Recently I went on a press trip to Sweden and Denmark that was pretty great. Here is my story.
The day before my trip, I realized I needed to bring some music. Usually I’d pack up my disc player and ten CDs in my travel case, but suddenly I realized it’s not 1994 anymore. I stopped into a computer store having a sale- on iPods.
Fans, you know how I feel about the evil, pretty Mac products. I was making fun of iPods and the iTards who use them long before it was cool to make fun on them. (Okay, it’s still not cool to make fun of them but I still do it.)
So yeah, I bought one. I learned an important lesson recently when I tried to be a smart shopper by going to Ross for luggage and ended up waiting in a line with a horde of heinous trash for an hour. It would have been far less traumatic for me to have bought one double the price at Macy’s.
But this time I learned the important lesson of not compromising your principles. Also, I learned that iPods, and particularly iTunes, fucking suck. For a company that puts design ahead of value, the iTunes software is so poorly designed and written that it’s the MySpace of digital jukeboxes. Who can stand to use this crap? It took me several hours to figure out a kluge to get music on my iPod, despite- no because- it’s made so easy and simple that any idiot should be able to use it. The problem is that I find things designed for idiots to be ‘intuitive’ are harder to use than complicated ones.
Long story short: I’m an idiot. Not about the software, but about needing an MP3 player in the first place. I forgot about in-flight entertainment systems now standard on long flights. I played my new iPod for a grand total of less than two hours my whole vacation, yet the stench of shame for owning one haunts all my waking moments.
Meet the Gays
This trip was a gay “fam” trip, which I came to learn means “familiarization.” I heard one gay on the plane to Copenhagen before the plane took off. “Oh girl, I’ve already seen all these movies,” he said to his cell phone friend while flipping through the in-flight entertainment guide as we were still boarding the plane. I figured he was with my group. He was. Once off the plane, I met him and the rest of the gays. There were three writers and three tour packagers.
Overall it was a good group. One person tended to drink too much and get a bit sloppy, and surprisingly that person wasn’t me. (On the other hand, only one of us got thrown out of a bar, and it was me. More on that later.)
The First Day: Malmo
The flight was eight hours long, leaving at 6PM California time and arriving at 2PM Copenhagen time. I slept a couple of hours on the plane, but that ain’t much with which to begin an entire day.
We met a representative at the airport and he escorted us to the train station that connects to it. The great thing about trips like this is that they don’t allow you to get lost. He introduced himself, gave us tickets, told us where to get off the train, and left us at boarding. Twenty minutes later we arrived in Malmo, where we were met by another two representatives. One was a tour guide and another from the tourism board. This was to become a pattern for the rest of the trip: one official and one tour guide to fill in the details.
We checked in to our hotel in Malmo and set off on a walking tour of the city. Malmo is located across a new fancy bridge from Copenhagen, though it is part of Sweden and Copenhagen is part of Denmark. We stopped into the Design Center, which is like a museum of Danish design where you can buy all of the art. That’s the thing about Scandinavian design: it’s all commercial.
We visited the tallest building in Sweden: the Turning Torso. It’s designed by Santiago Calatrava, who is also doing the Transportation Hub at the World Trade Center. The building is pretty cool, but it’s also located in a new part of Malmo that focuses on newness. Every building was built since 2000, and now it’s a beach area day trip for locals. (The tower is near a boardwalk-type strip of land with no beach to speak of, but it’s sea-adjacent.)
Malmo is changing from being an industrial city to a cultural one. On the train in from the airport, the first sights are of large warehouses for miles. Once in the city, however, it resembles old Europe with regal statues, large, green copper government buildings, and town squares filled with restaurants on every side.
We had dinner at the gourmet restaurant Atmosfar, one of those places where each of the plates seems really small, but there are a lot of them and everyone leaves full. The veggie meal that was usually a disappointment in the places I ate on the trip (they like their fish in Scandinavia) was very good here.
Day Two: Copenhagen
I slept well that night- until about five in the morning. We had to meet out guide at 7:15 AM to ride the train back to Copenhagen so I was able to do some work and get breakfast before we did.
That morning we took a van tour of Copenhagen. What a great city! It is very walkable (they say about 45 minutes from one end of the downtown to the other), with lots of pedestrian streets and plenty to see. Everywhere you go in Copenhagen there is a new castle or opera house or museum or architectural centerpiece of some kind. I liked it the best of the three cities from this trip, as it was manageable but not too small.
We stopped in at the Royal Reception Hall, where the queen receives visitors when she is in town. It’s filled with huge, high-ceilinged rooms for balls and whatnot, but is a tourist attraction most of the time. You have to wear little booties so that you don’t muck up their nice wood floors.
In one room are hung a series of huge tapestries made this century by Bjorn Norgaards depicting the history of Denmark and the world. At first, they’re kind of garish and ugly but once you start looking closely they’re really cool.
We then checked into our hotel- the Front Hotel, where it was all Power Design inside. Pretty funny. Then we had to leave for a meeting with the mayor.
The Gay Danes
Klaus Bondam is the Technical and Environmental Mayor of Copenhagen. His position would probably be called a deputy mayor in the US. I believe that two of their mayors are gay. We met him at City Hall and had dessert pancakes as he told us about their pro-gay country and preparations for the upcoming Out Games in 2009 that they’re hosting.
We stopped into the room where civil weddings are held in City Hall; also the site of the first legal same-sex union in the world in 1989. It’s kind of a big deal in civil rights history. Then the mayor lead us on a walking tour of part of the city including the pedestrian streets and area near the courthouse.
