The Beautiful People

Somewhere in Denmark, a bleach-blonde fat American boy from the Midwest is heard to mutter something to himself. If you listen closely, it sounds more like a curse: "Sweet Marcipan-Smag, the women in Denmark are beautiful."

That boy is me, that place is Aalborg.

Aalborg; it’s a city that’s named for its first settlers’ love of hunting a populous of eel. The correct and most exact translation is Eel-Castle. So welcome to Eel Castle, home of the most beautiful women in the world. To be fair, I’m quite sure that it is home to some of the most beautiful people in the world, but seeing the boys walk by like a high-fashion magazine model’s newest frontpage doesn’t do the same thing for me.

It’s actually so prominent, that life is difficult for a foreigner here. And I have taken the time to fact-check this with others, mind you. It’s quite true.

The women here are so beautiful that odd and bizarre events can, do, and will happen to you. Please allow me to explain:

Let’s say you are a shy boy. Oh, I don’t know… just some run-of-the-mill shy guy next door type bum. Well, you are doomed here. Because if you are shy, you probably have difficulty in talking to beautiful girls, I’ve seen the type. So good-luck asking for directions to anywhere, because everywhere you turn is a girl that would otherwise be a number-ten hands down in any American city. So you would never get anywhere. Ever.

Let’s say you are obnoxious. Yeah, okay, let’s say you are Tim Grondin. It’s even worse. Much worse. You end up finding yourself in a position where you want to talk to damned near everyone. Times were weird, friends, but not too weird for me.

I woke up Saturday at first because some crazy Dane was certain that someone else lived in this apartment. His persistent ringing of the doorbell would have woken Keith Richards from a whiskey coma, let alone myself. And thusly I was conscious for the day at the ripe hour of 10AM… but I abruptly realized that I didn’t have to work, wasn’t actually late and could relax after all. And so I did… but the setback was that I went right back to sleep. Ah... was it nice.

My second awakening was looming near the point of 1PM, so I knew I’d better get on track right away if I was going to shop. These Danes haven’t taken to the twisted ways of capitalism yet and places still put up the shutters at 5PM here. I’m told that it has something to do with unions and such, but either way… it’s terrible… but true. So I take a shower in what I swear to you is the greatest shower in the populated world. The shower doesn’t even seem to have a cold setting. It has no actual settings, but if it did – it would be these: Perfect, super-perfect, kind of hot, but still awesome, and finally the gut-wrenching: pretty damned good, but maybe a tad cold for this early. I went ahead and turned the anti-stupid dial to perfect and just enjoyed the wonderment, but at an accelerated pace.

I took a HOT towel from the perfect “it stays heated” towel rack and dried off. After a quick poll to myself of which is more ideal, the hot towel, or the hot shower, I was dressed and out the door.

Outside it was cold, but I’m actually used to it now and it’s just like your average winter day in Michigan. And it’s actually a dry cold, so it’s not too bad. It’s one of those colds where you KNOW it’s cold and you should be freezing or something, but you are weirded out because you find yourself zipping the jacket down.

Ah... the jacket. I am proud of the jacket that I bought. It’s pretty fashionable, white, with a snowboarder’s fresh-modern look. It’s actually hard to not be fashionable here in Aalborg. Last night, Heini was telling me that fashion is one of Denmark’s greatest exports these days. He told me that you can pretty much get things in Copenhagen cheaper than anywhere else in Europe the way that Levis are cheap and meaningless in the actual US, but outside of it, people fight for them.


Well, my trials of doom are finally over (Jeg tror) with the bussing system out here it seems, so I was able to successfully get on bus #17 and make my way into town. Coming into that main terminal isn’t the difficult part; it’s getting to other places actually. Anyway, there I was, a week’s worth of knowledge smarter than before.

It was really nice just walking around by myself. There are some things that you can do when you are alone that people tend to forget about when they are always in groups. And one of those things is that you can be retrospective right on the spot. This allows you to enjoy life much better sometimes. I took a picture of what I now knew to be the oldest building in the city (600 years old), which pretty much makes it the oldest building I have ever seen in my lifetime.

