Bitte Bier. Oktoberfest!

 Stop 7: Munich for Oktoberfest!

Oktoberfest was the first stop that we’d actually planned before we left California. Not planned as in actually making arrangements, but just planned meaning that we knew we wanted to go.  And we knew we’d have to get there before October to actually see it (contrary to what the name would have you think).  Oktoberfest is a difficult thing to describe, so instead of our usual blog entry we thought we’d write a song.  And then we thought better of it, and instead have posted our favorite pictures. Along with a short attempt at describing the phenomenon!  You can click on any of the pics to see them larger.

There are 8 tents (three on the left above), representing the 8 beers brewed in Munich. Beer is only served in a Masse, a one liter stein. The waitresses carry up to 10 full masse of beer, making them lean very far back to offset the weight. Many Germans proudly brag that they drank 8 or 10 masse at Oktoberfest.  But it's not just a drinking binge - people young and old in Bavaria anticipate Oktoberfest and go at least a few times each year.  And the food is as delicious as the beer!  Giant pretzels, half hens, and sausage galore.

We went to the festival three times, each time being a very different experience. Our third trip was the last day of the festival, and we were surprised to see families bringing their children to sit along-side them for a day of drinking. Many kids looked bored and not sure of why their parents thought beer drinking to be so much fun. Quick aside - check out the 'stache below (top left).

 Now, despite in not being just a drinking binge, there was still plenty of that.  David decorated a passed-out reveler with bottles and flowers (center, above), and we ran into one guy skipping the bathroom line by using his beer stein (left, above).  For some of the carnival games, they use real guns (below).

 And here's the breakdown.


It's True! 

• Bavarians really wear Leiderhosen. Not just for Oktoberfest, but all year. Leiderhosen is worn instead of suits for formal events like weddings, church, and birthday parties. And during Oktoberfest it's totally appropriate to go to work in them
• Oompah music is played in all the tents, and the "beer wenches" really do rock the Saint Pauly Girl look.

Who Knew?

• Oktoberfest favorite songs are Country Road and Que Sera, Sera.
• There are no kegs. Beer is brought in their brewing barrel.  
• Oktoberfest brews are actually stronger than their regular counterparts...but despite that, very little vomiting is going on.  We saw more at Bluesapalooza!

Best Times: 

• Seeing Edgar for the first time since college 7 years ago! 
• Learning the Oktoberfest songs and singing them with complete strangers turned friends
• People and drindel watching

Best Laughs:

• Misreading the street address and almost breaking into the house next door to our AirBNB at midnight when we first arrived.
• Drunk guy trying to seduce Robin by ignoring the language barrier and blowing in her ear.
• Drunk girl stumbling past our table and grabbing a huge chunk of David’s pretzel as she walked by.
• Robin falling down on the conveyor belt ride (she would also like you to know that she was one of dozens….it moves REALLY fast!)  See the entertaining/sad video.

Best Eats:

• Sugar-coated roasted almonds
• Weisswurst and sweet mustard 
• Giant Bavarian pretzels
• A half roast chicken that we got for free with a coupon!  Free food always tastes better.
• Beer (that counts as a food at Oktoberfest)

 

Czech Your Listing for Local Pragueramming

~~SHARE! We took a long time trying to make a title for this post. Please submit your best Prague or Czech puns on the comments section below.~~
 
Stop 6: Prague (Praha)

A house on the Golden Lane. People were shorter back then

We saved a lot of train fare by going through Prague en route to Munich. And boy, was it worth it. We arrived in Prague after dark, to our stay in a weird old pieced-together apartment. It felt like what you’d see as the #3 choice on House Hunters International (if that gives any perspective). But, what it lacked in charm and cleanliness, it made up for in location. When we left on our first night, we hung a left turn and found ourselves right at the base of the Charles Bridge with its 14^th century towers floodlit along with the rest of the city. Standing on the Charles Bridge, you can see a medieval tower, a baroque church dome, and above it all, the impressive castle bathed in rose light at the top of the hill.  We joked that it looked like Disneyland…but the next morning, that proved even more accurate, as that same walk across Charles Bridge involved pushing our way through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of tourists.  It gave us a great opportunity to see all the European guidebooks on the international market.

