Nothing Rotten in this State..

Firstly, I'm painfully aware that the title of this post is pretty unimaginative for a blog about my recent trip to Denmark, but I've wracked my brains and the aul' mental punometer is clearly busted. However, hopefullly this fact is overshadowed by the fact that my blog for once has a purpose, in that it is the closest I'll ever get to a Brysonesque travelogue on a country I've visited. Oh, and like the majority of my blog posts so far, this is pretty lengthy, so feel free to dip in and out.

So to Denmark, land of Carlsberg, Lego and moody Shakespearean princes. I was visiting a mate of mine from Dublin, who has been forced to move abroad for work, like so many sons of Ireland in the late eighties. But that's a blog for another day. Thanks to him, I was able to gain a greater insight into the people and their outlook on life, as opposed to merely working my way through the Lonely Planet Guidebook. Which I also did.

Getting from Ä to B
Not unlike Kate Moss, Copenhagen is geometrically well-designed and relatively flat. Therefore, the place is tailor-made for cycling. My mate Ross explained as much and showed me all the spacious cycle lanes, bike-specific road-crossing signs, and the variety hand signals used to communicate with fellow cyclists. Then he told me how he got drunk once and cycled into the wall of a tunnel. Some risks you just can't mitigate I suppose. In summary, if you do want to see as much of the city as possible in a short space of time, rent a bike. Word of warning, don't rent from the same place as I did (a shop halfway down Tagsvej); as they handed me the bike, I observed its lack of crossbar and overly-sized front basket and couldn't help but ask the proprietor if Angela Lansbury knew that he was hiring her bicycle out to tourists.

The Grub
The Danes are fiercely proud of their adherence to a healthy diet. Compared to other European capital cities, there are therefore very few fast food outlets. I counted only about three McDonalds, two Burger Kings, one Subway, a KFC and, that jewel in the crown of high street fast foodery, Burgerlicious (nope, me neither). Not bad for a European capital. For a taste of the local fare, try the danishes, bacon or Danish bacon.

The Culture

The principal cultural concept I learned about Denmark is something called hygge (pronounced, hugglgklklklklklglglggrggle) which is a notion of 'cosiness' that the Danes embrace. It's exemplified by the Danes placing candles in their window at night and gathering together in the warmth. What a charming concept...I'm not even going to make a joke out of it.

The nightlife is also vibrant enough, as you'd expect from a European capital. On my last night in Copenhagen, I headed to a jazz club- suspiciously like any jazz club anywhere else in the world- where the atmosphere was great and the locals very friendly. As the jazz trio finished up their set with stalker's favourite I'll Be Seeing You, I thought of how great a city Copenhagen was. It's just a pity that you have to take out a second mortgage to buy a few rounds of drinks.

The People

The people are very friendly with an very dry sense of humour. They may not be as outwardly warm as say, the Oirish (cocks head and does a little jig) but once you get to know them, they prove themselves incredibly inclusive and welcoming.

The Danish are also an aesthetically-blessed bunch. Most probably a side effect of their healthy diet and tendency to cycle everywhere, the majority of Copenhagen's population are noticeably healthy-looking. This phased me slightly one day: I was standing at the corner of Nørrebrogade when a trio of extremely attractive women cycled by, and in light of their collective beauty I couldn't help but mutter aloud "Jaysis, Mary and Joseph." Unfortunately, they heard me and I had to feign that old staple of the removing-foot-from-mouth canon, the Faked Phone Call. I put the phone to my ear, looked to the ground and spoke to an imaginary person as the women cycled away, no doubt shaking their heads at the ways of leery tourists.

The Lingo
On first hearing it, the Danish language sounds exactly like the English language, only spoken backwards. There's not a great need to learn phrases as the entire country speaks fluent English (primarily through saturation of US television rather than any feat of the education system), but it doesn't hurt to say tag (thank you) every now and again. And try not to giggle when you see signs in shop windows advertising slutspil (sale) or slutspurt (closing-down sale).