[It’s just too bad that I was wrong. It was the building next to that one that was the oldest building in Denmark. Whoops.]

Moving on, I looked around for this second hand store… but couldn’t find the damned thing. It’s hard to find places in Denmark, it’s like everything still looks the same to me. I can read the store hours and the days and many of the signs, but store names and what they represent still elude me at present. For some strange reason, all of these foreign places and signs just sort of blend together in a mesh of which I cannot understand. Even looking in the windows sometimes doesn’t yield any help.

Back to the original topic, there are some real oddities about this place. For instance, I cannot seem to get anywhere fast because I find myself wanting to cross the street and go speak to this gorgeous blonde… or waiting a little too long in line so that I can ask the cutie to help me out and read what kind of milk I’m trying to buy. (It wasn't milk… I was about to take home a milk carton filled with yogurt… blurg!)

It was funny at the store: I went into Seling, which is the local “has everything” department store. Mind you, when you are a stupid American and think that the world will revolve around you waking up at 2 in the Afternoon, you kind of have no choice; it’s the only place that’s still open after 5PM.

So Seling it was.

But the strangest thing happened to me, and I honestly don’t think this has every happened before. I was talking to this girl who was helping me and laughing so pleasantly at how ungodly stupid I probably sounded as I was suffering through figuring out sizes in a foreign country. See, it’s weird the amount of things that people take for granted in your own homeland. Doing just about anything in a foreign land is very complicated if you are by yourself. You actually have to be a little brave just to pull it off. But there this girl was helping me out. This cute woman by the name of Jenne, which was pronounced “Ya-Knee” I believe.

So I took the shirt that she helped me pick out and went to try it on. While I was in the dressing room I was thinking about how cool it was that she was taking the time to follow me around and help me out, the complete stranger that I am (emphasis on STRANGE). So I come out and look for this perfect ten blonde and there she was… so I start talking to her and she smiles and says the weirdest thing: “I think you maybe talk of someone else? But you are-a funny, ja.”

How strange. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk to me as much. I mean, she was being cool about it, but still kind of acting like she hadn’t just spent the past 15 minutes with me. And then… Jenne comes walking up! Oh no.

Aw man. So this girl that I was talking to was just another faultless looking girl. I didn’t even consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, in this perfect land in which I have stumbled onto for some God-must-love-me reason… that maybe there were TWO absolute perfect-looking blondes in the same place at the same time. But that was clearly the case.

So I joked with them about the mistake and couldn’t believe their wonderful sense of humor at the whole thing.

Of course inside I felt like the biggest ass this side of the globe.

But the fact that Jenne stuck with me longer to help me pick out something else eased the pain… yeah.. just a little. :-P I… am NEVER going to go back to Florida now. The 90 degree weather suddenly doesn’t seem so important to me. J

Well, that was my day. You can go ahead and figure the rest out… me walking around and talking to everyone… like I constantly do. So it took forever. Some girl behind the perfume counter helped me pick out the “best smelling cologne in Denmark…” her and the gal behind me totally believed that “Allure” was the top dog. So I bought some. I had picked the #1 cologne in America as well: there it’s Guess.

Yada yada yada… talking to everyone… yada yada yada… hot Danes… yada yada…

Kenneth. Yeah, there’s where we can pick back up… so on the way home, I noticed all the closed stores (I got kicked out of Seling... apparently they were TRYING to tell me it was Lukket (closed), but I didn’t understand, so I received the proper help.) But there was a bar open. So I sat in the bar drinking Coke out of a 1970s classic bottle and swilling down some sauce. I called Kenneth right there from the pub to see what he was doing. I was hoping that he was still up for a night out on the town. Thankfully he was having supper soon. Since I hadn’t eaten a thing, I went ahead and offered my presence- kidding… I was totally invited.

