Monday, August 19
I wasn't sure how much adventuring we were actually going to get done today. Cyndi and Jake were hoping we'd have time to go to the castle and see the Crown Jewels, but meetings and work stuff and etc etc etc you know how it is.
Meanwhile, i just sat on the bed with my laptop all morning, leaving them to their work things, while i tried to figure out what the hell i'm doing after Copenhagen. I joined the Couchsurfing platform just before embarking on this trip. I know a lot of people make their decisions based on references; both the hosts and the surfers get to review each other so that there's a level of accountability and quality control. I have no Couchsurfing history.
I had actually signed up back in May-ish, planning to do some Couchsurfing around Madison ahead of time, just to build up some references, but then i did not do that. One of many, may things i said i would do in the three months between having the idea and getting on the plane. Like packing my bag and wearing it around to get used to the weight and/or figure out what cuts needed to be made, and testing all of my gear, and so on and so on.
Every single person i've messaged in Oslo has turned me down so far. Three of the four of them said they're full for the dates requested, even though two of them were listed as "available to host" on their profiles; the third shows that he has guests, but "may be open to additional guests." I was most surprised by the one that, again, shows available, and his profile says he can take up to six surfers at a time, that said his house is full. The fourth one, the one that sounded more interesting and in his profile was like "hey do you wanna go pick mushrooms in the forest with me" so in my message i said "I would love to go pick mushrooms in the forest with you," just gave me a canned form letter response that said "I cannot host you at this time."
I know four isn't a lot of messages to send, but there are only 50 people on Oslo Couchsurfing that have even logged in in the last few days. Of them, most are rated as "usually replies within a week." I messaged everyone who is rated as "usually replies same day."
Yes, yes i know, this is the kind of thing that can and often does happen when pre-planning is light, but i was hopeful. Especially based on what i've heard about Couchsurfing in the past. But yeah, the community has been decimated by the pandemic, and once the web site started charging fees, a whole lot of people jumped ship. Charging money to use Couchsurfing goes against the very principles it was founded on. It's only like three bucks a month, though, so i just went ahead and did it; however, i've heard dissatisfaction from hosts that they have to pay to use the site too and, well, yeah. They're opening up their homes and they're being charged for the privilege of doing it?
There are some Couchsurfing alternatives that sprang up as the main site was hemorrhaging users, which are sticking to the original "this should be free" principle. I'm joining at least three of those, but they do not even have the community that Couchsurfing still holds at this point.
I also spent a good chunk of the morning trying to catch up on my log.
Around noon, i finally shut my laptop and went to check in with the house. Cyndi knew that she wasn't going to be able to get up and do any more adventuring, but suggested that if i still wanted to see the Crown Jewels or anything else in Copenhagen, i should probably just go out and do it on my own. Jake was still in meetings. The Copenhagen Card expired at 3:45pm, 72 hours after activating it.
I had selected an 8:30pm train to Oslo, so that still gave me like five hours between Copenhagen Card expiry and leaving the country time. So i had thought i would just slip out, see the palace, and come back to hang out for a while, but we talked out the logistics and it actually didn't make a lot of sense for me to come back.
So i took the time to pack up my bag, spreading all of my provisions across the bed as i figured out how the hell they were going to all fit in there, finally realizing the true extent of my hubris. The bag was twenty pounds when i brought it through the airport, but i definitely had at least another five pounds of shit in my vest. I didn't want most of that in my vest anymore, i wanted it in the backpack. And i had picked up quite a few more things in my days in Copenhagen. Most bulkily, clothes.
I was actually shocked that everything fit in the backpack on the first try. I slipped it on. This thing is heavy as fuck. It's probably gained more than ten pounds. I'm now carrying over thirty pounds on my back.
I stared at the thing. I did this on purpose.
Well.
Yeah i did.
Time for an adventure.
After Jake and i made our own smørrebrød for lunch, I bid my gracious hosts adieu. Maverick was extremely sad to see me go. "Expect to get photos of him sulking by the door within the next few hours," Cyndi said.
