Smorgasbord

Part 6—Carnival!

Sadly, Friday night’s activities did not involve the ice bar (unsurprising, as there was little actual planning involved in the ice bar discussions…). However, I have not given up hope. It is something I will see before I leave. Not a question.

Despite the lack of ice bar, Friday night still proved to be interesting. Friday and Saturday, Copenhagen played host to the Carnival, held in one of Copenhagen’s larger parks. From my assessments, this was essentially what you would expect from a carnival: lots of people, lots of food that's largely bad for you, music, dancing, etc. The main exceptions to this stereotypical image, however, were the increased and undeniable presence of alcohol and the rather bizarre selection of music. There were a number of music/performance tents (five, that I saw, to be more specific). There was a reggae stage, a more modern/rap stage, a techno stage (which seemed to be fueling nothing short of a rave, complete with a wide variety of recreational drugs), and then a couple stages that appeared to have a variety of music performers, all of which that I saw were a little on the odd side (see the pictures of my favorite band that I will post on Facebook). Now, to fully convey to you the prevalence of alcohol at the event, each performance tent had not one, but two, bars in addition to the numerous other alcohol vendors. Now, it would seem pretty standard for there to be lots of places to buy beer and fruity mixed drinks at an event like this, but I thought the offer of shots and straight up hard liquor was a little surprising. I had some rather delicious pear cider, which I highly recommend should you ever get the chance to try it, and I sampled someone’s margarita (I’m pretty sure that’s what it was supposed to be anyway, the signs had not been very clear…), which tasted mainly like tequila and which would receive a much more reserved recommendation than the cider.

Anyway, as I said, the Carnival continued through Saturday. From what I gather, it’s a pretty big deal here in Copenhagen, and the festivities extend outside the park. Take for instance the parade I encountered on Saturday, moving along Strøgate, the main pedestrian shopping street, one over from Skindergade (my street, if I never mentioned that). This parade, consisted mainly of group after group of drummers, each paired with a group of bejeweled thong-and-bra-clad dancing women. (Again, I’ll post pictures.)It wasn’t really what I would have ever expected from your run of the mill parade. I mean, the drummers yes, but the thong-clad dancers, not so much. Interestingly, I saw a large number of references to Brazil and Colombia in the banners and flags both in the parade and at in the tents of the main Carnival. I have no idea what the connection is, but I would really like to find out. So, once I do, I’ll pass it along to you.

Part 7—Flowers

As some of you may know from my conversations with you, the plan to go to Malmö, Sweden on Saturday fell through. Apparently most of the stores and shops are closed on Saturday, and as cheaper shopping is one of the main attractions of the neighboring Swedish city, it proved to be an inopportune time for the trip. So, I took that time to explore the Botanical Gardens. They were very pretty and had a large series of greenhouses for your exploratory pleasure. They had some very interesting plants, some very pretty plants, and some rather ugly and/or toxic plants. This wasn’t a terribly exciting venture, but I felt edified by the experience, and it was quite a pleasant place just to wander around or sit on a bench. Also, I saw a coffee plant, whose beans looked nothing like I expected. I’m not really sure what I had envisioned, but it certainly wasn’t the red/green berries that I found. So yeah, that pretty much wraps up my journey to the Botanical Gardens, and you’ve already heard about my parade experience from the day.

Part 8—Legoland(!) and Danish Cuisine

Sunday morning at 8am sharp, I found myself on a rather large, double-decker tour bus on my way to Legoland in Billund (which is on Jutland, the biggest portion of Denmark), about 3 hours from Copenhagen. Overall, my venture to Legoland was a fairly interesting day trip. The park itself is pretty much what you would expect from a Lego amusement park: lots of people, most of which are children, some rides, some over-priced restaurants, some gift shops that all have the same kitsch (Lego related, of course), and lots of Legos. The miniature models of various Danish and global landmarks and cities were really quite impressive. I was surprised by the accuracy and intricacy of them. All of the Lego structures that I ever built always required far more imagination to recognize as anything other than a conglomeration of colored plastic bricks. As impressive as I found the Lego models, however, I have to say I was a little disappointed by the ride selection. I’ve been spoiled by amusement parks like King’s Island and Cedar Point that have tons of roller coasters and the various thrill rides that we all know and love (well I love them, at least). The rides in the park were definitely not targeted at the thrill-seeking crowd, or at the very least, not at the thrill-seeking crowd over the age of about 8. It was still a good time, though, overall.

On our journey home, we stopped for dinner at a traditional Danish buffet, so we all got the opportunity to try some actual Danish food. And, I have to say, I was impressed. It was all really good, even the fish (which I tend to have rather questionable feelings about in general). The smoked herring, probably one of the most remarkably Danish dishes, was actually pretty good. I doubt that I will ever have a craving for it, but it was definitely edible and borderline rather enjoyable. I really enjoyed the potato and pork dish, although I don’t know how to better classify it, and it was admittedly not very adventurous. The vegetable quiche-like dish was also quite good. One of the more interesting dishes was the rather sweet cream cheese-ish spread eaten on dark, grainy bread. The spread was served in large bowls, and garnished (at least I think that was the main role) with little blue and yellow flowers. It was actually really good, although I have absolutely no idea what it really consisted of. The only dish I can’t say I approved of was the liver paste, topped with rather mysterious and slightly intimidating clear jell-o-like cubes. That was…interesting. But overall, I really enjoyed the dinner. It was fun to just try a bunch of new and unique foods with only minimal thought to what exactly I was eating until I’d already tried it.

Part 9—Round Tower

Today, Monday, was a national holiday (Pentacost, I am told), so no one had class. However, that also meant that nothing was open, making entertainment a little bit of a challenge. But, persistence won out, and we discovered that the Round Tower was open. So, we ascended the seven stories of spiraling slope (that’s right, it’s a ramp, not a staircase) to reach the observatory on the top. About halfway up, we discovered that there was a little art gallery in one of the upper floors of the attached church that you could peruse mid climb. So, we did. Despite it’s seeming randomness, I thought it added a nice touch to the otherwise pretty straight forward tourist attraction. The gallery contained mostly modern art and lithography, and while I did like some piece quite a bit, I was reminded of the fact that I have very mixed feelings about modern art in general. Some of it is cool and clearly indicative of great skill and artistic insight, but then there’s that part of modern art (and don’t deny it, you know it’s there) where you wonder what the point it. I mean sure, those slashes and splotches of color are kind of interesting and might be a nice design accent to a room, but where’s the deeper meaning? It’s almost like the artists had so much creative insight, that it just kind of became a mash on canvas. But, anyway, enough about modern art and my completely uninformed opinions on it, back to the Round Tower. We made it to the top and were afforded a lovely view of the city. It was cool to get that kind of perspective. It really allowed you to put all of sights and tourist attractions that you’d visited into geographical perspective. It also made you realize how short the buildings are, at least in the city center. I mean this tower was only about 8 stories tall, and it was the tallest structure in the vicinity, leaving you with a very lovely view of the rooftops of Copenhagen.

Anyway, that pretty much wraps up the most recent happenings here in Denmark. Sorry, this was pretty long. Whoops, I think I lied when I promised shorter posts. :D

OH! I forgot! As a special bonus, you guys get a fun vocabulary lesson that I have compiled from my lovely living companions. Disclaimer! This is not an exhaustive list, so I’m sure I will have later additions.

Rando=random

Hella=hella (but why “hella” is a necessity, I don’t know.)

Bish=Bitch, but in a good way

Cas=casual

gay-ass= stupid or ugly