His wife is a pretty damned good cook and so I was really looking forward to that, so I got up to leave… but just then, something evil caught my eye in that little old medieval building looking pub: A way to gamble. Oh yes, apparently this place had a slot machine. So I walk up to the machine and this alcohol-aged old fool tries to literally shove me out of the way, away from the machine. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing of course and he just spit some foul-sounding gibberish back at me. I sighfully ignored him and just went to using the other machine. It was rather odd… you can take any of your Danish Kroner and stick it directly in the machine and it really did seem to have a pay-off. Not that fake bullshit that they have in the US where it’s ONLY FOR FUN shit. No, bubba, this was serious business. And I was going to win, baby. So I put in some coins, lost pretty quickly and then I discovered something that the other player (that old Danish coot) was doing… he was putting in the 20 coins… and it was playing the best possible method "automatically." So I put in the 20... and then choose the “AUTO” method.

And I proceeded to watch my money pissed away faster than ever before.

I decided right then and there that I wasn’t going to call Erlend and ask where the casino was located after all. Perhaps it wasn’t that important.

So I walked out the door, leaving the old bastard to his own withering, alcohol-doom on his special machine.

On the walk I thought about how peaceful it actually was that people stop shopping at 5PM. Wives must love it. You really can’t screw up being on time for dinner when the whole world shuts down at that time. It’s rather peaceful and organized actually and the more I think about it, the more I like it… it’s like it encourages you to be home with your family. In America, people are always out and about… this seems so much better actually.

I trotted the trek to the tanning spa because I like to remember Florida in some way and since loosing Lisa and the baby I seem to be developing a bit of a “God, I’m pretty fat and goofy complex.” The thing that makes the complex worse is that I am fat and goofy looking. At least it certainly doesn’t help. Miracles aside, I like to tan, makes me feel good. And I like to talk to the people at the tanning spa as well.

So I went into the techno9000 tanning bed, which is clearly a full CENTURY ahead of anything that they have in the US. I swear, it’s well worth the money… you put in these coins… and it even sounds like a language of the future… some girl’s voice, soothing and sexy comes out of the speakers… “Tilda Yan-ti… Soon… eksper-ance…”. And so on… You can make this tanning bed mist some smell, tan your face more, crank up the sound, the air… anything you can think of… it does… which is very odd, because for you to see all of these controls, you have to open your eyes. It’s a brilliant piece of machinery, it really is… but someone should come on out and let the Danes know that you probably shouldn’t have your eyes open in the tanning beds.

I wasn't going to be the one to break the news to them.

I was disappointed that Ja-nay wasn’t working tonight, so I scurried on off anyway… to hit the grocery store and then meet with Kenneth and Katrina.

The grocery store yielded the same experience as always, I was asking for help from all the people around me. And all the people around me were amazingly beautiful women. This time I stalled and actually didn’t talk as much because I couldn't figure out exactly WHO I wanted to spend the time talking to… I simply couldn’t choose. So I tried to chatter with everyone and that didn't really work because I didn’t get to invest enough conversation time into any single person enough to get to that point where maybe I could catch a phone number. Oh well… I was heading out anyway…

So I took my two cartons of mælk and happily headed along my way.

I got there and I ate pizza. Salad and pizza. You know… pizza… with peppers, some meat, sauce… corn…(HVA?). yeah, corn. Say what you may, bubba, but it was gooooooood. I loved it and ate it like a fat kid home from weight camp. It was nice. I decided that when Kenneth and Katrina weren’t paying attention that I would go ahead and steal some of her DNA though a needle and clone her. I didn’t get the opportunity that night, but I still think there’s a market for “Katrina, Queen of the kitchen”s I’m sure they will take off. I’m going to make a fortune.

We had some red wine with the dinner and had some great conversation. I think it was the first time that I had asked anyone outside of America what they were doing or how they were reacting when 9/11 happened. Those guys always make for some good conversation and so it was a serious delight. Especially with the wine.

Afterwards we ate this amazing desert with a side of syrup made of vanilla. It was cut fruit with vanilla. The bananas with this syrup on it were especially good and I found myself picking for them. Oh, it was so sweet tasting that you just wanted to greedily pour the whole bottle of vanilla all over the fruit. I felt the guilt of a little kid when I dumped a horse load on the stuff. Oh man… this was goooood good. I made it clear that I was going to go ahead and be their adopted child. I expect that they weren’t taking me serious. Well, maybe the paperwork is complicated. We’ll have to talk about it another night I suppose.

