Day 14 - Copenhagen

Day 14
- Quotes of the day
- Lunch with the three pigs
- THB is bitter, how bitter? Very bitter!
- BBQ in the hood

The rest is silence.

Senor, senor, let's disconnect these cables,
Overturn these tables.
This place don't make sense to me no more.
Can you tell me what we're waiting for, senor?

We begin our last full day in Copenhagen with a E-ville Friday tradition: we walk to the bakery for breakfast, and buy a giant half of a cinnamon bun done up as a circle. Mighty sweet!

Organize the packing, do a bit of cleaning, revel in the fact that stock market is higher than we left, then do a bit of touring our area on bikes. Notice that they kill the weeds on the sidewalks and meridians by burning them, they carry a stick and tank like you might see when pesticide is sprayed on the weeds, except this stick has a flame coming out of it! Take in the Foster-Partners architecture museum (I guess it is a museum, maybe it is just a branch office recouping costs). Kind of a novel idea, put up a bunch of big pictures and text illustrating your major projects, some of which will never be done (and not Terminal 3 in Beijing Airport), and charge admission. We are pensioners so only pay $5 each. There are actually other people there. Hmmmmmm...

We get on the bikes for the final ride, head across town past Lele’s to Les Trois Cochons. Order moules med frites and hunks of bread, glass of wine and one good (gourmentbyrgghery) beer. Excellent meal and the waiter throws in the frites for free (not sure why). They aren’t busy, so of course we chat him up a bit. He is Danish, speaks English to the Canadian chef (from Toronto), and the chef also speaks Icelandic in order to speak with his girlfriend. Nobody appears to speak French, though the menu is in Danish and French, meaning we can read it! The waiter’s a nice guy, gives us a $40 gift certificate to use at Cochons or one of Cochons’ sister restaurants, problem is they can’t take us tonight on our last night so we are passing it along to our exchangers.

Why is THB bitter? The total for lunch is $60 (hey, this is a bargain, and the $40 gift certificate comes along too, THB is NOT bitter at all about that). The Visa machine is broken! Gosh, really? Yep, since yesterday. THB is trying to manage the last of the kroner so that we don’t get stuck with a bunch upon leaving. Pay in cash (the only option).

As we are touring the neighborhood after lunch, we spot an item that would be perfect for the nice person picking us up at Bart, and the store doesn’t take Visa unless you use a pin. We don’t have enough cash to pay for item and cab to airport tomorrow. Better to use ATM, because we can pay store and recoup dollars for rest of stay.

Off THB goes down the block to the nearest branch, and the bank rejects his ATM card. Back to the store to use the ATM card there with pin code. Store Visa rejects THB’s Visa and ATM card. Two rejections, one broken machine, and one “we don’t take Visa with signature,” all in the space of 20 minutes or so. Gosh, maybe THB is wrong, this is really a third world country masquerading as a first world country. Store clerk tries her Visa debit card and after a long wait, it works. THB tries his Visa debit card (using pin) again and after a long wait, it works. Then THB goes to an ATM (at a different bank) and it works. By now, you are bitter that THB is taking up a lot of room in the blog with his bitterness. It’s bitter out there, very bitter.

Dinner tonight at the place we ate our first meal out in Copenhagen, BBQ. Wanna bet if Visa works this time? DB makes a reservation and confirms they take Visa (again).

Back to house to rest up, time for a dip, and it is awesome! Bright blue sky, warmth of the sun, water is refreshing, the perfect temperature. THB feels the bitterness sliding off him into the Baltic. Take advantage of the weather to sunbathe, which lasts maybe another ten minutes when the next (brief) storm arrives. Hey, another day with rain! That’s novel, too.

Walk to dinner, first we take in a pretty weak art opening for Lyst, a gay organization that is timed to coincide with the Out Games taking place this upcoming week. Not much art, everyone buying a beer for $3.

Dinner at Bastionen and Loven, first course is “pocket” off the grill of goat cheese, yellow beets, olives and sliced almonds, and is very good. Help-yourself to green salad and tomatoes and mozzarella salad, then a choice of salmon, lamb or chicken cooked on the grill, with sides off the buffet of corn on the cob (surprisingly good) and new potatoes (NO surprise). The lamb and salmon are perfect, and we talk ourselves into asking for seconds on the salmon, which they give us for free. With three glasses of wine, $120. And, yes, Visa works and the bitterness is somewhere out near the middle of the Baltics. However, THB forgets to pay partly in kroner, so DB is now faced with spending the extra $40 or so in the Copenhagen airport, I am sure she will manage somehow.

And, in true Copenhagen style, we see lightning in the distance as we are settling up, and it starts to rain on the walk home. Gonna really miss the rain, I sure am.