Bornholm: land of fish and glass

Days 10, 11 ( 1/13 & 1/14)

I am having a little trouble recalling this day and more specifically what I did. I remember that for my whole time on Bornholm I got up at 9:30 at the latest, and I think today it was around 9ish. Ah yes, it’s beginning to come back to me a little bit. Uncle Pete called the house a little before 9 and while I didn’t answer the phone, it woke me up. I got up and called him back and in a few minutes he and Aunt Maibritt were back from the studio. Pete and Maibritt are glassblowers and they own a studio about 2 or 3 kilometers north of their house, right on the Baltic Sea.

Anyway, we had a little breakfast or, rather, I did as they’d already eaten earlier. I then ran a few errands with Uncle Pete and spent a little time at the studio with the manager and the two glassblowers who were working that day. Later in the day, after the actual workers had finished blowing for the day, Uncle Pete helped me blow a couple pieces. I made a short little whiskey glass and what was originally supposed to be a pint glass. They both look a little retarded as my skills with glassblowing aren’t exactly refined but it was fun nonetheless. The pint glass turned out to be a bit smaller but a 12 oz. beer fits perfectly in it. Also there, Uncle Pete showed me the urn he’s made for my grandma (his mom) when she finally does pass.

When we got home, Aunt Maibritt had a nice meal of some more of the left over lamb but this time she’d sliced it about a half an inch thick and pan-grilled it so it had a nice crisp little layer. She is such an awesome cook. As I learned on this trip, Denmark doesn’t exactly have the best food. I actively went looking for good Danish food and aside from frikadella, I found almost none—except Aunt Maibritt’s. She’s got a really good palate and experiments a lot with different spices and ways of cooking things. From what I later heard from Ben and Tess is that usually at the she cooks one thing in pretty big proportions. Then, every night after that she re-cooks the meat in a very different way (i.e. the pan-seared lamb).

That night Uncle Pete had a Freemasons meeting so while he was doing that, I helped clean up and watched Aunt Maibritt make some birthday rolls for Uncle Pete—all from scratch and without a written recipe. After he got home, we watched the news and then I wrote for a little while and watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain.

The next day was Uncle Pete’s birthday so I got up around 8 when they were getting up to have breakfast with them. The sweet rolls that Maibritt made the night before were awesome. Add a little cheese, some chorizo, and some fresh jam and it was an awesome breakfast. I must revisit what I said in the previous post about Danish food: they do make some fucking amazing jelly and jams (yes, Joey, I’m aware of the difference). So sweet, so tart, so delicious.

We drove a lot over the island that day, running errands in Rønne (the big city of a whopping 12,000), and whatnot. We checked to see if the bowling alley was open. The lights were all off but the sign said it should have been open at that point. Almost all the shops on Bornholm close from like mid-September through Easter because there are hardly any tourists. Still, I remember bowling in Rønne previous times in January, and there wasn’t any sign up saying that it was closed for the season, or even the week, or something. So we left and assumed it would probably stay closed. We had some lunch at a little burger joint down by the harbor and it was fine. A pretty typical Scandinavian burger. It’s hard to describe the differences but they’re fairly subtle but also very easy to notice.

Later, Pete and Maibritt went back to the studio to do some work but they let me take the car out and just do some driving around. I first went about 20 kilometers south of their studio to the town of Svaneke, because I wanted to find the brewery and see if they had any tours—probably not but worth a try. I parked the car in Svaneke and walked around for about half an hour but I didn’t find the brewery and didn’t find anything open, either, not even a coffee shop. So I hopped back in the car and drove down a road which I thought the brewery might be on but still didn’t find it. Uncle Pete said I probably drove right past it. Oh well. I drove down to Nexø, the second biggest town on the island with a population of about 3,000, and just looked at all the cool old classic Danish buildings—pitched red roofs with walls of yellow, white, red, cream, and the occasional red-orange. At that point I drove back along the coast up to the studio. Even in the winter without a whole lot of light the drive and view was pretty stunning. The road for the most part runs pretty close to the coast, usually with only a rocky beach or occasional boat house between.

After everyone left the studio I blew a few more pieces of glass with Uncle Pete. Two more smaller glasses and a huge glass that probably fits almost a liter of liquid. One of my smaller glasses is really quite nice, though. Perfect for a big glass of whiskey.

That night, Aunt Maibritt made an awesome meal of roasted deer with an excellent medley of mashed yams, potatoes, carrots, and I’m sure some other stuff. It tasted delicious. After dinner we went up stairs to watch a movie and right as we did so, my Uncle Chuck called. After he wished Pete a happy birthday he told us that my grandma had fallen and broken her back that morning. Pretty shitty but what can you do? They said she was awake and talking a little bit. After talking about it for a little while we put on the TV and some really horrible Woopie Goldberg movie from the 90’s was on. Super lame. It’s so weird what American movies make their way across the ocean and appear on TV. Anyway, after that we all migrated to our rooms and went to sleep.

Boats are for sailing.

Day 9: Monday (1/12)

I got sometime around 11 or noon on this day and walked around Tess’s neighborhood a bit. It seems like a pretty nice area but Tess says it can be a bit sketchy at night as there are some projects not too far away. I walked around for a while, and bought a piece of frikadella. This is one of my favorite Danish foods, it’s somewhat similar to an enlarged Swedish meatball—but don’t go telling that to any Dane, they’ll first tell you frikadella is nothing like a Swedish meatball and then they’ll go off about how much better frikadella is and that the Swedes don’t know how to do anything right. To say there are some long standing cultural feuds between the countries is a fair assessment. Anyway, frikadella is a piece of meat, maybe about as wide as a small burger but about twice as tall, made of really tender meat (beef mostly, though there may be some pork in it) and with lots of salt and garlic and onions chopped and boiled so finely that it’s almost impossible to see them when looking at the meat. It makes my mouth salivate just thinking about it.