I left the house a little after 1:30pm. A bit less than 40 minutes on the train, then a short walk, and boom. I was at Rosenborg Slot.
Slot means Castle.
Like the Canal Tour, i wasn't able to just walk in with my Copenhagen Card; i had to use it to obtain a ticket for a specific entry time. Even though the tour is self-guided, and you can take as long as you like, they only want a certain number of people entering at a time, to try and control how crowded it is in there.
It was 2:45. There were only two time slots left available. I chose the earlier of them, 4:10. The castle closes at 5.
Bags are not permitted in the castle, but they have free lockers. I looked around the locker room and thought, "there is not one chance in hell that my bag is going to fit into one of these." I thought about returning to the ticketing counter and asking if they had anything larger, but instead, i just figured, what the hell. Let's try it.
I picked one of the biggest lockers i could and shoved my backpack in, top first. It caught on the external pockets, but i was able to work them under the lip and somehow, it slid all the way in. Some squishing did occur. All i could hope was that none of my camera equipment was damaged. The most expensive and fragile pieces were on my body, so i figured it was probably fine.
I walked around the grounds for about ten minutes, and then i thought, "Well, there's still over an hour before entry time. My Copenhagen Card is still good for 45 minutes. What other doors does it kick down that are a reasonable walk from here?"
The Copenhagen Botanical Gardens were directly across the street.
I walked right in. Nobody checked for my Copenhagen Card. I was thinking, "well, this is probably just free, and they only mention it in the Card app because it's like, well it's a thing you can do." But that wasn't really accurate.
I walked along the trails for a bit before i came to the Palm House. I recognized its architecture immediately. I think this building is well known. I also think that we saw the blueprints for it at the Carlsberg Brewery.
At first, i was sure i didn't have time to go into the Palm House. It turns out, the Palm House and the Butterfly House are the bits of the Botanical Gardens that charge admission, and therefore can take the Copenhagen Card for entry. It was almost 3:30 - a little more than 15 minutes left on the Card, a little less than 45 before my castle entry. Since it charged admission, i figured it would be a more complex attraction, possibly an on-rails experience like an Ikea; once you go in, you can't come out until you've solved the maze.
But the more i thought about it, the more i figured, what the hell.
So i got one more thing done with the card, just under the wire.
The Palm House is a hot, humid greenhouse which is meant to simulate a rainforest. So many species of plant and tree that would not survive in the barely-outside-the-Arctic-circle Danish climate are thriving in there. My glasses formed an impenetrable fog the split second i opened the door.
I did speed run the Palm House a bit. I definitely would not have gone that fast if i'd actually paid for the admission outright, but since this was essentially a bonus stage, i just took in what i could before the timer ran out. I don't know a lot about plants anyway; all i know is that i like 'em, and they should make more. There are many paths you can take; i mostly just walked a straight line.
The Butterfly House, i took a little more time in. I knew it was quite a bit shorter, so i could likely exit whenever i needed to, but in the meantime! So many different species of butterfly flitting freely about around my head! My arms! My legs! I am swarmed with butterflies! Some are as big as birds! They're wonderfully photogenic!
Looming on the edge of 4:00, i left the Butterfly House, and tried to find my way back through the Botanical Gardens to the palace. The Palm House and Butterfly House turned out to be the back corner of the Gardens, and from the map, it looked like there should be a shorter way out from back here than going all the way to the front and then retracing a whole side of the garden to get to the entry of the palace grounds.
I followed that into what seemed like a service road. I came upon two other tourists who were trying to do the same thing. They seemed confused when the trail branched off to a tunnel, and in the tunnel was a single locked door. They were coming back from that as i approached, and they seemed like they were gonna give up, pass me, and presumably head for the main entry, but then suddenly seemed to notice a gate opening up into a courtyard. And you know what we say about gates in Denmark. Or at least what Cyndi says about them.
