Goodies Galore!

Yesterday I received the mother-load of packages from my mother! It was filled with so much NZ goodness I thought I was going to explode. The package was bursting at the seams! 

We headed off after dinner to go and pick it up and then carried the near 12kg package all the way home.. luckily it wasn't that far or I might have had to take the bike just to move it! The worst part was heading up to the third floor carrying such a load.. Emma did it with style, plus she had had loads of practice carrying nearly 12kg up the stairs with Nemo. Gotta earn the goodies I say!

So what was in this goodness filled package? Of course you have my favourite Perky Nana! Loads and loads of them! Some a little squished, but that is going to happen with such a soft bar.. squished or not they taste the same!

Something new! Marvellous Creations, 2 types! Jelly & Crunchie bits! Clinkers, Raspberry chips & Marshmallow! I am yet to try them.. perhaps something for a Friday night?!

A NZ package is not complete without the addition of Pineapple Lumps! Yesterday while looking on amazon.co.uk, I was a tad amused to discover that you can get a Pineapple Lump Bar. Emma hasn't tried these before so it will be a fun experience for her! I do hope she brags to the kiwi she works with, that she has all these NZ goodies at home! Is that mean?! bahahaha

Whittaker's! I do enjoy the creations that Whittaker's come up with.. and this is the chocolate that prompted the package! A mash up of the iconic kiwi drink L&P with Whittaker's white chocolate! And for added pleasure there is a bunch of fun popping candy to fizz up that mouth as you chew! We demolished half a block last night. You only live the once, right?!

More Whittaker's goodness with the addition of Berry & Biscuit, Hokey Pokey, White Raspberry and Peppermint Squares.

Now it's biscuit time! Mint Treat and Wagon Wheels! 

But the holy grail of biscuits is now in my possession! I have 4 glorious twin packs of Gingernuts! I think I just died and went to heaven! Perfect with a lovely cuppa tea.. perfect coming into the colder months! The best part, Emma doesn't like them so they are alllll mine mine mine! Every last one of them! Unless of course we happen to have visitors and I don't have anything else to offer.. coz I am not that rude.

Lastly to round it out we have Boysenberry Jam. I love it! One jar leaked a little, but there was no actual damage, I think the universe was just playing games with me. Tonight for dinner we will have pancakes & I will have at least one with the jam and cream.. you know, seeing as the jar is already opened!

And to see it all together I give you.. 

Is it just me for could the chocolate pieces on the packaging of the Whittaker's blocks be moustaches?! Thanks mum! I love being spoilt! Enough supplies for another year!

Nordic Taste!

Emma and I picked ourselves up on a lovely Sunday and took off to Copenhagen for a Nordic Taste session at Copenhagen Cooking.

This is gonna be a long one.. prepare yourselves for an onslaught of foodporn!

First up we had, what turned out to be my fork choice! You see at the start when you get your ticket for 10 tastes, you get a little fork (the lady was very clear to not eat with it!) which you are to give to the favourite dish of the day. This dish is the dish of the day for me, while I liked a few a lot and had some clear favourites.. it was wicked hard to pick just the one so how did I pick this as my winner? I looked at everything as a whole experience.. now while you don't see in the photo a drink, there was one. So not only did you get an adorable tiny plate of food, you also got a little cracker and a drink and the whole experience just felt complete. Plus I think it took me back to my deliciousness noma experience back in 2011 with the pine and hay additions. I could have eaten another tiny plate of this piggy slowly cooked on hay if I was allowed.. just YUM!

After filling my mouth with pure deliciousness I headed to the next tent to partake in a mussel, with dill.. my track record with dill hasn't been the greatest since last year in Stockholm but I didn't let it deter me at all.. but maybe I should have because I really didn't like this mouthful. The mussel was fine, the dill was even fine but the crab soup.. I think it was crab soup was just not to my liking at all. I couldn't even finish it and it was only a small amount! Which actually happened a few times during the course of the day. As you can see the mussel dish looked really pleasing to the eye.. just not to my palette.

Now would have been a really great time to have a little drink to wash my mouth out.. instead however we moved over to the GRØD tent! We will be dining at this establishment one day. It is an establishment that serves porridge! All types! They had two dishes up for grabs at their tent, one savoury and one sweet and both divine! More please!

This next dish is something I have never tried before, deep fried pigs ear. I can honestly say that I will never allow it into my mouth again. Now while some people love and rave about it, I did not enjoy the squishy texture and flavour of just.. oil. You know that flavour when something is bland and is deep fried and has nothing enjoyable left.. well that is how I felt about this dish. The little meringue with fruity bits was really nice but that ear. No thank you. Another dish I couldn't finish!

