe and headed back to Copenhagen at around 5.

That night we had some more organic drinks at the hotel, then forced ourselves to go out to dinner, though we were not very hungry at all. But we had to have a decent dinner in Copenhagen. A friend had recommended a place to us, and before we left the hotel I looked up the location online, but we couldn't find the street on the map. When we asked the lady at the concierge where the place was, she pointed a complete different way. Turned out, she was wrong. We meandered the streets looking for this place for a little bit, but it was frigid, so we ducked into a bistro on the corner of the high street. The food here was not very good, but the wine was delicious. After eating, we stuck around to drink and people-watch.

I'm going to say something that may offend people, but it needs to be said. People have this misconception that northern Europeans are beautiful people. They are not. True, they are blond. But so are Americans, b/c everybody has access to hair dye these days. Picture a Viking. Do you think he/she is attractive? Well, these are northern Europeans. For the most part. Any urban setting is going to have more attractive, thinner people - that's the case everywhere you go. But don't fool yourselves and come to Copenhagen thinking you'll be walking around in an episode of Laguna Beach. It just isn't so.

At some point we left the bistro and wandered into a bar. Here we met a group of Vikings that befriended us. They bought us drinks, one weirdo twirled me around to Nordic music and another one engaged in feats of strength with Matt. Things quickly got weird and we ditched them. We got to our hotel at 4am. I told you we were party animals! Who knew?

Needless to say, the next morning was rough. We staggered down to breakfast at 11:30, completely missed the check-out time and had to pay for a late checkout. We walked around a bit and meandered around a city park. Being Sunday and Easter, all the shops were closed again. It was a bit surreal, since there were quite a few people walking around, with their baby strollers, and they didn't look like tourists, but nothing was open! So what were they doing? There were quite a bit of people loitering around the Irish pubs, so there must have been a match on. Other than that, the only things open were coffee-to-go shops. Again, it was below zero and just not very nice to be outside for very long. We headed back to the hotel at around 3 to collect our bags and call a taxi.

Unfortunately, this taxi was one of the more memorable parts of Copenhagen. It was the most horrendous taxi we've even been in. The guy was strange, there was a weird thick, green slime on the back of the driver's seat, and it smelled like Satan's den in there. Being hungover as we were, we pretty much held our breaths for the 20 minute ride so that we wouldn't vomit. After that, we were quite disheartened, and it left a damper on our opinion of the city.

We got back home at around 8:30 on Sunday night, happy to be back in Amsterdam. We got cozy on the couch and watched a movie and ate some soup. The next day it snowed off and on all day, so we made a yummy spicy vegetarian chili to counteract all of our unhealthy Copenhagen habits.

In general, we're glad we went. Checked off another city. Did as the locals do and drank. But I don't think we'll be visiting Copenhagen anytime soon...