We are actually back from Paris already. I pre-scheduled the past 8 or so blog entries so that I wouldn’t have to spend any time blogging in Paris. Now that our European adventures are over I can turn to Paris for the next little while. I’ll have some more entries on Denmark in a few weeks. 

On our journey from Copenhagen to Paris we learned three things. First, never trust that your pre-arranged taxi will actually show up. Two, always have a backup plan. And, three, leave yourself more time than you will really need to get to the airport.

We had someone else call in Danish to reserve an early morning taxi for us. They said we were all set, but no taxi was there when scheduled. We waited 15 minutes and then I headed for a pay phone. When I finally got through the person on the other end either couldn’t hear me or they were the only person in Denmark who doesn’t speak English. (I take that back; neither of our Copenhagen taxi drivers spoke English.) We were now sweating it, but we had left plenty of cushion time. We walked to the Forum Metro station with the intent of taking the train to the airport, but along the way we hailed a cab and made it in plenty of time.

We couldn’t leave Copenhagen without some more cloud displays so Mother Nature cooperated by given us multi-layers at take off.

You can see from the above image (after enlarging it by clicking on it) that we flew on Air Berlin. Everything was great on Air Berlin but the food. The sandwiches were horrible.

South of Copenhagen the clouds broke for some nice views of the countryside. We didn’t fly direct to Paris. Hence, the plane never got that high in the sky.

These islands off of the main Denmark masses all seemed to be populated. I’m not sure which islands these are, but they may have been part of the Rago Sund near Southern Zealand.

The plane wasn’t full so Ellie’s stuffed animal, Maja, even got a seat.

This is Dusseldorf, Germany where we made our connection to Paris.

Posted on August 11th, 2008 under Denmark. Tags: clouds, copenhagen, pictures, Travel. Comments: 1

If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning you are probably wondering how I have gone through over forty blog entries on Denmark without mentioning Danishes (as in the pastries). Well, we didn’t ignore them even if I haven’t brought them up yet. In fact, we probably had almost one a day.

What we in the states refer to as “Danishes” is called “wienerbrod” here. I had one before each class on campus at the Copenhagen Business School canteen that was simply divine. I never got tired of “my Danish” or tried a different variety. It was simply perfect in every way. This Danish of mine didn’t necessarily look any different from those in the states, but it tasted much better. The croissant-like edges melted in my mouth and the jam was unlike anything I’ve had before.

The above photograph is of my kids in the pastry shop just around the corner from our Frederiksberg apartment. They enjoyed the cookies as well as the pastries, and, as you can see, could become quite transfixed by the sight of them.

The shop owner, above, assembled our choices as our mouths watered in anticipation.

I miss Denmark.

Posted on August 10th, 2008 under Denmark. Tags: copenhagen, food, frederiksberg, living in copenhagen, pictures. Comments: None

The land at the top of the above picture is Sweden across the Oresund Sound from Denmark.

After seeing everything at Louisiana Museum for Modern Art (Moderne Kunst‎) we spent a few hours at the beach right next to the museum (and visible from many locations in the museum). We exited the beach by going up a long flight of stairs to the south. This put us on a street called Gammel Strandvej.

The homes on this street started out small and cute and then went on to become large and opulent.

Humlebaek, where the musuem is located, turns out to be a rather wealthy community. Gammel Strandvej is loaded with amazing houses overlooking the Oresund Straight.

Instead of heading for the main road back to train station we opted to walk Gammel Strandvej to check out the dwellings of Humlebaek residents. At the end of the street you make a right and you’ll be at the train station anyway. In other words, if you visit Louisiana don’t just take the main road (with nothing interesting to see) to and from the museum. Get off on a side street and see how the affluent Danes live.

The above house had garages for three cars and a Mercedes parked in the driveway. That may not seem like much to make a deal about in the U.S., but you have to realize that most people in Denmark don’t have cars (nor do they need them). Those that do usually only have one for an entire household. Having three is really unnecessary and seems to be saying little more than that the owner has money to burn.

A tax of sorts is placed on purchased cars in Denmark at almost 200% of the auto’s purchase price (which is already ridiculous in U.S. dollars). In other words, these cars cost over US$100,000 each, maybe over $200,000 each. Some luxury cars in Denmark, after the tax, cost over $300,000 even though they would be well under six figures in the U.S.

And if you think gas prices in the U.S. are high, you should also consider that Danes are paying almost three times as much for gas as Americans.

Further down the street there was a house with four garages, each with an identical Mercedes parked therein. I couldn’t believe it.

This last picture has a sign saying “Lille Hus” or Little House. I guess they want their neighbors to think that their Big House is somewhere else. Maybe it is.

Posted on August 9th, 2008 under Denmark. Tags: beach, pictures. Comments: None

Purchasing tickets for Denmark’s train system is one of the more unusual things about Denmark. There are so many different ticket options and prices to go from Point A to Point B that it leaves your head spinning. You never know if a given trip on the train will be cheap or expensive. Copenhagen Business School was paying for our trip to Louisiana so I didn’t have to worry, but before I found out they were paying I did a little research.

We could buy an all-day pass for 115 DKK each (about US$25). We could purchase one-way zone passes for 80 DKK each way. Or we could purchase tickets along with an entrance to the museum for 160 DKK round trip. I’m sure there were a dozen other options using other passes or klip variations or . . . The bottom line is that you never know how much a trip will cost, if you may get lucky and get a special that is going on that day, or if you go to a different ticket agent they may know of another less expensive way to get to your destination. It’s a crap shoot.

I prefer the Japanese system in which you always know the price and the price is much cheaper than in Denmark. For instance, to travel the distance we traveled to Louisiana from Copenhagen we’d pay no more than about US$5 in Japan. Here the price, again depending on the ticket agent of the day, ranges from about $12 to about $20.

Louisiana Modern Art Museum (Moderne Kunst in Danish) is in a beautiful setting in the town of Humlebaek (also spelled Humelbaek). I’m not a big fan of modern art; in fact, much of it does absolutely nothing for me. However, the settings for some of the pieces here really do make the works far more interesting than they would be on their own.

My kids pushed a button near the above work. Nothing happened. Then, about 10 seconds later, the bell started slamming the metal man in the head over and over again causing a huge noise that seemed totally out of place in this quiet museum. My kids freaked out. They thought security would be all over them. I’m not sure how this is art, but it did make things interesting.

You never know which of the museum’s Andy Warhol collections will be out on display. They have three. One is the “Marilyn” collection (which we’ve seen examples of in a museum at BYU). Another is “Flowers” (which we have seen examples of at the Smithsonian in DC). The third is what we saw at Louisiana, “Mao.”

I thought this last one was going to have a different title than it did. This work is called “Eyes” and is by Louise Bourgeois. There is also a very cool Bourgeois spider sculpture at Louisiana.

When my kids could take no more (actually they had a great time on the very long slide here and there is a workshop with lots of stuff for kids to do) we headed to the adjacent beach. More on that in tomorrow’s entry . . .

Posted on August 8th, 2008 under Denmark. Tags: andy warhol, beach, copenhagen, living in copenhagen, museums, pictures. Comments: None