Moving on from ears to a full vegetarian dish! Right up Emma's alley! I am not a fan of cold eggplant, but I had a small bite and it was quite nice. 

This next dish wasn't great but wasn't bad either.. it was the first time for me eating a chicken heart so here's to that! Quite chewy. Not a dish I would want to eat again but definitely glad I gave it a go. I was a bit disappointed in the little apple ball bombs that weren't really very apple-y. I think the dish needed more freshness and the apple would have supplied it, if it could be tasted.

Fried chicken! There is always a place for fried chicken at any food event, right? Sadly, I think this one should have been left off.. I didn't think much of the chicken. The rest of it was nice. Simple but nice.

Ravioli! Now here was a really good mouthful of food! Not only did it look great.. it tasted great! This dish is actually from a place in Malmö that Emma wants to go to but never gets around to booking. Maybe now that she has had a taste it will happen! 

Now cake! The only cake there was. It was a reasonable cake, nothing special. Those orange bombs are called sea-buckthorn and were rather good. They seemed to make appearances at several of the tents (even ones we didn't eat from). They were a new addition to my taste experiences.

Back on chicken.. there was nothing really wrong with this dish other than being too sweet and dry. The pickled beets were far too sweet for me and the chicken was dry. I think with a little more tang, it would have been a really good mouthful and the dryness of the chook could have been more forgiven.

We now move into our home turf! This dish is from a little place here in Hässleholm! A place where we should hopefully be dining next month as we got Emma's parentals vouchers last year to go. Given it was our home turf, this one got Emma's fork. Not just for the home turf advantage but also for the fact that it was a really yummy dish! The fennel sprinkled on top gives a little gold effect and a wonderful flavour to the entire dish. It was really enjoyable to myself and Emma. She is definitely getting better with this fish eating thing. 

I don't really have good things to say about this next dish. It lacked any finesse and while I am sure they made their own sausage, it just felt like an ordinary one from a supermarket. There was no love at all put into this dish and that wasn't help by me seeing them slapping it all together in a hurry. We were nearing the end and getting desperate to use our stamps and so just went with it. That's the problem with only being allowed to use one stamp per place.

Moving on and away from snags, we headed into some crab barley risotto. There were apples on it, my first apples were umm a weird texture but Em gave me some of hers and they were a little better.. I think I just got dud bits of apple that had been sitting for too long on warm risotto and gone a little... limp. An enjoyable dish though.

This dish! Delish! Beef tartare was polished off in one bite! I could have gone another of that! They were also the only place that didn't use the standard tiny plates. This dish was in my top 3.

It seems that after something I really love comes something that I couldn't eat. This fishy dish started off nice but the more I chewed the worse it got. I couldn't eat much of it at all. Definitely not to my liking and I like fish! The palette is a fickle mistress!

This next dish was once again porky, it was really good and one of the better dishes of the day even though I have no idea what the white stuff on my plate was. It looked like a potato mash but didn't taste or even have the texture of it. Actually the taste completely escaped me.. maybe I have tried too many things today and so my not so sophisticated palette went.. ENOUGH! I am  not sure but it was a decent one to end the stamps and experience on for me. Although, I would have liked to have had the very first one again!

Emma ended hers on another cod dish, which was really.. really good! It looked great and a perfect little mouthful so I got Emma to just put it all in and experience it all how it was meant to be!

After we finished up tasting food, we moved over to the bar and tasted a couple of drinks. A beer for me, and a rose for Emma. You see we needed a drink to really hash out who we were giving our forks too. What a really enjoyable day out in the sunshine and with food! We headed out the gates and into another area where we had been before the gates opened. Prior to heading in we had purchased some lamb salami and hazelnut salami.. oh and we had got a little taste of beer from a lovely lady promoting her stalls inside. Nice way to start if you ask me! Anyways, we headed back in as we had spotted some ice cream when we were there. Emma got a red currant ice cream... or as the Danish say.. RIBS!

While I had a rhubarb sorbet! Yum YUM!

We also discovered some really good chocolate which wasn't for bloody sale! How mean is that?! We took the guy's card and will buy some online come October. They were a new Christmas product line so we will have to wait. I have never been good at waiting!

With our cold treats in hand we headed off to Mikkeller & Friends to get our hands on the Copenhagen Cooking beer that they brewed special and to try a couple others. We even tried one of their beer chocolates! Quite nice indeed. I'd eat that again.

While we were in there we saw a girl walk off to go to the loo.. she walked towards the men's loo and Emma and I chuckled and a few seconds later she walks past in the other direction to head to the women's loo and so I turned to Emma and said.. "only you!" remembering when we were there last she used the men's! Bahahaha Then a little time passed and Emma needed to use the facilities so off she went to use the women's loo this time.. I then promptly received a message saying.. "the men's is brighter!" and well.. she would know now that she has experienced both! I wonder if the men's loo is brighter because they need to see what they are doing more than women? The things one ponders!

