Be Our Guest

I mentioned earlier that mom and Steve came to Copes for a week, but I never gave a full recap. So here it is:

When I picked them up at the airport, I brought a small Dannebrog (Danish flag) to wave when they got off the plane. I was so stoked to see them after almost 3 months of being apart (the longest I've ever gone without seeing my family!). Despite Steve's pleading for a cab, we went into town by Metro, since its cheaper and I knew exactly where their hotel was.

We arrived at Central Station, and I announced "ta-da, the Astoria hotel!"

"That's nice, Franni," Steve replied. "But we're staying at the Ascot."

Oops.

We took the cab after all.

After they unpacked, we decided to go for a walk around town. As we left the hotel, we bumped into Steve's buddy Steve "Toots" Toltz. Toots was in town for a conference and happened to be staying at the same hotel, so we all went out for coffee.

Dinner was at the restaurant that Walter always makes us go to. They have awesome burgers that are so big, you have to eat them with a knife and fork, plus really good fries and microbrew beer. I had a chicken sandwich with curry sauce, chutney and pineapple - really tasty.

The next day, we went to the Jewish museum. It is small, but quite excellent. The building is brilliantly  designed by architect Daniel Libeskind and contains interesting artifacts about the history of Jews in Denmark, with a focus on the rescue of almost the entire population from the Nazis. I would highly recommend it.

Lunch was at the cute and super-bourgeois Cafe Katz. My vegetarian pasta and Mom's goat cheese salad were out of this world. I haven't been to restaurants at all in Copenhagen because everything is out of the price range of your average college student, so it was great to be spoiled for a few days. However, I think Steve's favorite eatery in Copenhagen was the bagel joint down the road from DIS (they make bomb tuna salad), so... yeah.

When I had class, I sent them off to several museums, including my favorite, the Statens Museum for Kunst, and the Louisiana. I went to the Louisiana the week after, and we all decided that the Manga exhibit was surprisingly cool (albeit sketchy as hell) and Per Kirkeby is a Grade A bullshit artists. Art history-types out there, help me out: does anyone understand this dude? It all looked like nonsense to me. For instance:

But I digress. We also had a great time at the Museum of the Danish Resistance, which was amazing and is a definite must see. The scope and variety of artifacts is astounding and it gives an extraordinarily detailed account of the German occupation during World War II. We spent a ridiculously long time there. After, we ate at a cute cafe called "Mormor" ("grandma" in Danish) and shopped at Magasin. I almost bought a pair of red snakeskin skinny jeans at TopShop, but managed to restrain myself, haha. Later, we crashed my Danish class' hyggenat (hygge night - no good translation) and saw the new James Bond movie. Funnily enough, most of the bad guys are Danish actors. Huh.

Mom and I had a ridiculous meal at NOMA, a two Michelin star restaurant in Nyhavn. We ate lunch for 4 hours. 4 hours. Of non-stop eating. Here are some photos of the crazy shit we consumed:

Friday, we hung out at Robert's, my favorite coffee shop, and got fredagskage (Friday cake) at St. Petes. We went to Tivoli in the evening, and walked around, enjoying the lights and music and general magical Christmas spirit. We even caught a laser light and fountain show! Unfortunately, the camera was dying, so we didn't get good pictures. But the aebleskivers og glogg were terrific and we played with animatronic pixies. A cute time was had by all.

But seriously, I am so lucky that Mom and Steve managed to make it out to Copenhagen. Being on a program with other American students, you always have a bit of "America your home" with you; however, I don't miss America so much as I miss "Burlington my home," specifically "Family my home." Seeing this more personal and concrete representation of home meant the world to me.