Well… I did it again. I honestly don’t know why I keep doing the same thing expecting different results – except this time I got them! I went to the zoo in Copenhagen and, unlike my previous zoo outings (Berlin, Zagreb, Helsinki, Stockholm) this time, not only were the animals out, but there were more of them! I think the reason earlier jaunts had proved so unsatisfying was that the

Mommy and baby seals

animals were gestating! Now, as summer was winding down and fall was coming around the corner, there were babies galore! Everywhere you looked, there were baby animals holding tight to mommies and daddies. It was quite sweet.

Also, somehow, I managed to follow the designated feeder around the park. In several places, I only had to wait a few minutes for the girl to set up the food and then release some sort of big mammal into the enclosure to eat it. The brown bears were cool, but the tigers were the best! She set up two huge hunks of meat, one in a tree and one tied to a rope and then let the cats out. Didn’t

Tigers!

take long for one to figure out how to get the meat from the rope and then parade around with it while the other one followed gamely, trying to snag a piece. After a few minutes, the second one remembered there was another hunk in the tree so he (I’m assuming here, I didn’t look) climbed the tree and successfully got his own lunch. I didn’t stick around much after that since it was crowded and there were other animals to see.

In the monkey house, they had put out food (fruits and vegetables mostly) and a giant stuffed octopus before letting the chimps back in. It was kind of fun watching the biggest one attack the

Cephalopods in the monkey house

orange octopus, realize it wasn’t a threat, and then carry it around with him while he ate.

Wolves

I also saw wolves and polar bears and hippos and lions and the newest attraction – the Elephant house. This is a brand new exhibit, just opened, and really state of the art. There’s lots of space for the pachyderms and a really nice “enrichment center” which is a nice way saying educational stuffs. The Zoo in Copenhagen really did themselves proud, especially when you compared it to the old elephant house which was still standing next to the new one. It was brick and tiny, like

Baby Elephant

something out of the 20s.

All told, a very positive experience, and not a bunny to be found!

Afterwards, I headed for home (Sweden, remember? This was the day I had left my note “Gone to Denmark, be back before dark”) since we had a party to go to that night. Evidently, it is a tradition in August to have a crayfish party. I’ll explain in a minute what that means, but when I got back to the house, Malin was there, along with Sonny (who had gotten gig doing a modern dance interpretation for the Malmö ballet but was off today) and Ola, Malin’s brother. The four of us hung out for a bit before heading to the party, which was at a guy called Marcus’ place.

Now here’s the thing about crayfish parties… They are big events where everyone brings their own crayfish, which are usually

Dinner in its most basic form

purchased precooked in a special Swedish boil of spices and herbs. When we got there (we weren’t the last to arrive, but close) there were already about twenty people seated around along table and several of them were wearing crayfish party hats. I wasn’t told about the hats in advance or I certainly would have insisted we get some! So we took our seats at the end, Sonny produced a big tray of crayfish and Malin and Ola tried to explain what to do.

Ola showing the crayfish who's boss

Malin explained the Swedish way was to suck out the juice from the middle then put the head in your mouth and bite down, which she did and Ola was supposed to do. See, the hazard of being around people who speak a different language is that they can quite openly plan a practical joke without you knowing it and that’s what the chomping the heads was. You don’t really eat the heads but Malin had

Sonny and Malin

committed to the joke while Ola chickened out at the last minute. In reality, what you’re supposed to do is pull the meat from the tail and put it on a slice of bread, eventually crating a very nice sandwich (it just takes a while). Adding to the time frame is that every now and again, someone starts singing (and yes, there were lyric sheets – in Swedish) at the end of which, you drink a shot of schnapps. This is really part if the tradition, I swear. And Sonny, bless him, was determined to make sure I got the full experience, so he had bought a nice sampler pack of schnapps bottles and he and I made short work of them over the course of the night. Malin had left early, she was tired,

crayfish tryingto steal my schnapps

and she made Sonny promise to make sure I got home in one piece. Eventually he did, but not before I met some very cool people, got a lot tipsy and stole a crayfish party hat of my very own!

It was a rough morning when I finally woke up, and I stayed around the house doing work and taking care of business (and doing laundry) until the afternoon when I got my stuff together and

I got my hat!

headed down to the train station to catch my overnight to Amsterdam. This was my second to last big trip and I was preparing to make the most of it!

So my first day back in glorious Skåne (which is the cool, Swedish name for the southern area of Sweden where Malmo is located) was spent doing precisely… nothing. Okay, not true. I slept and graded papers. And that felt like a vacation in and of itself. It was nice not to have pressure on myself to make the most of everyday and see all the sights and such. I could sleep and work and then take a nap. I needed it, honestly.

