Wednesday was a quiet day. Collin once again had to work...this time at a "project day" event in Humlebaek, north of the city, leaving me and my parents to explore Copenhagen on our own. After another morning run, this time in the rain, we took our time getting ready in the morning and then headed downtown for some souvenir shopping and a traditional Danish lunch of smørrebrød. We went to a place recommended by Rick Steves called Cafe Halvvejen. This is a small family-run tavern that first opened in 1789. During lunchtime it serves food, and at night it is just a bar for "young people" as the owner told me. He happened to be working on the day we were there (his one day a week) and gave us a brief history of the place. He is nearly retired now, but his daughter is taking over the place so it will stay in his family where it has been since it opened!
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| Our first official smørrebrød |
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| There is some history to the bar and the (now non-functioning) cash register but sadly I forget it now! |
For those of you unfamiliar with the term smørrebrød, it refers to an open-faced sandwich on brown bread (called rugbrød,) that is quintessentially Danish. The sandwiches are made in very specific ways, you can't just mix and match whatever you want on a slice of bread. Usually three are eaten at a time. We each ordered the "usual" which means the owner just brought us what he wanted. If you look at the picture above where you can see our plates, starting with the sandwich closest to me is a chicken curry salad with bacon on top. Moving clockwise we have a ham sandwich which I believe had some relish on top and maybe cheese. It was my least favorite and I can't remember now what it was. The final sandwich is a combination of shrimp and hard-boiled eggs. All in all they were pretty good and cheap and a fun experience. I will definitely have to return someday with Collin!
After lunch we were going to go to the Danish Resistance museum only to find out it had burned down the week before. Oddly enough, Collin and I were there right after it burned -- while the firemen were still putting the final fires out -- on our way to the Japanese festival but at the time didn't know what the building was. So instead my parents and I just strolled around the the Strøget again and did some more shopping.
Collin was able to leave his project day a little early and skip his horrendous Danish class to come out to dinner with us in another Rick-recommended restaurant. This one was in a deserted-looking area in the meat-packing district, and is called Kødbyens Fiskebar. This delicious restaurant specializes in really fresh fish. The vibe reminded me a bit of our Swedish lunch the day before. Kind of like a revitalized warehouse, very funky and hip. By the time we left the restaurant it was packed. It was a very very good meal.
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| dessert at Kodbyens Fiskebar |
The next day we spent in Roskilde visiting the big Cathedral there and the Viking ship museum, with Collin, who had a day off in celebration of Ascension Thursday. I will let Collin blog about that day in a future post since he took most of the pictures.
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