After I ate this frikadella I ended up reading and writing at a coffee shop for a couple hours. Then I went back to Tess’s and spent a little time relaxing before about 4 o’clock when my Uncle Pete tossed a couple pebbles up at the window. I let him and his friend Jørgen in (pronounced Yern) and then the three of us set off for the small island of Bornholm where my Uncle Pete and Aunt Maibritt live. I was originally supposed to take the train across Sweden and then the ferry from Ystad the day before but I decided to wait because Uncle Pete said he had to be in Copenhagen on Monday for business and his friend/neighbor Jørgen tagged along. Jørgen’s a pretty nice guy, doesn’t speak too much English but he says he can understand quite a bit. He’s a pretty modest guy and Aunt Maibritt later said his wife had a stroke so the left side of her body is partially paralyzed.

So the three of us headed out and took the super long bridge to Sweden and then drove around Malmö for a little while. We were originally going to stop and grab a cup of coffee or something but ended up just continuing on. I don’t really remember Malmö too much from when I lived in Sweden because I don’t think we spent a whole lot of time there. There’s probably reason for that. I know it was just after dark in the middle of January but it didn’t exactly seem like an exciting place. We drove on to Ystad and waited for the ferry.

Uncle Pete told me that when they had taken it earlier that morning from Bornholm the waves were 2.5 meters high. The is a big catamaran that can hold something like 150 cars but it can only travel in a maximum of 3 meter high waves. So the boat was for the most part bouncing up and down but fairly frequently it would smack down on the water with a loud smacking noise. At one point during the trip earlier the ship had come down so hard that one of the windows broke. Yeah, one of the 6-inch thick windows cracked down the middle and some pieces went flying. So I wasn’t surprised when we didn’t exactly have the smoothest ride.

We sat on board and each had a beer which was brewed at this microbrew on Bornholm and some just call it Svaneke Brew (after the town it’s made in). We had to gulp them down pretty quickly so they didn’t spill on the rough ride. About a third of the way into the boat ride the captain had to reduce the speed because the waves were too high. All of the monitors around advised people to stay in their seats and I started to get a little seasick. I haven’t felt sick on a boat since I was like twelve so I was a bit surprised that my head and stomach weren’t feeling too good. Luckily I didn’t toss my frikadella and I started to feel better towards the end.

Nothing too eventful happened for the rest of the trip and we got back to Pete and Maibritt’s house. I helped Maibritt prepare the dinner a little bit, cleaning the brussel sprouts and pealing the carrots. She had already prepared an awesome helping of lamb, though. The lamb was very tender and tasty. Great meal. We had some more of the Svaneke Brew, their flagship beer “Classic” which is a pretty nice, smooth medium ale, and a specialty one called “Skipper Clemens” which is an American style Pale Ale, very similar to Manny’s. It was delicious and suited me just fine as I’d been craving a good Pale Ale ever since I left Seattle. Oh yeah, all their beer is unfiltered too, so it’s extra good.

Hamlet killed Polonius and I got to watch

Day 7 & 8: Saturday (1/10 & 1/11)

Ben woke Tess and I up around 10 because we had plans to go up to Elsinore (spelled Helsingør in Danish) for the day. We got up slowly, had a little coffee and some bread for breakfast. Ben had woken up a bit earlier and gone to a bakery to get some rolls and ham so we could make sandwiches and save on the expenses up in Elsinore. We got off a bit later, and caught a train up to Elsinore right around noon.

We headed straight up to Kronenborg Castle, which for all you literary buffs, is where Hamlet takes place. (Now you’re beginning to see why I wanted to come up here.) There remains no evidence Shakespeare was ever in Elsinore, let alone even in Denmark by all accounts, but it was still pretty cool to go to this huge castle/fortress at the northernmost point of the Zealand island. Across the water was Sweden, though when Kronenborg was built, Denmark controlled the southern part of Sweden.

The castle was really cool. It reminded me of a Danish version of Versailles, though most of the decorations from the inside were long gone. We got a tour of the dungeons/basement where over time soldiers, prisoners, slaves, and serfs were all held/housed. Really eerie and awesome.

The main palace part of the castle was really interesting too. Like I said, most of the decorations are long gone but there are still a few tapestries hanging and some furniture from the kings and, later, the governors and generals who resided there. The tapestries were pretty interesting because they depicted Danish kinds from the 900’s through the 1600’s. Apparently Christian the IV (I think) commissioned tapestries made of every Danish king, so something like over 200 were made. A few still survive in the National Museum, about 15 are at Kronenborg, the Swedes took some when they sacked Kronenborg in the late 1600’s, and the rest have disappeared or been destroyed. I was really interested in the history depicted in each tapestry but Ben and Tess seemed to be a bit bored so I didn’t study all of them.

The castle closed around 3 or 3:30 so we took off and walked back into the town of Elsinore. Predictably, not a whole lot was open as it was a Saturday—European shops aren’t open after like 2 on Saturdays and are closed completely on Sundays, something that always boggles my American mind—and about as far away as one could get from tourist season. But the three of us found a restaurant and sat down and had some coffee and planned out what to do for the rest of the day, especially as it was getting dark. We decided to go look for this punk rock club Tess heard about and see if/when it was open. We found it and it looked like a pretty cool dive-y, dirty place but it was closed this weekend. We then walked around looking for some traditional Danish food, something I really wanted. Couldn’t really find any as my guidebook was a few years dated, so we settled on an Italian restaurant and had some gourmet pizzas and salad.