Prague is a sightseer’s dream city because you can spend days just staring at old buildings and learning about their history.  Like, the astronomical clock was so beautiful that after it was built in 1487, the mayor of the city had the designer blinded so he couldn’t make something more beautiful in another city.  True story! 

The city is one of the least damaged capitals in Europe because of an early surrender in WWII.  The Jewish quarter, Josefov, is very small. The Jewish cemetery is about 8 feet above the road because graves are stacked 12 deep. Today there are very few Jews left in the city because of the holocaust. And we found out from David’s friend Sarri (who just happened to be in Prague at the same time!) that the old synagogue is so well-preserved because the 3^rd Reich wanted keep it as a museum of “the extinct race.” Again, true story.

We spent our first few days wandering the streets, including taking a free tour from a Czech native.  Tourism is so huge in Prague that every ten yards — excuse me, 10 meters — you pass a guide holding up an umbrella, leading a herd of tourists.  In the main square at 12pm, there is a sea of umbrellas advertising free tours.  We were en route to New Prague tours, but spotted a tour by a local Czech, without dozens of people already crowded around.  What we didn’t take into account was that we would only understand 50% of the tour because of the heavy Czech accent.  Her English sounded like “the” was added to the middle of every word.  But I think we were the only tour that day that got to hear someone sing the Czech, and Slovakian, national anthems.  

Following our leisurely sight seeing, we decided to invest in the Prague Card and try to hit as many sights as possible within the following 2 days. In an effort to get the most bang for our buck, we were popping into museums we didn’t know the topics of, and visited art galleries for Czech artists in medieval cellars on the far outskirts of town. Included with the card was access to several of the city’s old towers.

Not only did the card save us a lot of money, but it also taught us that Robin has an intense adult-onset fear of heights. After ascending up any tower, she finds it necessary to clench David’s arm, and a railing. If a railing isn’t available, it’s necessary to hang on to a backpack strap or collar. Both hand always have to be grabbing something, and sweating helps. It’s proven to be pretty funny for anyone passing.  And people have been pretty open about showing they think it’s funny, be it pointing, or laughing, or both. But, climbing the towers in Prague gave us views we were glad we didn’t miss.

Best Eats:

At this point on the trip, we’re officially on a meat and potatoes diet. We eat an occasional garnish for a one leaf, one tomato side salad to get our veggie intake. The Czech beers have bested all others we’ve had on the trip so far. Our Euro beers from Berlin didn’t hold up to the many different types of brews made in the Czech Republic.

Beef Goulash with Bread Dumplings

U medvíků Brewery: The smallest brewery in Prague was a huge 7-room restaurant. Pork knuckle and beef goulash at the brewery’s beer hall. Four .5L of Czech Budweiser for about $6.25  It’s weird, the majority of restaurants we went to seemed to have room upon room to dine in. You can walk a full 10 minutes before find a room that suits you.

Best Sights:

Ancient books from the 14th century

The Town Hall tour, especially the guided tour of the original building(s), 4 meters underground.  The roads in Prague used to be 4 meters lower, but were raised in the 1400s due to constant flooding.  We saw the old prison, including a chute where they would drop prisoners directly from judgment in the town square, and an arch where prisoners would scratch their name and the year when they walked through on the way to their death sentence.  We saw one from 1508.

Vrtbovska Gardens, a small baroque garden down an alleyway from the main street.  They’re beautiful gardens going up a hill, with a great city view at the top.  We saw two couples taking their wedding photos while we were there.  One of whom we also accidentally stalked to their next shoot location at the castle gardens across town. The other couple had actually stalked us from where we first saw them taking photos at the Astronomical Clock.  We know all the best sights, clearly.

Petrin Hill, with a delightful funicular ride up (buy a ticket, they check you at the top!) and great park for a picnic, as well as a vertigo-inducing Eiffel Tower replica.  It’s also a short hike back over to the castle and monastery (with their own brewery).

