Here is the email I sent out about our trip to Frederiksborg Slot and the Danish Town of Hillerod:
There was obviously an admission fee to get in (something like 7 bucks), but it took us something like 3 hours to walk through the whole thing. It was really cool. There were tons of great paintings, ornate ceilings (carvings & paintings on the friggin' roof of almost every damn room), antique furniture, and just some pretty neat stuff. Apparently most of it was done in the Christian IV reign. This is also why the Danes were in debt for so long after he died. If he wasn't killed by his own people (that wasn't mentioned on the tour), he damn well should have been: that fucker built so much stuff for himself. Granted, everyone gets to enjoy them now (for seven bucks, anyway), but he and his buddies were the only ones who enjoyed it all then. What a greedy, greedy man. He got away with it all. Yep. He's my idol. Except for the fact that he was a very large man with a teensy-weensy head. There were more than a few pictures of him around, and everyone showed this huge disparity. What a freak!
Anyway, after checking out everything in the castle & on the surrounding grounds, we decided to walk around the nearby town. It was pretty neat. There were lots of expensive shops (not expensive in relation to Copenhagen, just expensive compared to home) and lots of pubs (those Danes love to drink, and I love to help them out when I get the chance). We found one pub in particular that seemed a bit out of place: The John F. Kennedy Pub. Who would have thought we'd find that there? There aren't even that many Americans who would find this joint. It is located on the other side of the town (not really adjacent to the tourist attraction or anything). Strange. Anyway, flying outside was a Danish and also an American flag. Here's the kicker: the American flag was flying upside-down. Now, I don't know if you know, but that's an emergency distress call. Granted, since many patrons were sitting peaceably inside, we assumed they were just ignorant. We were right. Anyway, the name & the flag were enough to get us in the door. We sat in the comfy leather chairs by the fireplace and drank a beer. We asked the bartender why the flag was upside down (figuring it was a political commentary or something). He knew that the blue part goes on top and seemed surprised to hear that that was not the case. The next thing you know, he's climbing the ladder and fixing it. The Danes are very accommodating that way.
Saturday night was spent at one of the many local pubs consuming lots of Danish beer with a bunch of people we work with. As always, there were tons of Danish women for me to look at and Lisa to get pissed at me for staring at. Oh well. There was one thing that kept me from looking at the women: while we were there, the bartender started flipping through channels on the TV. Well, as he was scrolling he flipped past the NFL games (the late game was on in the bar due to the six hour time difference). As he continued past the game, Mike (another Switch guy) & I both screamed. He heard and put it back on. See, there's those Danes being accommodating again. Anyway, we drank vast quantities of beer and didn't get home until 3:30 AM, and of course, didn't get up on Sunday until after noon. Just like college.
That's one of the things I love about this town: everyone has that "stay out all night Saturday drinking & partying, then sleep all day Sunday" attitude. The best part is that I had absolutely nothing planned until 6:30 PM. Why 6:30, you ask? Because that's when my favorite bar starts showing the NFL games. They're live on the satellite, but you have to get there early if you want a seat, especially for the playoffs. The place was packed with football fans (as this bar is one of the few that specifically shows the games every week), and you know that's just a great place to watch a game. There's nothing like the bonding men can accomplish over lots of beers and rooting for the same team. The games were great (Min v. Stl, then Ten v. Ind), especially since both my teams won. It was a pretty even split of people rooting for each team the first game, but I was the only vocal Titans fan during the second game (Lisa was cheering for them as well, but you know that's not much moral support. Oh, there was another guy who started cheering for them once it was obvious they were going to win: fucking schmuck!). Anyway, it's always nice when the teams you pick win, but especially when you have a big mouth like me and everyone knows who you want to win and they still win. Well, I went home happy (and pretty drunk as well) at around 1:30 AM Monday morning. Needless to say, I wasn't very productive at work that day. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the guy I'm working with this week is Mike and he was right there with me until 1:30 AM. Yeah, nothing really got accomplished on Monday. Go figure.
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