euroSlurve

So we’ve reached the end of our time in Copenhagen. As you can see by our photos, our feet visited many great places. We also did a surprising amount of work. As we flew to Copenhagen from London a couple weeks ago, I figured we’d goof off 90% of the time and respond to a few emails here and there to make it look like we were working. Kind of like I did at MLB.com for six years. But we actually put in some hours and made progress on a few projects. We also lined up a handful of gigs for November.

Anyway, our last 48 hours in Denmark have been super Danish. Friday night was Culture Night (Kulturnatten) in Copenhagen. The place was lit up with lights and all the sites and attractions were open until midnight. After eating dinner with Inger, Gert, Sonja and Stefan, we squeezed onto a crowded Metro train and met Anette and her friend at Nørreport station. We visited a candlelight botanical garden, Christiansborg Palace (where they made us wear funny shoes), the Round Tower, the Thorvaldsen sculpture museum and a handful of cafes. The whole city had a festive feel and was jam packed with tall people. It was also cold. Really cold. Like Nordic cold.

This afternoon (Saturday) at Gert’s house, we ate a meal that would’ve make my Farmor and Farfar (grandma and grandpa) salivate. We dined on herring, smoked salmon, shrimp, ham, pork tenderloin and hard boiled eggs — all on open faced sandwiches. We also passed around a bottle of Akvavit (a Scandinavian drink that’ll warm your insides). I’ve never had a meal like this before. I’ve seen people eat this stuff at family functions, but never braved it myself. You know, because it’s gross. I tried it this time and it was actually quite delicious. Really, it was. (The Akvavit helped.)

Now it’s back to tourist life. We leave for Vienna tomorrow at 9 am along with my cousin Anette. We’ve rented a two bedroom flat somewhere near the city center that we’ll share with Anette and Josh Cheatham (that dude we traveled with last year). He’s standing out somewhere in Turkey now and will fly into Vienna tomorrow as well. He’ll travel with us through Vienna, Dresden, Poland and Prague. He also takes photos and should be uploading stuff here.

Talk to you from Austria! Hi hi. (That’s really how Danes say goodbye. I didn’t make that up.)

The Danes have butter and they’re not afraid to use it. Lots of thick, rich, beautiful butter. In fact, nearly every dessert we’ve tasted here is rich and buttery and delicious. They don’t care about fat free, low cholesterol diets. They just eat delicious, buttery goodness and hope for the best. The bakeries here are stocked with tons of amazing pastries that are hard to pronounce. We have two bakeries close to our place and I’ve tried to get down there every couple of mornings to get fresh bread and pastries. I don’t know what the heck I’m ordering. I just point at things and try not to look like an undecisive idiot. So far it’s worked out OK.

I don’t know why, but whenever we travel we feel like we need to fit in and not be labeled as tourists. But really, that’s exactly what we are. And every now and then, we’re reminded of our touristisity (a new word) the hard way. Remember a couple weeks ago in England when I talked about how the ultimate humiliation of an traveler was to have the merchant picking coins out of your open hand? Well, I topped that today in a market in Copenhagen. I actually had to hand the woman at the register a handful of Kroner and she picked out some coins and handed the rest back to me. I’ve been here for over a week now and I thought I had figured out the coinage. I guess not.

Another interesting thing is that some Danes can’t tell the difference between British and American accents. So when we order something in English and pay for it, the Danes will say “Cheers mate” after the transaction. It happed twice today.

Ænyhøø, we’ve been enjoying our time in the land of my forefathers. We’ve had good times with my family here. This place feels like home away from home.

This morning we attended Amagerbro Frikirke, my cousin Anette’s church in Copenhagen. They meet in a small building near the city center — about three Metro stops away from where we’ve been staying. The congregation is a good mix of old and young people, most of whom are really tall and really blonde. They also eat bread and drink coffee out of Ikea mugs before the service begins.

