Denmark? I Copen-Hated It.
Last week I went to Copenhagen. Copenhagen is a great city, but I had a horrible day. This is the story.
The day started with the loose plan to go to Copenhagen. A few friends had planned to leave for Denmark at about 10am. When I woke up at the crack of noon, I got into contact with good old Sean Acton and we struck a plan to get there soon-ish to meet up with said friends. We had been out the night before so we were exhausted and moving slowly. By the time we showered, found our buddy Jason, got coffee and food, and made our way to the train station, we missed the train. We had to wait for about half an hour. It was arguably my fault. Sean pronounced loudly, “Louis, you’re ruining my vacation.” In retrospect, this was the beginning of a long day of follies resulting from my decision to travel to Copenhagen.
Americans 0, Copenhagen 1.
The train is beautiful here. It moves. It moves fast. The culture of the train is great. You can drink on it. The view is great. It takes you around the whole Oresund; the body of water separating Sweden from Denmark. From the train, a large wind farm is visible. It really is incredible how much wind power there is here. I don’t even think it is a very windy place, but clearly the country is invested in the future. Who can blame them?
When we arrived in Copenhagen, a short period of confusion commenced. We didn’t know where we were. We couldn’t find any wi-fi, so we couldn’t get a map. We wandered a bit, and Sean decided to get some cash converted in to Danish Kronor. As the result of a conversation yesterday, it was decided that it made more sense to refer to the Danish Bucks as “Dickies” after the currency abbreviation “DKK.” More funny is the slang for the Swedish Krona. From “SEK” we get “Sexies.” No matter what you call them, Sean got fucked on the transfer. A 12% fee is way too much.
Americans 0, Copenhagen 2
We walked along these large ponds for a while, moving sort of toward what looked like the city center. People were jogging. It was picturesque. This was one of the points where I should have taken a picture. Alas, I did not. Eventually, we were made aware that we were going in the right direction by a very conspicuous bus.
Americans 1, Copenhagen 2
We walked around a bit and found the university. Jason, Sean, and I got into contact with our friends and found out that they were hanging out at Tivoli, the historic amusement park in Copenhagen. We walked in that direction and stopped for a beer in a nice square with a fountain. There was a guy on the fountain wearing an American flag as a cape. This became the topic of conversation briefly. We were not sure what he was doing. In fact, we were a little offended at first. Who would do that? I’m not going to wear a Danish flag like I conquered Denmark or something. As it stood, Denmark had conquered me a little bit so far, so it hurt just that much more.
As it turned out, the flag was actually a US flag with Michael Jackson on it. The guy in the flag was wearing a “Who’s Bad?” shirt while attempting to Moonwalk. He was running some sort of sit in/memorial for Mikey, so we were supportive of that.
Americans 2, Copenhagen 2.
The next 2 hours were spent meeting up with our friends, walking around looking for a coat for me, or drinking beer outside. I didn’t find a coat, but I felt warm. Eventually we got hungry, and decided eating was a great idea. I was very excited about this restaurant we had seen that looked like a cross between a good old midwest style Chinese buffet and a Blade Runner set. Little did we know…
We entered the Shanghai feeling less than convinced. The servers weren’t very cordial, and we sat down at a random table. I jumped the gun by getting a plate of food. As I began to eat my duck in whatever kind of goopy sauce, the man in charge came over and asked us what we wanted to drink. Despite an incredible language barrier, the man managed to get across to us that a glass of tap water was 16 Dickies, or about 3 dollars and change. When we expressed that we didn’t want any drinks if it cost money, he expressed that it was 20 Dickies, about 4 dollars and change, to not get a drink. This was clearly bullshit, but the man told us to check the menu. At the perfect moment, Sean turns to me and says, “Louis, you’re ruining my vacation!”
Americans 2, Copenhagen 3
Without exaggerating, the reaction we got from the man was something like, “Gotcha Bitch!” After stifling the sort of “holy shit” response that we were all feeling, we managed to all order water. Across the table, a girl named Bevin looked like she had just accidentally wandered into a Singapore prison only to find out that it would be 3 dollars for some tap water, but 4 dollars not to get tortured. We all felt that way too, but as far as I could tell, only Bevin expressed the emotion as accurately.
In return for this man’s shitty deal, I planned to get a fourth plate of food at the end of my dinner and eat only part of it. Somewhere around my third plate I began to get full. Chinese buffet has a way of doing that. So, I decided to leave the leftovers I had currently. I’m not sure who, maybe Pete the Hipster, but someone brought to my attention at that point that there was another notice posted that I should have read sooner. This place charges people double if they take too much food and don’t finish it. The passive aggression was palpable.
This says it costs double, even if you can’t tell.
Americans 2, Copenhagen 4
On our way out of this shitty restaurant, a few employees were standing at the door discussing something very animatedly. It was clear that the female employee was upset and the male employee was seeing the humor in something. We weren’t sure what that was. We collected outside the exit to recap what had just happened. At some point, one of us noticed that there was a dead bird right by the entrance to the Shanghai, and it was pretty fresh looking.
Americans 2, Copenhagen 5
It was a big loss for America. We took the train home. On the way, we saw a sinking ship in the Oresund. How symbolic.