After dinner we found a bar called Manhattan. I thought maybe it would have a slight New York theme or at least something American-related. Nope. Just a dirty neighborhood bar with a few pool tables. We played a couple games, had a few beers, and then sat down and played some dice games. Around 9 we decided to try to find our way back. We looked at the bus schedule but the bus driver seemed to be absent when the bus was supposed to leave so went over and took the train instead. During the whole time Ben and I thought about just getting a six-pack, hopping on the train and saying “take us to Lyngby” (we had a connection somewhere else). Then we thought about going over to the ferry to Sweden and saying “Ferry till Lyngby?” (ferry to Lyngby?) Then that turned in to us musing about going back to the bus, knocking on the empty windows and repeating our question. We ended up catching the train without incident.

Once back, we were all pretty pooped from the long day and long night before but we managed to go to the basement bar in Ben’s dorm and grab a couple beers. Then we “rolled for drinks.” What that means is one is given two dice and rolls first to see what type of alcohol one gets, i.e. if you get a 9, the bartender counts from left to right nine bottles and then pours two shots in the drink. Then you roll again to see what the mixer will be. Then again to see what flavored syrup it’ll be, and then you roll to see if it’ll be topped off with whip cream or not. Lastly, one rolls three dice to see how much it’ll be, so the max you can pay is 18 kroner (a little over 3 bucks) or 3 kroner (about 50 cents). My first drink was pretty good, I think it was like a captain and orange juice with lime syrup and no whip cream. Ben’s wasn’t too good from what I remember. Emboldened by my first drink, I rolled for another and got something called Fanta Branca (I think that’s how it’s spelled) which is something between licorice flavored alcohol and the devil’s diarrhea. My mixer was coke, the syrup was black currant, and of course there was whipped cream on it. It was quite possibly the nastiest drink I’ve ever had. But I wouldn’t let it beat me so I finally finished the drink after numerous assurances from Ben, Tess, and the bartender that I didn’t have to. After that, we went back upstairs and went to sleep.

We woke up around 10:30 on Sunday. After having a little breakfast we headed out. Tess went back to Copenhagen and I went with Ben over to his girlfriend’s place. She was pretty exhausted from the night before, apparently her and some of her friends had a belated Christmas party. When we walked in there were 3 flats of empty beer cans. Anyway, we sat around for a little while, eating lunch, and then we decided to go for a walk.

It was pretty cold out but the walk was nice, we meandered through the residential streets of Lyngby. After about an hour we got back and put on Pride and Prejudice, evidently one of Randi’s favorite movies. Of course I was willing and able to watch it. Then we played a little poker for about another hour. Lastly, we heated up some of the leftovers from Randi’s dinner the night before and I had some traditional Danish Christmas food: roasted ham, brown sugared yams, sweet red cabbage, the works. It was pretty tasty.

Around 8 I took a bus back to the train station and then went back to Tess’s. We watched a little TV that night, didn’t do too much, and then went to sleep.

Days 5 & 6 (January 8, 9)

I woke up pretty late this day, I think around 1:30 or 2 which thoroughly pissed me off. I didn’t sleep very well until probably about 5 or 6 which is probably why I slept so late. It’s not like I had a whole lot planned for the day but it still was disappointing to waste such a big portion of the day like that. Anyway, I got up and rode my bike several kilometers around town until I got to the Lille Haven Frue, also known as the little mermaid in English. It’s a life size statue and the statue takes its inspiration from a Hans Christian Andersen story. No kids, Disney didn’t invent the little mermaid. Its one of the biggest tourist attractions in Denmark and also one of the biggest disappointments. I saw it the first time I came to Denmark back in 1999 so I figured it was time to see it again. It’s not that the statue is bad (it’s actually quite nice) it’s just sorta small and very over-hyped. Anyway, I was prepared for this and actually enjoyed seeing it again. Like the other 5 or 6 tourists there, I snapped a couple pictures of my own of the most photographed topless woman in Denmark. Oh yeah, the lille haven frue is topless, so it wasn’t a completely fruitless journey for me to go out there.

After that I rode around a little more, got lost, and ended up in the Nyhavn area. During the summer this place is swarming with tourists and last time I was here I couldn’t even get in anywhere to get a cup of coffee. HC Andersen lived here when he was alive and it used to be the sailor quarters of town, kinda seedy and right on one of the harbors. Now, however, it is super upscale and posh. And I can see why, it’s really a very beautiful area. Three and four story buildings of different bright colors line both sides of a fairly wide canal that acts as a harbor, boats are docked along the sides of the canal, very picturesque. Anyway, I parked and “locked” my bike outside a café and went in to grab a cup of coffee. I stayed there for about an hour reading and then took off.

I got back after Tess, probably around 5ish. We heated up a little more pasta and relaxed for a while. She wanted to take me out to a bar she really liked called “The Moose” (or Moosen in Danish). Just the name alone made me want to go. She started describing it to me and it sounded like my kinda place so we hopped on the subway and jumped on over. It was a little bit off of the walking street and also right next to another bar everyone refers to as the “LA” bar, though I’m told its actual name is La Tequila Bar. The “La” is apparently a great deal bigger than the rest of the writing, hence its name. Anyway, we didn’t go there but instead went into the Moose. As soon as I walked in I knew I was in love.

