i heart denmark

the danes love hearts (there are even hearts on their coins), elephants and their royals!

we started the day bright and early at noon by watching the changing of the guards. this put us right near the waterfront where the little mermaid sits on her rock. in the 5 minutes we spent there, attempting to apprecite the sculpture, no less than 3 tour buses pulled up, snapped their pictures and waddled back onto the bus. we were only just able to get a photo of our own before i wanted to throw the middle aged, pushy, obnoxious tourists off the rocks. little did i know this would be an ongoing theme throughout the vacation...

by this point in the day, we were starving (also a theme on the vacation) so i got my first danish street vendor sausage. it was a unique experience, ending in some very spicy mustard that may have made me cry just a little.. then it was onto the (very clean and new) subway and heading for carlsberg brewery, because what better way to get to know about the danes than to learn about their brew? it was actually a pretty extensive place, but self-guided so you could skip to the good parts: the stables (to see all the massive, special beer horses) and the bar (for the two free drinks). we tried two wheat beers, but were generally unimpressed with the lack of flavour. i'm a little bummed i am missing tuborg's famous christmas beer, too.

after a few pics with the giant stone elephants, we were off home to start dinner for the hall, where i chopped lots and lots of tomatoes for a taco/burrito-like meal accompanied by lots of chatter. unfortunately, i didn't understand 98% of it, but it was still good times.