I looked on the Copenhagen tourism website, and found there were two pwning things we needed to see- the first was a castle called Kronborg and the second was an art museum, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The castle also goes by the name of Elsinore… sound familiar?! That's cuz you've read Hamlet!!! Yes, this is the castle where Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet was going out of his mind because his mother was sleeping with his uncle. Apparently the Louisiana museum is very well known in the contemporary art world. And I love modern art! Problem was that both were outside Copenhagen; the castle was about 45 minutes north and the museum was about 30 minutes north… and both involved walks from the train stations.

To pwn or not to pwn? That is the question

We decided it would be better to pwn then to not go and regret it later. And we are so happy we did. Kronborg castle was awesome. We took the Danish version of a regional train to this city called Helsingør, and then walked about .75 miles to the castle. What is incredible about this city is that it sits right on the Danish coast, and on the other side of the water is Sweden! So basically I’ve seen Sweden.

We asked a (great) Dane in a cruise ship office in the train station about how to get to the castle, and since everyone here is so nice, he told us the way. Once we got outside, we could already see it. It looked so sick in the snow… a castle standing massively by itself on the banks of the water with Danish flags beating proudly. The cold and the falling snow really made it incredible. We followed the water till we reached the castle.

We paid to see the chapel, inside the castle, and also the casements (which to me just means basement). The castle was completed in 1585 and inhabited afterwards by Frederick II. Kronborg was important because the king earned a lot of money by taxing the ships coming through this water passage. The castle later suffered a major fire down in 1629, but was rebuilt and completely “modernized” by Christian IV in the 1630s to impress people with Denmark. That’s where the Renaissance spires come from. One of the most interesting things to see was a set of Dutch paintings depicting glorious events in Danish history. A lot of the paintings were missing and damaged because the Swedes took over Kronborg in 1658-1660 and looted a lot of the artwork. Some of the artwork was literally cut to be small enough to fit in frames around Sweden LOL. Every window in the castle faced out to the water (helping the king to see the incoming ships), and all along the banks were canons aimed at Sweden.

After our visit to the castle, we decided to get lunch in Helsingør. I asked a woman on the street if she knew a good place where we could lunch in the area that wasn’t absurdly expensive like everything in Denmark. “Café Olai! It is in the center of the city, go there.” We walked into the town, and after asking another Dane where Café Olai was, we found it. PWNING. This place was great- totally packed with local Danes and they were all pwning eating their Smørrebrød sandwiches. It was a cozy place to get lunch and step out of the snow. I got two sandwiches- I asked the waitress which the best was, and she suggested I get a traditional Danish roast beef sandwich. Kathleen got a baked potato, but it was like no baked potato we had ever seen- check the picture, you can’t even see the baked potato. But what a perfect lunch really… if you visit Kronborg, don’t forget about Café Olai!

America through Danish eyes

The Louisiana museum was a worthwhile trip. They had an exhibition of photographs from Jacob Holdt, a Danish guy that has made numerous trips to America in the last 40 years, documenting Americans and life in America. He brings out sides of America that we are not used to seeing in broad daylight- namely abject poverty and blatant racism. He basically just got to know people and followed them to learn about their lives. He would then come back years later and see how they were doing. He got to know a lot of KKK members, and documented a lot about these people and their family. It would be interesting to know more about Holdt’s world view… he took his 2 year old son 10,000 miles through the American ghettos so he would not be affected by white racism.

On the way home from the museum, I made a little snowman as a sign of friendship to the Danes. I hoped they liked it.