I guess the closest equivalent I’ve seen would probably be Cha Cha in Seattle. The bar is two tall, narrow bar rooms and then way in the back is another room that opens at 10 o’clock. On the walls and just about every visible surface is tagging and graffiti of every kind. It’s really quite astonishing to walk in there and see people’s names, Danish slogans, and American catch phrases everywhere. Some names are somewhat artistically done while other things are etched in what looks like chicken scratch. Probably one of the coolest bars I’ve ever been to, definitely in the top 5. Oh yeah, and the distinct haze and smell of tobacco was in the air. I feel like we miss out on a real bar experience in the U.S. with the smoking bans and everything. Sure it’s nice to not have to wash your clothes after every time you go out but it is better to not have to push smokers to the margins of society, especially their society of which bars are one of their biggest gathering places.

The bar was about half full when we got there, mostly filled with hipsters, travelers, or a group I’m increasingly beginning to notice here that I’m starting to think are down-and-out Danish anarchists. I’ll explain more about my contact with them in a later post. As we were there, though, it slowly kept filling up more and more. I had a couple half liters of a beer called Jacobsen to start off with. It’s a very smooth Brown Ale (so you know I’ll like it) and I think it’s made by Carlsberg, or some subsidiary. Quite good. Then, though, I realized Tuborg was 3 kroner cheaper (about 50 cents) so I switched to that. At 10 the back room opened and the bartenders grabbed our table to move back there so there’d be more room for people to stand in the front. We went over into the back and had a few more beers before leaving around midnight because Tess was hungry and also had work the next day.

I was a little better about getting up on Friday. I was supposed to meet Ben around 3 at the Lyngby train station so I set an alarm for 11:30 (I actually slept pretty well the night before and was able to get up!). I had some food and then went to a café to do a bit of blogging and reading. Then I dropped the movie Tess and I had rented back at Blockbuster and headed up to Lyngby. Ben was waiting for me when I got there and we took a bus up to his school (I had left my bike at Tess’s, he at his apartment) so we could do some climbing at the climbing wall there, in the student center.

It was pretty different from the climbing walls I’ve been on in the U.S. where the emphasis is going up, where here the climbing wall was much more horizontal. A much bigger technical aspect resided at this climbing wall as you were supposed to climb to the side and follow roots, etc. It was pretty fun but also very tiring so we took a little break and went to a café downstairs and grabbed a beer each. We took ‘em back up with us and climbed a little more before retiring and going back downstairs for a cup of coffee and a cinnamon role. While there, I showed Ben the glory of the SNL skit dick in a box. Simply awesome. While down there, Ben got a call from his girlfriend, Randi, and apparently he’d forgotten to go meet up with her when we were done climbing about an hour before. So we packed up out stuff and went to one of the 5 bars on campus and met up with her and her friends.

Now apparently each of the majors at the university have their own bars, or share them with other majors. Pretty freakin’ sweet if you ask me. The bar was completely hoppin’ at about 5:30 when we got there. It wasn’t a typical bar but something more between a games room, a lounge like in a dorm, and a bar. Everyone there went to school there so it was all like 19-25 year olds. The music was a pretty diverse mix mostly consisting of contemporary Danish pop and mid-90’s American music. We definitely heard some Chumbawumba, and Ben and I were essentially screaming the lyrics to “Don’t Look Back in Anger” with our arms on each other’s shoulders by about 9:30. Oh yeah, there was a beer special that night which was 4 Tuborgs for 30 kroner. That amounts to a little more than 5 bucks for 4 beers. Schwing! Ben and I kept getting up and getting more beer for he and I and Randi and a couple of Randi’s closest friends, a guy named Kim and a girl named Michel. She was pretty cute and I talked to her for a while. And though her English was pretty good, there were a few barriers to proper communication including (but not limited to): drunkenness, loud music, lots of other people, drinking, and the occasional sing-a-long song. Oh yeah, and I couldn’t really figure out until after we left whether or not she was together with that Kim guy. Turns out she wasn’t. Oh well, I still had a fun time teaching everyone High-Low, Red-Black. There was some other really cool people I talked to as well and this really nice guy who seemed really interested in the U.S. and what America was like right now, especially with the financial crisis (which is also affecting Denmark) and with Obama. Not sure how good my explanations were as the Tuborg was flowing like water (and almost as cheap) but he didn’t seem to mind too much.

Ben and I ordered a pizza at around 8 and it was glorious, just what we needed. We got Hawaiian. It makes me salivate just thinking about it again. Tess showed up around 9 but the bar closed at 10, which I guess is standard protocol as everyone usually then migrates to the main bar in the student center. People were saying that bar was closed, though, and kept blaming the “economy” though I’m beginning to think they were misusing the word. For instance, if a bar doesn’t sell enough beer and loses money, you don’t blame the economy, you blame the managers. Anyway, Ben, Tess, and I headed over anyway but it was closed. So we ended up getting a taxi back to Ben’s place where Tess went to sleep on Ben’s bed but he and I stayed up talking about music and drinking Carlsberg until about 2. The taxi ride is a little hazy but evidently I asked Tess to take our pictures with my camera in it. Dunno why, but I did.

Ben had just rented a few CDs from the library and I picked up one and he goes “oh yeah, I got that one because I liked the art work.” I looked at him to see if he was joking because I was holding in my hands one of my favorite albums of 2007, None Shall Pass by Aesop Rock. We put that on and I think we listened to a lot of stuff throughout the night including Portugal. The Man, which Ben and some of his friends are pretty into, Minus the Bear, and a little Kashmir as well. Anyway, around 2 Ben went out to sleep on one of the couches in the kitchen/lounge and I slept on a mat on the floor and Tess was already fast asleep on Ben’s bed.

Ded ppl R kool!