Money Money Money

It's no secret that Copenhagen is an expensive place: the first bar we went to, we were charged the equivalent of about £12 for two pints of Tuborg, the local tipple. I politely asked the bartender to put the gun down, take the balaclava off his head and stop feckin ROBBING me. But alas, that's simply the way it is. I just counted my blessings that I wasn't in Stockholm, from where the Swedes make a regular pilgrimage to avail of Denmark's cheaper beer prices.

And the funny thing is, you can currently buy six cans of Tuborg in Dublin for five euro: viva la difference.

The Sights

Here's the touristy bit. Just around Strøget (apparently the largest pedestranised shopping street in the world) is the Round Tower (Rundetarn). I wasn't disappointed: it is certainly a tower, and one that is decidedly cylindrical in shape. However, from speaking with the locals, the best place to see the city is actually from the Church of Our Saviour in Christianshavn. But at four hundred steps to the top of the spire, you might be tempted to take a leaf out of my book and say 'Fook that'.

Given Copenhagen's location, one of the best ways to see the sights and get an idea of the city's history is by taking a boat ride from Nyhavn. This will take you past Christianshavn (largely residential area around the harbour), the impressive Amalienborg (home of the Danish royal family) and Christiansbourg (which houses the Danish parliament). Copenhagen is also home to the world-famous Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park which is ideal for a romantic afternoon, but quite sad if you're all on your lonesome (trust me, I know).

One of the most famous attractions in Copenhagen is of course the Little Mermaid statue. Unfortunately, this has been relocated to China for a nine-month sabbatical. It's been replaced by a giant TV screen which beams a live and continuous image of the statue from Shanghai (I presume the image is continuous to capture the unlikely eventuality of the statue jumping up and doing an impromtu break dance). For such a cultural attraction, it's quite a disappointing replacement; it's the equivalent of going to Paris and finding in place of the Eiffel Tower, a photograph of it sellotaped to a wooden stick. Not to be outdone, I tracked down a nearby statue called the New Mermaid (Den Nye Havfrue), which is an altogether racier interpretation of Hans Christian Anderson's heroine; the statue looks like the bastard lovechild of Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner. A job for Google Images if there ever was one.

And last but not least, no trip to Copenhagen is complete without swinging by the Carlsberg brewery. Even if you're not a fan of beer, the brewery is of extreme cultural economic importance to Denmark since 1847.

Plus you get two free beers at the end. Mmmm (dribble).

The Wrap-up
I've always felt you can tell a lot about a country's inhabitants by their behaviour at pedestrian crossings. In this regard, the Danes are quite an obedient bunch. And this is why Copenhagen's near-Utopian society seems to work so well: nobody appears to take the piss, nobody appears to act out of line, and the crime rate is famously low. In fact, it's a widely acknowledged that the principal duty carried out by the police is penalising those who don't have lights on their bicycles. And that's actually true.

However, there does exist a darker side, one that is covered by few guidebooks. And no, I'm not talking about the usual blights on society like graffiti, binge-drinking or rape of domestic appliances (I observed a man in Christania quite forcibly shagging a washing machine, there's frankly no other explanation). No, the social ill I speak of was brought to my attention by a Norwegian friend of Ross' (Karoline) who told the tale of a young woman who was house-sitting for her parents one winter, not far from Copenhagen. This woman's parents had many weird and wonderful ornaments in their living room, but the woman was particularly creeped out by the lifesize clown doll that was propped up in the corner of the room. The woman rang her mother to ask if she could move it, to which her mother responded: "Get out of the house immediately and ring the police- we don't have a lifesize clown doll". It later transpired that a patient from a nearby mental hospital had recently escaped, donned a clown outfit, climbed in the window of the parents house and just sat there silently in the living room, staring blankly at the young woman.

"I'm completely serious," insisted Karoline at our incredulity. Then she shook her head in resignation and stabbed at the salad on her plate. "I mean, that kind of thing is a real problem in Denmark."

So in summary, Denmark: lovely people, healthy food and a city rich in culture.

It's just a shame about all the psychotic clowns.

You've been warned,

CB