Denmark Adventures: Day 1

Day 1: Friday, January 6, 2006

I must say that I was excited about the trip up until we got onto our second flight, and I realized that we were one of the few Americans on board. Then all of a sudden, I became scared. Silly, naive me...totally American, I know.
We arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark at 0700 (that's 7:00 AM for those who don't read military time...12:00 AM Texas time). We exchanged American dollars for Danish Kroner. Looks like play money if you ask me. Then we caught a taxi to our hotel. We were able to check in early (0800ish), thank God, because I don't think I could have made it through the day if we had to wait until 1400 (2:00).
It's cold here. Being from NY you would think that I would be used to the cold weather, but living in TX for the past 4 years has kind of thinned my blood a little. Also, just the other day in TX we had record breaking temperatures of 84...so coming here where it is currently 34, but feels like 24 with the windchill, is a little hard on me.
The first thing that I noticed was that everything is small here. Huge difference from "Everything is bigger in Texas". The cars are small, and kind of funny looking, if you ask me. I didn't even see 1 truck or SUV. Strange. The hotel hallways are very small also. Just about enough room for 1 person to walk through at a time. Even the elevator was tiny. A sign in it said it could hold 13 people, but Miguel and I both doubted that. Maybe 13 Danish people, but definitely not 13 Americans. So, after saying that everything is small, let's move on to the room...
Now for the room...this is a 4 star hotel, so I'm thinking lavish & roomy...I'm thinking American 4 star. Ha! Was I in for a surprise! We opened the door and there is about 5 feet until you hit the bed and that is pretty much the room in a nutshell. Don't believe me? I will post pictures!
We took a "short" nap, which actually ended up being a lot longer that we had planned on...more like 5 hours or so. When we finally woke up, we decided to go and eat somewhere. So we walk to this tiny quaint restaurant that I can't remember the name of. The lighting was dim, and it was cozy. We start looking through the menu, which is written in Danish, and try to pick out the words that we can. So everyone who knows me, knows that I don't like change. I eat the same things over and over, I watch the same shows over and over, I listen to the same music over and over, so needless to say, I immediately wanted to eat the most American thing that I could find...a cheeseburger. Miguel convinced me to try something else since we are in a different country. I decided I was going to have some sort of pasta. I was able to understand a few of the words, and decided on Penne al a Vodka....but it was written in Danish. I asked the the waitress (who spoke english..yay!) if there was meat in the dish....yes, seafood, so I ask about my second choice, seafood, and my third choice, yes, seafood. I'm sure that you are aware that I do NOT eat seafood. So, now I'm feeling frustrated, and didn't want to keep asking the waitress to read the menu to me, so I order the typical American dish...a cheeseburger and fries. How can you mess up a cheeseburger, right? That's what I was thinking. So our food comes out and my cheeseburger doesn't look like a "normal" (and by normal, I mean the American cheeseburger). Anyway, I'll start off by saying that it was good...different, but good. It was not the typical "patty". You know, the perfectly round (or square if you are at Wendy's) beef. This was actually hand formed beef. What a concept! They put the ketchup on for you, and some other sort of "sauce". Either thousand island or french or something like that. It was a bit sweet. Or maybe it was the cheese, b/c come to think of it, I don't remember any solid cheese on my cheeseburger. Hmmm, runny cheese on the burger, how yummy. Then the oddest part was the topping for the burger. There was the typical tomato. Yuck, so off that came, but I ate the rest, and it was pretty good. There was cucumber, red cabbage and a different kind of lettuce. There wasn't a bottle of ketchup on the table, so I ate my fries dry. Not sure if they drench their fries in ketchup here in Denmark, and I didn't want to offend anyone, so dry I ate them. Dry fries. I asked for a diet coke, and ended up with a diet pepsi. Overall it was a pleasant, new experience, once I got past the menu issue.
After dinner we walked around in the cold some more. We found a 7-11 and had to check it out. I got a cup of not so good coffee. The clerk had to help us figure out the coffee machine.
The last thing that I noticed about the Danish people so far, it that most of them speak english, and don't seem to mind speaking it to us. Also, they seem to be very friendly. The clerk at the 7-11 went out of his way to help us, and then joked around with us at the counter when we were paying.
Stay tuned for Denmark Adventures: Day 2 coming up tomorrow.