The courtyard turned out to be for the Copenhagen Museum of Natural History. It was also an option i considered for my skin-of-the-teeth Card entry, but i knew i'd just get lost in there for far too long and never make the castle. Part of their advertising that i've noticed around town, though, is to the effect of "come touch our giant meteorite!" So you'd assume that would be a huge draw, somewhere in the center of the museum, to lure you in to the other exhibits.
Maybe that's just very American thinking of me, because the meteorite is in the center of the courtyard, still on the metal cart that was used to transport it to Denmark from Northwestern Greenland, where it was found.
According to the plaque, Agpalilik is the heaviest meteorite ever recovered on Earth's surface, weighing in at 20 tonnes. Discovered in 1963, it's estimated to have fallen to earth 12,000 years ago. There is a perfectly flat side to it, though, which i was wondering about when i touched it; seems that a few decades ago, scientists wanted to study the insides, so they lopped off about four tonnes worth in one solid chunk. That chunk is not on display. So you can only touch 16 tonnes of meteor.
Castle tour was...fine. It's entirely self-guided, they just give you a booklet that you can look stuff up in. Some displays have QR codes. I mostly wanted to see the Crown Jewels, for clout, and also the original thrones of the Kingdom of Denmark, which are allegedly carved from unicorn horns. The rest of it? Meh.
The royals don't even live in Rosenborg Slot anymore. It's essentially a storage shed for the billions of money worth of historical shit they've acquired over the centuries. Some of it is cool, from a historical perspective, but every wall is lined with portraits of royalty, or paintings of important events in the monarchy. The room that seems to have the thickest plexiglas (bulletproof, even, i would assume) has dishes and silverware in it. The opulence of it all eventually gets under my skin in the worst way.
I don't care. At some point, all this stuff is just stuff, and its value is just what some rich person decided its value should be. And this is how you hold power in a monarchy. There are a lot of things i like about the Danish royalty, i mentioned wanting to run with the King next year, and especially compared to the British royal family or literally any other royal family, they seem great. But in the end...they're all just royals.
I want to run with a king for the novelty of it. And the clout.
The throne room is on the highest accessible floor of the castle. Once i was done there, i had about fifteen minutes left before the castle closed to find and view the Crown Jewels. I came back down the stairs, recording a little video clip about how i have such limited time left to find them, and as soon as i stopped recording, i nearly ran into a "Crown Jewels - this way" sign.
They're down in the treasury, which is below the basement, which is only accessible from outside. Fortunately, the door to the basement is directly beneath the staircase i was just using, so it wasn't hard to find.
I speed ran the basement, also. Collections of old weapons, guns and swords, plus more valuable art pieces.
Seven minutes left. Heading into the treasury.
My camera crashed. I didn't know it could do that.
Probably overheated. Turned it off, took the battery out, blew on it for a minute, shoved it in there and said, "let's go, shift's not over motherfucker."
Okay i didn't say that, i just thought of it right now, but it's at least B-tier 80s action movie worthy. Not good enough for Schwarzenegger, too good for Segal, maybe just right for Van Damme.
This kind of thing only happens when you're in a hurry, swear to god.
First thing you see in the treasury is a giant, bejeweled sword. It is gorgeous.
There are additional jewels and gold in display cases all around the room, which is shaped like three contiguous circles. The sword is in the middle of the first, the second has a single crown, the third has two crowns. Like actual crowns, like what the royalty wore.
I was just coming up to the last display, the two crowns, when the security guard came through and said, "It is now 5:00, please take your last photos and exit the building."
I took a little longer than i'm sure the guard would have liked, partially because i was waiting for others to get out of the way, but in the end i wasn't the last one out, so i don't feel too bad.
Still three and a half hours until my train.
I decided to do some walking. My Copenhagen Card had expired, but there were still a few free things on my Atlas Obscura list that i'd like to see before i go.
Tisseren seemed to be the closest option. Also known as "The Pee-er," Tisseren is a bronze statue of a man urinating on the wall of the academic Panum Building.
