#18 David The Sweet Tooth

Hello, my name is David The Sweet Tooth and I am a viking.

Ok, I'm not REALLY a viking. That is just my viking name. For those who don't keep up with the blog, I was in Copenhagen, Denmark this past weekend.

My viking name was given to me by Soren and his family. They gave it to me because I ate 3 of these delicious chocolate deserts his family had bought. They were basically a creamy sugar marshmellow-y/meringue dipped in chocolate. Man, I wish I had one right now.

But that was Sunday.

When I arrived in Copenhagen, it was on Friday which so happened to be on J Day. J Day is a holiday in the same way Valentines Day is a holiday. This is the story of J Day:

Sometime during the month of November, a few years ago, Danish beer companies would release new Christmas brews that are usually darker and stronger than their traditional beers. These release dates were scattered, sometimes landing on a Friday, sometimes they landed on a Tuesday. People loved these Christmas beers so much that they would find out the dates and, the minute the beers were released, they would drink themselves under the table - missing their obligations the following day. This was especially true for the younger kids (let's just say Denmark has a liberal drinking age). These teenagers would miss school the next day, so the government did something about it.

In the US, you'd probably expect the government to change the drinking age for that day so that kids wouldn't be able to drink the stronger beer. But no. Instead, the Danish government told Tuborg (a Danish beer company) and the other breweries to change their release dates to the first Friday of November so that people of all ages can drink themselves silly and not miss school or work the following morning.

So when I arrived in Copenhagen and I got a taste of the Danish holiday season. Until 5:30 am.



The next day we hung out with Soren's family, had lunch and walked around the city. I've been to Copenhagen before and I've been to the city squares and some of the touristy places, so I took this trip as an opportunity to see some of the city's back roads while being led by locals.

Sunday we went to an FC København (FC Copenhagen) soccer match. They were playing this smaller and less talented team. They won 4-0. Soren said that since the opposing team wasn't very good, there weren't too many people in the stands. But they still sang some fun songs and had a very joyous spirit.



That night we had some delicious dinner at Soren's parents house just outside of Copenhagen. Bread, salmon, steak, potato, the works.

Something important to note. There is a very interesting cultural difference between the Danes and people in the US. And it has to do with babies. In Denmark, if a family is going to eat at a restaurant or a cafe and their baby is sleeping, they will leave it outside. Wrapped up in a blanket and under the cover of a carriage, sure, but outside nevertheless. Even when it rains, they just leave the baby outside, safe in its carriage. Here's a picture that I took right after a really heavy rain. The parents were in view of their sleeping child somewhere in the cafe, I think.



Hope you enjoy the pictures! There's more towards the end of my London pictures in this photo album .