Best Times:

Stumbling across Prague Fashion Weekend’s event, “Fashion has a Future”.  There was a giant catwalk set up down a pedestrian street. Ridiculous/Amazing futuristic outfits included a woman covered in plastic bubbles and a man with a green cape, underwear and holding a fluffy cat. Look at the photo, he seems embarrassed.

Walking into an organ concert in Church St. Nicholas to later discover that it’s the same organ Mozart used to play when he was in town.

Best Tips:

Prague Card: If you want to fully Disneyland it up, invest in the Prague card.  And ask for the student price even if you don’t have ID – you might get it and save some money.  It gives free or 50% off admission to all the sights in the city, including every view tower and the castle museums.  It’ll pay for itself if you hit 5 attractions in two days.

A couple things worth skipping: 

The TV Tower:  The windows are dirty and tinted, and the views are much more fun from Petrin Tower or any of the old town towers.  The only plus side to it is that walking there gets you out of the tourist’s Prague, so you get more of a feel for real city today (and cheaper Czech beers at the local bars).

The Mirror Maze:  Unless you’re doing it for free with the Prague Card, this “attraction” is tiny and underwhelming – and pricey.  A lot of our guidebooks recommended it, and it turned out to be only about 20 feet of mirrors.  I’ve had more fun with the mirror on a medicine cabinet.

Germany In the Berlink of an Eye

 Berlin, Germany

After coming from Scandanavia, Berlin was our savior. We arrived in the city, knowing no German and without plans or accommodation. But within a half hour, we’d found a hostel, had our first taste of Berlin food, and we were navigating the S-Bahn to downtown.

The food was delicious. We don’t know if it was the relief of finally being able to afford true portions, or if it was truly good. Berlin has its own culinary specialty, currywurst, which is basically a sliced fried hot dog doused in tons of ketchup and curry powder. It’s at least 3 times more delicious than it sounds. We scarfed down two at the airport before moving on to EastSeven, our favorite hostel of our trip. It sold half liter bottles of good German beer for only a euro, and most restaurant’s draughts were only marginally more. They also had free (tips for the chef) dinner twice a week!

We took some time to gather our thoughts our first day in Berlin and waited till the next morning to take in the sights. It was surprising to realize how little we knew about the city besides it being in Germany. We did the tourist thing and took a free walking tour with Brewer’s Berlin, which was far better than the New Europe tours that are in every city. We did learn that most “free tour” guides actually have to pay about 3euro per head that goes on their tour, so if you tip them less than that they’re actually losing money on you.

Art at the East Side Gallery on the Berlin Wall

Being in Berlin is kind of a unique experience because it’s a city with a long and complex history and hardly any architecture to show for it because of Hitler’s reconstruction under the Nazi party and World War II’s toll on the city to get rid of the party.

Their original palace is completely gone because of bombs, but they have done an excellent job of restoring other buildings and monuments on the old main street, Unter den Linden (meaning under the linden trees….Hitler had all of the 200 year old linden trees removed and replaced with flag poles when he came into power, but the trees are back). We saw Humbolt University and of course, the Brandenburg Gate. Plus a fine view of the hotel where Michael Jackson held Blanket out the window. The parliament building on the other side of the Brandenburg Gate was one of the best sights.

The tourism generated from such a sad history is somewhat perplexing. Nearly every sight is linked in some way to war. A lot of the monuments are deeply depressing, but many of the attractions aim to be fun. You can buy postcards with actual pieces of the Berlin Wall. At Checkpoint Charlie, the former entrance to East Berlin during US Occupation, you can take a photo with a German guy pretending to be a US Soldier for just a couple Euro.

Today the city feels über-modern and friendlier and than we had heard it described. Portions of where the Berlin Wall used to stand has now been filled in with extremely expensive shopping districts. Many of the open areas created from the war and the wall has allowed a lot of really beautiful memorials and new buildings to be constructed.