Day 4 (Wednesday, 1/7)

I slept pretty poorly that night. Like the night before, I slept for probably a couple hours and then tossed and turned the rest of the night. I couldn’t even close my eyes and get some rest I was so awake. I also felt bad about tossing and turning because I think each time I did I woke Ben up. Anyway, finally I heard Tess leave sometime before 8 and I got up and went out to the couch to sleep. Once out there I slept better but I think that’s because it was getting pretty late New York time then so I could sleep better. I heard Ben get up and leave about an hour later but I slept until around 11:30.

Once up and ready, I headed out on the bike I was borrowing from Ben into downtown Copenhagen. Ben had told me the day before how to get into the city center but I really only had a vague idea. Anyway, I rode through the cold weather that turned into a light snow and managed to arrive pretty close to where I wanted to be. On the way, I rode past the Danish parliament building where the center of Danish power has been since the democratic-monarchy was established. Outside of it looked to be about 50 people protesting. When I got closer, I saw what I think were Palestinian flags being waved and I noticed that all the protestors appeared to also be Palestinians. Furthermore, one guy was on a megaphone and screaming what sounded to me like jihadist chants though I’d bet they were denouncing Israel as well as the Danish role in the Iraq war (they have/had a couple hundred troops there I think). The call and responses from the megaphone and crowd were a little frightening to me because they reminded me of tapes I heard around 9/11 of extremist Muslims chants. I thought about stopping and taking a picture but they were across the street which was pretty big and busy and I didn’t think a picture from the other side would look very good. I figured I’d take one on the way back if they were still there.

So I got into the city center and to the National Museum which is where I wanted to go. I parked my bike and then proceeded to walk around and look for something relatively cheap to eat. Like most things in Denmark, food is also expensive so I settled on just buying a bottle of Squash and a package of Hob-Nobs, the best cookies ever. I must admit that I was quite proud when I realized I was having cookies and soda for lunch. I was even prouder when I realized I hadn’t had anything for breakfast, either.

(Yet another aside:) I’m going to take another step back and say a little about my experiences with Copenhagen. I’ve been to this city like 4 or 5 times now and hit most of the things anyone wants to see, which is part of the reason I’d been taking it relatively easy there (and still am). I’ve seen most of the big museums, the statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s little mermaid, Tivoli gardens, if not all then nearly all of the major churches, the famous round tower, etc. I was looking through my guidebook on my first day here for something to do and thought “Wow, I’ve done just about everything I’d want to do here.” I’ve also been to the next two biggest cities in Denmark as well as the island of Bornholm countless times, which is where my uncle and aunt live and where Ben and Tess grew up. So if it seems like I’m being lazy and not taking full advantage of this trip to Denmark then that’s why; I’ve seen and done so much here already, a lot of it would just be like a repeat for me.

That said, there is (at least) one thing I didn’t do last time I was here that I wanted to. After being in Ireland in 2007 and going to the National Museum there I became very interested in bog people, of which the national museum of Ireland has several. These are people who thousands of years ago were somehow trapped in bogs, which were sometimes considered sacred places, and they were usually killed through sacrifice to the Celtic/Nordic gods (Ireland had a huge Nordic influence from the Vikings) or murdered during some political upheaval in the kingdom. The crazy thing about these people is that the bogs preserved them incredibly well, better than most modern ways to preserve humans. Scientists can still see what was in their stomachs, you can see fingerprints and nails, not to mention eyelids and lips, as well as their hair and rough cotton clothing. I find it incredibly fascinating in the way these things were preserved but also in the darkness of the whole situation that these are dead bodies from over a thousand years ago that were usually sacrificed or murdered. Anyway, while in Ireland two summers ago I found out that many bog people were discovered in Denmark and preserved in museums there. A couple where in a museum in Århus that I wasn’t able to make it to, and one was at the National Museum in Copenhagen. When I tried to go to the National Museum last time, the entire pre-historic wing was under renovation and closed. No bog people for me last time.

But when I returned this time, I encountered no such problem. That wing was fully functional and pretty nice and easy to learn from as all the information was in Danish and English. There was some pretty cool Iron and Bronze Age swords and helmets as well as Viking objects and some Roman artifacts that had found their way to Denmark during the end of the Roman Empire era. I spent quite a bit of time looking at all this stuff and finally came to the bog person. It was pretty creepy and eerie like the others from a year and a half ago but still pretty interesting to see. The feet were contorted and curled in what was probably its death pose and the skin was brown and leathery, pulled tight around the body. It was in the fetal position and the skin on its face was pulled so I could see its teeth and some hair was still on the top of its head. It wore a really coarse fabric for clothes that looked like something straight out of the Viking era—though this woman was probably older.

There were a few other objects from other bogs, mostly clothing or coins, and then a few skeletons (with some remnants of skin and hair) from actual burial sites in the next few rooms. Evidently these coffins used back in the Viking era were sealed in such a way (either intentionally or not) in a way that they preserved the corpse really well too.

Anyway, after all the corpses and dark stuff, I checked out some more Viking artifacts and then decided to take a look at the café in the museum to see if they had anything reasonably priced as far as food went. They didn’t. I was getting pretty hungry as cookies and Squash weren’t exactly incredibly nourishing but I decided to take a quick swing through the rest of the museum. The Medieval and Renaissance areas were pretty cool but were mostly monastic/religious or gold and glorifications of the crown, respectively. I did, however, see some pretty cool ivory carvings and pieces of glass in the Renaissance portion.

After I couldn’t take being without food much longer I went back down to the locker where I’d left my backpack and had a few cookies and then rode back to Tess’s apartment, getting there a little bit after she did. We heated up some pasta from the night before and then went out to rent a movie. We got Thank You For Smoking as Tess had never seen it before and I think she thoroughly enjoyed it, though she admitted that some of the American humor and references were over her head. After that we mostly just watched TV and talked for a while. I think I watched a couple episodes of No Reservations and then went to sleep, though it took me a while to fall asleep once all the lights were out.

