Europe Trip, Part 7 - Copenhagen

I arrived at the Manchester airport, still not knowing the score of the Canada/Russia game. I immediately went to an internet kiosk after clearing security, and impatiently waited while TSN loaded. When I saw 7-3 Canada, I just yelled "YEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!" as loud as I could, completely oblivious to where I was. Everyone in that entire section of the airport looked at me, and that was a lot of people. Still oblivious, I looked in their general direction and yelled "CANADA WON!"...to which everyone either laughed or just went back to their own business.

After a couple of seconds I realized how incredibly embarrassing that was, and turned bright red and sunk into my little kiosk as much as I could. Which, let's face it, wasn't much because I'm huge. Every time I looked up for the next 10 minutes or so, someone was still looking at me or laughing. Again, slightly embarrassing...but that's how I roll, bitches.

So, onto Denmark. Copenhagen's airport is very modern and laid out very well, which made it easy to find the train station. Unfortunately, the next 3 trains into town were canceled so I sat there and waited for almost an hour. Once it finally showed though, shit went smoothly and I was in the center of town in no time.

I was starving by that point, so I decided to grab a hot dog as I was leaving the station to walk to my hotel. He asked me what I wanted on it and I said nothing, but apparently "nothing" means "everything" in Danish English, because I got this hot dog with all kinds of shit on it. 9 sauces, relish, onions, you name it. I like approximately none of that shit, so I did my best to try and scoop it off.

Nyet.

I just ended up with goop all over my hands while people all around me laughed and probably taunted me in Danish. It just wasn't my day for impressing the public, that's for sure. After grabbing about 90 napkins to wipe myself off, I finally took off towards my hotel. Oh, and I smelled like mustard for my entire time there, despite having about 5 showers and scrubbing like a rape victim. Weird.

So my hotel was one of these new ultra-modern technology places. The idea is that you use kiosks to check in and get your key, so you don't have to wait in line for a hotel employee. You do it the same way checking out. Too bad the kiosks were all retarded and worked for nearly no one (including myself) so I had to...you guessed it, wait in line to fucking check in/out with a hotel employee. The hotel was brand new and in an industrial area, which meant that there was pretty much nothing around it except for construction sites. To buy or see anything, I had to trek the 10 minutes back to the bus station area. Slightly inconvenient, but the hotel was a fucking steal in Copenhagen, which is a very pricey city, so it was worth it.

I think I was still in chill mode from England, because I didn't do much of anything the first day there. I went for a short walk around the station area and checked out a few things, but I was really unmotivated. All the rain didn't help either. So...I did a whole lot of nothing. Drank a few Carlsbergs, watched some Olympics on my fancy flat-screen TV, and caught up on what had gone on in North America other than the Olympics for the past 2 weeks or so.

About the only interesting thing that happened was when my room door suddenly swung open, revealing a fucking super-hot blonde maid. Porn music kicked off in my head pretty much immediately, but it was not to be...she apologized profusely for having the wrong room and took off. Denied, as usual.

I decided that since I had wasted pretty much an entire day in a city I always wanted to see, I'd have to go into overdrive the next day to cover as much as I could. I spent about 4 hours walking around, and saw lotsa cool shit. My personal humorous highlight was walking through the red light district, where the hookers just stand there and go "PSSSST" at you, trying to get your attention. It was pretty odd...it made it seem like she was more interested in telling you a secret than anything else, which made me laugh at the idea of it. Anyway, Copenhagen is a beautiful city full of amazing buildings and sculptures and stuff, and the canals are awesome too.

The main area was a little smaller than I expected though, so by mid-afternoon I had seen pretty much everything I had set out to see. You know what that means...pub time!

My friend Kate used to live in Copenhagen and told me to go to this bar called the Moose, which was like the Cambie of Copenhagen. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't find it and got lost. I must have set some kind of world record for the number of cities I got lost in on this trip.

Anyway, after I finally gave up on my Moose dream I just went into the first pub I saw - an Australian pub. I know, I know. You'd think I'd aim for an actual Danish pub or something, but noooo. I actually went in there because I could see their TV through the window, and a gorgeous girl was in a music video. Finding out who she was provided me with all the inspiration I needed to go inside. Well, that and the beer. Obviously.

7 bucks, Cheryl Cole, and a crossword puzzle. Those are the answers. The questions? In order - how much they charged for my first beer (in Canadian), who the hot girl was on TV, and what I did in the pub other than drink. There was no one in there except for the owner when I stepped through the doors. A little odd, but that's never stopped me before. After serving me up a Kilkenny, he demanded that I help him with his crossword puzzle in exchange for a discount on the 2nd beer. Hells yeah I can do that. Finally my intelligence could be used for a worthy purpose!

Uh, no. This was the hardest fucking crossword puzzle of all time.

I got one thing right. ONE. He got about three. The rest of it was just us looking at each other and alternating between "what the hell?" and "who made this up?" with a few swear words interspersed at regular intervals. I felt pretty fucking stupid after attempting that thing. I did get a free beer out of it though...but it was probably out of pity more than anything. Who cares though, free beer is free beer! After another one and some time admiring about 10 Cheryl Cole videos in a row (look her up if you don't know who she is - gorgeous), I had a good buzz and decided I was going to walk around Copenhagen some more.

As usual, my motivation evaporated quicker than Milo's memory (he's sitting right beside me, so he seemed like an appropriate target for a joke...plus, the guy forgets everything you say 5 seconds after you say it...he's like a goldfish!), I somehow ended up sitting on a bench which overlooked one of the bigger canals in the city. Me, my ipod, a Carlsberg or 4, and the canal just hung out for a while. It was completely frozen over, since it was about -5 outside. Yes, I like cold weather...we've gone through this already.

A couple of people rode by on bicycles and gave me odd looks, but I was used to that by now. I just sat there and mentally flipped through my last couple of weeks, laughing at my stupidity and marveling at all the shit I had seen. It was pretty peaceful, until I decided to leave. I got up, walked about 3 steps, and slipped and fell on my ass. I'm all class baby! It was dark by then, and I couldn't really head out to another pub because I had to leave for Oslo early in the morning, so I decided to call it a night.

Overall, Copenhagen was awesome. I don't want to use a stupid faggy word like enchanting, but it has a lot of character and I can definitely see why people call it the most fun city in Scandinavia. The people are more outgoing and they all come across as pretty happy. Everyone rides bikes around the city, which adds to the charm and means the city isn't as choked with traffic as most major cities. Take all that and throw in the architecture and canals, and you've got a hell of a destination. I'd highly recommend it.