We then headed out to the Irish Pub…THE Irish Pub…

It was a nice walk, especially after eating so much. I would have been happier in a hovercraft just a week ago, but quite honestly, I’ve taken to walking quite a bit. It allows me to justify all the eating that I’m doing. But it’s very healthy and I can actually tell that I’m getting skinnier from all of it. I was given incorrect information on Denmark… they were telling me in the offices that I would get fatter. And actually that didn’t happen the last time I was here either.

So we stayed there at the Pub drinking some shots that tasted a lot more like cough syrup than your run-of-the-mill bar swill. But they really weren’t that bad and somewhere in the back of my head I was thinking that at least I wouldn’t cough for a week.

While I was there I decided that because this is the place of choice for all of my company's Boys and Girls, it would serve me right to buy myself a hat. And maybe, just maybe I bought another one for someone. Hard to say; I had been drinking after all.

We’ll move on I suppose…

Yes, drinks drinks and more drinks. It was a good time.

I went outside for a smoke and got another taste of how small a world this is – the musician performing tonight was out there drinking and we struck conversation with him. Turns out the guy had lived in Tampa Florida for 15 years, traveling around the city and playing in different bars, most of which I recognized. His knowledge of Tampa seemed better than my own. But then, technically I guess he had lived there longer than myself. So there you go: small little world.

We went back inside to pour down drinks and I almost made the mistake of taking pictures inside the place. Turns out that Jerome, who owns the place, doesn’t like pictures. Kenneth had told me this ahead of time, so I made some points by asking him. And that scene went like this:

“Hey, uh… I wanted to make sure you were cool with it, but I wanted to take some pictures of me and my friends in your bar here. The reason is that every time someone from my company comes over here to Denmark, they always come to this place. We have fond memories of this bar; I guess it’s where people at my work like to come and all.”

“Oh yeah-yeah, lad? Which place is dat?” came at me in a green-thick Irish pitch.

I provided him with the same of the company I work for with pride, since it does have a DK location and smiled.

He pauses, thinking for a second. Then he smiles: “Oh yeah-yeah, I know those boys; good lads, them. Right, go ahead, y’ can take your stupid pictures.” And he smiles again.

“Thanks, man.”

Yeah, Jerome is quite the character. But there’s something in me that just thinks he’s a stand up guy that just about anyone would want to drink with… so long as they were on his good side.
So I took my stupid pictures and I made sure not to over-do it.

The rest of the night was excellent. We just drank. Kenneth’s wife left early so that the boys could have some foolish and dim-witted drinking time, which is pretty much exactly what we did. We finished up and stumbled out of the bar in the same manner that people had been doing for years at my company. We walked home, because that’s what you do here. You walk everywhere. But not before we did the one thing that transcends all countries and cultures: We got some drunken food at McDonald’s. Yes, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, there is a McDonald’s and there are drunken people eating there in the middle of the night. Basically what happens is your blood-sugar level drops very low from all of the drinking, so your body thinks that it is desperately hungry. More than anything you really just need some fruit based sugars, especially an orange or banana and a lot of water. Your hangover will come from the lack of water, since you brain is mostly made of water; it’s not a big fan of being dehydrated. Solve that and you have saved your tomorrow.

We weren’t so logical. So we ordered a bag of fries. I mean it, too, we ordered like four orders of fries each and tossed them in a giant bag from which we ate. So much for trying to loose some weight while I’m over here, eh?

Right-e-o.

We marched home and on the way I called someone from which I was dying to hear. I hadn’t spoken to her in a considerable timeframe, so it was a great exchange while it lasted. Then I of course I got drunk stupid, but these things happen and sometimes we find ourselves on the phone saying everything wrong. But that’s part of living, isn’t it?

Just another day, in another country, on the other side of the world.
Night!