Wednesday after class we finally made it to the famous Carlsberg Brewery. The Carlsberg Company seems to be to Copenhagen what Coke and Budweiser are to Atlanta and St. Louis respectively. The brewery has many old and very cool buildings including one with four giant elephants holding up a walkway. The swastika on the side of this one makes for an interesting picture, but was in place at least 60 years before WWII. As I explained to our group, the swastika was for years a symbol of good luck used in many cultures before the nazis used it and forever tarnished the image (Thank you history channel.)
After a tour of the origional 19th-century brewery and education in the histroy of beer we were treated to two free brews of our choice in the large lounge. The bottle in th case was from the hall of 10,000 beers and they claimed that it was the most expensive beer in the world, being one of only 600 ever produced and costing thousands of dollars. Now it just collects dust in a museum - what a waste.
It's easy to see why they like beer so much here. In many cases it is less expensive than the bottled water or soft drinks in the grocery stores and 7-Elevens (By the way, 7-Elevens are EVERYWHERE here! Honest-to-god I stood at a street corner yesterday and could see 3 of them at the same time. Soft of like Heine Bros. on Bardstown Road I guess.) They also have a great approach to recycling all the bottles here. One danish crown (about 20 cents) extra is included in the price of a beer or soda. Then when you are finished with the bottle you can take it back to just about any store and feed it into an ATM-type machine that instantly reads the barcode and then gives you a voucher which you present to the cashier and then get your crown back. Needless to say I have yet to see a single can or bottle litering the sidewalks or filling garbage cans.
We are going to try and visit Stockholm, Sweden this weekend so this might be my last post ofr a few days. This weekend is a big holiday in Sweden celebrating the summer solstice. They say it began as a pagan holiday but was assimilated by the church sometime in the middle ages. Yeah, I could tell the solstice was nearing because the sun doesn't set until around 11 o'clock here and then rises again at about 4:30. It's ridiculous but I'm glad I'm here in the summer and not during the 18 hours of darkness in december.
1 comment:
The swastika can be found on the chest of the Giant Buddah in Lantau Island, Hong Kong. I think it's famous with Hindus also. You know what else you can find in Hong Kong? Carlsberg beer. Is it good? What kind of flavors do they have? Even with flavors, I don't think I'll ever like burrs. Each to their own, I guess. Have fun this weekend in Sweden! Later Bro.
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