I walked past it at first, because i was on the wrong side of the street and i was texting Cyndi at the time. I told her i should be near The Pee-er, but i must have missed it, and she said, "Most Easter eggs are HIDDEN, sir."
When i realized my error, i crossed the street and approached from the side where the other two statues in the trilogy stood. "The Pointer" and "The Crouched One" are both self-portraits of the sculptor, Claus Carsten, in an assertive, pointing position, and a contemplative, self-struggling squat with his hands on his head, respectively. I didn't approach them, they're well off the sidewalk, but i did shoot video as i passed.
The Pee-er is more realistic than you would expect. For a statue depicting its subject matter, it's so incredibly detailed, i thought it was a clothed mannequin at first. The textures on his clothing mimic real life jeans, shoes, and corduroy perfectly. Incredibly focused craftsmanship.
Copenhagen is, of course, obsessed with its all-time most famous citizen: Hans Christian Andersen. You find this in every city, if they have a resident that reaches legendary status, they pull out all the stops to celebrate them. Hell, Liverpool has made The Beatles its entire identity. They are also proud of Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
So in Copenhagen, i've already visited two Little Mermaid-inspired statues and stood outside HC Andersen's home. I know there's a combination Ripley's Believe it or Not/HC Andersen museum included in the Copenhagen Card, plus many other related attractions around the city. They are also proud of Niels Bohr.
Since visiting the graves of dead famous people is a thing that i do, or at least a thing that i did a bit of the last time i was in Europe, i figured i'd swing by the cemetery where both are buried. It's not too far from The Pee-er, after all.
Assistens Cemetery has a sign erected at the entrance with a map and waypoints to its 14 most famous graves, similar to what i found at Père Lachaise in Paris, but on a smaller scale. Aside from Andersen and Bohr, i didn't recognize any of the names. I'm sure they're all very important in Denmark.
And like The Louvre in Paris, they know what their star attraction is. The Louve has signs right from the door pointing you to the Mona Lisa, Assistens Cemetery has them for HC Andersen. So i found him pretty easily.
His grave is fairly modest for a celebrity of his stature; there is a six-foot-tall headstone, and there is a short fence around it, and he has a couple bushes, but that's about it. The stone itself just lists his name, dates, and a relevant quote. And whereas Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde's plots in Père Lachaise are so inundated with tributes from fans that they've had to erect barriers to keep people away from the actual graves, Andersen's only had a single rose with a heart-shaped card attached.
I assumed i would not get the same assistance in finding Niels Bohr. They know he's a little more niche than Andersen. If i'm being honest, i only have the vaguest idea who he even was. One of the foundational quantum physicists, worked on the Manhattan Project, might have convinced Sweden to evacuate 7,000 Jews from Denmark before the Nazis invaded. That's about all i've got.
I was trying to use the photo i'd taken of the map at the gate to find him, and i got a little lost. Eventually, i switched over to Google Maps, hoping to at least use my own little blue dot to orient myself with the photo, only to find that Bohr's grave is clearly marked as a point of interest in its own right, right there on Maps. I could've just run navigation from the get-go.
Anderson and Bohr are the only ones with given that courtesy.
Niels Bohr's grave is not modest in the slightest. It is a mammoth pillar sticking 12 feet out of the ground, probably four feet in diameter, with a pretty intricate owl carved on the top. It's a family plot; Niels, his wife, his younger brother, his parents, and his wife all share the site.
It was getting to be about that time. I headed for Copenhagen Central Station.
I myself had needed to pee for quite a while. I'd stood in the position next to Tisseren and contemplated fulfilling his destiny, but of course i am too modest for that. This whole weekend, Jake and Cyndi have been pointing out where the public restrooms are and what they look like. Jake has even pointed out a few "pissoirs," which are literally just little rooms with urinals and nothing else. I had walked nearly five miles since leaving the castle, and not seen a single one.
Walked around Central Station, somehow completing a full loop without seeing a single restroom. I finally came to it, literally less than ten meters from where i had first come in, i must've walked past it immediately.
