Melancholy Danes

Internet, help me. Now there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. And it is not a murdered king and his melancholy son with the suicidal girlfriend.

OK, I had to go see Hamlet’s castle because all my friends back home keep asking me about it. So, there you go, that’s it. Pretty impressive, no? I have to say the gift shop was sort of disappointing because it was a little too tasteful. I did buy an Elsinore fridge magnet which wasn’t quite the Ophelia mouse pad I was hoping for but it’s better than nothing. They did have an Ophelia pretty princess outfit that came with it’s own little pink castle:

And Helsingor is a cozy little town, full of Swedes visiting from across the water, come to buy cheaper alcohol in Denmark. This is a little monument to Sweden I found at the waterfront.

Back on my bike in Copenhagen after my journey to Helsingor, I took a wrong turn on some gade or strade and ended up in front of this butcher shop:

Not to be silly, but I could not tell if butt was the name of the butcher or if the store specialized in a particular Danish rear-end specialty that I didn’t know about. I went inside the tiny, spotless shop and the cases were empty because it was the end of the day and everything was sold out.

This is Ibrahim Butt and he is the proud owner of the Butt Butcher. He is Pakistani and he opened the store about 6 months ago after being in Denmark 15 years. Ibrahim speaks Danish, English, Hindi and Urdu and as we talked of sausages, I heard a bird singing in the next room. I asked him what kind of bird it was and he said “a little brown one”. I asked, "is it your pet?" He smiled and said no. I asked "Is it your dinner?" And he laughed and said "no, it belongs to a friend and I am just taking care of the bird." "You’re babysitting the bird?" He smiled and said "yes, babysitting, people leave things sometimes for me to take care of." I knew exactly what he was talking about.

This is Deb in the City on the babysitting continuum saying farvel, goodbye, rama rama and salaam from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Modern Danish

Hi internet, I’m still here living the good life, Danish style. Fifty per cent taxes on income seem high to me but in THe United States, my thirty per cent income tax pays to bail out failing banks and brokerage houses. Hey I'll gladly pay fifty per cent to have free education, cradle-to-grave universal healthcare and incredible minimalist teak furniture!

So today I was roaming around town on my bicycle while the child was at school and the other thing I really love about Copenhagen is that I can go practically anyplace on my bicycle which gives even a trip to the Irma Supermarket a feeling of great adventure.

Anyhow I was stopped at light and saw a fruit stand and the strawberries were calling to me so I parked and picked up a box and as I was paying, I saw some things I did not recognize as edible:

The nice woman at the stand, Pia explained to me that these were fresh hazelnuts and that they were in season now along with the strawberries. I have never eaten a hazelnut fresh before so Pia gave me a lesson in how to get the nut out of the elaborate wrapping and then she clobbered the shell with a cobblestone and presented me with the delicious fresh nut inside. Pia also told me I should watch my bag because there are a lot of “pocketpicks”. It was so adorable, I did not have the heart to correct her English.

Then I got a little lost of course since I’m still having a hard time with the street signs which number one are so tiny and number two Danish has three bonus letters that we don't have in English. Lost though I was, I found this amazing store:

Store is not quite the right word because really it is more like a museum inside.

This is Connie and she and her husband run Herold's Varehus. She is the fourth family generation to operate the store and some of the stock in the place is actually from the original Herold that opened the place. Connie says that people from the national theatre and various museums come all the time to buy old toys and paper decorations and all the other amazing things she sells.

For instance, I bought Mr. and Mrs. Viking paper dolls which Connie told me were from Norway but then she reminded me that Norway used to be part of Denmark, back in the day. I guess the United States used to be part of England back in the day and a lot of countries went through that British Empire phase. The British even left some souvenirs behind here in Copenhagen

This cannonball is stuck right in the wall of a building from 1736 where it landed in the Sankt Gertrud Strade when it was shot by the British Fleet when they shelled Copenhagen in 1807. I found it hard to believe that there was no museum built around this little piece of history or a whole theme park like it would have back in the States.

Speaking of history, we did manage to elect the first African-American president in the US so it was kind of hard to leave the just when things are starting to get good. But I have been able to ease my pain with special Danish treats that nobody back home is having:

This is a Superflyer, a true Danish treat. I know it would sound perfectly obvious to any Danish person but the idea of ice cream with two salty licorice sticks inside and covered with frozen licorice is just not a flavor combo that’s crossed the Atlantic. Sadly for my fellow Americans.

This is Deb in the City saying so long from Denmark where herring is for breakfast, hazelnuts are eaten raw and licorice goes on ice cream and they’re all delicious.

I heart KBH

Hello there internet. Welcome to Deb in the City. I am Deb and I am going to show you my city here on my blog. OK, I know it is a vlog because it’s video but the word vlog sounds like it’s going to be a hot spiced wine drink and not something to do with the internet.