My memory seems to be going with my age.

Okay. So I'm writing these blogs anywhere from 5-8 days after they happened which inevitably accounts for me forgetting some important pieces of information. After I posted the last blog last night, I realized I'd forgotten two crucial bits of information from the first night I stayed at Ben's, possibly the best parts of the night.
The first part isn't anything too special, but it's worth mentioning: I taught Ben, my Danish cousin, about the gloriousness that is the Beeramid. He'd never heard of or seen one before so we got a fairly decent one going between the two of us. I also described to him the glory that was the beeramid we made for Joey Yang's birthday party, how it was several feet (and cases) high, topped with a slightly larger sparks can, and how we had Joey destroy it with a headbutt. Later in the night, right as we were retiring, Ben was brushing his teeth and I was shutting down his computer and I accidentally hit one of the cans, causing the whole thing to collapse. From the bathroom I just heard Ben bust out laughing, not even saying a word for a solid minute or two. When he finally finished brushing his teeth he came out and just said "you didn't even have to say anything, the sound did it all."
And now to the second part. When Ben and I had shopped for groceries earlier we saw that coconuts were for sale. Naturally, we decided to get one because when are you going to see another coconut for sale in Denmark in January? Once we got back to his place we spent about a half an hour trying to get it open doing everything from trying to stab holes in it with a knife to slowly cutting of the layers of whatever vegetable-form surrounds the actual nut. (yes Joey, you can laugh right now, I did say nut.) Once we finally got it open, we had a little taste of it and thought, well that's certainly coconut milk. Then we got a brilliant idea: let's put some whiskey in it. Ben brought out a bottle of "whiskey" that he had which actually turned out to be scotch. Evidently they refer to scotch as whiskey here, which makes some sense as it says on the bottle "scotch whiskey". Anyway, we put a few shots of whiskey in the coconut, swirled it around, stuck two straws in it, and had ourselves a little party. Later we drew a face on it, pictures will be posted when I return.

Jaguars are for driving

Day 3 (Tuesday, 1/6)

When Ben left for school at 8, I got up and hopped in his bed and slept until around 1:30/2. I knew it wasn’t good for my jet lag but it really felt quite nice. I had planned on exploring the town of Lyngby a little that day but when I got up, the light was already starting to get darker and I just felt like relaxing a reading a bit as I was kinda hung over. So I read some of Jimmy Carter’s book and emailed my parents and a few other people until Ben got back around 3:30ish. At that point, Ben and I rode into the town of Lyngby (near the train station about 2 km away), parked our bikes, and walked around for a while. It was a nice little town it reminded me of something between a suburb and a small town, which is really what it was. Copenhagen proper really isn’t a very big city with the tallest building I think being a Radisson hotel about 20 stories tall, and numerous church steeples. The metro area, however, is around 2 million people making it the second biggest city in Scandinavia after Stockholm. That number doesn’t count Malmo which is just across the water in Sweden, now connected by a bridge which for a brief period of time was the longest bridge in the world.

Anyway, Ben and I walked around, I got a Squash at the SuperBest—a grocery store with a hilarious name. Oh yeah, a Squash is a Danish soft drink made by Tuborg. It’s an orange soda, sorta like European Fanta but I like it better. It’s actually one of my favorite sodas. Ben and I walked around a bit more and then showed me where he works which is called Joe and the Juice. It’s a juice bar in a department store that makes smoothie-like drinks from juice but they’re not frozen. We had a strawberry and lime mix and a ginger, apple, and kiwi (I think) mix. The second one was really weird at first but turned out to be really good once you got used to the spice from the ginger. We hung out there for a while and I realized I heard “Inside and Out” by Feist (from her first album) playing. Ben and I started talking about music some more and he told me that after I had bought him The Reminder by Feist the previous Christmas he had started playing that at the juice bar. Sure enough, two months later she broke out onto European radio and TV and she was on pretty heavy rotation everywhere. I think Ben got some serious props from his boss for knowing what the next big thing was going to be. We arranged a little trade with the manager where we put some stickers on cups there and got two macchiatos in exchange.

After that, we took the commuter train in to Copenhagen and then hopped on the subway over to Tess’s. I’m going to stop right now, again, to describe the subway in Copenhagen. It’s pretty new, not more than 5 years old and immaculately clean. It’s pretty far underground and all the walls and floors appear to be made out of granite. The trains are super nice and super clean and it’s really easy to use. You buy a little stamp card and stamp it for how many zones you’re going on the metro/S-train (commuter)/or bus system. Unfortunately, all transportation in Denmark is quite expensive. If you only go one or two zones on the metro it’s 20 kroner, which is a little less than four bucks, three zones is 3o kroner, four zones is 40 kroner, and so on. Ben and Tess live four zones away so every time one wants to see the other it’s at least eight bucks, one way. There aren’t any unlimited weekly or day passes like in New York or Seattle. But that’s the only bad part. There’s only two lines right now, one of which was opened since last time I was here, but a lot of people seem to use it. Seattle could learn a lot.