We followed the college backpacker’s route one night and signed up for a pub crawl across the city. We visited a couple interesting themed bars, an underground ping-pong club (everyone in the room grabs a paddle and rotates around a table until only two people are left), and ended in a night club which was an old bombed-out U-Bahn station. Our time in Berlin felt like it was constantly reminding us of its past.

We had just started warming up to Berlin when we had to move on because of how much we’d save by leaving a day early.

Best eats:

Currywurst at the airport: Our very first meal turned out to be one of our best at a small kitschy diner immediately outside the airport exit. A currywurst, a Berliner Lager and some fries for under $5. Deal.

Fassbender and Rauche Chocolatier: http://www.fassbender-rausch.de/ This chocolate shop has replicas of famous German landmarks, the titanic, Elvis, farm animals, amongst other things made to scale completely out of chocolate. Our lackluster pasta was nicely complemented by a mocha, a hot chocolate and a delicious tiramisu.

Russian “Blitze”: A 1920s-era Russian restaurant

Best times:

We happened to find an old bar outside the city's center. We sang oldies with the bar tender and the locals, they all didn't know the words. We laughed and danced until they closed at 9.

Leaving to go to a night club 45 minutes away at 1 in the morning and leaving when they closed at 2:30…after the U-Bahn entrance had shut down, and then navigating our way back to our hostel.

Best Sights:

The Parliament Building. Using the shell of the original building (badly damaged in the war), the building has a modern addition of a large glass dome.
You can see the whole city from inside, as well as down into the actual government rooms. The idea is that their government is now totally transparent. It’s very cool.

Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe: Obviously a very heavy sight, but definitely a must-see. The abstract memorial takes up a city block and is gripping at all hours of the day, and the museum underneath is very

Best Tips:

Parliament Building Reservations – It must be a recent thing because no tourbooks mention it, but you need to go online and get a reservation to go up into the dome of the Parliament Building. We tried once we arrived but they were booked for at least three days, so get it ahead of time!

Stock! Holmer time

We’d arrived. After 12 hours of driving in a car built for one, the three of us made it to Stockholm.

Our first view of the city was a row of baroque houses fronting the river that divides the North part of the city from the Old Town, or Gamla Stan, which sits on its own island. There were local fishermen leaning against the walls of 400-year-old bridges, as tourists snapped pictures behind them.

After our first parking spot turned out to be for “diplomats only,” we took a chance on another one (note: Swedish parking signs are impossible to translate) and headed to Gamla Stan. Turan showed us his old stomping grounds, but the tour was cut short by a fast-approaching storm.

After finding our car ticketless, we left to have our last Scandinavian meal with Turan in the newly developing SoFo district. Amazingly, we found a cool restaurant that was equal parts affordable and delicious. We had a nice talk with a couple of Swedish hipsters about life in Stockholm. According to our limited sample, Stockholmers like hockey, don’t understand American football, like American films, but don’t care about the Oscars or Emmys, and like to wear Yankees hats. Also, our waitress was thrilled to meet Americans (or perhaps just one, named Turan). So thrilled that she spilled beer on herself and the table she was cleaning — twice.

After some light bar window-shopping, we drove just out of the city limits to our hostel in a gutted Boeing 747. Our plane-themed room, a full bed with a twin bunk on top, was a fun exercise in space efficiency and tolerating each other’s smells. We made it work, utilized the overhead bin and got some decent to good sleep.

We returned our friend, the Renault Clio, and saw our friend, Turan off at the airport. Then our first order of business was to find a place to sleep that night. So, a quick detour to the adventures of finding beds in Stockholm (read on for the sightseeing later).

What we didn’t realize was the Stockholm half marathon was just a couple days away, and as a result all lodging was either booked solid or had way inflated rates. One of the budget hotels in our guidebook was asking for a whopping $220 a night!

We checked into a reasonably priced hostel with availability in a 12-person dorm for one night, but nothing for the following days. On checking out, we asked if anything had opened up. The receptionist told David “only the laundry,” which David took as a sarcastic answer meaning that the only reservations available were for the washing machines. But Robin thought (for some reason) this was worth clarifying, and ended up booking them 2 mattresses in the laundry room. At $25 a person. We were told to come back at 10pm to check in, as guests were allowed to use the room until midnight.

