A Whale's Penis is How Big?

This Big:

And other scenes from the Copenhagen Botanical Gardens:

Hey look at my willie!  Oh wow

what's this?  Elephi-no

Madagascar periwinkle:  a component in anti-cancer drugs

bananas!

cacoa

poisonous tree

palms

So in the back building of the Botanical Gardens is a building with a whale exhibit... hence the whale penis above.  It cost 50 kroner to get in which is about ten bucks.  It was just one big room and at first glance did not seem worth 10 bucks.  And then I saw the whale penis...

Narwhal tusk

Whale Fetuses!! Aren't they cute?  Kind of cute...

whale kidney

whale penis

whale kidney

whale paw

Bowhead Whale skull

barnacles on whale skin

whale eye

things found in a whale's stomach...lots of little baby shrimps

whale skin

whale parasites

whale heart

human heart

tiny little shrew heart

3 hearts

Blue whale

Oops there goes the baby

I have a new found respect for Danish parents.  Not the ones with cars.  The ones on bikes.  With a baby on the handle bars, and one in the back,  and sometimes hovering over an older one trying out there new bike legs.  It's pretty dangerous out there. The other day I was sitting on the patio reading a book when I heard a bang followed by a few short seconds of silence and then one piercing scream.  I looked up and some Danish Dad had stopped on his bike and his bike fell over, onto with side walk....with his toddler buckled into the back seat...Poor kid, I thought...  poor Dad too

Well, when Trevor was here he borrowed one of my co-worker's husband's bikes.  The bike  has a kid seat on the back of it where Trevor likes to buckle in his laptop and it's a men's bike which means the pole near your crotch goes straight across instead of bending down for your skirt (?).  Well since Trevor left I still have this extra bike outside and since I unfortunately popped the tire on my lady bike and had yet to get it fixed at this point, I decided to lower the seat and take the Daddy bike to work.  It's a nice bike.  Very smooth gears and a light frame. The frame is slightly too big for me.  I found myself stretching too far forward to try to reach the handle bars.   But yu can go pretty fast, pretty easily.  Especially downhill.  So on morning I'm cruising over the bridge into the city.  I have my backpack buckled in to the kid's seat.  I'm headed downhill. The lights green....yellow....break... red .... screech....stopping, I lean over to the right to put my foot on the curb only there is no curb and the bike frame is just tall enough that I can barely touch the floor on my tippy toes without leaning a little... I lean a little...whoops too much.. try to get my left leg up and over the bar  to save myself ..nope ...too high, not flexible enough right now...going down...fast...Crash!  Baby down!

Thank goodness, there were no babies involved and thank goodness I didn't take out the lady in front of me.  She just turned and gasped......Nothing to see here, folks!  But now I know how tricky it can be toting around extra heavy weight in the back.  I had a hard time handling an immobile bag let alone a heavy wobbling, squiggly screaming baby in the back seat.

A Bunny, a Gun, and Beer-loads of Fun

Outside the neighbor's apartment were stacks and stacks of toys with a sign that translated to "For the other children"....or something like that.  So the child within me picked myself out a couple souvenir Danish toys:  a rabbit made with real rabbit fur and a toy machine gun.

Last weekend I went out with my cousin and his girlfriend.  We road our bikes through the "red light district" which I was unaware even existed in Copenhagen and settled at a cozy bar for some beers.  Then we headed over to explore the meat district, a part of the city that used to be a slaughterhouse and stock yard but is now a classy section of bars and discos.  We had ourselves a nice sausage at the pølser stand.  It was a real "Danish experience" ...shooting the shit with fellow drunk Danes at the sausage stand.  I met one fella who asked me where I was from.  I said Santa Barbara.  He goes on and on about how much he loved visiting Santa Barbara.  I add to it that well I live in Santa Barbara now, but I'm actually from New Jersey.  Then he goes on and on about how he visited New Jersey and how much he hated it!  Hah.

yummy

Inside the bar, Bakken, I really felt like a Copenhagen local when I ran into my Twister sister "friends" completely randomly and introduced them to my cousins.....really starting to feel like I live here.

Dorthe and Emilie

Esben and friend

This weekend I met some co-workers out for a drink and a show at Tivoli, the amusement park I told you about.  Every Friday night in the summertime there is a free concert at Tivoli.  Well, it's free if you pay the price of admission that is.  We found this cute little theater dance performance going on.....  I'll st the scene: so there's a man dressed as Ben Franklin, 2 different types of clowns, an obvious bad guy burglar dressed in a prison suit and most likely on steroids, throw in 2 drunk french maids, and a ballerina and we have ourselves a show:

Vibe and I went there early for some yummy German food at the beer garden where they serve 1 Liter beers.  Yes sir, even though I shouldn't, may I have another?

Me and my Dunkel

Vibe and her Skinke Schnitzel

The concert was fun.  Tina Dickow, a local Dane, sang and she was pretty good from what I remember.  

Karina the Canadian, Heidi, and Vibe

the swings

Then I stumbled home to my bed.