Copenhagen, part 1

It's a little before 1 PM on Thursday. Time to catchup. . . .

Yesterday morning I had breakfast again in Malmö — just a slice of toast and OJ again. I hung out in my room until about 10:45 AM, stopped at Wallander's Cafe for the same treat as yesterday, then grabbed the 11:30 train. I was taking my time 'cause check-in at the Richmond Hotel in Copenhagen wasn't until 3 PM.

I got off the train at the the Malmö Hyllie stop. I was hoping it was liking Malmö's main station, but they didn't really have any concessions. Basically just a stop, not a station. So I hopped on the next train to Copenhagen.

Copenhagen's station isn't as nice as Malmö's. No real place to eat, mainly 7-11's, low-end coffee shops, and tons of currency exchanges. I did swap my Swedish Kroner for Danish Kroner. I had something like 130, and I got back around 80. Whatever.

My hotel room wasn't ready yet, so I wandered around from 1 to 3 PM. I withdrew 100 kroner from an ATM and ate a caesar wrap at an Espresso House. I went back to the hotel around 2:45 PM and picked up the card for my room 15 minutes later.

At 5 PM I started walking to Famo, which is 1.2 km away. I got there a little before they opened at 5:30 PM.

I was in the mood for Italian and, boy, does Famo fit the bill. Most of the staff have heavy Italian accents! Definitely on the high end. Not much of a selection. You have your choice of two dinners, one with an additional serving of food. I went with the first option with more dishes. I think there were two starters, an antipasta, two main courses, and dessert. The servings were relatively small. The food just kept coming. I didn't leave until after 8 PM. It came out to 450 kroner ($68) but I left 550 kroner on the table because the service was awesome.

On the walk back to the hotel, I took stock of my right foot. The top right of it hasn't been feeling too hot since my first or second day in Malmö. I think I had tied my sneak too tight and fucked up my foot. I've been ignoring it, hoping it would get better. I remember when I was younger it would happen but wear off within a few hours. Getting old sucks. Feels like my body's breaking down, with my shoulder problems, pre-arthritic back, and now this foot.

I spent the rest of Wednesday night at the hotel. Before going to bed I watched a Beatles special by Ron Howard and featuring a little bit of Philly newscaster Harry Kane.

Thursday I had breakfast at the hotel. I originally wasn't going to do it 'cause it's $16 but there are no breakfast joints around here. I ate a few bacon strips and a couple sausage links, then drank a petite glass of OJ.

I wanted to spend the rest of the morning doing laundry. First I walked about a quarter-mile to the train station and picked up a 48-hour city pass. When I got back to the hotel, I packed up my dirty drawers and company into my suitcase. I walked a couple blocks and caught a bus that dropped me off a few blocks past the restaurant I ate at the night before.

The place is called the Laundry Cafe. It's a little gimmicky: laundromat and cafe combined. They have three washers and three dryers; one of the former and two of the latter were broken. A woman with an Australian accent was using the two washers. They still had 40 minutes and 44 minutes to go, and she said they were going to be using the dryer. After mulling it over for a minute, I decided to split.

Back at the hotel, I googled other laundromats. By the time I made up my mind, it was 10:45 AM. I decided to hold off. Maybe I'll do it Friday morning, maybe I'll just wait until I get back to Philly (though I've been wearing the same thing since yesterday, Wednesday).

For lunch I picked up a tomato, mozzarella and pesto sandwich from 7-11. Don't snicker, the food in there is comparable to what you might find in Starbucks or Whole Foods back in the States. The cashier heated up my sandwich in that contraption they use at Qdoba to warm a tortilla.

Afterwards, I decided to write this and just relax at the hotel, give my foot a rest. Research I did last night said you can ice it, but keeping off of it is best way to recover. It only really bothers me when I walk. I'm going to see Copenhagen F.C. tonight, so I'll be standing a bit — might as well rest.