Downtown CPH

Having learned a lesson the first day, I decided to leave Tessie's stroller at the hotel. Carrying her, when necessary, was actually less trying than pushing the stroller had been, and we made quick enough progress that we had time to kill before the Danish National Museum, our intended first stop, would open.

So we found ourselves outside the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum with a wide range of works, from ancient to modern. As this one wasn't open yet, either, Tessie had to content herself with climbing on the lion statues out front:
The Nationalmuseet (National Museum of Denmark) was just a few blocks away, so we followed a crowd of schoolchildren in through the front doors to discover, firstly, that the museum was free, and secondly, that there was an armada of strollers nicer than the one we'd brought, and these were also free. We stashed our extra items in one of the museums lockers (also free, just a 20DKk deposit) and set off for the Children's Museum on the first floor.

Tessie loved the Children's Museum. It was a series of rooms, each with a different set of hands-on items to play with. Old clothes to dress up, a stuffed horse (not real) to ride, an Indian bazaar with a balance on which to weigh produce, a sailing ship with a wheel to turn, an art room with paper and crayons (Tessie left a few original works taped up in the "gallery"), a Viking longboat in which to sail, and a 1920s-era Danish classroom with slates and chalk:


Eventually, Tessie wore herself out enough to want to climb into the free stroller, which allowed me to go explore the major exhibition on the first floor of Danish prehistory. That series of galleries takes up a lot of square footage and displays thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of artifacts recovered from archaeological sites around the country. Animal bones, weapons, hoards of gold, and even preserved human bodies from the Danish bogs were on display in a very modern and well-designed exhibit.

Tessie interrupted my tour at a convenient time when she requested a snack while we were in a gallery adjacent to a covered walkway leading to an interior courtyard. The air was still cool from the morning, and we sat outside snacking until she decided it was time to head back in:

Tessie fell asleep in the stroller soon after that, so I was able to explore more of the museum while she slept, including the gallery of toys and dollhouses, the ethnographic collection, and modern Danish history (which, as an indication of how old this country is, began with the year 1660) before Tessie woke up again and wanted to leave.

She was hungry again, it turned out, and when I asked her what she wanted, the answer was unequivocal: french fries.

Loath as I am to patronize fast food mega-chains, I simply couldn't resist Tessie's request. Besides, given the cost of food in Copenhagen, I expected that the Burger King just off the Rådhuspladsen would be one of our less expensive options. Tessie and I ended up splitting a double cheeseburger combo, plus a small container of milk, for around ten bucks, or roughly double what the same meal would have cost in California.

Of to the tourist office we went, making a brief detour into the Rådhus (City Hall) for a diaper change. Normally, I wouldn't comment on the whole diaper thing, but if not for that we wouldn't have gone into the Rådhus at all, and we would have missed out. Firstly, we would have missed out on an excellent changing facility (spacious, no line, comfortable for both of us), and secondly, we would have missed the Verdensur, also known as Jens Olsen's World Clock, an impressive piece of timekeeping mechanics.

Needs addressed, we continued on to the tourist office, just opposite the train station. We took a number and looked at the displays while we waited for service. The tourist office is a busy place, so we waited for a while, but then our number was called and I asked our question: where could we find a public playground?

This totally stumped the attendant. It seems no one had ever asked before, and there were no references on her desk or her computer that could provide the answer. We stood there for at least twenty minutes while she worked the phones and eventually found three locations and marked them on a map for us, none of them near our present location at the city center.

By that time, though, it was too late for us to head toward one; it didn't seem likely that we'd get to a playground before dark. So we dashed back to the Nationalmuseet, ducked in just before closing, and made a beeline for the The Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, one of the world's foremost numismatic collections. Alas, we had only half an hour to peruse the displays before closing time, so we were soon back out on the street.

From the numismatic gallery, though, I had noticed that we were very close to Slotsholmen Island, just across the Frederiksholm Kanal. Slotholmen is the location of the Christiansborg Palace, itself the home of all three branches (executive, legislative & judicial) of the Danish government. From there we walked a short distance to the grounds of the Royal Library, where Tessie fed goldfish (crackers) to goldfish (koi):

After that, we headed back to the hotel, this time to meet Tessie's Mom for dinner. We initially tried the Vesterbro Bryghus, a microbrewery on the Vesterbrogade right by the train station, but - alas - they had no high chairs, so we went to our fall-back plan - Jensen's Bøfhus (again, albeit at a different location). Tessie's Mom hadn't been there yet, and it's hard to argue against a good meal, followed by Jensen's special dessert: all-you-can-eat soft serve ice cream.

Tessie even got a helium balloon, and then we called it a night:

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!

