As I sit in the Copenhagen Central Station awaiting my train to Stockholm I feel the urge to reflect upon Copenhagen, while I eat a shrimp and egg breakfast sandwich. Little shrimps are on everything here. No complaints! I had a lot of fun in this city. Stayed out much later than I am accustomed to. Part of that is that I’m on holiday so no worries about getting up for work. Also nobody does ANYTHING before 10pm, and generally much later. The Danes are a friendly bunch and I always seemed to get adopted, so I never felt alone. Kind of like I felt in Ireland. So I returned home when they did. Thankfully this is a very safe city and there are many people still out at 4am. My hosts were very nice. Didn’t see much of them unfortunately, but we did have some very interesting conversations over coffee. He was Danish and she was Indian, so English was their home language. Their neighborhood was very diverse and lively. Although nicknamed Little Arabia due to all the Middle Easterners, there were also many young Danes, Indians, Africans, and Chinese in the neighborhood. Moreover everyone appeared to get along very well. My hosts told me that while there of course are some tensions, news about foreigners trying to take over Denmark are completely untrue and spouted by right-wing ultra nationalists blowhards. I understood that!
I’ll miss Copenhagen, but now I look forward to Sweden. The booze is supposedly much more expensive there, so I don’t think I’ll be partying as much, which is good I suppose. I need sleep. I hope Swedes don’t smoke as much as the Danes do. I’m running out of clothes already!
On the train ride to Stockholm and my airbnb host contacted me saying he made a mistake, he can only host me one night, instead of 2. Last minute crises come with the territory when traveling, just have to be flexible. I had half a mind to cancel the full reservation but it is cheap, so I went on hotels.com found a reasonably affordable hotel nearby and booked it. Thank God for the Internet and my iPad. Anyway, back to thinking about Denmark over Swedish meatballs. It occurred to me I hadn’t really discussed the food. Funny, that’s usually what I’m all about. Truth is my stomach has not been the same since my brutal virus last month and the traveling didn’t help. Today is the first day I was really hungry. Of course I did eat though. As I’m alone I didn’t want to dine in a restaurant. There is something sad about sitting in a table by oneself in a foreign land. So I opted for street food and market food, which in Denmark may be the way to go. It seems quick food is what they do here. Their specialty is an open faced sandwich called a smorrebrod. Generally it has a meat, cheese, some kind of vegetable, maybe an egg, and lots of mayonnaise or horseradish on homemade bread. It looks small but it is quite filling. You don’t eat them with your hands but a fork and knife. My favorite was a shrimp and mayo one, piled very high. The Danish don’t skimp on the shrimp. I also threw caution to the wind and ordered a bowl of small fried fish, a big thing there, but looks nasty. I got a bowl of tiny whole fried fish looking like a school that died while squirming. Once I got over the sight, which was helped by the cava I drank with it, I dived in. No matter how many I ate, the pile never seemed to get smaller. I didn’t hate it. It was very salty, maybe even too much for me and that’s saying something. I ate as much as I could but had to give up eventually, since obviously some Danish Jesus pulled a miracle on that bowl. The Danish do love their fried whitefish though. It was everywhere and one of the smorrebrods I had featured 2 fillets, caviar, and other goodies on bread. That was DELICIOUS! Finally, after being scolded for not having a hot dog in Iceland, despite the fact I don’t even eat them in America, I decided to forgo the ridicule and have one in Denmark, which competes with Iceland over the world’s best hot dog. For some reason the Nordics are fascinated by the hot dog. Anyway, I ordered one wrapped in bacon, because as we all know bacon wrapping anything makes it better. It was put in a fresh roll, and topped with mustard and cucumbers. Yes cukes are also on everything here. Strange. After sampling a bite with the cukes, I removed the remainder since I generally don’t enjoy them and just relished (pun intended) the dog. It was tasty. Quite different than American dogs, thicker, fresher tasting. It did not convert me into a hot dog believer though. I just dabbled. So that’s my food review. My train ride Swedish meatballs were surprisingly good, but can I even count those? Maybe I’ll have real ones in Stockholm.