Saturday 9.25.2010


The Guided CPH Tour


We have figured out how to make a very generous breakfast buffet last most of the day. A chunk of Danish Rye Toast (Rugbrod) topped with a few slices of cheese and assorted meats and capped with a soft-boiled egg is the perfectly stackable breakfast. A juice and a couple coffees and we're good for a long time.


We're meeting Patrick at 10:00 at the metro station that is the third angle in the triangle between our locations. There is a light drizzle and breeze this morning but we are spending a lot of time indoors today. We take the Metro to Fredericksberg station and as we walk up stairs we exit right onto the Copenhagen Business School campus. Patrick is a first year student here in a two year program leading to a MS in International Business. The building is modern and impressive. As would be expected, the library and computer lab are both huge, but Patrick points out too noisy to get much work done. He tends to use the impressive state library closer to his apartment for real work.

There are 170 students in his field of study and they are in a tighly defined discipline with no class options until their third semester when they either have to study abroad or take all electives. That means all 170 spend all day together and each of their classes is in an auditorium holding 170 students. About half of the students are Danish and the rest representing dozens of countries from around the world, the next highest percentage being German. Some of the classes are all-discussion and Patrick says that it is pretty easy to hide among 170 people if you choose to do so. There are no mid-terms, class participation, or pop-quiz grades; only the final which represents 100% of your grade for the course. Think there's a little pressure there?

There is a bar on campus and every Thursday there is a beer blow-out for the students and even a few professors. The school cafeteria provides a lot of food cheap and is a lifeline for starving foreign students. There are a few other buildings around, more for the thousands of undergraduates attending CBS.


We catch a bus heading south to the very impressive grounds of the Carlsberg brewery. Carlsberg is the big kid in Danish brewing with the most popular local brands of Carlsberg and Tuborg. They also have a substantial presence throughout the rest of Europe and Asia with over 500 brands specific to the individual regions. We do the 60DKK tour which takes us through a thousand years of Danish brewing in general and several hundred years of Carlsberg in particular. The family name was really Jacobson but the brewery was named after Carl, the grandson of the founder. Unfortunately Carl and his Dad had a spat and divided the company into two parts for a hundred years or so. When they reunited they were joined by the Tuborg clan to complete the picture.


As we settle in for our complimentary two beers at the end of the tour we are joined by a throng of young folks in strange constumes. Patrick tells us that these kids are high-schoolers from Norway who have a tradition of a week of drunken revelry to celebrate some tradition. It is a little spring-breakish, but that seems to be the idea.


We catch a bus back to the center of town where Mary and John head for a tour of the City Hall (Radhus) and Patrick keeps going to get in some study. Unfortunately the city hall is closed for tours on Saturday afternoon (they seem to have some sort of event going on) so it is another no-agenda walk back. John stops for a Polser (hot dog with pickles, onions, mayo, ketchup and mustard) while Mary opts for a plate of indescribable free food being passed out by some Tibetan religious group. Mary tries to throw her paper plate into the hot dog guy's trash and gets hollered at--he is not happy to have a free-food stand next to him.

We explore the grocery store section of the Illum Department Store which doesn't seem unreasonable, and then just wend our way down the Stroget watching the street entertainers. The highlight involves one of the big fountains that someone had laced with detergent so the little kids were having a great time tossing foamy hand grenades at each other. Time for our afternoon nap.

We meet Patrick and Nina at the Metro station to walk a few more blocks for an early dinner. Nina had been shopping at a super-discount outlet event all day and they have plans with friends later, so we are happy to squeeze in a bit more time with them before we leave. Patrick has discovered a little restaurant that is reasonably priced, but Thursday through Sunday nights everything on the menu is half price. John and Patrick get the burger with bacon, Nina has the chicken burger and Mary has a beautiful smoked salmon sandwich. It's good we came early because the place is packed within a half hour. The conversation inevitably turns to the level of restaurant service as once again we become invisible. For all the criticism the "tipping" system in the US receives, it certainly makes for a much higher level of service. If the server chooses to ignore us when we are waving to pay our bill, then that table won't be cleared and given to one of the people standing in line at the door, and she won't have to deal with another table when she is already slammed.


When we get back to "our" square Patrick sends an email to his folks with our picture from a museum kiosk and Nina points out that it will certainly be deleted by their spam filter. Probably. We hug and part company so they can get to their party and we can take a final evening stroll around our canal. It's a nice night with music playing and we are happy we came to Copenhagen. Packing up tomorrow for our next stop.


Today’s Weather: Rain early with clouds all day Low, 58 High 62