Kaffe med Mælk og Sukker

Rory (to her sweaters): I had a dream while I was in Copenhagen and you were there! And you, and you, and you!  ... (Gilmore Girls, what else).

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Today was kind of a flop as we spent most of it train-hopping through the outskirts of Copenhagen, trying to find a store with strollers.  Long story short: we found one, and it was closed.  Should have taken a stroller with us (to borrow a line from Alice: I always give myself very good advice, but I seldom ever take it).


Although we haven't yet been to downtown Copenhagen (or the picture-perfect spots you see on the postcards), judging from the area we saw today I don't like it.  It reminds me of Paris.  And Paris, to be perfectly honest, is crowded and filthy.  It must've been extraordinary in its early years, to have become The Measuring Stick For All Other Cities (such-and-so is the Paris of this country, etc.).  The ideal romantic setting for cinematography, the center of the arts, and the home of the expatriates - from whence so much of our fine American lit was derived.  Who knew it would be so ... dirty.  (I reserve the right to change my opinion about Copenhagen once I actually see more of it).

I don't know what it means but it sure looked cool.

Their are two upsides to my story, the first of which is that I started learning a bit of Danish while on the train.  Due to the occasional word that almost looks English, it's sometimes easy to guess the translation of a Danish phrase. For instance ... kaffe med mælk og sukker means coffee with milk and sugar.  Not so hard to figure out, right?  (Especially when there is a picture of coffee next to it, but we'll pretend there wasn't so I seem more intelligent).  Unfortunately, the pronunciation is often completely different than you'd think.  I just won't ever say anything out loud, is all. 

The second upside concerns art.  Copenhagen is currently hosting a city-wide art exhibition consisting of 102 beautifully-painted elephant sculptures, so Isaac greatly appreciated today's excursion.  I have never seen him quite so ecstatic as when he got to touch the 5-foot fiberglass elephant at Central Station.  Literally ecstatic.  We're going to have to take him to the final gala during the first week of September, when they get all the elephants together and auction them off to support Asian elephant survival.  He'll go nuts, the little kook.


I'm beginning to think I'd like to stay in Roskilde, if we can find a suitable apartment.  It's so much smaller, cleaner, and (to complete my rhyming scheme) greener than Copenhagen.  Today they had an outdoor farmer-meets-flea market outside the bakery, and I'm told they have these two or three times a week.  We bought strawberries, white grapes, and cherries in a brown paper bag.

We also met a man from Bolivia who was selling hand-made jewelry.  And I have no particular reason to write about this except that he said he'd lived in the States during the '90's, where he was a groupie for Grateful Dead and a follower of the rainbow movement (a celebration of peace and living by the land).  They called themselves The Rainbow Family Tribe.  He said it was a weird cultural experience and afterwards he followed a beautiful Danish woman back to her home country and there you have it.  


After we left him, we found The Bagels.


If you must know, I meant for us to start an all-natural strictly fruits-and-veggies diet today (no reason), but then we saw this stupid little bagel shop and it told me that my dieting plans would have to be delayed.  Which is just as well.  Might as well wait till I'm not living above a bakery.


Tomorrow we are going to check out a nearby church which may or may not have a translator, so I'll let you know how that goes.  ... And now if you'll excuse me I must go put our laundry in the dryer before the washer machine kills itself.  The thing sounds like a lawn-mower with a serious case of bronchitis.

Isaac wanted to get on this thing.  I did not.

Lorelai: Oh, you gave [Babette] an itinerary and she called every consulate in the world.
Rory: If we were caught smuggling hash over the border and we were thrown in some Turkish prison, wouldn't you want someone to know that we were in Turkey?
Lorelai: Where'd we get this hash we were smuggling?
Rory: You were at a café, you met a guy, he was sweet-talking you, he put the stuff in your purse when you weren't looking.
Lorelai: At least tell me he was cute.
Rory: He wasn't bad for a hash dealer.