Our laundry room.

Robin asked at 11:30pm when the beds would be set up, to which the receptionist replied that there are mattresses against the wall and bedding on the shelf. We walked into a humming and humid room and pulled out our mattresses, wedged them into a nook below the drying racks, and broke a sweat making the bed in the nearly 90º room. We sadly noticed another bag as we set up, and were greeted with, “Damn,” by an almost friendly Italian man, who had also hoped to snag the “laundry special” for himself. Our new friend left at 6am, but the cleaning crew started using the room at 8:30am, and it was also already booked for the next day! The hunt continued.

Our thirst for novelty hostels not yet quenched, we booked ourselves a lovely stay on a hostel-boat for our last night in Stockholm. We had a bit of trouble getting our hostel legs, but more trouble with an extremely smelly roommate in an unventilated 24-bunk room.

David poses near our two of the 24 bunks in the boat's dorm.

To add insult to injury, he doused himself in cologne, creating an ass stew. Our sleep was also interrupted by: 1am – chatty German girls arriving and setting up beds, 3am – drunken professions of “falling in love with Swedish girl” by the stinker, 5am – drunken entrance followed immediately by loud passed-out snoring, 6am – request for David to kill a yellow jacket, made by one of the German girls (see 1am).

But, oh, the sights!

Best Sights:

Storkyrken – Worth the entrance fee to see this ornate church (from 1306, what?!) and statue of St. George and Dragon…made with elk antlers for the dragon’s wings, and real horse hair for the mane and tail.

The statue had real horse hair tail from a 4 centuries ago

Storkyrkobadet – A 14^th century bathhouse, under the church in Gamla Stan. http://www.storkyrkobadet.se/ It’s only 5 euros for a soak and steam, but we just took a look around because they alternate men and women days since it’s so small, and we just couldn’t bear to part (and David wasn’t ready to bare his parts).

Best Times:

Hanging out with the bartender at Gyldene Freden – a restaurant that has kept the same furnishings since it opened in 1722 http://www.gyldenefreden.se/ It’s owned by the Swedish Academy, the guys in charge of awarding the Nobel Prize for literature, and we were there the same night as their weekly get-together!

Watching the changing of the guards ceremony. If you see it on Saturday the navy band performs hilarious music.

Cheering on the final few runners of the half marathon with ABBA playing in the background.

Eavesdropping on a guy having a fight with his girlfriend for being on her phone too much, and him feeling like he was “walking with a ghost.” She didn’t reply. We think she may have been a ghost.

Best Eats:

Café Mix at the Music Museum – our most affordable meal in Scandanavia! Each entrée came with all you can eat fresh bread, salad bar, seafood miso soup with salmon and shrimp, and delicious cream of tomato soup. We ate there twice

Zum Franziskaner – The oldest consistently operating restaurant in Stockholm (although we were disappointed to hear they’ve had three locations in that time). We went for their “after work special” valid only from 2-5pm (?!) for a beer and fish and chips. For $22 USD (!) Actually a good deal in Scandinavia.

Delicious raspberries from a farmers market. They had lingonberries, too, of course.

Nalen Restaurant – Veal tartar and lox from Norway, and Swedish “green” cheese. And some fancy Swedish attitude and haircuts, to boot.

Swede ride, brå !

A Road Trip from Malmö to Stockholm

(bear with us, this covers quite a few Swedish miles….that’s 10 kilometres each in Sweden)

Turan was on his way to Finland to visit family, and had always wanted to see Sweden with the wind in his hair. We quickly adopted the same desire. ROAD TRIP!

