Copenhagen

August 26, 2009, Wednesday
Copenhagen

Looked kind of dark first thing this morning and it was cool enough that a sweater felt good but the day perked up and turned out to be a beauty. We decided that the room was just TOO small (mostly the bed was too small) and so first thing we did was change rooms!! Apparently the Danes have a different idea of what constitutes a double room. They feel that a bed that is 120 cm wide is plenty wide for two people. Hahahahha!! Not!! Neither of us slept worth a darn and it just isn’t worth it to feel tired all day, so we changed to a room with a REAL bed in it and we are going to be much happier. But their rooms here are very small. There is nothing extra in the rooms and every bit of space is used. It is almost like they are short of land and need to conserve. I think it is the Scandinavian way.

Breakfast was also less than ideal. The bread all looked like brown bread with nasty stuff like seeds and strange fruit in it. I remember their eggs are very strange because they feed their chickens weird stuff that makes the eggs taste bad so I decided that cereal seemed like the safest bet. Wrong! What appeared to be corn flakes tasted like cardboard and their milk looked like skim milk but tasted strange. It could be a long vacation if this is going to be the usual morning fare!! Ah well. Another vacation—another diet!!.

Today we walked up and down the Stroget, the main pedestrian street of Copenhagen. I found the mobiles that I was looking for and dropped a fortune on them!! They are SO wonderful!! I enjoyed checking out the furniture and the modern Danish home furnishings. And of course I stopped in to Royal Copenhagen!!

They have lots of street vendors and street performers and a wonderful large park in the middle of town where they have a fascinating exhibition of innovations to improve society. Most of the things revolved around renewable sources of energy but there was one project where houses are being built for less than $700 and are able to withstand earthquakes and other natural disasters. Quite amazing stuff.

The currency here is difficult to fathom. It goes like this: one dollar fifty cents is worth about 1 euro and 7 kroner are worth about 1 euro. And everything costs hundreds of kroners, so it seems incredibly expensive!! Actually, things here are more expensive than in the states but not a huge amount more. Mostly it just seems expensive because everything is multiplied by about 5…..500 kroner sounds way more expensive than $100!!!!!!

Off to dinner. Another adventure in eating! Stay tuned!

The dinners are included in the price of the hotel and tonight it was almost identical to last night except that the “main course” was different. You grab a plate and silverware and napkin and then start rooting around for the food. They have a small casserole dish, about the size of a small Pyrex bowl and that contains the ‘main course”. Last night there was a small chunk of meat (about 1 ½ inch square) in a gravy with mushrooms and mystery stuff. The meat turned out to be pork. It actually was quite tasty although mighty skimpy. Tonight was the same casserole dish with perhaps ¼ cup of rice a VERY small chunk of salmon and some green stuff sprinkled on top (dill and ???). You can get bread (more brown, seedy, fruity stuff), cold green beans and carrots, sliced tomatoes with onions and celery and greens. There are several kinds of vinegars and oils to dress the tomatoes and greens. That’s it…….except for dessert, which is cheese and biscuits and cut up oranges. No wonder these folks are thin and healthy!!

Tomorrow is Little Mermaid and Flower Child Day!!