On our own

With Tessie's Mom at her conference, Tessie and I got to explore Copenhagen together. Our first destination was the Copenhagen Zoo, which I knew Tessie would enjoy, but first we had to get there.

I should have splurged for the bus, but I still had sticker-shock from the price of everything in Copenhagen, and it really didn't look that far on the map, so we set off on foot from our hotel. Well, I was on foot; Tessie was in her little collapsible stroller.

It didn't take too long for me to regret that decision, as the stroller's handle height forced me to stoop a bit, so by the halfway point I was already pretty sore. By that time, though, we were far enough off the main transit routes that there was really no choice but to continue on foot.

The Copenhagen Zoo, like many other cultural institutions in Copenhagen, is the beneficiary of gifts from the Carlsberg Brewery, the largest private employer (I believe) in the city. Since the brewery complex was on our route to the zoo, we passed through its central arches, where Tessie was captivated by the giant stone elephants (a symbol of the brewery) that guard the gates.
But we had real elephants to see, so we pressed on - right past the left turn I should have taken! We ended up walking a little farther than I'd planned, detouring through the Frederiksberg Have (park), where Tessie insisted on getting out of the stroller to walk.

So walk we did, down a wooded path, past a pond with ducks and geese ("Goose says honk, honk!"), up a hill, and onto the grounds of The Royal Danish Army Officers Academy. Oops.

There's not a fence in sight, so this sort of thing probably happens all the time, and we were greeted by nothing more than harsh stares as we continued our way off the grounds in the direction of the zoo.
We reached the zoo in short order, paid the 130 DKk fee (~US$26.00, just for me; Tessie got in for free) and went on in. Our first order of business was to ditch the stroller and much of our additional infrastructure in a locker to allow ourselves to travel with fewer impediments.

We wandered, or rather, Tessie wandered, and I tried to keep up. Tessie got a real treat when one of the chimpanzees came right up to her, nose-to-nose (separated by a glass wall, of course), and they had the opportunity to make "ook-ook" noises at each other, and hold their hands up to compare. She also enjoyed the snakes, water birds, and rhinos, as well as the penguins, zebras, and giraffes, but her favorite attraction was the Elephant House.

Designed by Sir Norman Foster, the new Elephant House at the zoo had just opened this summer. (In fact, the landscaping wasn't quite finished, and Tessie also got a kick out of watching the bulldozers.) In addition to lots of hands-on exhibits with flashing lights and noises (oooh), there were big spiraling ramps for Tessie to run on, and of course there were about a dozen elephants in the outdoor enclosures. We got a nice close-up view of several of the impressive beasts before Tessie decided we were done and went to go climb on a nearby elephant statue.

After that we went to the children's zoo, where there were animals to pet (goats, sheep, cows, etc.) and chickens to chase. There were playground slides and swings and other toys for her to burn off extra energy, but I think she got the most exercise by chasing the chickens that were allowed to roam freely around the site.

Having spent the morning there, our departure coincided with Tessie's nap time, and she was sound asleep in her stroller before we made it to the bus stop. Unwilling to either wake her up and put her on the bus, or to sit still and wait for her to wake up on her own, I decided, despite my soreness from the morning, to walk back to the center of the city, this time along a main street, the Vesterbrogade. She woke up at about the halfway point, so it was pølser time yet again, but after that she settled back in and fell asleep once more.

We made it all the way back to the Rådhuspladsen, the main square in the center of Copenhagen, right outside the city hall. By this time Tessie was awake again, but her grueling morning of tourism had worn her out and all she wanted to do was pull out a blanket and crash on a park bench. So she did:

(Just to be clear, she climbed up there all by herself. I didn't put her there.)

I was able to coax her back into the stroller for one final stop: the Danish Design Center, which was hosting an temporary exhibit in addition to its permanent collection. The temporary exhibit, called "Living Wood," was all about the use of wood, from carved wood decor to plywood to compressed or reconstituted wood products used in architecture. The highlight of that exhibit for me was the wide range of wooden chairs on display, including some modern bent-plywood pieces that I'd read about in school but never seen. Visitors were even allowed to sit in the chairs, which was doubly welcome after all that walking.

The permanent exhibits, Short/Cuts and FLOWmarket, were also worth seeing. Short/Cuts (I can't explain the name) is a gallery of iconic design items from the 20th century. Some actual objects, like the Apple Macintosh and the Swiss Army knife, are on display, while others, like the Concorde and Aston-Martin DB5 are shown in miniature. There are about one hundred objects, and almost all are instantly recognizable; that's how iconic they truly are. FLOWmarket was an art installation, set up to look like a store where one could buy, say, a five-gallon can of "sustainable innovation," a 200cL pouch of "fresh air," or a liter of "tolerance." There were about two dozen such "products," and the artists' intent was to make the viewer prioritize for themselves on what they would spend their limited resources. There's a companion website that may be interesting.

The DDC closes at five p.m., so we headed back to our hotel. Tessie's Mom was still tied up with a conference function, so Tessie and I still had to amuse ourselves until dinner time. I think I already mentioned that our hotel was built atop a massive swimming complex?

Down to the pools we went. There was a big oval pool, like a running track, for those who wanted to swim laps, a rectangular workout pool for those who wanted to do exercises, a diving pool with platforms and even a trampoline, but we stayed in the family area, where there was a shallow kiddie pool with lots of toys and an overhead shower fixture that created a rainstorm every ten minutes or so, and a very warm pool for extended soaks, and a jacuzzi tub. Aah. We spent the evening there, getting thoroughly pruney, but Tessie loved it and didn't want to leave until we'd been in the water for about two hours.

After that it was dinnertime, but Tessie's Mom was still not available, so Tessie and I went out in search of a reasonably-priced restaurant that could satisfy both of us. We ended up at Jensen's Bøfhus, one of a chain of family style restaurants that covers all of Scandinavia. The waiter was very helpful and set up a booster seat for Tessie, who sat across the table from me and was astoundingly well-behaved all night. My food, a pork tenderloin, was quite good. Tessie ordered pizza, which they had run out of, so she had to settle for chicken nuggets which were really bad. So she shared my pork and potatoes and was quite satisfied. At the end of the meal, she came over to sit on my lap and we shared her first banana split, which she heartily enjoyed.

We walked back to the hotel to find Tessie's Mom had already returned, and we all settled in to sleep. Tessie and I were wiped out, and that was just our first day of three to spend together.

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P.S. Next post: more pictures, fewer words!