Day 3: Copenhagen

Friday, August 16

 So i slept until noon.
    According to my Garmin, this was the best sleep i've had in months. Sleep score was 98 and my body battery charged by 93, both of which are unheard of numbers for me. Amazing what a real bed can do for a body.
    First up, i needed to do a supply run. I packed light, so 90% of what i brought was camera equipment. It probably would have been prudent to at least bring ONE change of clothes, but that is not what i did. At this point, i smell like a war crime.
    We hopped on a train to Roskilde to get to a Fotex, which is probably the closest thing Denmark has to a Target. I wasn't looking for anything fancy, i just needed a simple place to grab some clothing and toiletries. I was able to knock out most of my list, all of the urgent stuff at least, so i should be set for the rest of my stay in Copenhagen, at least. Some things were in unexpected places around the store, and a few of the items turned out not quite as expected, but overall everything fits my needs.
    As we were walking from the train station to Fotex, Cyndi mentioned that we would be stopping at their favorite kebab shop for lunch, and pointed it out as we passed. Coming out of Fotex, i saw a kebab shop, but we kept walking, and i was confused. Then we went into a different kebab shop like 100 meters away. We ordered our food, sat down, and Cyndi pointed out a third kebab shop across the street. Roskilde loves kebab i guess.
    I got a falafel pita, and it was wonderful. Later, Jake would share a story that one time, he had come into this shop, and a bunch of rowdy teenagers were loudly partying directly in front of the counter, using a wine bong to chug entire bottles of Barefoot. The shopkeeper was very patient with them and basically just conducting his business as usual around them. Jake said they didn't bother anyone and were generally respectful of the space other than the wine bonging and the noise level, so they were pretty much left to their devices, and he regarded them wistfully, thinking of simpler times. I hope i got that story right.
    The legal drinking age in Denmark, by the way, is 16.
    We went back to the house so i could drop off my booty, and use some of it right away - fresh clothes that hadn't been slept in twice, deoderant, you know, just wallpaper this moldy disaster to make it look presentable.
    Cyndi and i took Maverick for a walk while Jake tied up some last loose ends at work, so i got a brisk tour of their cute little neighborhood.
    When we got back, we started going through our respective lists of things to do. Cyndi and Jake had a bunch of ideas, they all sounded pretty good. I had a list i made on Atlas Obscura, so we talked about some of those. Cyndi said, "Well, is there anything on the list that you are definitely not interested in?"
    "Probably the brewery tour," i said. "I probably don't need to do that one."
    I started scrolling through my Atlas Obscura list again, and clicked on Leif Sonne's Bottled Beer Collection.
    "Wait, what was the name of that brewery you mentioned, again?" i asked.
    "Carlsberg."
    "Oh. Actually there's something in the basement of that brewery that i want to see."
    "Is it the collection of 22,000 beer bottles?"
    "IT IS!"
    As we were walking up to the brewery, Jake explained a bit about Carlsberg's founding family, the Jacobsens, and their importance to Copenhagen and the philanthropy they put into the city from the late 1800s on.
    While we were waiting for our tour, Jake & Cyndi played foosball, and i stalked some horses getting bathed.
    The tour was fun! Very interactive, and lots of interesting video projections, many onto not-flat and odd-shaped screens. In one room, there were projections on two opposing walls, each with a different character, arguing with one another. So you can stand between them, literally get in the middle of their argument.
    I bet these videos were a fun challenge to put together. I would love to work on something like this.
    Many of the interactive exhibits also allowed you to save your creations or results, using an RFID tag in your wristband. The band has a QR code that you can scan to download them later. So i got a video of myself drowning in beer, and a sepia-tinged photo of me as an old-timey brewer.
    The tour comes with a small beer at the beginning, which i did not hate. I think it was the regular Carlsberg. Then you can get a full pint at the end, and you can choose your Carlsberg. I went with the 1883, which is brewed from yeast that was grown in a lab from a bottle of Carlsberg excavated from the ruins of the original brewery, dated to 1883. So this is, theoretically, the original Carlsberg flavor.
    "I'm drinking archaeology!" i exclaimed.
    "You're drinking history," the kind bartender at the gift shop corrected me.

