The Adventures of Bear and Butterfly

This month will see Bodra doing quite a bit of travelling for work.  Old favourites- Milan and Turin, a new location- Rabat in Morocco, and possibly a trip to Rome as well.  Yay for Italy!  Rabat is nothing to get excited about either as it’s more of an industrial location.  Still- gotta be warmer than England!

Recently we just returned from Copenhagen (København) in Denmark, where Bodra had some work to do with the IT department for the police.  We flew in on Wednesday, lucky enough to get a flight out of London given that quite a few flights have had delays or been cancelled this week, due to the recent dump of snow in England.  For our first two nights (paid by Symantec) we were situated right by the Town Square in the Palace Hotel.  With construction going on all through the building and not much of a vegetarian selection for evening meals, I wasn’t  that impressed by this five-star wannabe, but I could appreciate the ‘Sting’ art through the halls, king-size bed and very deep bath tub.  Unfortunately, beside this hotel is the town hall’s intrusive bell-tower, so every fifteen minutes it’s presence left a ringing in my ears.  Delightful!

I spent most of Thursday working out an encompassing touring trail and tracking down restaurants that would cater for us, while Bodra spent the morning with the Police geeks.  We’d had a slightly dejected previous evening after finding the hotels’ restaurant only offered a vegetarian tagliatelle (we’d had that at home a few days before), and subsequently we spent a good part of Wednesday night hunting down vegetarian options on København’s streets.  We settled for the Indian Raj and I gorged myself for fear that this would be my only opportunity to do so. I gave birth to an Indian baby the next morning.

I also spent Thursday chatting on facebook with Søren, a friend of Bodra’s from high-school days, and arranged for us to meet him for dinner.  I believe there is only one vegetarian restaurant in København and thankfully it was within walking distance, along the Strøget (the stroke), a car-free zone and tourist attraction. Den Grønne Kælder (The Green Basement) filled our bellies with quinoa, beetroot and carrot salad, potato and spinach gratin and sweet juices that reminded us of Fresh Up.  On the way back, Søren gave us a wee tour, pointing out such Danish novelties like the Museum Erotica (we just glanced and then kept walking along the Strøget).

Friday found Bodra in a holding pattern, all suited up and waiting for a call to return to the Danish Police.  So the morning was spent reading, waiting, transferring to our next abode, the Hotel Norlandia Star, waiting some more and then having a delicious salad lunch at Chilli Milli.  Bodra’s meeting ended up being cancelled so we had a small wander around the shops, returned to the hotel so Bodra could get changed and dump his laptop, then we read some more until dinner beckoned.  This time I had found Flyvefisken, The Flying Fish, which used to be a vegetarian joint but now serves Thai-styled meals with vege options.  Yumbo!

Saturday was finally our day of touring, so we wrapped up with our beanies, jackets, hoodies, scarves and gloves and went out into the cold, grey, wet city.  We started off in the Danish Design centre which was showing an exhibit focused on light.  Various forms of lighting was on display.  One of their displays was a map showing how lit up the world is as viewed from space- Japan and Belgium are particularly bright.  There were a few videos of particular light experts, one lady was talking about Melatonin and how we only produce this particular hormone in the dark… this hormone has disease fighting properties.  So Bodra and I came away from this exhibit with a new appreciation towards light and filled with the desire to make our use of lighting more energy efficient and nutritional!

Then we wandered over to the Rådhuspladsen, said Hej to Hans Christian Andersen, glanced up (with little interest) to the big screens showing models doing their catwalk best (it was fashion week apparently) and crossed over to the Strøget.  Loads of normal shops along here, nothing particularly Danish.  We took a few side streets up to visit Our Lady’s Church, then made our way to the Round Tower.

Our visit to the Round Tower saved us from unnecessary touring, as they had a gallery showing a photographic exhibit on Christiania, the famed alternative Freetown which is partially self-governed.  Bodra had expressed a desire to see Christiania, so we were quite grateful that we found this exhibit as it quenched all desire to visit there.  The photographs portrayed a decrepid community, caravans and walls splashed with colourful graffiti, trash strewn through the bush and streets… definitely a place where the homeless would find themselves living. We turned our noses up!

Our walk continued back towards the Strøget, down towards Kongens Nytorv (King’s New Square) where we contemplated going for an ice-skate on the rink that was situated around a man on a horsie.  It’s much more entertaining watching others though, isn’t it?  We carried on down to Nyhavn (New Harbour), keeping our peepers open for a lunch spot, but as you can imagine this area mostly specialised in tasty fish and over-priced bland sounding pasta dishes.  But nevermind food when you can feast your eyes on a European city!!

Around the corner from Nyhavn we found the Am-alien-borg Slot.  Bodra had a fun time with that name!  There was a guard on duty wearing one of those tall, black, furry hats.  Bodra had a thought that this would have been quite a good career choice for his daddy Michael back in the day, as it certainly gives you the perfect space to meditate…

The last two must-see’s on our agenda was the Gefionspringvandet (Gefion Fountain) and Den Lille Havfrue  (Little Mermaid).  Somehow we ended up taking the longest possible route to get to both these statues, as we kept getting cut off by the moat in Kastellet.

We rewarded ouselves with a late lunch at Wagamama’s and then picked up some beer and chips for our dinner.  The evening was spent watching movies in our room.  When we got to the airport the next day we discovered an unpleasant and expensive error.  For some reason the self-check machine wouldn’t recognise my reference code.  We enlisted an SAS teller to help us, and she told us I wasn’t on the flight.  Gulp!!  She sent us to the ticket section, where it was discovered that Bodra had entered March instead of February for my return voyage.  Damn you February for having 28 days!!!