Deb in the City is my new coping mechanism since I’ve had a little stress lately because I just moved and I can’t say I saw this one coming but I now live in Copenhagen. And I mean Copenhagen, Denmark not Copenhagen the tiny town in northern New York State. Denmark is way more fabulous.

I get to live in this amazing house:

OK, it’s not in Copenhagen exactly but it’s in Hellerup, near the beach. It has 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and a Jacuzzi in each one. This domicile is small compared to the house in the United States where I moved from

This is one design area that we do better in the USA: ugly and extravagant. The Danish idea of luxury is so much more modest and everyone is very, very patient with me even when they don’t quite understand when I want to be excessive. But it’s comforting for Americans to overdo things.

So, I moved here without knowing too much about Denmark, besides what I gleaned from Hamlet and that Hamlet was really upset and thought that there was something rotten here. I know that was a long time ago but really, I have not seen one rotten thing since I’ve been here.

Oh, I knew about Danish ham that we were given as a very, very special treat when I was a kid. "It’s from Europe", my mother used to say with great respect in her voice.

And of course like every American, I knew about the pastry named for an entire people, the breakfast Danish. My first day here I marched myself into this bakery:

which is called the layer cake house in English (how fantastic is that?) and I asked the nice woman at the counter for a Danish and she did not understand so I pointed to this:

and she said "oh, you want a Vienna bread!" But in Vienna, they call them "Kopenhagener Gebäck", according to herre google. Or is it fru google? Is Google a lady or a man?

As a nanny, it’s pretty important for me to understand the landscape and vocabulary of pastry and cake and cookies when I’m dealing with an eight year old. Because when nothing else will solve a crisis, sweets can put any disagreement to rest. Sugar is the great tranquilizer.

This is Deb in the City, saying goodbye from Copenhagen, Denmark the number one place where European businesspeople want to be stationed, the number one most livable city in the world, and the world’s best design city.

Global Village

Internet, my constant companion, help me please. Deb in the City is at the end of her nanny rope and not even these,

which are the Greek version of Timbits that I bought on the Danforth can soothe my frazzled constitution.

The Child has gone to a new level of internal combustion and her deadbeat dad is giving me no love in the parental guidance department. But, she is just a little girl and I am supposedly the responsible, mature adult. In an effort to bury the hatchet and smoke a peace pipe (which are probably both politically questionable euphemisms) I went out to find something to try and make her happy.

And I ended up over in Kensington Market at this amazing store, La Perola. They sell all necessary staples of life from Latin America and pretty quickly I found what I was looking for.

Fresh cactus paddles, 2.49 a pound. As gringa nanny I am unequipped to deal with the thorny issue, haha, but lucky for me safety cactus comes in a jar. I can’t take the kid to Mexico to see her dad but I can bring a little of Mexico to her. I hope it works.

Walking through Kensington is like waiting for someone at the international arrivals terminal at Pearson Airport. The stores sell products from many meridians of the globe and it’s possible to go from Portugal to Somalia to Jamaica in less than a city block.

Patty King called to the blood sugar spike I was negotiating after the last of the Greekbits and I went inside looking for a nice savory vegetable patty or maybe some doubles.

At the counter, I ordered a patty with cocoa bread from this lady

Her name is Ann and she’s been at the Patty King for about six months. She immigrated from Viet Nam to Canada a few years ago and she works with an efficient crew of Viet Namese ladies who own and operate the bakery, making traditional Caribbean foods. Ann says she missed Viet Nam when she first got here but now she doesn’t want to go back. Now, this is home.

This is Deb in the City, saying yassou, adios, goodbye and tam biet from Toronto, where home might have been someplace else but is here now.

Toronto The Good

Hello internet. I am still Deb and you have clicked once more upon my blog Deb in the City. I know this is technically speaking a vlog because it’s video but I can’t say the word vlog without feeling silly. It sounds like the brand name for the new ugly shoe of the season. As in: "dude, I know they look funny but my vlogs are soooo comfortable."

Deb in the City is my new coping mechanism since my friends did an intervention on me and took away all my scrapbooking stuff. See, I’ve had a little more stress than usual lately because I just moved, which according to the interweb is the third most stressful thing you can do after getting divorced and dying.

I can’t fully absorb it but I now live in Canada. Toronto, Ontario to be exact. It is fantastic here, truly but arriving and settling has been a workout. And the Canadians are nice about immigrants. Look, we have our own magazine.

Stress aside, Toronto is an amazing place. I get to live in a fantastic house:

OK, It’s not actually in Toronto proper but in the GTA. Richmond Hill, to be exact. Brand new house, where a bungalow once stood. The march of progress.

So, when I first got here I was really excited to go skating immediately at Nathan Philips Square with all the other new immigrants and I was shocked to discover that there is no ice in May. Contrary to my dumb Amercian notions about Canada, it is not perpetual winter here.

