The rest of Heather's visit (and beyond)

On Saturday, we got off to a sort of late start, and headed out to the Carlsberg Brewery, arriving there around noon, I think. As we're walking to go toward the visitor entrance, this group of mostly middle-aged (I think) Danish guys call over to us, and ask us if we're going in. Well we are, so they tell us to come in with them because they are one short of 15 people, thus getting a reduced group rate (40kr instead of 60), so we're like "Okay..." Anyway, then we go in and as Heather and I are getting money out of our wallets the guy who is paying just waves us off and tells us not to worry about it. So, sweet! We basically ended up getting two free drinks out of this (they give you vouchers). Anyway, the brewery is interesting. You see mostly historical stuff, including a really detailed timeline that starts with the first recorded brewing of beer and then moves on to get more into Danish brewing history and then the Carlsberg history. Most of the rooms and such are historical representation about how the process would go in like, the early 20th century. Also: massive beer collection! When you are finished the tour you can go to the bar to redeem your vouchers -- Heather ended up trying the Carlsberg Elephant Beer and I got one of the specialty Jacobsen beers called Saaz Blonde, and then we both got sodas as it was only like 2 in the afternoon! Then we wandered out to find the elephant gate and take some pictures. Afterwards we headed back into the center of the city. We stopped at a gift shop on Strøget and Heather picked up a few things, and then I think we got bagel sandwiches again and then... possibly sat in a park for a bit? Not sure. Eventually we made our way home to have some dinner, and then went out to meet Anna and Caitlin at Palermo. We each had a drink there, and then decided to try this cocktail bar and cafe we had passed by a few times by Nørreport. They had a ridiculous drink menu. I ended up getting a Japanese Slipper. There were these two girls (sisters) sitting next to us, one of whom had worked for DIS at some point, and they invited us to go a club with them after we had our drinks, so we went with them to this place called L.A. Bar and danced for some hours -- when we got there they were playing songs like "Surfin' USA" and "Blue Suede Shoes" and it was highly amusing that the Danes there knew all the words to every song, when we didn't, and by the time we were leaving they had gotten into playing like, late '90s or so pop/rap. It was amusing! We took the night bus home and went to bed around 4... at this point we had given up on our hopes for Legoland as we didn't think we could get up early enough, and it was going to be like 1200kr a piece or more for the whole shebang. But oh well.

We got a reeeeeally late start the next day, but traveled over to Christianshavn and walked through Christiania a bit. Christiania -- for those who don't know -- is a sort semi-autonomous commune within Copenhagen. It was formed when some people squatted in the abandoned military barracks in the 1970s, and for some reason the Danish government just let them take it over. It's weirdly separate from Denmark -- as you leave, there's a sign saying, "You are now entering the EU." It's kind of an artist's paradise -- there's graffitti murals and cool art everywhere, but they don't let you take any pictures. So we wandered around there for about a half an hour, but we both felt really out of place, so we just headed back in the direction of Christiansborg and sat by one of the canals soaking up the sun for awhile.

We got dinner at a place in Gråbrodretorv, and then met up with Katy and got some hot drinks from a 7-11 and chilled with her in one of the squares in the city for a while. Then we headed home, watched a movie, held a short video chat session with Amy, and went to bed.

I went in to my 8:30 class on Monday, and Heather met me in town afterward. We mostly sat around outside, as she had her backpacker's backpack with her and there was no where to store it. We met up with Katy again to grab a quick lunch, and I deserted Heather in the DIS library for an hour and half or so to go to the beginning of my afternoon class, then jetted from that, we got ice cream, went in a few stores, and then took the Metro to the airport and said our goodbyes!

So that was two weekends ago now. Last week, we had a field study to the Politiken offices. Not that enlightening. On Friday, I didn't have any classes, and arranged to meet up with Anna and Caitlin at Fælledparken, near the stadium, because we had heard that was something that Danes do on May 1. We were expecting it to just be a bunch of people chilling, having some drinks and snacks. How wrong we were! It was like a festival -- there were rides and stages and food stands and massive amounts of people. It took us about an absurd amount of time to locate each other, because when Caitlin told me they were near an inflatable giraffe, I thought I knew where they were. Turns out there were at least three inflatable giraffes in the park that day. But eventually I met up with them, and we met up with a (male) Alex from our program, and Kathryn, and hung out there till it started getting too chilly, and I had a bagel sandwich I had bought and a crepe and some popcorn and a couple of ciders. 'Twas fun! Caitlin and Anna biked back to their kollegium and Alex and I walked and took the bus to get there, and then we decided to watch the Lindsay Lohan version of "Freaky Friday" which I relentlessly made fun of, but it was still a good time!

Then on Saturday we took a short day trip to Malmö. We had heard the shopping was cheaper, because the exchange rate is better ($1 = apprx. 8kr Swedish and 5.5kr Danish), but prices are about the same (so something could be 98kr in Sweden and Denmark, so it's a little cheaper to buy it in Sweden). Also, we just wanted to say we had been to Sweden! We all ended up getting something -- I got a top and some brown sandals from H&M, but when we left the last store we went to around 5:30, everything else was closed already! So we walked around a bit and then got dinner at... a Pizza Hut, but it was the fanciest Pizza Hut any of us had ever seen. Do they serve you your pizzas in the deep dish they cook them in, in America? And Anna got an absolutely massive salad, which she took slightly more than half of back with her. We stopped in a convenience/gift shop on the way out of town, and I was disappointed that they didn't have Swedish fish in their candy section. Our train got back into CPH around 8, but I didn't get home till nine because when I got off the Metro around 8:05 and saw that there was a 10-minute wait for my bus, I decided to walk a little bit... and then I decided I should just walk to the ice cream place... and then I had to walk while eating my ice cream... and by the time I finished I was almost home. And, I think only three buses passes me that whole time, the last one not even until I was almost at what is my home bus stop, so I didn't feel to absurd that I had walked.

I think we are going to go out for a bit tonight... possibly to a karaoke bar? Purely to observe and mock, though!