Festivities & Food!

Yesterday Emma and I headed into the Malmö Festival for a little look, food and of course music.. oh and many drunks! Drunks were the first thing we encountered upon stepping off the train, one drunk in particular.. she thought she was some kind of basketball star or something and tried to slam dunk her not quite empty cider can in the bin.. which was a fail! In two ways, coz it wasn't quite empty and somehow she managed to miss that fact in her drunk state. The other way was it wasn't quite a dunk, more a smash on the sides and drop in but not before the large droplets of cider came out and splashed Emma on the shoe and hit her hand! What a great start! I really hoped that wasn't going to set the mood for the evening!

The photos...

Left to right..
1. The fairgrounds.. rides & screams!
I was amused by the big moving house that was a ride.
2. Art. rubbish art!
3. More rubbish art!
4. Dark clouds were looming.. it was threatening to rain!
5. The Joy Formidable.
6. Central Park of the non NYC kind.
7. Fake ice skating! The ice is fake, not the skating!
8. More art & the Malmö festival signage.
No giants claimed the pencils.. or the rubber, or the scissors that were further on.
Close up of the sign & giant pencils.. [photo]
9. "there's always money in the banana stand"
Arrested Development humour there.

Again, left to right..
1. Slow cooked pig on sour dough bread with an apple sauce and pickled onions.
Can someone say YUM?
2. Ecological vege burger with mushroom salad.
3. The regrettable langos. NuffSaid.
4. Looptroop Rockers.
5. Clouds are clearing and blue skies are coming in.. just in time for darkness!
6. Churros!
7. Spicy snag with smashed potatoes and extras!
8. Fairgrounds behind me as I watch..
9. Flogging Molly!

The words...

Our first stop upon getting up from the train platform was to hit up Starbucks for a sweet coffee treat! We got our drinkies and headed out into the madness of the festival! The madness of people and really weird art! The first piece of 'art' was a lovely garbage piece, which can be seen in the middle of the first row of the first set of photos. The photo next to it, shows a huge stack of old newspapers which is also 'art'. You know, I don't think I will ever actually understand what makes art.. art. But that is ok, I don't have to take myself off to art places and pretend. In saying that I do enjoy going and looking at so called art and wondering why and thinking about the persons mind who came up with a particular piece. The mind is a crazy little creature.

While we waited for the first act, we watched people and a few rides happening in the fairground. Waiting isn't the most fun thing to do but it something that we do a lot of.. so you would think that we would be better at it by now. People started to trickle in and soon enough the band came on and started. The Joy Formidable. They were alright, hearing them for the first time ever probably shouldn't be done at a too loud level and the sound level was in my nanna opinion far too loud. We didn't stay for the entire set, gave them half an hour and then headed off into the real madness. Where there is food.. there is pushing and slow walking and people really just not giving a damn about others. 

We made our way through and around people and the food tents, looking for something delicious to eat. There were so many smells.. some not so nice smells.. mainly coz mixing smells tends to not agree and it was a little sickly. We found a little street food corner towards the end of the mass of tents where I picked up some slow cooked piggy open sandwich thing.. it was really delicious. I enjoyed it, but it didn't quite fill the gap. Emma had an ecological veg burger with a mushroom salad. I tried the burger and found it a little meh, but that might have been because the bread was meh and there was so much of it. We managed to score a little table to eat our meals out.. which was nice to be able to take a break. It was a good spot all around. 

On our way to the second act, which had already started we stopped to pick up a dessert langos. Regrettable. We had never tried the jam and cream langos before, we always opt for a dinner type one and so we thought now is the chance to just try it! We did, but this langos was heavy and all I could taste was the oil. It did not appeal at all. Bummer. I think if they were made better then having jam and cream wouldn't be so terrible but they failed, hard. Bummed, we headed off to catch some Looptroop Rockers. [photo] Now that is an energetic show. They wore green, I like green so it was decent. It is much like picking beer.. good label! Yep, I'll give it a go! 

We had some time to kill between acts, so we headed over to get some churros. Not the greatest but still quite tasty. I opted for a cinnamon sugar instead of a chocolate sauce... as it was just like a sauce that you squirt on ice cream. No thanks. We stood off to the side of the crowd and munched away while people watching. We did a little tour of the grounds, came across a little area where you had people dancing.. people were having a mighty good time.. some people were getting the romance on and even slow dancing! It was pretty neat! With a little more walking to kill time and exploring, soon enough it was time to make our way over to the stage for the last act.. but not before stopping by a food tent for a spicy sausage served with a delicious tomato sauce, some smashed potatoes.. which I think also had cheese and carrots in and some crispy onions! It was really delicious and totally hit the spot. Should have had that to start with. 