Anyway, we got back to Tess’s and Ben and I made some pasta. We cooked some noodles and made the sauce from scratch. I put a little secret ingredient in it that was awesome: tandori spice. After Ben and I did the dishes we went to a little neighborhood bar across the street—evidently they call little neighborhood dive bars “Bodegas” here—and had a few beers. We got some dice and they taught me a Danish drinking came pronounced “my-er”. I’ll teach y’all when I get back. It started snowing a little bit outside but it was so cold that a lot of the snow blew around and didn’t really stick to each other and just turned to dusty frost. I later found out from my dad that the hi for that day was 26 and the low was 20. Last call at this bar was at midnight, as it was a Tuesday, and as we were chatting about some family stuff this really drunk guy in his 40’s came over, sat down and started talking with us. At one point he turned to me and said something to which I replied “Uh…What?” And then Ben explained that I don’t speak Danish. He looked at me and went “på engelsk?” (in english?) and I went “Ja.” He started rambling on about Denmark and drinking and his daughter and who knows what else. When he found out I spoke French he started rambling on in a mix of French, Danish, and the occasional English sentence. He gathered that I could understand a little Danish so he kept going “forestar?” (understand) to which I kept replying “nej.” He was a pretty cool guy and I think I gathered that his girlfriend/wife (not really sure which) was French and his daughter was in New York or Montreal right now. Pretty interesting. At one point he asked us if we knew the Jaguar (I think it was a bar nearby that was still open). He turned to me when he asked this and to emphasize it he went “You know what Jaguar is?” I replied “You mean:” and then I put my hands up like claws and roared like a jaguar. Luckily he found it funny and didn’t think I was making fun of him. Then I took care of our tab and Ben and Tess and I left. Tess had to get up early for work the next day so we all went to bed, Ben and I crashing on her bed and she on the couch.

Who knew Denmark in January was so cold and dark?

Day 2 (Monday)

I woke up the next morning about 11:45, which isn’t too bad. I ended up sleeping pretty well, only waking up momentarily a couple of times. After getting ready, I took the subway into the center of Copenhagen and walked around the walking streets for a couple of hours. It was really cold out so this might not have been the best day to walk around town but I really just wanted to get my bearings again and wander around. It was a pretty clear day so for the 4 hours of direct sunlight it was pretty bright. I walked past the Round tower, Erotica Museum, and then on down to the square where the Queen lives. There was a big fountain in the middle of the square (not running, of course) and directly around it was a little ice skating rink. Since I didn’t get to go ice skating in New York, I was thinking of going ice skating here. We’ll see if that happens. I grabbed a cup of coffee at this place called Baresso on the square, it’s like the Danish equivalent of a Starbucks. I know, I know, but the coffee isn’t bad and I didn’t see any other coffee places around.

There, I looked at my guide book for a while and then decided to go find the library and check my email. After that, it was getting around near 3ish and starting to get a little dark so I decided to walk up and see this church called Na Frue Kirke or something like that, it loosely translates to Church of Our Lady. I can’t remember if I’ve been there before or not but I wasn’t terribly impressed. I guess that’s why it was free and all the other ones cost money to get in. Oh well. Then I went back to Tess’s and got there a few minutes before she got back from work. We finished our pizza from the night before and watched a little TV. At some point Tess and Ben were talking via texting and it was arranged that I’d go up to his apartment/dorm in Lyngby, about a 30 minute train ride north of Copenhagen, and meet Ben after he got off work around 8/8:30ish.

So I got up there and sure enough, Ben was waiting with 2 bikes. We picked up a few groceries and when I suggested getting some beer he said, “no, we have a fridge.” I wasn’t sure if I was missing something or not so I asked him a little more about it. He said the fridge was always stocked with beer (and sometimes soda) and that all you had to do was put a little mark next to your name on a sheet of paper on the front and at the end of the month you got charged like 6 kroner (a little over a dollar) for each mark next to your name—it’s all on the honor system. I love a country that has this. Also on a side note, his dorm isn’t really a dorm and it isn’t really an apartment. It’s private, about 3 km from the university and reserved for students. There are several communal kitchens and each room is assigned to one and the rooms are small like dorms and with their own private bathrooms. But unlike the states, they have things like special fridges full of beer and on Tuesdays and Saturdays (this is pretty standard in all the dorms, on campus or not) there is a bar in the basement with relatively cheap drinks. Pretty cool stuff.

We got back to his apartment and grabbed a couple beers from the fridge and hung out in Ben’s room for a while, catching up and shooting the shit. Oh yeah, when we got back to his room it was FREEZING because he’d left the window open a day or two earlier. Ben doesn’t spend a whole lot of time in his dorm room because he spends most of his time at his girlfriend’s who lives much closer to campus. We quickly closed the window and turned the heat up, but it only went so high. Throughout the night we periodically kept leaving his room to warm up and went to the kitchen to hang out for a while. Next to the kitchen is a little living room with a TV, kinda like the lounges we had at SU. A lot of his neighbors hang out there pretty frequently and they all seemed like pretty nice guys. I was starting to get pretty drunk because Ben and I had kept going back for more beers and Ben can just be so silly. He’s so fun to drink with. Anyway, we went out to the kitchen at one point and a couple guys were just sitting around so Ben suggested we turn on his gamecube which he leaves out there and play some Mario kart. Naturally, I obliged, expecting to kick some serious ass after my many years of practice on an N64 with Jordan. Unfortunately, Mario kart for the gamecube has a lot of differences and I think I got last on all but one race. Towards the end, I started getting the hang of it and wasn’t losing by quite as much, though.

Finally, Ben and I got tired so we went back to his not-as-cold room and went to bed. But naturally, there’s a catch. Ben had this little collapsible hammock from his last school so we set that up and I slept in that. Needless to say, I had a pretty crappy sleep that night. My jet lag was hitting me pretty hard and after sleeping for probably a couple hours I awoke and didn’t go back to sleep until Ben left for school at like 8 am.