Now here’s the problem with this kind of schedule, though: I’m not sure when I did the things I did do (does that make sense or do I sound like a Danny Kaye film?) but I’ll try and give you the high lights just the same. I think I spent two days just catching

Malin on the beach

up. Which isn’t to say I didn’t do anything, but it was more mellow and relaxed. Malin and I spent some time working on the article I’m writing about her and we also went out with her friend Marie (who is an awesome artist) to lunch and things. Then we went to the beach! Yup, here in Sweden they have beaches! Now, it wasn’t what a normal Vegas boy would consider warm, beach weather, but we had a grand time. It was in a

Marie and I in the water

small town south of Malmo, which we were going to because Marie said they had the best ice cream there. We stopped at the beach first, though. I even went into the water, (yeah for waterproof cameras!) which was really cold. Afterwards, we sat on the sand and came up with ideas for Marie to write and draw a children’s book around. She’s that good, too. She could do it and it would sell! But after lounging around, ice cream began calling our name. So we stopped in at the little place and they did indeed have a damn fine cone of ice cream. Then we did a little bit of shopping in this expensive second hand store before heading home.

Do you remember the theatre I told you about? The one Malin’s dad helped build which is about an hour and a half away from Malmo in a little village called Skillinge (which, I’ve learned, is actually pronounced Whhiilling)? Well there was another show going on there, called Boogie Woogie Burlesque and Malin knew pretty much everyone in the show.

Now, here’s the thing about going to theatre in Sweden as an American. Odds are you’re not going to be speaking the same

Malin's dad and Ulf, the leader of the Boogie Woogie band

language as everyone up on that stage. We had thought about this and figured that the show was more of a concert with a loose story-line so it should be okay. And it was. I didn’t follow the story one little bit but the music was great and the magical variety act, a guy named Mephisto Jr. (Thorston Andreassen) did his act, which was very verbal, in a mish-mosh of German and Swedish and while I didn’t understand a thing, I laughed so hard I was crying. Then there was the music, a collection of standards and new pieces, all boogie woogie and all played brilliantly. It really was a fantastic show! Afterwards, we hung out at the theatre with the guys, shooting the breeze and enjoying the theatrical camaraderie. It’s a different vibe hanging with theatre people rather than

Ola and Sophie

solo performers. It felt good. It’s been a while since I’ve done something like that. I also met Malin’s brother Ola, who is also a magician. Really fun guy. I bring him up now, because he’s going to come back later when we get to the crayfish party (which is what we in the writing biz call foreshadowing).

Oh yeah, before the show, we had lunch with Christina, Malin’s sister, and her brand new, as of a week ago, fiancé, Henrik. You remember them from the infamous first trip to Puttgarden (ahhh… the good old days, when this blog was small and manageable and only read by family members instead of half of Europe). And after lunch we still had time to kill so Malin drove me to this great old church (which was closed) and told

The church...after it was returned

reminded me of how she made it vanish last year during her big show extravaganza. Pretty amazing feat, really. And no, I’m not going to tell you how she did it.

So then, it was off to Copenhagen.

I figured I should probably get back to doing that touring thing I was supposed to be doing and since

NOT the real Little Mermaid

Copenhagen is only a half hour away by train, I may as well got on with it, right? So Malin, Marie and I headed down to the station, hopped an intercity and made our way to Denmark (okay, side note here – but a few days later, when I went over by myself, it felt SO cool to write a note saying “gone to Denmark, be home before dark.”).

We stumbled along back streets and poked our heads into bookstores. We found cool little cafes and

living statues of a guy in the wind...

expensive coffee shops. I took pictures of living statues and with dead ones. What we didn’t do, was see the Little Mermaid. At least not the real one. At this point, it’s almost a matter of pride. We did, however, go to

My Danish family is a little stiff...

Copenhagen’s other main tourist draw – Christiana.

Christiana is a 1960s era commune in the middle of a 21^st century city. It has its own laws and own government. It buys electricity and water from Copenhagen but everything else is self-sufficient. They have a street called Pusher Street where drugs (but no longer hard drugs, just pot) are sold. We went and walked through and it was interesting, but I didn’t quite get the draw. I’ve lived in Venice Beach and old hippies just don’t excite me. I’ve had WAY too many conversations with guys who are too smart but have decided the game isn’t worth playing and so they just exist and float along and that’s what this place seemed like to me. The original idea was probably very good, but it’s been commodified to the point of playing at being hippy.

The last hippie outpost...

So yeah… not so much with the Christiana (but nice picture, eh?)

The few days after that were made up of working and writing and translating a book for my degree. And then I had to do something every English Lit person must do…I went to Elsinore!