Homeward bound

Our last morning in Copenhagen began as the previous ones had: with the complimentary hotel breakfast. Since this was to be our last breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, we spent a little extra time enjoying the art on display.

Both inside and outside the restaurant were works by local artist Keld Moseholm at varying scales. This one was my favorite:



We had one last thing to do before leaving for the airport: buy diapers. We wanted to have enough on hand to cover our upcoming flights, and felt that the half-dozen or so might not cut it, so out I went, while Tessie's Mom did the last of the packing.

Tessie wears a size-4 diaper, and I must have visited at least half a dozen stores, from corner markets (sample dialog - Me: "I'm sorry, I don't speak Danish..." South-Asian immigrant store clerk: "That's O.K.; neither do I.") to the big Danish grocery chains REMA 1000 and Super Best. I walked for miles (really!), finding plenty of sizes 3 & 5, but not a single size 4.

My perambulations, stressful and unproductive as they were, still gave me an opportunity to wander the city and take in the sights one last time. I really learned to like Copenhagen in the short time we were there. It's a well-organized city with a vibrant core, highly efficient public transit, beautiful architecture, friendly people... there's a whole lot to like, just no size 4 diapers. That, and it's as expensive as all get-out.

I did get to see a few more unique sights while walking, like a Porsche 928 converted into a pick-up truck, and this sign over the Rådhuspladsen, which seems to be Tessie's personal motto: For diapers, I had to hit my last resort: 7-11. 18 DKk for three - that's over a buck each! Not for nothing does Copenhagen place seventh on Forbes' list of the "World's Most Expensive Cities."

Necessities acquired, I hurried back to the hotel, and we hit the streets for our short walk to the train station.


We boarded our train for the short ride to the airport, then had plenty of time to kill after checking in. Luckily, there was an O'Leary's Bar in the airport, and even more luckily, there was an open table. O'Leary's is - of all things - a Swedish chain of bars emulating Boston sports bars. Needless to say, I felt right at home amid the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins and Patriots memorabilia lining the walls. I took Tessie to a wall of Red Sox photos, and we named all the greats: Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, and that steroid freak from a few years ago. Tessie recognized Wally the Green Monster without any prompting.
So that was it. Our time in Copenhagen was done, and we were ready to go home. We boarded our plane for the long, long, looong trip back.

Leg #9: Copenhagen to Seattle. Yikes, this is a long flight. Tessie hadn't had much opportunity to tire herself out that day, so by the time we got strapped in she was raring to go, and totally unwilling to sit still. We had three seats in a row this time, so she was between us, and we tried to take turns entertaining her. All she seemed interested in, though, was running loose in the cabin, and we couldn't allow that, of course.

We walked up and down the aisles a few times, and hung out in the galley at the rear of the plane, trying to stay out of the way of the flight crew. I noticed a sleeping bag back there just like the one Tessie had been offered on the flight out; this time, it was being used to keep bread warm. [Airline: SAS. Freebie: a rattle and a (mercifully small) stuffed tiger.]

Leg #10: Seattle to Los Angeles. Finally, the home stretch. I think by this point we were so tired we are completely unable to remember any details of the flight, other than that Tessie slept through it. [Airline: Alaska. Freebie: none.]

We landed, collected our luggage and our car, and drove home to find everything as we left it, which is, of course, the best way to end any trip.

Tessie still talks about her cousins and wants to visit them again, and she asks to see the videos from the trip almost every day. She understands that Slovakia is far away: "It's too far to walk - we have to go on an airplane!" she says, and it helps that when she asks "What [are] Andrejka and Zuzka doing?" we can honestly answer that they are probably sleeping.

Trains, Bikes and Pirate Ships

For our last day of sightseeing together, Tessie and I had a goal: to find a playground, preferably one with both swings and slides.

Armed with the tourist office map we'd picked up the day before, we boarded a train at the Hovedbanegården. After realizing we were on the right train but headed in the wrong direction, we disembarked. Oops. Fortunately, the trains come at closely spaced intervals, so we didn't have to wait for long to catch the right train, going the right way.

The playground I'd selected - based solely on its accessibility by train - was still a goodly walk away from the station, and I'd left the stroller behind again, but the morning air was cool and Tessie was excited and happy to be on an adventure. We walked through a residential neighborhood of brick apartment buildings and small shops before arriving at the playground at the corner of Gammelvagt & Sankt Pauls Gade.

There were a couple dozen children already playing when we arrived, and not nearly as many adults as I would have expected. In Copenhagen, I guess it's still considered safe to send children out to play unattended.

Much to my relief, there were swings and slides. There were also a massive sandbox, toy trucks and cars, playground balls, and, for reasons unexplained, hockey sticks. Lastly, there was this thing:

No, it's not as dangerous as it looks: it seems the weight of three children is too much for the one pedaler to move, so when fully loaded, the thing doesn't move a bit. I don't know if that's a design flaw or a design feature.

(I thought Tessie had light skin and hair. Guess I was wrong.)

Eventually, Tessie got her fill of the swings and slides, and her shoes also got their fill of sand, so off we went, detouring through the lovely Kastellet Park, to our next destination, the Danish Resistance Museum.

Yes, I was going to take Tessie to a museum of artifacts documenting the Nazi occupation of Denmark during World War II. I had a plan: I figured, since this museum is a branch of the Nationalmuseet, there were likely to be more of those spiffy free strollers to be had, so she could snack outside, then nap in the stroller while I toured the museum at my leisure.

No strollers.

Not only were no strollers provided, they weren't even allowed, so at least I didn't have to feel dumb for not bringing ours. We gave it a go anyway.

