Bikes.
Food.
Beer.
The only things I intend to do while I'm here is roam around on a rented bycykel to see what there is to see, and then drink all the beer and eat all the food! So far, the trip has been great.
I got a slow start on Day 1, but it was a great way to get the feel of the city. I walked from our Airbnb in Østerbro to a nearby cafe to grab breakfast and a latte, and wound up chatting with the barista and clientele about Copenhagen. A couple people implied that the Danes were a stand-off-ish people, but so far that's just not our experience! Our easyBus from London to the airport never showed, so the family we were stranded with spotted us £20 in cash to grab a different bus. (We paid them back at the airport!) We got directions from a kindly gentleman at the metro station, and then when we were at our stop he came over and reassured us it was the right one. And then in the cafe I was chatting like old friends. Danish — and perhaps Copenhageners specifically — seem genuinely pleased that you're visiting and want you to have a good time while you're here.
I stopped off at a grocery store, which is always an experience when you don't speak the language. I picked up some breakfasty stuff: a few cups of what I'm pretty sure is yogurt, as well as orange juice (spelled "Appelsin" but with a picture of oranges) and cheese.
Then finally — on to the bike!! I'm a big advocate for bike sharing programs, and Copenhagen's is, surprisingly, very new. But it's also the bee's knees, you guys. The bee's-freakin'-knees!!
The bikes have electric assist motors and — are you ready? — ON-BOARD TABLETS. I have a seven-inch-wide GPS map on my bike!! It's like crack! I can set up a route under my account before I leave the house, and it pre-loads it when I sign in on the bike. I'm in a big, new city and I won't get lost!! This is big. Game-changing. I don't know how I'll ever be satisfied with another bike share system. Already I'm thinking of ways to improve on this one, and I won't even have access to it after Saturday.
Right. So. My new best bike friend and I set off to see The Little Mermaid statue which is ... fine? Unlike the Peter Pan Statue in Hyde Park, I was pretty underwhelmed by this one. Not to say it isn't a fine piece of sculpture, but the photos show you exactly what you're going to see. They just leave out the dozen or so other people that were trying to take the same photo, or worse, use a selfie stick to get the same photo. There were maybe 20 people there? And I'm here in the off-season. NEXT.
Next stop was a two-hour "Nordic Essentials" food tour with FoodTours.eu. It was a delicious introduction to all foods Scandinavian, from crackers and cheeses to organic sausages and award-winning apple wine. You can read all about it in an upcoming review!
After that, we headed to The Royal Library, which is a stunning piece of architecture. It spans a highway, and is located at the banks of one of Copenhagen's canals. The giant ripples of the front atrium remind me of the architecture from Kansas City's Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Not the same guy though.
Off to dinner where we felt like kings paying about 90 DKK (about £9) for giant-size portions of food at Paludan Bogcafe — a bar-slash-restaurant-slash-library! Surrounded by books in a cozy library setting it's easy to see why the front tables were full of students with their laptops glowing. I think I would be here every day. Plus the coffees were buy-nine-get-one-free. I considered attempting it while here but that didn't seem healthy.
Finally a stop at Ølsnedkeren bar, where we holed up in a little cubby with our overpriced-but-delicious beers. Britton tried one called Yankee Kaos, which made me giggle. I drank an Øko Saison because it was the only one with an Ø in the name. And it was le tasty.
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