With my belleh content and happy we went and took our spots on the cobblestone to watch Flogging Molly. [photo] Emma was very disappointed that they had removed the grass that was there on Sunday! So after already been on our feet for many hours, we had to shuffle through 90mins listening to this act on cobblestone.. not the comfiest! But it was entertaining to say the least.. right in front of us we had an older gentleman who held his iPhone right up to his face to record. I could not help but laugh each and every time my eye caught him doing it! [photo] 

There was also a dude right in front of us who had a pretty epic moustache, I wanted to ask him if I could take a photo but thought that it might just come off a little.. weird. I am weird enough without making myself look weirder! So I just admired it and moved on. His girl friend got pretty into the dancing as the set went on.. she was short and bouncing around.. it was pretty funny.. funny coz she was short and all the bouncing she was doing still didn't obstruct our view. They moved away and it was a little sad to see them go.

I am not someone who overly enjoys loud music at the best of times so going to a concert is not really big on my things to do.. however I do them for Emma's sake and I do actually enjoy myself.. even though it might not look like it as I have to shuffle from a sore ankle and back, and shield myself from the bright bloody lights that they just love to shine out into the crowd and the noise! Altho, this time we were prepared and I had earplugs. Awesome awesome earplugs.. my ears were not ringing at the end of the night and it was lovely! However what wasn't lovely was watching the chaos that was Skånetrafiken totally failing by only using one set and expecting people enough for 2 sets to get on! They had to turn people away.. they even had to kick some people off just so that the personnel could actually get on! You really have to wonder what they were thinking. Also you have to wonder what some people were thinking who got on that train when they only had to go a single bloody stop.. they could take another local train, rather than one going rather far! I was very glad that we were not having to attempt to get on that train. However, the biggest problem with our train was.. no aircon! So we spent most of the trip home cooking before heading down the train to a cooler compartment.. that was almost too cold. Emma made the comment that maybe we were on the same carriage as when we were coming back with Bill & Hanna from Copenhagen.. I wouldn't be surprised!

Loneliness.

My first week home alone.. no Nemo.. no Emma. I wont say that it has been easy, it has had ups and downs. I realise even more now just how much company he did give me even tho half the time he would walk away from me. It is pretty lonely in this little home of ours without the noise and annoyances of Emma and Nemo but in time it will become the norm.

Apparently the weather gods mis-read the memo where it was said that Emma's summer vacation was over and took it to mean that summer was over! Coz this past week has been filled with cold weather and rain! Lots and lots of rain! We even had to close windows as it got that cold! We have had all our windows open for over a month! What gives weather gods?! What. Gives?!.

I haven't done all that much this week, it has been a rather restful week which I think was needed in a way. On Thursday night we headed off to Emporia to partake in some dumplings again! However, this time they weren't as great as the first time and I don't know if it was coz we went with deep fried options or what.. but it really didn't hit the mark. Next time we will go with steamed again and hopefully we didn't just hit the jackpot our first time.. we will see. 

We also looked around the stores.. coz you know that is what you do when you are at a mall, right? I hate malls. Emma got some ice cream, a caramel pecan scoop and a macaron scoop. I tried them both.. the caramel pecan one was ok, the macaron one... no. Just no. It leaves me wondering if people who decide to flavour something 'macaron' if they have ever tasted a macaron by itself. The intense 'almond' flavour that they give these macaron flavoured things is just plain disgusting.. to me anyway and if that is anything like what a macaron tasted like.. there is no way that it would get past my lips. As it is I am rather picky about macarons, I have a sensitive palate when it comes to egg, and I don't like the after-taste that comes with many macaron or even meringue type things. Even that eggy taste would be better than that pungent almond taste. The ice cream looked great and had a good texture.. but the flavours were just meh.

The weekend continued with the theme of restfulness and we just stuck about home for the most part. We went to into town to the market and got some blueberries, chanterelles and the biggest red onion I have seen in a long time! Then nicked into the bakery and picked up a couple of slices of cake for fika! Oh how I love to fika! Oh how Swedes love to fika! This is what we dined on.. [photo] served with iced coffee rather than hot coffee, just coz we can! Later we headed to the parentals and served up a lovely dish of creamy oniony chanterelles! Deliciousness and indulgent! Sunday the indulgence continued with a wonderful serving of blueberry pancakes for breakfast! More lounging was done to round off the day.. along with a little online shopping.. my very favourite way to shop! No pesky sales attendants trying to up-sell stuff!

