einen Hafen anlaufen

Ever since I lived next door to a Dane, I've always found Danish men mysteriously attractive.

For me the Danes are the epitome of European manliness. Maybe it's the conspicuous amount of facial and chest hair, maybe it's their smokey language where they sound like they are trying to clear their throat and talk simultaneously, or maybe it's the nautical vibe they give off. Regardless, I hear “Danish” and I think “MAN!”

The fact that the Danes invented Legos doesn't hurt their case either.

Over Memorial Day weekend, David and I decided to take a trip to Copenhagen. Copenhagen in Danish is København, which translates as “merchant's harbor.” Today's phrase means “to put into harbor.”

Looking at a map, you may think that getting to Copenhagen would be easy for me since I am right next to the place. You would be half right. The journey itself is not hard, but it's long. The first leg of the journey is a ferry from Rostock to the town of Trelleborg, Sweden. I don't speak Swedish, nor do I intend to learn, but the phoenetics of Swedish are totally beyond me. “Trelleborg” for instance does not rhyme with morgue, but rather with glory....I found myself thinking of the Swedish Chef from the muppets the entire time I was in Sweden. He actually approximates Swedish quite well.

This scene essentially played out before our eyes in the bus station

The ferry ride started at 10pm and took 6 hours, during which time David and I planned on sleeping, which we did, with gusto. We slept so long in fact that we almost took the ferry back to Germany. After this near miss, we stumbled through Trelleborg to find the bus station. Upon reaching the bus station we were greeted by a small flock of chickens who seem to have free reign at the bus station. No bullshit there were easily 15 chickens in this place.

Cock of the walk, indeed

Then we heard this weird call from some animal, and since we had 20 minutes to wait, we went to investigate. This is what we found.

Yes. That's right, we found chickens and a damned peacock in the bus station. You can't make this shit up, people!

Taking our leave of our feathered friends (read: ravenous beasts) we departed for Malmö, Sweden, where we would grab a train to Copenhagen. Malmö was finally a normal town, like it had pigeons and magpies, not chickens and peacocks, in the train station.

We arrived around 9am in Copenhagen and set to work checking the city out. But not before David enjoyed a good sit in the complimentary couch in the train station.

We've been doing lice and scabies checks ever since we took the picture.

Walking down the main drag in Copenhagen was pretty run of the mill. That is, until we realized that we had unintentionally picked the weekend of Copenhagen Carnival for our trip. So I heard some kick-ass music and naturally started walking in that direction, and what did I discover?

Showgirls. That's what I discovered.

Naturally, a drag queen was there too.

And then the Peruvians...holding Danish flags.

Once we got off the main drag, Copenhagen got a lot more beautiful. First of all the city is absolutely full of bikes. Children on bikes, old people on bikes, bikes with cargo containers, bikes with strollers. The bike lanes in Copenhagen are wider than the traffic lanes. I don't know if it has to do with the bike riding or not, but the Danish men wear some damned short shorts. My jaw hung open the entire weekend. Think Daisy Duke, but provocative. I was pleased with the fashion choices of the Danes.

This was the parking lot at a fairly small train stop.

Also, I don't know why exactly, but the architecture of Copenhagen is very pretty. I mean, of all the things I expected to be nice looking in Copenhagen, somehow the buildings weren't the first. It's certainly modern, but it doesn't look like an art school project; it looks smart, but progressive. It all seems very forward looking, but without losing a sense of classical style.

The half-timbered house style, seems to be the exception, not the rule.

David and I did the city totally on foot. Now David grew up on Sicily, which means that his olivine skin is impervious to sunburns. I, on the other hand, after a year in north Germany, have the complexion of a naked mole rat. So these two marvelous days in Copenhagen left me with a killer sunburn. That's right, I travel to fucking Scandinavia and return with a sunburn. Still Copenhagen is a very walkable city. The one thing that people kept on recommending that we see was this Mermaid Statue in the north part of the city, so we set out to visit her. Two hours later, we arrive, and the statue is choked with Japanese tourists. Now I'm thinking this must be a nice-ass statue. I finally cut through the crowd, and the statue is about 3 feet tall and is some pitiful little mermaid just siting there. Not doing a backflip, not swimming, not even emoting. Just sitting there. I was so crestfallen that I refused to take a picture of the hoe.

David and I also checked out the hippie commune of Christiania. It's kind of a cool place. You're not allowed to take pictures, so sorry about that in advance. The main “street” in Christiania is called Pusher Street, for obvious reasons. The last thing the hash dealers want is photo evidence of their merchandise. It's a cool area though. I was getting a contact high just walking through the grocery store there with these people.

On Monday, we retraced our route back to Rostock, but I spent the entire weekend looking for this picture in Copenhagen:

Something's rotten in the state of Denmark!

Oh and finally, we got to see sunset on the Baltic sea, which was gorgeous.