    We walked to a nice slider shop called Sliders, passing some neat parks with small, sunken, amphitheater-like sports fields. By "small" i mean, they're literally for kids to play in, and the amphitheaters have like 2-3 levels of seating. "It gets you out of the wind," Jake explained.
    Sliders was great! Tiny little burgers. I got a trio: #1, the Triple Truffle Cheese (exactly what it sounds like); #2, the Decadent Dane (beef patty with Danish cheese, caramelized onions, and a pickled apple; and #6, The Ugly Duckling, duck and chicken breast in chili and hoisin sauce, with spring onions, sugar snaps, and peanuts.
    I was not overly fond of the pickled apple on the burger. I accidentally pulled the whole thing right out from under the bun on the second bite, so i just ate it all at once, and i liked the burger better without it. That's just me though. My favorite of the three, and i hate to say it because it is the most "American style" of them, was the Triple Truffle Cheese. Although i'm looking at the menu right now and suddenly realizing it has bleu cheese on it? I have never liked bleu cheese. I guess i finally found something that makes that work for me.
    I also need to point out the fries. They were very good. The options for dipping sauces were either ketchup or one of five types of mayonnaise. Despite already having it on a burger, i opted for the truffle mayo, and holy shit. Holy shit! Goddamn.
    From Sliders, we caught the metro over to Tivoli Gardens, the world's second-oldest continuously operating amusement park. The metro, by the way, is a completely automated, driverless subway system. It's very punctual, and from the front seat you can get a pretty incredible view of the subway tunnel, or from the back, the same thing but in the opposite direction. We were in the middle this time, but i will get a video of those wide-open windows at some point.
    You can definitely feel Tivoli's age as you walk through, in a good way. It feels nostalgic for a past before i existed. Many things weren't really updated, other than for functional and safety reasons, so you can still see echoes of each of the 18 decades it's been open.
    Two beautiful carousels, a pretty modern-looking rollercoaster called The Daemon, many stunning water features, carnival games that definitely recall simpler times, like the shooting gallery, Chris Isaak, The Anarkist Bar, Borg nodes, many stages for entertainment, more bars, a ride based on the 1960s movie adaptation of The Time Machine which was like a Tilt-A-Whirl, but instead of rotating on the x-axis, you spin on the y-axis.
    Oh yeah, Chris Isaak was performing. We did know he was going to be there today. We got to the big stage right as he was starting. I know it was in Danish, so i probably didn't hear what i thought i heard, but what i thought i heard the announcer saying to hype the crowd up was, "Chris Isaak has never fucked up!"
    We stuck around for the first few songs. Jake asked, "Are you a huge Chris Isaak fan? Do you want to stick around for this?"
    "Ehh. I wouldn't mind seeing him perform the one song, but it's probably going to be toward the end of the set and i'm sure that's at least an hour out."
    Besides, evidently Pride Month is August in Denmark? And Denmark's Pride Festival was happening literally one block away. As we passed through the entry gates of Tivoli, it was almost like you could feel an ethereal DJ pushing the fader from rockabilly to rave.
    Pride was fun! They had the entire fountain square outside of the Copenhagen City Hall fenced off, with tents for vendors, and bars, and just a huge open area for dancing. The DJ was mixing in a lot of songs from the 90s. Cyndi kept saying, "God, i am so old!"
    We heard the Vengabus coming. We heard the Rhythm of the Night. We heard snips of Oops I Did It Again.
    But really, i think it was a pretty good variety of the last few decades. Jake was just proposing that we head out when I Don't Care entered the mix, and i had to go bounce and shout along for a few minutes first. See? That's not 90s. That came out in 2013. I don't know about you but i am a young person.
    We returned to Central Station, picked up some single serve bottles of rosé from the 7-11, and had train wine on the way home.
    As we sipped, the conversation turned back to those drunken teenagers at the kebab shop. A stranger leaned over and said, "Excuse me, i'm sorry, but. What is a 'wine bong'?"
    "You know," Jake said. "Like a beer bong. Do you know what a beer bong is? With the funnel and the hose-"
    "Oh, yes. Okay. I thought they were smoking wine somehow."
    Not this time, buddy. But you give some industrious, rowdy teens the idea, and i'm sure they'll figure it out.