We’ve been there twice now (we also visited once last year) and both times they had a translator sit next to us. (By the way, it’s really strange to have someone whispering in your ear for an hour and a half.) She didn’t translate the Danish lyrics to the songs, but we were able to follow along in English, since most of them were familiar. It’s really quite amazing to hear people worship God in another language in a place far from home. It makes God so huge and massive and worthy. It felt so good to be there with these people, worshiping alongside them, even in a different language.

After church, we drove to Sonja’s (my other cousin) house to celebrate her 29th birthday. We ate ridiculous amounts of food and sang a strange version of Happy Birthday. They also made me say some things in Danish and then laughed when I pronounced them wrong. That’s OK … you should hear Anette say ‘corduroy.’

We’re back at the apartment now (it’s around 11:30 pm) watching the 49ers-Ravens game on TV with Danish commentary. Apparently the NFL is growing in popularity here. Baseball isn’t as big. We were at a housewarming party the other night (one of Anette’s friends) and a guy there admitted that all he knew about baseball was a team called the New York Yankees and a fat guy named Babe something.

As I probably mentioned before, our plan for this trip was to spend a good deal of time working on projects remotely. One of the good things about our line of work is that we can do it at anytime, from anywhere. So that’s what we’ve been trying to do from Inger’s apartment in Kastrup. So far it has worked out quite well. We had some initial problems with internet connectivity but now we’re up and running.

It’s pretty bizarre sitting here in front of my Macbook, talking to clients in New Jersey (often using Skype) and gazing out the window at bicycles passing by on Vintergækvej a couple stories down. I think I could get used to this.

We closed up shop at Slurve late yesterday afternoon and took a trip on the shiny new Metro (it opened last week) into the center of Copenhagen. The center of town is filled with small shops, cafes, pubs (ironically a lot of English and Irish themed pubs), bicycles and really tall people. It’s true what they say about Scandinavians — they’re huge. It’s funny to see Jamie standing in shops next to people that are sometimes two heads taller than her. They also ride really hip, retro bicycles. There are no splatter paint Huffys here.

After a couple hours on the streets, we took the Metro back to Kastrup (and took some awesome shots), made some pasta and watched FC Kobenhavn beat RC Lens in extra time.

Øl update: Rich, if you’re reading this: Copenhagen has a ridiculous amount of good beer. I counted around eight or nine special Carlsberg brews in the supermarket yesterday. Tubørg also has quite a few. Last night, I had a bottle of Carlsberg Bock while I watched the football match. They also brew a lager, ale, porter…

As for the sweets: Mars Delight is the greatest candy bar I’ve ever had. I actually tried it before we left London and I had to take a knee right there on Earls Court Road. It’s stupid good. I’ll have to bring some home. Mars Delight is the new Lion Bar.

I just heard the Danish version of “Livin’ on a Prayer” on the radio. It was awesome. We arrived in this fair country late Monday night after a quick, one hour flight from Londontowne. It was nice to get out of England, where it was cold and rainy. We spent our final day there visiting the British Museum. They’ve got lots of Roman, Egyptian and Greek artifacts that were recovered by British archaeologists over the years. In one room they had a good portion of the frieze from the Parthenon. Apparently the Greeks are pretty upset about this. They think the frieze of the Parthenon should be on the Parthenon. But instead it’s in a museum in London, across the street from the Sainsburys supermarket. I don’t know what they’re so upset about.

They don’t bicker about that kind of stuff in Denmark. It’s too chill here. This place has a different vibe from anywhere else I’ve been in the world. It’s laid back, friendly, cozy, all that good stuff. And they’ve got old people riding bicycles here. That doesn’t happen in the U.S.

Anyhøø, Jamie and I are settling into our temporary Danish apartment (Inger’s place) and trying to get some work done in between the cheese and øl and Haribo mix and all that. We’re planning a couple day trips as well. One to a small town called Odense about an hour away. The other to the south coast of the small island that Copenhagen is on. So it’ll be good to get out, spend some Kroner and take some føtøs. (I hope that’s not a swear word in Danish.)

OK, back to work. Talk to you on the interweb.