Day 34 - Farvel Danmark

After four whirlwind days in Denmark, I can report the following. 

Every restaurant in Denmark must post a smiley face or a frowny face on its website to reflect the results of its latest health inspection. 

Since we’re on the topic of food, my dinner recommendation for Copenhagen is to spend $40 or $50 per person at whatever restaurant you choose, then go to a supermarket and buy some crackers, cheese, a mini bottle of wine and a chocolate bar to complete the meal. This has worked just fine for me every night.

Yesterday I went to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, making it my third positive learning experience of the trip. I actually really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. It is the most visited modern art museum in all of Scandinavia.  It’s about 50 miles from Copenhagen, so you also get to see a lot of the countryside just getting there. 

And it is on the ocean, so even if you’re not into art, you will enjoy the scenery.

The art is very conceptual and, at times, beautiful and clever, and really makes you think. This is from one of the exhibitions. Is it just a locked door? Or is it a clever way to blur the distinction between functionality and our own perceptions of what is and is not accessible to us, challenging our self-imposed limitations and assumptions that unnecessarily diminish the richness of our interactions with the world surrounding us?* 

But I had no time to focus on that because after the museum, I was off to Roskilde, the original Viking capital of Denmark, located on a fjord, which makes it easy to go out on “burn and pillage” trips whenever you like (Roskilde fjord pictured below).

I had a nice cheese and cracker dinner last night and this morning went to Malmo, Sweden, which is described as being like Stockholm, but with a Copenhagen vibe, whatever that means. But it is technically another country, so there’s that.

A quick walk around town tomorrow morning for a $20 coffee and pastry, and then back to Spain.

*It was just a locked door. I tried it.

Day 32 - Godmorgen

Since Spain is pretty much closed down for Holy Week, I made last-minute plans to hop over to Copenhagen, Denmark, which brought us Lego, Carlsberg beer, teak furniture, $7 cups of coffee, coed bathrooms, and blue eyes.

Some observations based on the in-depth knowledge I’ve acquired in one day.

These relief sculptures above the main door of the Danish parliament, show people in anguish and pain, which are meant to symbolize the utter misery involved in trying to get laws passed. No sugar coating here.

This is a highly bike-centric place, with 600,000 people and 700,000 bikes. When it snows, the city government clears the bike lanes before they clear the car lanes.

The food is very pretty.

Everything is really expensive. I found a decent hotel and minimized the cost by choosing a room categorized on the hotel website as “tiny.” Which it definitely is. This is the bathroom, which is actually just one large shower with a sink and toilet in it. You have to plan out the sequence of your bathroom activities because after a shower the bathroom is too wet to use for anything. Hey, I’m on a budget.

But the deep thought for today is this. Our tour guide this morning kept emphasizing how happy Danish people are, with their fantastic lifestyles, their candles and their hygge (look it up if you’re not familiar with the term). But during the tour she also mentioned that there is one state-sanctioned religion, which the government supports financially so they have services every Sunday even if no one shows up, all of the schools, both public and private, teach the same state-approved curriculum using the same text books, the population is 20% immigrant but most of the immigrants come from other European countries, and 80% of the laws are passed with unanimous consent. Not judging at all here, but there’s also something to be said for messy. 

Yes, there really are coed bathrooms. Get used to it.

Day 27 - Calçot Edition

For a while now, I have desperately wanted to participate in a calçotada, which is something only done in Catalunya and only in the spring. Picture that in Februaryish, the sun starts shining a little more, the early spring flowers start to poke up out of the ground, and townspeople all over the province pull large spring onions (calçots) out of the ground, gather over open fires, grill the onions on large grates placed directly in the flames, then peel them, dip them in romesco sauce and eat them communally accompanied by shots of vermouth, music and socializing.

In all of these years of travelling to Spain, this is the only trip that found me in Catalunya in more or less calçot season so, determined to do this thing, I set out to find a calçotada. The first challenge I discovered was that calçotadas, for which one needs tickets purchased in advance, are organized by neighborhood associations, which are basically a bunch of retired men who sit around all day playing dominoes. This means that there are no online ticket sales or credit cards. You have to go to the neighborhood association, interrupt the domino game and buy tickets with cash. So I went to some neighborhood associations and learned all the different ways to say “we’re sold out” in Spanish.

There are restaurants that serve calçots, but that really wasn’t the vibe I was looking for, so I spent hours scouring the web to find a suitable calçotada, aware of the fact that time was ticking because once you get into March, the season starts to peter out.

On the verge of tapping out, I was thrilled to find a farmer’s market in another part of Barcelona that was going to cook and serve calçots in the traditional way last Saturday starting at 11:00 and going all afternoon. I counted the minutes to Saturday morning and showed up at 11:30, to find this.

But the guy, sensing the desperation in my voice, told me that they were going to be there one more time for the season this past Saturday and that if I showed up at around 10:00 to get in line, some calçots would surely be there for me (with the added benefit that Martha would be there too).

Long story short, everything worked out for the best and my dream came true. Was it an amazing experience or just some crappy grilled onions dipped in canned sauce? No reason it can’t be both.