We had a couple of hours to spend walking down the pedestrian shopping street back to the hotel. Most of the clothing stores close at 6PM sharp, so between five and six there is a huge rush of people trying to buy stuff in the one hour after work. There was also some sort of soccer match playing somewhere, so one segment of the street was clogged with drunken soccer fans singing and drinking. Oddly, they kept singing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” What’s up with that?
That evening we went for a pre-dinner drink at a fancy gay bar/café called Oscar, then headed to a gay restaurant called Jailhouse. What makes a gay restaurant, you ask? The waiters were wearing police uniforms while they served us, that’s what. The downstairs of the restaurant is a cellar-type bar, but we were exhausted at midnight after being up for (in my case) 19 hours, so most of us didn’t hang out.
Day Three: Stockholm
Besides, we had to be up in six hours to catch a flight to Stockholm. The flight is only about an hour long, so I imagine it’s a five-hour drive from Copenhagen. We were picked up by shuttle bus and escorted to the hotel Clarion, the largest hotel in town.
We spent the morning touring the city by bus. The city is made up of many different islands connected by large bridges and a central canal, which gives different neighborhoods distinct design and moods. The old town has the narrow streets and low-ceilinged shops of really-old Europe. The “SOFO” district (South of Folkungagatan) is the hipster ‘hood filled with vintage and new trendy shops and cafes. The canal area hosts the National Museum where we ate lunch (yet didn’t see the art) on one side and the Royal Dramatic Hall (or something like that) on the other, along with ultra-fancy hotels.
Then we visited the incredible Vasamuseum (they like to squish words together in Swedish), which holds the ship Vasa. The Vasa was an immense wooden navy ship with 700 carved sculptures on all sides that was built with the cannon ports too low for its size and sunk in the harbor on its maiden voyage in 1628. It spent 333 years under 90 feet of water until a relentless history nut located it using a homemade core sampler. It was brought to the surface, mostly in one piece (by plugging the cannon holes and pumping out water) in the 1960s. They’ve spent the whole time since restoring it- replacing all of the nails, putting the wood back together, etc., so that 95% of the original wood is in place. It’s housed in a giant concrete museum with exhibits on the sides and it’s really amazing. You know how I like the boats.
We toured some other hotels in the afternoon including the one I want to stay at next time (after someone leaves me their inheritance)- the Victory Hotel. It uses a (surprise!) boat design theme, blending historical artifacts with modern design seamlessly.
That night we ate at the tres trendy restaurant Kungsholmen then later ended the night at Club Lino. Lino is just like every other gay club in the world, with two indoor and one outdoor areas. Oh, and gambling. Two different clubs we went to had one to three craps or roulette tables set up so you could get drunk and spend all your money. I stayed clear- the drinks are more than 10 bucks apiece as it is.
Day Four: More Stockholm
The next morning we slept in until the luxurious hour of 9:15AM. Bliss! We had breakfast at the Victory Hotel then walked around the Old Town a bit. Then we headed to Millesgarden, another scrunched word combination meaning Milles Sculpture Garden. This museum was pretty interesting and had a great view of the city.
ABBA-esque
In the afternoon we had lunch at the Hotel Rival, a very fancy place overlooking a Parisian-style park. The hotel, along with a lot of things in town, is owned by ABBA’s Benny Andersson.
Everywhere we went in Stockholm something was owned by someone in ABBA. I forget that they’re not just a funny disco band but actually sold a boatload of albums back in the day. And now, apparently they’re making even more from the musical Mamma Mia! (that is playing all over the world) than they did in the seventies.
Shopping
That afternoon we actually had free time to shop. Stockholm seems to be a great place for this activity, with large and small department stores lining pedestrian and commercial streets everywhere. There is an H&M on every other block, which locals think of as Old Navy or the Gap- ever-present and unworthy. I bought a bunch of accessories there. Hooray!
Our last night in town we stopped into the Nordic Light Hotel for champagne and a quick tour, then went to the Ice Bar at the Nordic Sea hotel. The Ice Bar is built out of ice inside an airlock-sealed room in the hotel lobby, and it is completely retarded. Visitors make reservations for time slots in the bar, where you must wear one of their silver heat-deflecting parkas to enter. The parka comes with gloves necessary to hold the drinks (all Absolut vodka drinks) served in cups also made out of ice. There is no place to sit down and it’s very cramped so it’s all about standing and wallowing in the commercial novelty.
Later that night we headed to the ship Lady Patricia for gay night on Sunday. The docked boat serves as a disco with three rooms of music and dancing (and gambling, of course), including an outdoor deck where we spent most of the night. The music played there is called Schlagger, and it’s pure and total cheese- the kind of stuff that wins the Eurovision song contest each year.
I did two unusual things that night. First I danced to Madonna with some other folks from the trip. I can’t tell you when the last time I did that was- maybe the 1980’s? Then I got thrown out of the club. I was trying to track down one of the guys on the trip who was getting a little bit grabby, and a bouncer mistook my looking around in search of him for shitfaced confusion and escorted me to the exit. So I stood outside swearing at him (“Do you know what douchebag means, douchebag?”) and in 25 minutes or so the others finally came out and got me before leaving. Good times!
Fly, Fly Away
The next day I flew from Stockholm to Copenhagen, from Copenhagen to Seattle, and from Seattle to San Francisco. God that sucked. But the memories are just terrific.
I wasn’t sure I liked travel writing the last time I flew off to Portland, Maine (though I do like Portland), but this trip was perfect. It was a great overview of these three cities allowing me to write overview articles and follow up on specific topics if need be. Note to tourism boards: send me on more!
