Day 1: July 9th
On a bicycle trip, spinning your wheels takes on an incredibly positive meaning and for the first time in 6 days we were finally taking in the world at our own pace on our own snack schedule with the power of the dollar growing inside us, making us more attractive, obliterating our inhibitions that say things like “I don’t need that bacon sandwich.”
“How’s the sandwich?” Anna asks.
“My hand is covered in mayonnaise. How could it be anything but good?” I reply with a crazed look that speaks volumes to my insatiable lust for the egg-based oil product.
Denmark, complete with complimentary tailwind, we fly across the remarkably flat terrain, our bikes catching the wind like we are wearing those ridiculous billowing bloomers that were so fashionable in the Victorian Age.
This is especially good since we awoke in a chilly shallow puddle, the result of my inability to close the tent door in a rain/wind storm.
The only lasting effect of my “miscalculation” was a day spent with wet feet which seemed fitting since we just purchased a bottle of Aquavit which sounds like AquaFeet. . . wet feet.
The only cold feet on the Maximum Romance Cycle Adventure are literal.
Our good friend the tail wind is quite talkative and NOT a good listener. We here employed him as an effective diversion to the sounds of our love making.
Day 2: July 10th
Our friendship with the tailwind is tenuous at best. It doesn’t take much but something changes and all of a sudden he becomes our nemesis the head wind.
In actuality, the wind in Denmark always blows from the East. It’s the most notable thing about the country as it seemingly never stops.
Sometimes it blows slightly from the Southeast and we cry and other times it blows slightly from the Northeast and we celebrate.
There are honed skills the Danish posses that go completely unrecognized by the world at large, due to the bias of the Olympics. I personally would never invite a Dane into one of those dollar bill wind tunnels unless he was a stand-in for me and I would get the money.
One time I dropped the map. . . Now we don’t have a map.
We were rudely awoken at 3am to the sound of a man yelling, “KALINA!!!” over and over again. It was jovial longing yell like Rocky’s “Adraian!” but from the mouth of an extremely intoxicated Santa Claus.
The next morning when we managed to get out of the tent the man was already sitting in a folding chair drinking outside of his tent. After we packed things up he lobbed a surprisingly accurate statement/question in our direction – “You don’t drink in the morning?”
Apparently, he is Norwegian and comes to Denmark on heavy drinking vacations (Anna thinks they would be better termed ‘binges’). He was very proud of his baseball cap that said ‘The Quiet Life – Off and On Since 1977’. I felt an immediate connection and I shared a few laughs with him before we departed.
Anna looked on in sleep deprived disgust as if she were watching two dogs, tongues out, rolling in their own shit.
Day 3: July 11th
The ease of cycling across Denmark’s landscape has allowed my mind time to wander and develop irrational opinions on the meanings of things.
For instance, I understand automation and the efficiency it provides. I am fine with automatic water faucets that only turn on when you place your hands under them. However, I am somehow NOT okaz with automatic soap dispensers.
I feel like Little Orphan Oliver as I cup my hands beneath the dispenser in a ‘Please, sir, can I have some more?’ gesture. Often it seems there is no more to give. I told Anna of the belittling experience every time I go to wash my hands and she could not relate. She feels like she is throwing her hand out more in a low-five-slap-me-skin style and the dispenser acquiesces.
That is a much better way of looking at the situation and from now on I will treat the soap dispenser like a friend with an awkwardly drippy high five, as opposed to a figure of power enacting war time rations in a time of peace.
Day 4: July 12th
I don’t know why people have families when you can have friends.
Friends are waz more fun to party with. Friends say things like “Lets just go get beers and drink in the park.” Friends say all kinds of good things, “we can just pay for one beer in the bar, and then fill up the glass with our own!”
Friends say things like, “Lets have a fire!” when you are in a park! … but we did it anyway.
We wee actually in Christiania a somewhat seceded island in Copenhagen where you can buy pot. It claims to have anarchist values but I was too drunk to pay any attention to that.
There are no cars on the island, though I read that 182 of the residents own cars and park them offsite. In 1989 after a bit of bickering with the Danish government they agreed to build 100 parking spots on the island. As of 2004, they had built 4.
Needless to say, this is my kind of place. The same can be said of Copenhagen at large. Bike are haphazardly strewn about the city, piles manifest outside businesses, it’s as if the whole city is a homeless persons shopping cart filled with bikes instead of cans and plastic bags.
We made fast friends with a couple from Richmond, Virginia. The woman’s given name was Squirrel… in Spanish though. Ardia. I told her when I was in high school Spanish class we had to make a pretend newspaper and I named mine “Ardia Diarria,” which is funny because it means Daily Squirrel and also looks and sounds like diarrhoea.
Day 5: July 13th
We spent the better part of the day in a hyper-caffeinated state wandering the streets of Copenhagen. We saw a few of the larger tourist attractions, including the statue of the little mermaid. It’s a modest little statue, a bronze mermaid on some boulders about 10ft off the shore in the harbour. Yet, somehow, it has the gravitational pull of the sun when it comes to tour busses and cameras of all kinds.
I know at it’s heart its not a Disney thing… but maybe it’s a Disney thing. Ariel, you are where the people are.
Day 6: July 14th
One of the worst aspects of being in a city is finding a restroom. I was naively hoping Copenhagen would be an exception to this rule since one of Denmark’s most famous historical figures died from “holding it in.”
Tycho Brahe, a 16th century astronomer whose detailed observations of the movement of the planets were instrumental in his successor, Johanes Kepler’s discovery of their orbital motion.
Story has it, one day Tycho was entertaining the king of Denmark and out of respect refused to excuse himself from the dinner table despite desperately having to go to the bathroom. This resulted in a fatal bladder infection. This is a mistake that only one person should ever have to make for all of humanity. Yet, despite this, I find myself “holding it in,” “pinching the tip,” dancing around like my dick has the moves like Jagger (and ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh do I gotta go!) all the god damned time!
Cities of Earth, more public restrooms, please!
Coincidentally, however, I discovered a sure fire way to make a story way more suspenseful, simply state the main character has to go to the bathroom really bad. Imagine Bruce Willis going through all that stressful DieHard stuff and then on top of it all he has to go to the bathroom REALLY BAD. What’s gonna happen!?
Maximum Romance 