Our next stop was a lengthy 20 minute train ride across the Öresund (the strait that separates Denmark and Sweden) to stay the night in Malmö before picking up our rental car. Though we spent less than 24 hours in Sweden’s third largest city, we actually got to see a lot. We spent about an hour booking our room with the Wifi at Maxburger (Sweden’s McDonald’s competitor) in the Main Square, walked to our hotel through their second, more adorable square, and got lost on our way out of the city, making a detour to the Turning Torso tower andbeautiful views of the Öresund. Our rental car was a perky little Renault hatchback that was pushing 100 horse power, and our first road trip stop was to cross the bridge from whence we came to return to Denmark.

The Öresund bridge is very cool; it begins in Sweden as a suspension bridge, then on a manmade island halfway across the sound, the bridge descends into an underwater tunnel that allows boat traffic to pass over the car and train traffic. The descent makes your ears pop and only lets you see about 20 yards in front of you because it’s so steep. Pretty cool stuff.

Once back in Denmark, we waved a final goodbye to our old friend Copenhagen and began our drive up the East coast of Zealand (the O.G.), stuck behind slow moving cars on confusing streets ending in ‘gade and ‘veg with lots of dots and lines through the vowels. We were headed to Kronborg castle in Helsingør, the fictional setting for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After the day’s drive, we made it to the castle with 30 minutes to spare before close.

We literally ran the half-mile from the car to the castle entrance, passing over two moats and through several castle gates – but we were not to be deterred by such fortifications. And we proved the wary ticket cashier wrong, packing in 2 hours worth of castle exhibits into an efficient 15 minute jog. The castle was amazing, dating back to the 15th century. It was originally built here on the shore of the narrowest part of the Öresund to collect tolls from

passing ships. The castle has been very meticulously restored and maintained. After the tour of the interior, we wandered the gorgeous grounds, including a courtyard and the aforementioned moats – which had been used as a toilet for hundreds of years before the castle became a museum. It was a very difficult cleanup job, according to the brochure.

When we finished our castle tour, we drove the car onto a ferry to cross back over to Sweden at Helsingborg (not to be confused with Helsingør across the water) and took a two-hour drive through multiple rainstorms to another AirBnb which we didn’t have the address for in a small town we’d never heard of. All we knew was the street name the house was on and that the house was yellow. After 30 minutes of spirited debate over tans, golds, and mustards, we found the house just before midnight. We’d arranged for the owner to leave the door unlocked since we were arriving so late.

We walked into an unlit, unstaffed, uninhabited, creaky and creepy farmhouse bed and breakfast from the 1920’s. Robin found it charming.

Turan and David felt like they were in the opening act of a horror film. The ceilings were low enough to bump your head on, and the spiral staircase to the 3rd floor was hardly wide enough to fit a suitcase. In spite of it all, we ended up all sleeping very well and the place and the owner, Kennet, were adorable.

The next day we got to see the beautiful Swedish countryside. We drove an hour to visit Sweden’s second city, Göteburg, the home of Volvo. We had ourselves a lovely “fika,” meaning “to have a coffee and buns and a chat with friends,” (yes, there is actually a word for that) and a stroll around Haga, the old district. Then it was on to our next stop, Ödeshög. Just east of the 6th biggest lake in all of Europe! We arrived in the city of literally hundreds of residents at an early 8pm. All the shops and restaurants in the city were closed.

Except one, a pizzeria owned by our hotel owner’s relatives. Ordering was an exciting adventure, trying to explain that we didn’t want any pork products to the two Syrian employees who didn’t know any English. But, after a week of encountering Danes and Swedes with impeccable English, the exchange felt happily foreign. We ended up with two Greek themed pizzas that were delicious.

The next morning we explored the breezy shores of Lake Vattern, and then we were off to Stockholm – through small villages, pastoral landscapes, and lake and river views. We decided to visit the archipelago first and drove straight to Vaxholm. The archipelago is made up of 30,000 islands. We hit 3. It seemed to be past tourism season there, so it was not a lively scene. But the scenery was gorgeous, especially from the ferries from island to island. After a good lunch of fish from Norway, we left the archipelago on its free ferries and into Stockholm. And that is a story for another blog entry.