The 4th Week

The week started off pretty chilled, as in nice and easy.. not temperature. The weather has been simply put, stunning! The best summer we have had in a long time. Long hot sweaty days. It has been a refreshing change to the usual drab summer that has been of yesteryears. It is similar to that of my first summer in Sweden.. at times I wondered if I wasn't still in Australia.

With the weather so nice, we headed into Malmö for another animated movie.. this time it was Monsters University. Good clean fun with that one! Again, we had to see it in 3D. We had a bunch of girls sitting next to us who thought it was a great time to try and take a million photos of them in the cinema. One photo is more than enough, ladies! When the movie finished we were released into what was a big glass hot box! OMG it was disgusting! Instant sweat! But there was a rather nice view.. so that made it semi worth it.

We hit the streets and made our way over to the water to watch the sun setting. It was quite filled with people doing the same thing.. it is a nice spot to just enjoy the beauty and maybe a few drinks, perhaps even a laugh or two. We watched the sun slowly setting, there was some water ski fun to enjoy along with a model shoot! There were a couple of girls not far from us getting their model on. One of them even went out onto the boulders to get her pose on! It made for some good entertainment!

When the sun left, so did we. Beat the feet back to the train station and home we went. I felt like I could have slept on the train.. that is, if it wasn't for a couple of dudes talking complete bullshit across from us. Ahhhh, the joys of train travel.

Tuesday was a pretty epic day, we got to meet up with the Goats and hung in Copenhagen. It is always good to catch up with them.. they are friends who we always wish lived closer. Whilst in Copenhagen, we even managed to pick up some boysenberry jam! It is nowhere near as good as the stuff I can get in NZ but in a pinch, this stuff is just what the doctor ordered. It is not always so easy to find tho, most places don't seem to stock it.

Wednesday we just took it easy, I spent far too long picking photos and doing the Copenhagen blog. Plus we were conserving energy to tackle another day in Copenhagen on the Thursday! Where had a great time checking out the aquarium and then a bar.. I could park my ass at that bar and spend all day there if given the chance! Next time the Goats come, I think we should all head back there and make sure Hank isn't scheduled to drive and then we all can really get our beer tasting on! We don't go to Copenhagen often but I think that place might just have to be a must for every time we go.

Friday was our once a year shrimp & cray party with the parentals, this year we decided that we weren't going to have shelled crayfish coz last year most of them were soft and yeah. We grabbed just some tails.. tiny tiny tails. I do miss the NZ cray. The tiny tails were rubbery and tasteless, so we just stuck to getting stinky fingers with the shrimp.. shrimp bums on toast with lemon mayo.. yums! With a side of cherry tomatoes and the very wonderful cheese pie! This cheese pie is made of all good things, butter! cream! cheese! eggs! Hence the only eating it once a year! So damn good!

We drunk a good amount too, started off with some Australian bubbles and then Em's mum and I moved on to beer while Em stuck with cider. Em and her mum also had some cough syrup.. well that is what I call it, others call it Jägermeister. blergh! I am not much for shots myself and even with the after dinner coffee & nibbles, Em and her mum continued with a few shots of Baileys. 

An amusing thing happened in the evening, flies.. or perhaps just a single fly mocked Emma big-time! It sat on the plastic end of the electric fly swat! and just shook its ass at her and let out a huge maniacal laugh! I mean look at it! [photo] Damn hilarious it was.

Once home we enjoyed some balcony time with this view.. [photo]

Saturday Emma headed off into Malmö again to buy shampoo & conditioner.. yep. The girl uses fancy shampoo that you have to travel to buy! I am much clevererer about my hair products and just get it from my hairdresser! yep, Immathinkerer! She got all sweaty and even got roped into taking touristy snaps for someone! She doesn't like doing that at the best of times.. but then who does. I don't like doing it coz you never really know what they want and people have different eyes. ya know? I'm glad it doesn't happen that often to me.. I think I just look too unapproachable most of the time. Must be my crazy eyes! People think I will throw pie for them and that will mean they are mine. (Orange is the New Black humour there, if you haven't seen it.. then see it!)

The rest of Saturday was pretty chilled just hanging out at home, getting ready to be back in the usual grind of the real world. Sunday started off chilled, as in laying in bed for extra long AND temp wise! It was a little chilly with the massive downpour.. I am not complaining.. it was quite nice. When we finally got up we headed out to pick blackberries and so off we biked in the drizzle which turned into a downpour pretty quickly. Dang! We picked.. by we, I mean Emma.. while I stood to the side and watched her get sliced and diced by the angry bushes who were mad at her for taking all it's berries! [insta photo of battle wounds!]

We continued the chilled theme and made some ice cream with some of them.. good use of berries if you ask me! All in all our Sunday was pretty relaxed and we hung about home just... being and eating an assortment of goodies, crackers & cheese! Tomorrow the routine begins, what will be thrown our way next? Right now, after I hit publish.. I am going to take myself off to the kitchen and dish me up some of that ice cream! Summer vacay.. complete.