It was a pay toilet.
Out of sheer spite to the very concept of a pay toilet, i instead decided to check Maps for the locations of public toilets, and left the train station. I walked another quarter mile to the nearest in-service pissoir.
I don't think i've talked about Danish urinals at all in this log yet. Virtually ever travel log i've written includes complaints about toilets. I'm sure everyone feels this way when they leave their home country - toilets are different everywhere, and people tend to prefer what they're used to. Urinals in Denmark tend to protrude from the wall a surprising distance versus what we're used to in most of the United States, and in public restrooms where there are multiples, i don't think i've seen any that have dividers. So you just gotta whip the junk out and let it fly.
The pissoir is a single-toilet situation, so privacy wasn't the issue. The protrusion was. The room itself was so small, the lip of that urinal was so close to the door that i couldn't fit in there wearing my huge backpack. I squeezed in, and the door did finally latch behind me, but now my legs were pressed up against the urinal, and held open by it, with my crotch located above the "bowl," as it were. There was no way i could successfully conduct business like this without pissing down my own pant legs.
I wiggled back and forth, trying to get my legs around the thing, trying to reposition myself in any sort of a way that made sense, back an forth like the Austin Powers forklift scene, no dignified noises coming out of me. "Oh." *grunt* "...oh..." *GRUNT* A top-down camera from the ceiling would have provided a sketch at home with 1990s Saturday Night Live.
I finally ended up standing to the side of the urinal, in an adequate position to get the job done. There's also no lock on the door, so if anyone had opened it, they would have seen everything, and probably had questions.
There's also no sink, and i was planning to eat yet before getting on the train. I walked around the small building, hoping there would be an outdoor sink servicing all the pissoirs, like what they have in Los Angeles at the beach, but no luck. However, the wider side of the building opened up to a full-size water closet, with a full toilet, and an entire functioning sink, and enough space that you could probably comfortably stand five people in that room if you wanted to, or cram 25 in like they did to Volkswagens in the 60s for fun.
Probably should've just started there.
All told, i had walked 7.5 miles around Copenhagen, the whole time hoping to find a street hot dog vendor. Cyndi had been talking up the Danish street hot dog, an art and a delicacy in itself, and Jake had pointed out a couple of "Weiner Wagons." I'd had no luck.
So instead, i grabbed two hot dogs at the 7-11 in the train station. They come in a bun that's essentially a cone; i'd seen this before and was curious about it. It starts out looking like a hot dog bun, but it doesn't split down the middle. It's toasted and hollowed out. They put the sauce into the cavity, then stick the dog in, and there you go. Hot dog in a cone.
And it was alright!
So yes. 7-11 in Denmark is very different. It looks nice and it feels nice and the food is not garbage. It's still very much "get the job done," adequate food, i wouldn't go out of my way for it. But compared to American 7-11, fantastic.
I also bought two 1.5L bottles of water. Despite sitting around the house pretty much all morning, i had barely taken advantage of the freely running water, and was quite far from my one-gallon-per-day goal.
Before i went down to the track to wait for my train, i pulled up the Eurail app and activated my pass. This was it. This was the last possible moment to bail out, not do the whole trip, and get most of my money back. Once that pass was activated, it could no longer be refunded.
I'd had a wonderful time in Denmark, and honestly, if i canceled my Barcelona flight and picked a different one straight home from Copenhagen, i would still feel that the trip had been very worth it. It was great to spend a weekend adventuring with Cyndi & Jake, it was absolutely phenomenal to finally see Copenhagen, i'm in love with it, i would live there if i could.
But i accepted a challenge, from myself, and this was what i wanted to do and what i had (allegedly) prepared for.
I pushed the button.
I got on the train.
Both of these bottles are sparkling water. I hate sparkling water.
But i have no other options, i've bought these and there's no time to go back.
Wait, it just got good.
Next stop: Gothenburg, Sweden, for a six-hour layover, then on to Oslo, Norway.
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