Best Eats:
Clif Bars, McDonald’s, and Maxburger (x2)

Any restaurants open after 6pm

Best Laughs:
Turan, on arrival at the creepy farmhouse hotel: “Why don’t you go explore the town, you check out the rest of the hotel, and I’ll keep an eye on things up here.”

Robin repeatedly asking an elderly, nearly deaf non-English speaker for parking information.

A drunk Dane stumbling into the Maxburger in Malmo harassing Swedish teens about how to deal with hoodlums. “If they have a gun, then you worry about them. If not, you mess with them.” [pregnant pause] “Tha’s how vee do it in Copenhagen!” (you had to be there)

Packing, booking, and moving as fast as we could across the city to catch our train to Malmö, only to get there and realize they run every 20 minutes all night.

Best Times:
The roads in Sweden can be confusing. David drove onto an elevated tram platform in Goteborg (and had to wait between 2 trams picking up passengers before he could hop the curb to get back on the street), ended up on a pedestrian main square in Odeshög (thankfully the town had gone to sleep at sunset), and manueuvered us into the bus-only lane in downtown Stockholm, where “our” traffic signal on the 5 way intersection only had a lit up white “S”.

The highlight of our jog through the royal apartments at Kronborg: a full-out sprint down the largest ballroom we’d ever seen (in a castle).

Køpenhavn a Good Time!

Køpenhavn a Good Time!

Stop 2: Copenhagen, Denmark

Imagine a land of medieval Vikings, well preserved bog people, the best breakfast pastries (Danishes), beautiful parks and people, $8 coffees, and lunches starting at $20.  Welcome to Denmark!

We noticed 3 things when we arrived at the airport in Denmark.  1) Danish design is great – we stuck around the airport for a half hour just admiring the architecture and wares in the gift shop.  2) Almost 100% of Danish people are attractive.  It’s as though the country is a factory producing 6’ blonde models and designer jackets.  3) Anyone who is anyone wears Converse.   Even if you aren’t anyone, you’re probably wearing Converse.  A sad realization for an American girl who ditched her Converse sneakers to avoid looking like a US tourist.  We did a count of about 40 pairs on the metro ride from the airport to our lovely AirBNB flat.

There are a lot of bikes in Copenhagen!

We discovered that the US dollar doesn’t go very far in Denmark, almost pricing us out of eating dinner our first night. We arrived from Madrid to a nearly 35º drop in temperature, dug out our winter clothes and set out into the rain in search of something to eat. We walked for nearly half an hour, passing by $25 pub hamburgers, $18 Caesar salads, $15 California rolls and $12 beers until we found a place just a block from our room with a steak special, half off from $36.  Thankfully, our friend, Turan, joined us the following day – equipped with 20 Clif bars after getting our SOS request.

For the next few days, the three of us explored the beautiful city on bikes, through storybook royal gardens, colorfully lined canals, and art districts in search of affordable drinks.  Copenhagen is great for cyclists. The whole city is flat, and cyclists have their own set of traffic lights that give them a head start ahead of cars, plus the separated bike lane has its own curb above the street but below the sidewalk in most places.

One great stop in the city was the Carlsberg brewery – though the cobblestone roads were a bit of bumpy bike ride.  Built in the late 16^th century, Carlsberg brewery is the size of a small city,…or berg, with ornate brick structures, towering stone turrets, stables for their Clydesdales and a beautiful tasting lounge.  Despite being so old, the tasting lounge is totally modern Danish inside from the wall clocks  (Arne Jacobsen) to how the beers were displayed, even the taps were a thing a beauty.

Beautiful modern design is everywhere in Denmark. Forget the museums. – a good free walking tour of design in Denmark we found is to drink a lot of water, and to use bathrooms in nice hotels, restaurants and public buildings. The compact and smartly designed restrooms are really a testament to the country’s commitment to good design.

But, we did take a “bathroom break” to explore a couple museums: the Danish National Museum is a gorgeously designed  (are you sensing a pattern here?) history of the Danish people from the Stone Age onwards.  It’s a beautiful, comprehensive, and FREE museum, which was a welcome pause in wallet drainage.  We could have spent hours there. The most impressive displays were the huge quantities of artifacts preserved by the bog where sacrifices were left.  Jewelry, clothing, hair, and complete bodies were extremely – and very creepily – well-preserved.

