For some reason I still haven't been able to grasp the exchange rate between kroner and dollars (Denmark doesn't use Euros). I have this vague image that a dollar is worth somewhere between five and ten kroner.... so when I see, for example, a simple soda for twenty three kroner I don't think much of it. That is actually three and a half dollars, which is super expensive, especially for a traveler! Now Denmark is notoriously expensive, but I still don't expect to see one of those tiny "individual-sized" Ben and Jerry's cups being sold for thirty kroner.. !! (can we be real, the normal pints are individual-sized) Anyway, I'm waiting until I leave Denmark to really start buying gifts and other luxuries.
I spent the weekend in Copenhagen with Katie Leavitt, staying in an apartment she shares, and Alexis Blanchard, who was also visiting before her semester in Sevilla, Spain starts. For dinner on Saturday, we went to "the Papirøen", a huge warehouse-type building full of and surrounded by specialized food stands selling everything from falafel to tiramisu to margaritas. The atmosphere was buzzing with young adults, sober and otherwise... it is rather new, and is the hot place to be for a casual, exciting dining experience (not cheap though, surprise surprise). After failing to realize that I was paying an absurd amount of kroner for a handful of fries (...40 kroner/$6, double fried in duck fat), we weaved through the masses to find a spot to sit right on the waters edge. We could barely hear each other over the laughter of men at a bachelor party who had all ordered those shareable cocktails, for each person. Adding to the noise was other Danish gibberish and a suspicious looking boat playing loud music as it floated down the canal. The night was a little chilly, and we could not figure out why these guys, all sitting on the edge of the boat, had their shirts off, until we realized this boat was actually a floating hot tub.
Dessert was going to be cheesecake or tiramisu until we reasoned we could buy that elsewhere. One food stand was selling (...for 50 kroner/$7.50) crème brûlée donuts. We bought a donut, filled with vanilla creme, rolled in sugar, caramelized/heated on top, with ice cream and chocolate syrup. Quite a combination of dessert ingredients to form one mass of sweetness that was both hot and cold, creamy and crunchy, and probably enough calories to last a week's worth of desserts... but worth it :)
Overall, an interesting and very enjoyable twist on European night life.