A Day at Den Blå Planet.

A grey day seems like a perfect day to head to an aquarium and so you know... that's what Emma and I did! [video en route] We headed off to arrive at opening time at The Blue Planet, and by jingoes I am glad we did! Coz once we caught the train, then the stinky metro, then walked in the pissing down rain to the aquarium it was already packed and we were there only 10ish minutes past opening time. Luckily we also had pre-purchased tickets so we got to go in the fast track line, which wasn't looking so fast as we were actually leaving I might add! It was nearly as long as the line for buying tickets! Frak that for a joke!
 

Speaking of jokes, it seems that when designing the building they didn't take into account that the place would actually be popular coz it was like a being shoved into a sardine can! There were some very narrow passageways that were not meant to take two way people traffic! Let alone people traffic with strollers! And OMG! Don't even get me started on strollers.. oh wait! Too bloody late! What is it with people's obsessions with having ones that are clearly too large?! If your kid only fills 1/3 of it then clearly you don't need it! Gah!

It's currently a big hate of mine, it's been driving me insane as I watch people with no regard for others expecting others to get out of their way just because they have a massive buggy for their spawn. I want to burn every last hummer equivalent buggy there is on this planet.

Ok, back on topic of my sardine time at the aquarium! It was pretty good.. it wasn't a favourite aquarium of mine but it was worth the look, I would recommend it to others but maybe say.. wait a year or so for it to calm down a little. It's still quite new and it seems that means every Tom, Dick, Harry & their spawn need to be there.

We walked around and checked out all there was to see.. here's a few pics..

 

 

 

As well as some Instagram goodies.. Finding Nemo [photo] No Touching [photo] The Big Tank [video] Squishy! [photo] A lonely little puffin! [photo]

We sat in the glass tunnel for the feeding of the big tank, which was pretty awesome I must say. The tunnel also had a glass floor section so you could see them sea-creatures go under you instead of only above and to the sides! It also gets pretty hot in there. It also seems people didn't bother reading or just ignored the signs and brought their bloody strollers in! Sorry, off-track again.

We had a little hiccup with the puffins.. we thought we were going to watch the puffins being fed but no, it turned out we were just watching fish being fed where the puffins were. Whoops. I guess that will teach us for being too excited for puffins! How could we not be? They are adorable! Smaller than expected too lol

The last thing to see were the Californian sea lions, which was actually quite disappointing.. I felt it was too small and too hard to find a good spot to watch them. Outside there was only a small strip off to the side to see them or you had to go inside and down a bit into the mass of people to even try and catch a glimpse and who knows when sea lions will even go past. It was quite the let down.

We didn't stay to eat, instead we headed out and towards the metro again.. this time we were on the sauna metro and it was like there was an extra sauna in my pants!

We headed to The Coffee Collective again, bought some beans and partook in some iced coffee awesomeness! Before grabbing a focaccia for lunch.. Emma had a pesto filled one and I had some Italian one that was like eating pure salt. It was just salt on salt on salt. It got washed down with a coffee éclair.. the chocolate one on Tuesday was nicer. Also, who knew that eating an éclair could look so crude!

Next stop! Mikkeller & Friends! Where we sat for a few hours drinking beer and eating goodies! Salt & vinegar crisps, porter sausage & cornichons! All up we tried 7 beers and purchased 2 bottles to take home.

Round One was one that had been made with New Zealand hops! As we walked in I heard the bartender mention it to a bunch of boys and being a Kiwi, my ears perked up at hearing NZ. It was actually very delicious, I hoped they had bottles for sale but sadly they did not. The bartender recommended a kriek with a lovely hint of cherry to it, I could easily drink those two over and over.

Emma popped off to use the facilities and when she returned she exclaimed! "I think I may have used the mens toilet... coz there was a urinal in there!" Turns out.. yes she in fact did use the dangle bits toilet and the pink bits toilet was around the other corner! Whoops! Luckily for her and any dangle bit owner, she was all alone the entire time while using the facilities. Never a dull moment!

Round Two consisted of one called Jackie Brown, coz I just could not pass that shit up! It was another easy one to drink indeed. This is also when we grabbed the nibbles, definitely went well with nibbles. The other in this round was a Limoncello beer and that one went down quite easy.. not that I got much of it. Emma got all hoggy!

Round Three had some rather interesting choices, or well one that was a sour beer. It really intrigued me so I just had to give it a go! It had an acidy taste to it. Not a favourite and as long as you took a good mouthful it wasn't too bad, if you sipped it then well.. let's just say it wasn't overly pleasant. The other in the mix was a variation of a poster they had displayed.. it was quite bitter and not overly to Emma's liking so I had to help her finish it off. I didn't mind it at all.

