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.