Ice Cream, Erotica, Barbar Bar, and Castle

OK so I had my first weekend in Copenhagen and it was surreal.

FRIDAY

So DIS, my program, rented out this swanky nightclub called Luxx for our welcome party. In our welcome bag we got coupons for free entry and two free drinks from 8-11 PM. I got two coupons that had sneakily stuck together. Needless to say, I pretty thrilled. I spent Friday afternoon after classes hanging out with some friends from my program and seeing things in windows that I really want to buy, and we split up around 4:30. I went back to my kollegium planning on taking a nap, cooking dinner, and showering, showing up to Luxx around 8:30 and then going somewhere else with the people I'd been hanging out with earlier.

I slept through my alarm and didn't wake up until 10:49 PM. Remember, free drinks ended at 11. I swore a lot, changed shirts, and ran out the door to the Metro station...but even if the train was waiting for me, it wasn't physically possible to get to Luxx before 11. So I forked over 80 kroner (divide by five, so $16) for cover, and wandered around. Even though I was a little bitter about sleeping through the party, I had to admit that Luxx is pretty swank. Small, too. No pictures, sorry. I didn't bother bringing my free drink coupons...perhaps a mistake. I mosied around a little, of course the friends I was supposed to meet up with had left, but I ran into some other people I knew by the bar. They were schmoozing it up, and had gotten some 10 dkk shots of something they said tasted like menthol. Ok, so if a cheap shot comes out to $2...a Long Island Iced Tea comes out to...

250 dkk, or FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS!! WHAT?! This was the first time I really got slapped in the face by how expensive Denmark (and Luxx, too...) is. So no cocktail for me at Luxx. I got a shot of the mouthwash and left with the friendly peeps who'd been smooth talking the bartender.

SO we meandered around central Copenhagen a little bit. Bought a cheap bottle of wine from the 7-11 and drank it in a square with a fountain, which was incredibly surreal. Then we hit up two bars, I think one was called "Aussie Bar" and the other was "The Scottish Pub." One had really fun live music - Danes playing "Sweet Home Alabama," etc., and we met some neat locals hanging out. Quick thing: this was at like one in the morning, and in the bar, there were really cute old people dancing together!!! That's how I wanna roll when I turn grey and wrinkly. The other bar had more of the same, but it was maybe a little less grey and a little more female bodied and middle aged. The music there was a great selection of '80's dance hits. As far as I can tell, Denmark loves the American '80's. Having spent my money on the cover charge for Luxx (BLATT. WRONG ANSWER), I didn't have enough on my to buy any beer at the bars. Lame sause! So week one in DK and no beer yet. After the bars we split and I slept a lot.

SATURDAY

Morning tour: "The Other Copenhagen" Billed as a way to walk around and get exposed to trendy shops NOT on the major shopping thoroughfare, neat cafes and restaurants, and bits of Copenhagen culture that we probably wouldn't find on our own.

Ups: So you go to the remnants of Copenhagen's meatpacking neighborhood. Walk through this alley framed by big ugly warehousy buildings and bigrigs, and hang a right. Surprise! You're in a cafe courtyard! There's tables, chairs, umbrellas, and a fountain. Also some art galleries and shops and a cafe/bar that was all designed by local artist(s). Really neat.

This is the fountain. When you approach, the line perpendicular to your angle of approach (or the closest one to you, if you come at it from the side like a sneaky Viking) turns off, allowing you to lurk in the center and look like a tourist or a small child. As you can see, I opted for both. We also passed by this wonderful piece of street art:

When the tour was done, our guide took us into a cute, leafy nook off of the main street we were on, and said something to the effect of, "It's been nice getting to know you; I hope you had fun, and I'm taking off! Good luck getting back!" Fortunately I was with some people I knew, one of whom is brilliant with getting around. We stopped in an ice cream shop for some ice cream (still unseasonably warm), and met something I wish I had a picture of: The Danish Ice Cream:

a) A regular, pointy cone.
b) Three (3) scoops of ice cream, each a different flavor. The flavors were ostensibly determined by our gender, the season, our personality, and our eye color. I kid you not, the ice cream man told me, "Let me see your eyes. Champagne!" The champagne flavor was delicious.
c) Squish onto the ice cream a cookie composed of layers of ultrathin wafer and marzapan flavored marshmallow-fluff type substance
d) Pile vanilla (more like Cold Stone's Sweet Cream flavor) soft serve over the top
e) drive a heart shaped sucker through the cookie and into the ice cream. The color of the sucker is also dependent on your sucker and personality. I had green, but I don't know what it means.

We were full for literally three hours. And none of us had a real lunch. Oops!

Wandered through Copenhagen's International Festival, which was much larger than I thought it would be for a city like this one. It was set on one of Copenhagen's beautiful lakes, and there were booths with food, booths with cultural brochures, booths with travel information, and booths where people just kinda hung out and chatted. Very neat! There were also live performances and some cultural dancing that went down (we were there for an Indian group).

Went also the Museum Erotica. Pictures not suitable for general internet display...or certain small beings in my family who may eventually read this. BUT know this: I saw a male chastity belt with a slot you'd poop out of. That was what struck me more than the overall horrendous discomfort and chafing that would result if you wore it - when I've thought of chastity belts before I always concentrated on the front end and the fact that I thought it was funny to lock up a vagina (who'd want to go there anyway?). I never considered the fact that you'd need some way to eliminate from the other end (insert someone's tasteless gay joke here). More exciting for me, at least they had two things: a full pole to dance on (I didn't, and I'm not sure if you're supposed to, but I wanted to nonetheless) and a room full of biographies of the sex lives of famous people. Highlights:
Dick Clark
Charlie Chaplin
Billie Holiday
Martin Luther
Hitler
Mae West
Marylin Monroe

Went home and did some work around 5 in the afternoon. Made myself dinner. I'm kind of happy that I've avoided eating out for dinner so far - and for the most part I'm packing lunch! It's cheaper, and delicious! It's simple coooking, 'cause I don't have key access yet to the shared kitchen - it's an electronic lock and my zapper key has to be put into the system. FOR SHAME, DIS! Once I get an oven and more than a saucepan and a giant wok, I might get more creative :p.

Although you can boil pasta for two in a wok of this size.

Went to Barbar Bar Saturday night. It's a cool place in Vesterbro (I think) that has relatively affordable drinks and a nice ambience. The weather was such that we chilled outside, since in a week we'll be forced by rain to pack inside, or so we hear. Oh, and my friend found 150 dkk (about 30 bucks) on the street, so our bottle of wine was, essentially, free! For us at least. Barbar Bar was rather dead except for us, so I kinda want to go back and see what it's like when there's more people there.

SUNDAY

Whew! I SAW THE HAMLET CASTLE!! Kronborg Castle in Elsinor was for a while the historic seat of the Danish monarchy, and the site of Shakespeare's incestuous play Hamlet. Hamlet never existed and Shakespeare probably never saw Kronborg, but it was really neat to know that I was walking on the same floor that a famous ficticious family fucker (ha!) did. Ok, maybe Hamlet and his mom didn't have real sex. Whatever. Moving on. The castle was GORGEOUS. Oh, and Shakespeare fans: You can get married in the Grand Ballroom of Kronborg Castle. It costs, I believe $150 (that's USD) per head, and you have to have at least 300 guests. This is not including catering, etc. So if you or whomever is paying for your wedding has a hundred grand to throw around, this might be a good way to do it!

We also went into the Castlemates, or the dank underground area that housed horses and prisoners:

This nice man below will allegedly wake up and defend Denmark when the kingdom becomes imperiled. He slept through WWII, though. Although the major Danish resistance group that formed after Hitler occupied Denmark took it's name from this dude, but I forget what it is.

After the tour? More homework.

I'm planning my travel break right now and I'm REAL excited. I could be doing immediately productive things, like homework, but who does that?