Round Four or perhaps 3.5 coz we only grabbed one beer on this round.. we weren't planning on having a round but when we were buying a couple of bottles to go we wanted to try one of them (again we heard the bartender talking about this beer to someone and he mentioned avocado! Say what?! So yeah, we felt the need to try), but didn't want one of the larger bottles and it was quite expensive so we opted to just try it before going instead and wow, now that was a very interesting beer. It had a slight smell of chocolate and it was dark and rich and kind of smokey! 

What extra beers did we buy? Well these ones of course! As you can imagine one of them had me at cream and the other had me at bacon! I shall keep you posted on the outcome of these beery treats!

All beered up and merry we headed to the train station, firstly stopping by the cemetery to see the grave of the little mermaid dude. Also, stumbling across a walk light that someone had glued on a Mr. T head! Awesome yah?

Extra around Copenhagen photos on instagram.. 
Watch out! There's a croc about! [photo] OBEY [photo] Wrapping it up.. [photo] 

The train home was slow, late and packed! Apparently it was sardine time again. Across from us, there sat a dude.. who looked like the human version of Squidward Tentacles from Spongebob Squarepants. I wanted to take a photo but it would have been way too obvious! If only I had GoogleGlass! Could have totally done the sneaky photo easily then! DangNabbit!  All in all another successful day out.  Only a few days left and the summer vacation will be over.. back to the real world routine of my darling leaving the house for far too many hours a day.. and I'll be without my Nemo. I posted this photo of him for ThrowBackThursday. It still makes me smile how adorable he was when he was all fluffy and how he didn't mind getting dressed up! Nemo in socks is just pure adorableness! [photo] He only ever wore them in the tent when we were hiking or on the odd occasion when we greased up his pads. I miss him.

A Day in Copenhagen.

We were off to Copenhagen to get our tourist on with BillyGoat & Hank! It started off with a little mix up on the trains which left Em and I walking up and down the carriages to find them! Hank said they were on #13, however there were apparently 2 #13's and so we were on 'wrong' one. Nothing like a little train fun to start of the day! Keeps one on their toes!

  

We arrived in Copenhagen, rocked up to the bike place to pick up bikes and a GPS to do a GPS bike tour. Bill fiddled around with his GoPro for what felt like ever! (not really, but it adds more drama and hilarity to the next part) We set off and got a few meters down the road when Bill announced that the GoPro is flat! Battery go byebye! Turned out to be quite the blessing really.. coz damn! the cobblestone streets we were taken down on the tour were bouncy! Would not have made for nice non-vomit worthy viewing pleasure! 

Our first stop was at the Round Tower, Em and I had been there 3 years prior. We went up that time, this time we did not. At each stop we got to listen to little snippets about the places, often how they burnt down or got demolished and then rebuilt.

It still surprises me that people actually do this! In no reality is it OK to use your iPad to take photos! Yes, there is a camera.. but don't use it to take touristy photos! Not. Acceptable.

Back on the bikes, we made our way through the crowded streets to the Church of our Lady. 

Listen, snap snap and off we went again! Christiansborg Palace!

Rinse & Repeat! We arrived at Thorvaldsens Museum.

Now it was time to give our bums a rest off the seat and bouncy streets with a little stroll from Christiansborg through the Royal Library Garden. Where we debated about stopping for a drink or just continuing on and finding a place for some lunch! Drink lost. Lunch won. 

A short detour was done to check out some massive sand sculptures.. we didn't think it was worth spending $10 to look at sand for 2mins before having to head off again so we just looked over the fence quickly and then left. They were pretty impressive though.

Back on the bikes we found a place in Christianshavn that looked good enough for some foodage and beer. I wasn't overly hungry so I just had some beer and a little of Em's sandwich.. the meaty part of her sandwich actually. We finished up with lunch and headed out to the bikes when we got the ding-a-ling that we were close to our next stop! Sure enough we were.. the Church of our Saviour was just off to the side of where we were 'parked'. You can walk all the way to the top, we didn't do it though, as we were a little pressed for time and didn't really have about 45mins spare to do it. I am not sure I would have either.. it might have made me poo myself! I know I have been on some high places, but none so narrow! As you get up to the top it gets smaller and smaller and totally poopypants worthy! Maybe another time we can head over when I have more time and balls.

We set off again and it turns out our next stop was Christiania! As soon as we arrived we all sorta went DOH! We could have had lunch here! Oh well! Next time! I do mean actual lunch, not the smokey variety of lunch! We biked around and through Pusher Street and looked at all the hash on display and the animals! So many beautiful dogs! We saw this one huge doggy just walking around like he owned the joint. It was awesome. The old me, the one who lived in NZ would have partaken in some stonertime.. but the new me, the one who hasn't had any in over 10years could not. It probably would have rendered me unable to bike the bouncy streets! 