Holla at ya Denmark

Plane + Day 1 (Sunday)

I flew out of Newark on Saturday (3^rd) around 5:30ish. I got to the airport around 1:30 with my parents because their connecting flight to Dallas left around 3. After saying our goodbyes, I took a train to my terminal and after passing through security looked around for some grub as I hadn’t really had very much to eat yet. Cut to me eating some horrible, horrible Chinese sweet and sour and slippery chicken with a side of “spicy” stir fry chicken; I ate what I could and a lot of rice before pitching about half of it—something I hate doing when on a budget and travelling around.

After that, I went to this little Brooklyn Brewery bar near my gate and grabbed a couple beers which would hopefully tire me out so I could sleep like a little drunk baby on the plane. Gave a couple calls to Corey and Mal to wish each one of ‘em birthdays and catch up a little bit. Read a little New Yorker too, one I’d bought the day before in the Port Authority bus terminal when I was killing some time with my cousin Tom.

About 45 minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave I started wandering around looking for a place to charge my computer should I want to watch a movie on the flight. Surprisingly, gate C39 didn’t have any outlets in a 3-gate radius but I finally found one a ways away…but it didn’t work. I walked around a little more and finally found one on the ground near a window. While charging my computer I decided to give Derek a call because I’d told him a while before that I’d call him and I don’t think I had.

When I boarded the plane I found my seat (a window) and managed to cram my pack underneath the seat in front of me and get settled. For quite a while there was nobody sitting next to me and I started getting excited, thinking I’d have a row to myself. About 5 minutes before we were supposed to leave I was about to start spreading my stuff out when an older Danish couple came and sat down in the seats. They didn’t seem to speak much English which surprised me because, from my experiences about 98% (if not more) Danes have at least a mild understanding/knowledge of English. Not these two. The woman was ordering drinks and food for both of them and her English mostly consisted of holding up two fingers and saying “Coffee” or “Beef”.

After we got in the air (about an hour late), I put my seat back and then after a couple minutes realized I had to go to the bathroom. So I got up and after a little line got to what would be a poor excuse for a closet, did my business and returned. I put on a movie and realized my seat wasn’t as far back as the lady next to me so I pushed the button and back shot my chair. With lightning-quick speed the bald, almost elderly man behind me started shouting “Nej! Nej! Nej!” as did the woman next to them and they started pushing on my chair so it went back forward. I had my headphones on but I took them off and looked at them and they were just scowling at me, making hand gestures and holding up an empty Heineken can. I thought maybe I’d spilt it when I put my seat back but I looked and his table and lap were completely dry. Confused, I turned to the people next to me who were looking straight ahead, put my headphones on, and turned back around in my seat to face forward. Now this puzzled me. I obviously didn’t spill anything so why was he so pissed? And why the hell did the woman next to him care too? Was he just some crotchety old man who didn’t want me putting my seat back? If so, what an ass. Also, how did my seat get pushed back forward? Had they reached up while I was taking a leak and pushed the button to raise it? I finally gave them the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe I was interfering with his drinking somehow. And besides, dinner was coming.

After a superbly mediocre meal of beef and flat noodles, I decided to slowly, very slowly, lower my seat. I pushed in the button and with a snail’s speed lowered my seat millimeter by millimeter until it was finally as far back as it could go.

The rest of the flight was pretty normal. I tried to watch “The Duchess” with Keira Knightley but it was pretty crappy so I turned it off. And the really bad thing was she didn’t even look that attractive in it. Probably the reason it sucked, come to think of it.

The plane ended up arriving only about a half hour late (I think a little after 8 am) and after picking up my bag I met up with Ben and Tess who were waiting outside security. We took the subway up to Tess’s apartment and I had some bread. As previously planned, three of Tess’s friends were going to take a road trip to the Jylland (Jutland Peninsula—the main landmass of Denmark) to drop one of them off at a graphic design school and I could come along if I was up for it. I was a little tired after only sleeping for about 3 hours on the plane but I thought, why not? I can always grab some coffee or sleep in the car. I made it almost the whole way to Arhus—the second biggest city in Denmark, the school was about 20 minutes outside of it—without falling asleep.

On the ride, though, we drove across some very gray, cloudy Danish countryside. We stopped pretty frequently for various reasons—pit stops, coffee, food, gas, etc—but I started to gather that each stop was really just an excuse to get out and smoke a cigarette as all 4 people I was with seemed to be chain smokers. I started reading Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid” during the trip but only got through about a chapter before Tess and her friend Mira (who was going to the new school) started giving me tips on how to pick up Danish girls.

We got to Arhus and had some tea at Magnus’s, Mira’s boyfriend, sister’s place and I was lagging pretty badly at this point. We stayed around for about a half an hour and then drove on up to the school which was basically in the middle of nothing. A forest surround part of it, some fields on the other sides and the whole place looked like a big living history museum to me. But I guess that’s how they do graphic design schools here in the DK.

After saying our goodbyes we got back in the car and started on the not-so-long trip back across the country to Copenhagen. I slept off and on the whole way and I think we got back to Tess’s apartment around 8, though I could be wrong about that, my sense of time was pretty messed up from the sleeping and the sun setting around 4:15. Tess and I ordered a couple pizzas and then walked a few blocks to pick them up and it was COLD outside. Probably about 5 or 6 below freezing but it felt damn cold to me. Not that I hadn’t noticed it all day but at night it felt so much colder with the darkness all around. I also picked up a 4-pack of tall cans of Tuborg. When we got back, we flipped on the TV and what was on but a football game, live. I think it was the Vikings and somebody else…Eagles maybe? I kinda stopped following football this year when the Seahawks kept sucking. We talked for a while and I think around 12 Tess got tired and went to bed. I wasn’t too tired at that point so I left the TV on sipped on a Tuborg, watching the game. Within about 30 minutes I realized my eyelids kept dropping so I turned off the TV and went to sleep.