Meat Sleeve > Hot Dog Bun

17052019

Today's stop in Copenhagen, Denmark. My mother scheduled a Segway tour in the afternoon, one that had originally been a shore excursions through the ship, but apparently didn't get enough participants and was cancelled. So in the morning we planned to walk around the Freetown Christiania area and maybe a museum.

Unfortunetely it was pouring, making the walking very unappetizing. We took a cab to the entrance to the microstate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

In addition to the pouring rain, it was like 0800, meaning almost no one was awake, and none of the businesses were open. We only walkend a few hundred yards into the are before we decided to try a museum for the morning activity instead.

On the walk towards the old town we stopped in a bakery to use some wifi and decide on a museum. The place was actively making bread so it smelled delicious, placating some of our frustrations over the weather and the walking.

We decided on the Thorveldsen Museum, as it was in the heart of the museum area, and we could decide on something else while travelling there, and it appeared smaller, which would give us enough time to get back to the port area to hop on the Segway tour.

The museum building itself is spectacular.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorvaldsen_Museum

Every room has different murals on the cieling and different tile patterns on the floor. And obviously they are full of art.

Thorveldsen was a prolific sculptor and many of his final works were presented, and nor interestingly almost all of the surviving plaster test/model scultures were presented.

Marble sculptures typically weren't simply birthed from the imagination and skill of the artist. Typically they would sculpt the figure out of clay, and then make a mold, and then cast the model in plaster. From here the artist would scale it up to the intended final size and use the plaster cast as the model from which they sculpt the marble.

Pretty neat.

After meandering through this museum my mother decided to try and sneak on the noon segway tour as the weather was supposed to get worse in the afternoon. We hopped in a cab back to the cruise terminal area.

Aaand it started raining harder, and the Segway staff was on a different tour. My parents, somewhat defeated, were willing to wait until the 1300 tour (it was then 1130), but were still on the fence all together in participating in the tour as it was raining so hard. Laura and I were not ready to waste 90, minutes of our 6 hours in Copenhagen waiting for a tour that might not even be running. My parents decided to head back to the ship (only a 5 minute walk from here) while Laura and I headed back to the older area of the city.

Our first stop was a hot dog cart. Many years ago Laura came to Denmark with a school trip, and the hotdogs here left a deep impact. I have, prior to this trip, prior to even planning for this trip, heard about the hot dogs. She described them as the most efficient delivery of cased meats to your stomach beyond hot-dog smoothies. Rather than splitting the bun longitudinally placing the sausage, and slathering in condiments, they core out the middle of the bun, squirt the condiments into the bun and slide the sausage into the bun.

It is honestly a superior method, the condiments end up more evenly distributed along the bun/meat, the enclosed bun tends to be less messy, making walking and eating easier. And then the regional advantage of just having good sausages just put it over the top.

While walking and eating said sausage and bread pocket, we heard quite the hubbub nearby, and spotted flares getting launched into the sky. Approaching the fray we realized a Dannish sports team must have won a major event, and writing this several days later, I am still unsure who won what. But the streets were wild, the streets were blocked off by police and there was a sea of people wearing yellow jerseys drinking and singing nationalistic/sport songs. Without Danish currency, or the right colors we just observed.

Laura was physically satisfied by a light meal, and emotionally satisfied by the vindication of 20 year old memories. Which was great cause then I could convince her to come with me to another museum.

I wanted to go to the Danish National Museum.

https://en.natmus.dk/museums-and-palaces/the-national-museum-of-denmark/

This was a really great museum, it was a little busy, it was a rainy weekend, so there were lots of kids around. The museum was accessible to children, but not a kid's museum. The primary section Laura and I walked through traced the life of a Dane from each class of life from 1600-2000.

They had a bunch of artifacts and informational displays (including English). It was very cool following the timeline of the both the lower classes and the aristocracy through the last 400 years, this exhibit naturally moved into a but about the Danish empire. They had small colonies in India, West Africa, the Caribbean and Greenland. And most of the Danish wealth came from a form of triangular trade, slaves from West Africa being taken to the Caribbean to work the plantations, and then raw materials coming back to Europe for sale or manufacturing processes. The museum appropriatly tackled the reprehensible nature of slavery, it wasn't apologist, but it recognized the suffering of the humans being exploited. By this point in the museum we were getting worried about time, and overwhelmed by other patrons, and thusly didn't read every plaquard.

Beyond these two exhibits we also zoomed through Denmark in the Dark and Medieval ages, and about ½ of the special Viking Exhibit.

This museum deserves a second visit. And Conpenhagen deserves another multiday visit.

We’ll be back.

We wandered around town a little more looking for a grocery store to buy another bottle of wine, ultimately got a bottle of French Rose (perfect for a visit to Denmark) and taxied back to the ship.

The rest of the day was uneventul, I'm pretty sure Laura and I fell asleep watching whatever movie the ship was playing.