The museum is small and arranged chronologically in a square plan around a central courtyard. Past the admission desk, the entry hall sets the stage by providing historical context, then the visitor proceeds counter-clockwise around the courtyard through exhibits detailing the war years in Denmark. The museum's plan subtly reflects the course of the war: while the courtyard is always in view, the natural light becomes more scarce in the sections depicting the depths of the war. So daylight is in abundance in the sections devoted to before and after the war, but the galleries become dimmer after Danish capitulation, darkest during the period of Nazi reprisals known as "The Terror," and finally brighten again as the end of the war approaches.

Tessie was in no mood for history museums, however, so we didn't make it too far before she began to get restless. I did my best to skim the exhibits while keeping her under control, but it became clear that she just wasn't going to cooperate. Well, it was a lot to ask.

So back out into the fresh air we went, and were instantly confronted with - what else? - a pølser cart. So we got one to share and started walking south, back toward the city center.

Our route took us through the grounds of the Amalienborg Palace, the winter home of the Danish Royal Family. We arrived in time to catch the tail end of a guard change, and we sat down to watch the new guard pace her way across the forecourt of the palace a few times. (Not as stoic as the Palace Guards in London, this one liked to wink and smile at Tessie. The assault rifle she carried made me think twice about starting a conversation.)

Pølser consumed, we continued southward until we reached Sankt Annæ Plads, which seemed to be Copenhagen's embassy district. There, in front of the Swedish embassy, were swings and a slide. These had gone unmentioned by the attendant at the tourist office, and were much closer to downtown than any of the options she provided. Oh well. Tessie enjoyed them just the same, but it began to sprinkle, so we picked up our pace and headed for the subway station at Kongens Nytorv.

It was too early to call it a day, so I decided to visit one last location, and treat Tessie to another train ride. Because a multitude of train lines passed through that station, but we could only use a subset of them, I explained to Tessie that we were looking for specific trains identified by letter. The letters we needed were C, E or H, so I told her to look for the "camel," "elephant" or "horse" trains. She read the letters off the incoming trains, passing on the "apple" and "dolphin" trains, and shouting "Horsey!" when the H train pulled in.

The flaw in this plan became apparent immediately when she boarded the train to find nary a horse in sight. It seems I had created some unrealistic expectations, and tears of disappointment were narrowly avoided. (The other passengers may or may not have been amused by my horsey noises.)

Back to the brewery! This time, we'd actually go inside the new Carlsberg Visitors Center, which replaced the old brewery tour Tessie's Mom and I took nine years earlier, but first we had to get past this guy:
He's an "artist," you see, and this was a "protest." One of his associates explained that they were protesting Carlsberg's lack of generosity to struggling artists. By way of making their point, those boxes below the protester are all tagged as gifts to the causes Carslberg does support, such as the Copenhagen Zoo and Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Hmmm. Way to undermine your argument, guys. It seems they're upset not about Carlsberg's level of giving, just that it isn't directly aimed at them.

Anyway, we passed the laboratory where Carlsberg isolated its proprietary strain of yeast, with the statue of founder J. C. Jacobsen out front...

...and made it to the entrance, complete with more elephants. The gift shop missed a serious marketing opportunity, by the way: no elephants at all. I had been hoping to get Tessie a t-shirt with the symbol of the brewery on it, but had no such luck; nor were there any stuffed animals, posters or anything else in any way pachyderm-related.

What to my surprise should I see upon entering? A stroller. A free stroller; all I had to provide was a phone number to sign it out.

Let's recap:
Satellite of the Nationalmuseet = no strollers.
Brewery = complimentary stroller.
(If only I'd known... )The new visitors' center is less a brewery tour and more a glorification of market penetration and brand expansion. Timelines chart ever-increasing production numbers and document new breweries on six continents. The emphasis seems to be on quantity over quality, but there are also exhibits on the history and science of brewing, and on Carlsberg's role in the community. The mash tuns we saw on our earlier visit are still there,
as are the horses (or at least their descendants):

Tessie fell asleep in the stroller pretty quickly, since she hadn't yet had much of a nap by that time, so she missed the horses, and most of the rest of the tour, but she woke up in time for the bar:

That's my girl. Having overwhelmed their visitors with the whole global domination thing, the fine folks at Carlsberg offer samples at the end of the tour to remind you that, yes, they produce a darn tasty beer, not just a popular one.

Actually, they produce a wide variety of beers, and eight were available on tap at the bar. Only two drink tickets are included in the price of admission, so a decision needed to be made. Fortunately, the bartender was knowledgable (and spoke impeccable English), so I was able to tell him what I like and he offered suggestions. If only I could remember what they were...

Tessie was near exhaustion at this point, so she slept as I carried her back to the train station for our ride back to the hotel. When we arrived, though, the sight of Tessie's Mom revived her and she was ready to go back down to the pool, where we frolicked as a whole family for about an hour.

Soon it was dinner time, and, with that being our last night in Copenhagen, we decided to spend it at Tivoli Gardens, the amusement park and pleasure garden in the center of Copenhagen.

We dined at the same restaurant we'd been to before, but its menu had changed drastically; operating under the same name, Valhal, it was now a Viking-themed burger joint, not a Viking-themed full-service restaurant. It was also amazingly expensive. (A mediocre cheeseburger should not be ~US$20.00.)

While we ate, it began to rain. Hard. And, cleverly, we'd left our rain gear at the hotel. So we finished our meals and ran between the drops to find shelter where we could hear the bands that were still playing.

When the music stopped, the other flaw in our timing became apparent: most of the rides suitable for Tessie had already closed. We wandered the park searching for something one of us could accompany her on, finally settling on a pirate ship ride. So Tessie did get to enjoy one ride at Tivoli before we called it a night and went back to the hotel. Next time, we'll spend a whole day there.

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.

--

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.