Slightly crestfallen, I decided to soothe my Yankee sensibility and went to go look for something to buy. I got on the wrong streetcar and got totally lost and ended up here:

Did I go inside? You bet I did! Honest Ed’s is an amazing discount-shopping parallel reality, with a fantastic show biz glitz design going on. Ed’s sells just about anything you would need to set up your life on a sturdy foundation of useful products at a deep discount. And sold in a unique florescent light slash neon and chaser light setting.

Groceries and sporting goods! Meat and furniture! Maple syrup in the adorable leaf-shaped bottle!

It’s incredibly tidy in Ed’s and as a nanny that deals with child-induced clutter on a pandemic basis, the neat rows of everything put a smile on my face. I spent ten bucks at Ed’s and left with a huge bag of useful discount joy.

This is Deb in the City saying so long from Toronto, Ontario, where the two official languages are French and English but if you have to call 911, the city can respond to you in over 150 languages.

Aw, Sugar, Aw, Honey Honey

Hi, Deb in the City here, coming at you from Ontarie-arie-arie-o. OK, I’ve been trying hard to get my Canadian on and I’ve signed up for curling lessons for the fall. Very exciting! But in the meantime, I found these:

These little hunks of friend dough heaven are what are called Timbits and they are one of Canada’s culinary gifts to humanity. Dangerously bite-sized and lethally delicious, it is possible to polish off a whole box of these suckers on Hockey Night in Canada before Don Cherry has given his first period intermission report.

Today I was over on Bloor west in Koreatown and found another amazing tasty haven. This gentleman is Kim

in front of the amazing machine that makes Korean walnut cakes which are like the unofficial snack cake of Korea. They are frighteningly delicious and I’m thankful that Kim’s bakery is far from home because they are deelish, reasonably priced, hot, fresh and plentiful:

Like a Timbit, Korean style, filled with a half a walnut and red bean paste or sweet potato. Kim’s machine makes 1500 cakes an hour. Kimbits!

I wandered back downtown on the subway, happily hands-free to devour my Tim-and-Kim bits. I got off at the King Street stop by mistake instead of St. Andrew but realized that I could just walk underground in the PATH system.

Now, I don’t want to sound like a spoiled American who needs a GPS device to get anywhere, but is that system confusing or what? It’s like an underground shopping labyrinth, where all the landmarks are nearly identical. There are several food courts with stalls named things like Mr. Wok, Mr. Sub and Mr. Sushi and I swear I went past this same lottery stand four times.

And yeah, I did buy a 649 ticket each pass. OK, I know I have poor impulse control when I’m unsupervised. I was lost in the PATH for so long, the jackpot went from 14 to 16 million dollars by the time I finally climbed back up to street level. I headed south to the foot of Jarvis at the lake.

Tracing my sugar binge to the source, I ended up at the Redpath Refinery where there is a most fantastic sugar museum in the administrative part of the factory. It traces the history of the sugar industry in Canada, covering sugar import, modern refinery and extinct sugars, like beet sugar.

The sugar hut is awe-inspiring, a huge unassuming steel structure on the lake from the outside but filled to the ceiling with 10,000 tonnes of raw sugar in the inside. The air was misty with sweetness and before my pancreas conked out entirely and stopped producing insulin, I booked it out of there.

This is Deb in the City, parting, which is such sweet sorrow, from Toronto, Upper Canada, the former beet sugar capital of North America.

chino latino

OK, internet, ayude me, ayude me! Deb has reached her maximum tolerance for vigilancia de la niña. She is driving me crazy and her father is no help and so before I dress her a pretty little red cape and send her to the bulls, I have to do something.

So, I went to find something to make her happy. To try, anyway. I asked around but there are not really any stores in Salamanca that are Mexican. But lucky for me, Mexican food is now an international treat and so at the hipermercato Carrefour, I found tortillas de trigo, wheat tortillas. Made in Belgium, hecho en Belgica! I can’t take the kid to have a burrito with her dad in Mexico but I can bring a burrito to her. I hope it works.

Afterwards, I was in town and walking around looking at more old stuff and I wandered into the Las Duenas Convent, seeking spiritual comfort.

It is very serene and calm inside the convent but even better the Dominican nuns have a gift shop that sells their baked goods! Finally, spiritual enlightenment through cookies. I bought a box of the most heavenly almond cookies, galletas de almendras. Since they are made by nuns, they are heavenly in all senses of the word. Y sin manteca!

Then in front of Casa de las Conchas, another cookie epiphany.

This gentleman is selling chicarros. They are fragile and delicate straw-shaped cookies and they are not sold in stores. He told me he is perhaps the last street vendor of this cookie. He also sells obleas, the flat ones that are remind me of holy wafers from church. Another heavenly cookie.

