I am posting this more for my own benefit so I "remember the details" as Ian suggested I do. It's a bit rambly, but it's 2AM here and the jet lag won't let me sleep any longer...
We landed about 1PM Danish time, which is 2AM PST if I've done my math correctly. We hopped a cab to the hotel, which is very Ikea-esque. Everything is colorful, and all the furniture has rounded edges. The bathroom is even colorful, but very tiny. I have a few favorite things about my hotel room:
(1) You have to put your keycard into a slot by the front door in order for ANY of the electricity to work. Not only does this help you keep track of your card, but it also prevents any guest to leave any electricity running once they have left their room. Brilliant.
(2) The light switch design is very UCD. There are light switches most everywhere in the room...about 5 in my tiny room in total. But, on the side of my bed stand closest to me, there is one final switch that is marked differently. When you hit that switch, all the lights go out in the room.
Once we got showered and checked email, a coworker of mine and I went off to explore. We walked around this shopping area which is full of pedestrian alley ways that are filled with people. At first it was a little overwhelming to be around so many people. (Imagine Pike Market at full capacity in peak of summer...) We kept trying to find a drugstore so my coworker could get some hair goop that he forgot at home, which was harder than we thought it would be. We asked the concierge for a drug store, and he gave us easy directions to one. Sure enough, it was literally just that--a *drug* store. Only sold drugs.
One cool thing about Copenhagen is their bike system. There is a wide bike lane on every street I've seen, and bikes everywhere. They also have an honor system of bikes throughout the city--special city bikes that are chained up to most bike racks that anyone is free to use. You're only asked to chain it back up at any bike rack once you're finished. We plan to test out this system tomorrow.
We went to dinner at a pub and got some Americanized pub grub (ew). Tomorrow, we are determined to find a genuine Danish place, which is hard to track down in this area of town.
Everyone speaks English. We were asked by our server (who we later learned was Greek, but learned English by living in London for a few years) if we were Americans. We all in unison responded with, "yes" in a tail-between-our-legs tone. He responded with, "Why is that? Every time I ask if someone is American, they always seem so embarassed by it." My co-worker responded with, "Ask us in the next election, and maybe that response will change."
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