I Have a Guest!

Last Saturday, my girlfriend came to visit from her study program in Rome.  So I had to stop stumbling around Copenhagen and actually be a competent tour guide.

There are a lot of places you could bring someone to give them a good first impression of Denmark.  But one stands head and shoulders above the rest: the local bakery.

The cream snail is just one member of the snail family.

Having a visitor means that B for Beer and a bowl of rice won't cut it for dinner. 

The first night was landbrød and Brie with salami, potatoes and fried skins, broccoli, and red beans.  The wine is German Liebfraumilch.  Dessert was marble cake.

Bye bye, entire week's meal stipend!

After dinner, we visited the Mikkeller.  It's a bar and microbrewery in the meatpacking district.  I was introduced to Mikkeller by my roommate, who swears by its brews.  It's a "gypsy brewery" -- the owner visits large breweries after hours and makes large quantities of single brews.  The first ten on tap are his and the second ten are from other breweries.  I have been here a few times before (but only a few, as the beer can be a little on the pricy side).  Mikkeller has the best beer I have ever tasted in my life.  It's the difference between drinking a fermented loaf of Wonderbread(TM) and drinking a loaf of...well...better bread.  It should be on anyone's excellent-out-of-the-way places list.

This brew is called the "American Dream."

I spent the first day showing Lauren all around town.  The national gallery (she studies Art History), the King's Garden, Christiania, Nyhavn, and the Opera.  Of course, we got lunch from one of those excellent hot dog stands.

The mystery ball in the King's Garden

We rode the water taxi to the Opera!

We went to the market at Israel Plads on the way home and bought a piece of Focaccia big enough to last us two dinners and two breakfasts.

It's so greasy.

Why the hell is it so greasy?!

That night, we went to La Fontaine, a jazz club near where I go to class, and saw a band with percussion, bass, and saxophone.  They were quite good.  It was a free Sunday night jam session, and it was very crowded.

On Monday -- Lauren's last full day -- we got breakfast before I went to class for an hour and a half in the morning.

Here is a photo of my beloved.  My girlfriend is also in this picture.

 I didn't have another class until 4 p.m., so we visited Amalienborg palace and Amagerstrand.  Then we got shawarma for lunch (I have come to really love Middle Eastern food here).  Here I am preparing for class with a durum the size of my forearm, a very non-Middle Eastern basket of fries, and a very large and very non-Muslim glass of beer.  And really, one shouldn't prepare for class any other way.

This is really quite good.

We were able to hit pretty much all of the landmarks I wanted to see, so I felt I did a reasonable job navigating Copenhagen.  I was even able to skillfully avoid the ticket police (at least once) as we rode the metro through zones for which I possessed no pass.  Though I am not proud of this accomplishment...I am kind of proud of this accomplishment.  We were sad to say goodbye on Tuesday afternoon, but did so on a positive note as we ate hot dogs before she went off to the airport (for further travels visiting a friend in London).

Also, happy birthday to me.  I was 21 on Saturday.  I did not have a party, although I did go to a Halloween party at the Student Union on Friday night.  They had free cupcakes (the pumpkin ones were my favorites), beer, tequila shots (I ate the limes, rind and all), and karaoke (all '90s music).  Most importantly, they had a free coat check.  I cannot stress enough the importance of just finding a nice, dry, safe place to put your belongings.  Ipso facto, it was a load of fun.  Then I went off with a couple of friends to the Australian Bar, in a basement next to DIS (Get it?  It's down under!)  And finally to Kebabenhavn, a little cupola near Nørreport Station that serves...wait for it...kebabs!  And shawarma.  On the bus ride home I met a Danish nursing student who was a medic in the Danish Army.  He told me all about his experiences at his university, in the army, and also about Denmark's biggest festivals.  One always meets the most interesting people on night buses.

No, my birthday was a quite mundane day of laundry and homework, which I do take simple pleasure in from time to time.  Since Denmark is a country that believes a) laws should make sense, and b) adults should be treated as such (ahem, United States of Puritans), I can order a beer any old day here.  So I celebrated my 21st with a cup of coffee, my favorite pastry (the rum snail), and a new thing -- some sort of bread covered in melted cheese -- that I bought from the Brønshøj Backerei.