B(ack)logging

I've got some catching up to do, but now that the Red Sox have been eliminated from the playoffs, I will soon be getting back to blogging about the tail end of our trip to Europe. (Totally lame excuse, I know, but I can't help it if they have an overwhelming command of my attention. If I could do anything about it, I would!)

I just uploaded a whole bunch of photos last night and set up templates to cover the last of our four days in Copenhagen. Stay tuned!

Famous Chairs & Anonymous Tables

Tessie finds ways to amuse herself that, in turn, amuse us. Here she is playing in a forest of 'Swan chairs,' the iconic Scandinavian design by the iconic Scandinavian architect Arne Jacobsen. The tables may also be famous, but somehow, not knowing their design pedigree makes me feel less guilty about what happens at the end of the video...

Wonderful Copenhagen!

The three of us had a full day available for exploring the city before Hannah would be required to spend her days in a trade show booth at the conference that provided the impetus for us to come here.

We started off with breakfast at the hotel, which was the typical northern European spread of cold cuts, bread, cereal, yogurt, etc. but was surprisingly devoid of herring. On our 1999 visit to Copenhagen, we stayed in a hotel that offered, if I recall correctly, at least half a dozen varieties, and the Hotel Selandia, where we stayed earlier on this trip also had a dish of the little guys available for sampling. Not here, but I can't really say they were missed.

Fortified, we set out to walk around the city and get to know it a little bit. We took in the sights, like the old stock exchange building below, and enjoyed the relatively cool air.

Eventually we made it to Christiania, which I had been intrigued to see. Christiania is a so-called "freetown" operating, it would have you believe, as its own jurisdiction beyond the rule of Danish (or any) law. It was established in the early 1970s by squatters who moved into an abandoned military base and set up shop doing all the things hippies like to do: selling macrame and other, more dubious, "crafts" for drug money, selling stolen goods for drug money, and selling drugs. There is even a Pusher Street in the compound, notorious for the deals it saw before the Danish police cracked down (no pun intended) a few years ago.

Having lost their preferred mode of livelihood, or at least the ability to pursue it out in the open, Christiania seeks to portray itself as a tourist destination and general counter-cultural bazaar. Bizarre would be more like it, though. The decrepit buildings are graffiti-covered; the only surfaces free of such embellishment are the menacing NO PHOTOGRAPHY signs. The signs are supposedly there to protect the privacy of residents who may not wish to be photographed, but one gets the distinct impression that they are really there to a) enable shakedowns of tourists who do not heed the warnings and b) protect those resident who may not wish to be confronted with photographic evidence of their activities in the shadowy corners of their "utopia."

The message painted on the bicycle cart this photograph reads "We seek a lower standard of living for a higher quality of life." Well, mission accomplished on the first part of that goal, but I see no evidence whatsoever that any progress has been made toward the second.

Christiania is possibly the best argument against anarchy imaginable. Down to the fires burning in old oil drums, the place exudes a Mad Max vibe of post-apocalyptic societal breakdown. It's not as scary as, say, Detroit after dark, but one feels acutely aware of the potential for things to go wrong in a hurry, and there's no one to call for help. Getting out was a delicate balance between being eager to leave and wanting to remain calm and composed as we headed for the exit without attracting any attention. The archway over the exit reads "You are now re-entering the EU." These people take their illusion of sovereignty seriously.

Immediately upon exiting we sought to exorcise the demons of Christiania by participating in the capitalist bourgeois economy. We bought ice cream. Yummy, yummy capitalism!

We then caught the train to the conference center where Hannah's meeting was to be held so she could check in and do all the preliminary booth set-up stuff that needed to be done. While the conference center was out-of-the-way, the public transit system made the journey quite pleasant. We got her chores done, and headed back into the city for more fun.

We had promised Tessie a boat ride, and did not want to disappoint her, so we headed to a canalside dock for a Netto-Bådene canal tour. The open-topped boat ride took us past most of Copenhagen's waterfront sights, including The Little Mermaid (who was almost hidden among the tourists), Nyhavn, and the new Opera House (below), but the most intriguing parts of the ride, for me, were where the city and the waterfront overlapped. Working harbors fascinate me; their functions and existence depend on open water, which is inherently unpredictable. Kind of like toddlers, in a way...

After our boat ride, we had to hustle over to the Copenhagen University campus for a dinner event Hannah needed to attend as part of her conference. That left Tessie and I on our own to find dinner. You'd think that the blocks around a university would offer a few reasonably-priced eateries; well, in Copenhagen, you'd be wrong. We bypassed a pizza joint that had a 45-minute wait and kept walking, hoping to find something. The search continued until we came to another pølser cart. Good thing Tessie likes hot dogs.

Tessie and I finished our dinner and returned to the hotel to rest up for our upcoming three days of Danish sightseeing.