 

We biked off straight as an arrow, passing by Dyrehaven making our way to the Opera House... where it was windy as all shyte! 

We did the listen, snap snap before moving off to the side to catch the ferry across the water. The ferry was running a touch late which meant we didn't have a 30mins wait until the next one! Score! & we also got a touch of entertainment.. a lady was trying to come off when the ferry drifted back slightly so that the ramp wasn't leaning against anything and as she moved on it more and more with her bike it was getting lower and lower and it looked like either her or her bike were going to go into the drink! Her companion who was on safe ground, grabbed the bike and someone on the ferry went to grab the lady, so the drink was averted! However, I think she probably would have wanted a stiff drink after it! The ferry corrected itself, people got off.. people got on and we took the quick trip across! Time to bike again.. we reached the Gefion Fountain where I spotted a water wagon and so that was all I cared about! Forget the fountain! Gimme water! I obviously looked rather hot and thirsty as the girl made sure to find me the coldest ones. After a little refreshment a little listen, snap snap happened!

Next stop! The Little Mermaid! Which was like tourist bloody central! 

We worked out exactly why as we rode off and came across a zillion (not really, it's that drama thing again) buses! Bouncy bouncy along the cobblestone we had some water overboard as Bill got a little too bouncy! By that I mean that a bottle of water fell off the back of Bill's bike, not that there was any exiting of water! Water back on board, we bounced our way through the Citadel!

Where does the English congregation go in Copenhagen you ask? Right here! St Alban's Church!

Moving on we headed to and parked right outside the only currently active door on the block! So it seemed anyways! lol We did our listen, snap snap.. with a few chuckles! We were at Nyboder, which is the old navy housing area.. by old navy I don't mean the store!

As we left there, we were on some normal roads! It was soooo smooth! Apparently a little too smooth for Hank as she decided now was the perfect time to ride into a sign! Yes, folks! Hank rode into a sign and was on a small island on the bike path.. or well it was at the pedestrian part and shows where the bike path is to the actual road. We all heard a slight crash and then scream and looked back to see Hank.. surprisingly upright! She had hit her knee and shoulder but seemed perfectly fine so we all had a little chuckle about it. If it isn't me then it's Hank! A right pair we are! A little later she discovered that her head hurt a little and it seems she also donked her head on the sign. Hank does not do things by halves! 

The last stop on the GPS bike tour was Rosenborg Castle. Where we also got to give our bums a rest and walk through the parky grounds.. it always feels so annoying to walk with bikes. We took some shade, then the final listen, snap snap!

We weren't far from the bike store so we headed off to return the bikes, with maybe 30mins to spare. What a fantastic tour of Copenhagen! Many bounces, many laughs, no deaths! There was a close call with a pigeon though.. as it decided that coming out right in front of me was the best bloody option! There must be something about the heat this year that is making the pigeons crazy because about a week or so ago I was biking along and a pigeon refused to actually get out of my way and just casually walked where I wanted to bike! Like dude! ComeOn! Death wish?!

We were now bikeless & on foot! Heading to Torvehallerne for a really frakkin awesome coffee [instagram photo] & éclair. We took a seat and had a little rest in the shade. Definitely needed and well deserved! 

Emma and Hank tested the limits by heading us into a shopping mall. Illum. It was ok for the first 5mins when I could look at bikes! Damn there were some nice bikes. Is it bad that I want a new bike? I do like my bike but there are some seriously nice bikes out there.

Finally out of the mall, we made our way to Nyhavn [instagram photo] and then along Strøget, which was bustling and I was amused at the many drinking and eating establishments that offered Calsberg to go!

No day out in a city being a tourist is complete without checking out the sex shop and prostitute street and so that is exactly what we did! Istedgade was a special kind of seedy, we briskly made our way through and soothed ourselves by getting to a little Mikkeller [instagram photo] bar to partake in some delicious beers! Hank got nuts, coz she had to drive later. Bad planning! 

I could have easily sat there and tried all the beers that they offered.. but that would have been more enjoyable if Hank could have partaken as well.. maybe next time? 

You can't leave Copenhagen as a tourist without indulging in a red pølse action! We munched at the station before jumping on the train.. correction sauna train and heading home! Nothing like a little sauna to drain what little energy we had left out of our tired hot bodies! We made it home in one piece, and the last thing I thought about before falling alseep was 'then one time at band camp, Hank rode into a sign!'

What a fantastic day out.. if only BillyGoat and Hank lived closer.. we could get our tourist on more often!