As difficult as life is, I can’t eat only cookies so I stopped in for some lunch at this place, El Café Te Pacifico.

It is a Chinese restaurant run by a Buddhist family from Taiwan. Since they are Buddhist, they are vegetarian so I had a Chinese style pork bun that was made with vegetable pork! In Salamanca, with so much good pork this is nearly heretical but I must say, the bun was delicious.

Yi came to Salamanca and fell in love with the city and culture and decided to stay. He and his wife have two kids and they teach Mandarin to children who have been adopted from the Chinese speaking world, so that they can retain their mother language. They give these classes for free.

Yi’s son entertained everyone in the restaurant by trying to teach us words in Mandarin. I told him that Spanish was still difficult for me to understand. This woman told him it was too hard for her to pronounce Chinese and he smiled and said, "Oh come on, it’s easy!"

This is Deb in the City, saying goodbye from Salamanca, Spain where Spanish is hard and so is Chinese, depending on how you look at it.

Viva Jamon!

OK I have good news. According to El Google, Santa Concordia is the patron saint of nannies! Sadly, Santa Concordia is not Spanish and does not live in Salamanca but I’m very happy to know that the catholics have nannies covered in the saint department.

Today I was in town and discovered the other religion of Salamanca when I passed this beautiful stadium:

I thought it was for futbol or maybe Flamenco Dancing with the Stars or something. Que boba! No one dances with stars here, but there is dancing, the dance of death, le corrida. Sadly I have to wait until September when the bullfights begin.

But there is plenty of bull activity anyway because Salamanca is where the best bulls are born and raised. I drove outside of town and found this place:

Dehesa de Rodesviejas where they grow the bulls. The youngsters are so cute! Look! Mira!

Just like little kids. And they are domesticated animals. Just like kids. As a nanny, I thought a little bit of bullfighting might teach me a thing or two about dealing with beasts. At the finca, they let me go for a capea, which is an amateur bullfight.

I don’t want to brag but they said I have some talent. I did not get the ear of the little bull, but I made my entrance, first try. Beginner’s luck.

Salamanca is very proud of its bulls. But, Salamantinos are also proud of another animal, the pig. Pata negra, or in other words, the best ham in the world, comes from the province of Salamanca and the region raises special black pigs, that eat acorns and produce premier ham or jamon and pork or puerco products.

The culture of jamon is incredible here. Jamon is everywhere.

There is even a special bag to carry your jamon in that you can buy at the supermarket:

Ham is so dominant actually, that it is pretty hard to find things to eat without ham in them. Even cookies.

I was enjoying my afternoon cafecito con mantecados the other day, and I started thinking it's funny because manteca is the word for lard. Yes, that’s what makes them so good.

This is Deb in the City, saying goodbye from Salamanca, España, the cerda, cochina, puerco, marrano, conchinilla y lechon capitol of the universe.

Viva España

Hello internet. My name is Deb and you have clicked on my blog, Deb in the City. Do you use the word blog in Spanish? Probably El Blog, no? Or La Blog? Blogs are girls or boys? No se.

Anyway, Deb in the City is my new coping mechanism since my doctor said I should stop eating churros. See, I never expected this but now I have moved to Spain and I live in Salamanca. It’s fantastic here but a little stressful because my Spanish is so terrible and everyone here speaks such a pure Castellano. It’s embarrassing because in the United States a lot of people speak Spanish and I only know enough to negotiate the laundromat. It’s pathetic, no? OK, don’t answer that.

But I live in a fantastic house.

It’s a luxury green farmhouse. Green means it’s friendly to the environment. The water of the three jacuzzis is recycled. Very ecological. This house balances out the other house, the one in Mallorca:

We go here on the weekends with all the other Americans and waste a lot of water together. It’s comforting for us.

Salamanca is probably the most beautiful city I have ever seen. So well-made and old. Everything here is really old to me as an American.

The new cathedral for instance, is older than the United States. Salamanca and Spain have profound history. The United States has “classic” rock.

And Salamanca has many many religious and folkloric traditions which I hope to see. Like El Colacha near Burgos.

This man, dressed as the devil jumps over babies to cleanse them of their evil. Because babies are so evil.

Sadly, I came too late for Holy Week this year so I will have to wait. But the Virgen de la Vega festival is coming

so I will get to see my first procession and my first Virgen. Spain has a lot of different processions and a lot of different Virgens.

And the Spainsh are a balanced people and so that everything in Salamnca is not all just virgen, virgen, virgen there is also llunes de aguas festival which is after Easter, to commemorate when the prostitutes are invited back to Salamanca after being exiled across the river for Lent.

I hope that maybe there is a festival and procession for nannies or at least a patron saint of nannies that I can pray to here in Salamanca.

This is Deb saying goodbye from Salamanca, Spain la ciudad dorado, the Golden City.