Our other museum stop was the Danish Design Museum. Although we were expecting mostly Danish modern design, the museum actually chronicles worldwide design beginning almost as early as the Danish National Museum.  It also had a fun (and funny) exhibit titled "Danish Design - I like it!", plus a very comprehensive study on Danish chairs.

Best Eats:

Smørrebrød – various meats on an open face rye bread sandwich

Weinerbrød - or as non-Danes call them, Danishes!

Late night pølser- street food, basically a hot dog with multiple mustards, pickles, and fried onions.

La Glace – the oldest confectioner in Copenhagen, dating back to 1870. Delicious cakes are their specialty.

Lagkagehuset – The epitome of what we dream of Denmark to be – delicious Danishes in a modern Danish design bakery, housed in a historic building in Copenhagen’s Old Town.

Madklubben in Tivoli Gardens – You can choose any two items for the two course meal, so David chose two entrees: corned veal and classic rotisserie chicken.

Best Times:

Tivoli Gardens' poorly translated Hans Christian Andersen ride that gave very rough summations of children’s stories where no lessons are learned

Walking around the moat of a real castle at the Rosenbørg Slott.

Best Tips:

AirBNB is a great alternative to staying in budget hotels or hostels. Also a nice way to feel like a local, meet people, and have the opportunity to cook or do laundry.

The silver lining of the food price dilemma is that there isn’t a huge range of pricing, so a gourmet dinner at a trendy restaurant in general was only $5 or $10 US more than going to the corner pub. So a splurge is worth it.

Despite how widely they’re touted in guidebooks, the free city bikes are not so widely available in the city center or during busy times of the day.  After several unsuccessful attempts at finding any available, we opted to rent bikes and saved ourselves a lot of time and complaining!

Best Laughs:

Outside a café, we saw a Great Dane, or as it’s known in Copenhagen, “a Great”.

We also asked a banker where we could get a Danish. She was very confused and appalled.

A random dunk girl to Turan  (without any prior conversation): “I’m so sorry that you’re here. Copenhagen is so boring.” Apparently, it’s common for Danish to disparage their city. It’s in the guide book! (and for drunk girls to talk to Turan)

A Spainful Start

Stop 1 - Madrid

We arrived. Our bags didn’t. We watched Madrileño after Madrileño pick up bags full of tacky souvenirs from their vacations abroad, but we left empty-handed. We luckily changed our minds the night before the flight about totally “winging it”, so we had a forwarding address for the airline to deliver our bags. Plus earned a little bonus cash for the items we were missing that day, like a new pair of jeans. Happy birthday, David.

For an 11:30am arrival in Madrid, we certainly got a slow start. We spent an hour waiting for and then processing the paperwork for our delayed luggage, and then the Metro machines refused to accept any of the three credit cards we’d prepped with our banks for the trip. But, a quick and tired three hours later, we were at San Bernardo, in a lovely plaza by our hotel. Hace calor en Madrid. There were some great cafeterias in the plaza with lots of terraza diners, but we were so hot we opted for inside – and as it turns out eating indoors instead of on the terrace saves you 15% on food throughout the pricey city. We had our first Spanish beer, a café con leche, a torilla española, a bocadillo with jamon Serrano, and a long siesta immediately afterwards.

The days following were filled with yummy tapas, 11pm dinners, late night churros, an unexpected Mediterranean belly dance, seeing Robin’s old coworker and Spanish host family from study abroad, and miles of wandering through the city looking at the beautiful buildings.

Best Eats:

San Jines – Churros & Chocolate

El Abrazo de Vergara* – Risotto with clams and octopus carpaccio

Juana La Loca – Tortilla Española

Best Times:

Taking a nap in the shade at Retiro Park

Walking down el Paseo de la Castellana, Calle Mayor, and around Puerta del Sol

David hearing Robin use her Spanish for the first time