On a chronologically misplaced note, Yuri and I spent last Wednesday evening on a DIS trip to the Louisiana Museum just outside town. It was awesome! In retrospect, I could've done without most of the guided tour of the Cezanne-Giacometti exhibit, but the exhibit itself was lovely, as was the rest of the museum. I rather love crazy modern art that may or may not actually make much sense to the quasi-casual viewer, and this museum had it in excess.
In any case, Andy and I arrived at Kastrup earlier on Saturday morning than we'd woken up the day before. After some recovery/down time at my apartment, we went walking. The first stop was La Glace, for a proper wienerbrød experience. Then we went all the way down the Strøget to Kongens Nytorv, around Nyhavn, and up Bredgade to find smørrebrød before Passover started. We walked more after that-- over to Amelianborg and along the water all the way to the Little Mermaid statue, which is a pretty decent walk overall. We then looked at the time and realized if we wanted to get to the Carlsberg Brewery Museum & Visitors' Center before closing, we'd have to book it. (Saturday was our only day to do this-- beer is grain-based and thus unkosher for Passover.)
Carlsberg was really fun, despite the lack of touring of the brewery itself. You do get a full look at the process, as well as a detailed history of brewing in Denmark and of Carlsberg. We did some learning-- apparently Carlsberg owns, among many other brands, Baltika, which was served everywhere I went in Russia. Also, a Jewish star (though not intended as the Star of David) used to be the brewer's seal! Carlsberg also has a stable of horses (think Budweiser), several old delivery carriages, and--included in the price of admission--two drinks at a full bar. Between the two of us, we tried the honey-flavored Carlsberg, Jacobson special dark ale, Carlsberg Special, and a Tuborg that I liked. Good times!
For the first seder, we went to the Mosaic Society's building--basically, a headquarters of the local Jewish community. It was mostly adults, but there were a few other DIS students there, so it wasn't that weird. The rabbi conducted most of the seder in English, even though the Haggadahs were in Hebrew, so we felt very included. And, as in Stockholm, it was kind of wonderful to experience all these familiar Jewish things in such a different setting. Sure, the tunes were a bit different, and I've never heard Maggid chanted before, but it was definitely a seder, and I was happy.
Sunday night brought the second seder; this one took place at the Copenhagen synagogue and attracted a much younger crowd, though still not very many DIS students, which was strange, given how many Jewish students are on this program. This seder incorporated much more Hebrew and Danish (though there was still sufficient English for us), and the vegetarian-options-included dinner was much better than the previous night (which featured liver paté and chicken). Unfortunately, things got started way late (as the sun doesn't set until nine or so), so the whole thing moved quickly, and yet we still had to scoot out just after the Afikomen, around 12:15am, given that some of us had class the next morning. On the upside, it was definitely worth it to be at a proper seder, and I brought paper to copy down the Four Questions in Danish for my family's seder next year. (We have a tradition of doing them in as many tongues as we can muster.)
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