Old Man's Town

But I found some nice ones here

And also took some great shots of Eskild’s new bike helmet, which my friend Kristian customised.

Yaar that there be a skull!

Don't want to be in any doubt about whose helmet that is.

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I win. End of story. Almost. Just wanted to say that I used my previous post for the test.

No, this post isn’t strictly about my life in Copenhagen, but let’s just overlook that for now, eh?

Anyway my dad, my son and myself hopped in a car early yesterday morning and drove for the better part of three hours to Legoland in Billund – far west of Copenhagen for those in the know.

While I visited quite a few times as a kid – since we lived nearby – this was Eskild’s first time here. Luckily he loved it, although it was pretty damn crowded. A lot more crowded than I remember. But what the heck. Times change.

Extreme miniatures

For us adult nerds there are are a crap load of insanely detailed miniature models built entirely out of Lego Bricks. For instance this airport.

Miniature airport in Legoland

Kick ass rides for the boys

Along with the miniatures there are around 50 different rides and attractions for the kids – and us playful adults – to try out.

One major change I noticed since I was there as a kid is that the new attractions they’ve added over the years really cater to boys’ fantasies. Which is obviously cool when you’re bringing your five-year-old son along.

So Pirates, a Knights’ Castle, a Pyramid – Indy Jones style – Vikings and an undersea journey Atlantis style were new to me.

However an old classic in the Wild West – gold digging was still alive and well. Which Eskild really enjoyed too.

Eskild showing off his gold medal.

The premise is pretty simple. You get a tin sieve and have to find gold nuggets in sand an water. When you’ve collected enough you can turn it in and the cowboy and cowgal supervisors will turn it into a medal with an “imprinting” machine.

Also in the Wild West is this insanely detailed Lego copy of Mt. Rushmore.

1.5 million Lego bricks to make four heads.

The construction is made up of 1.5 million bricks. At the knights’ castle I noticed a scenery with a ghost and a dragon – much smaller than Rushmore here – which was made up of around 78,500 or so bricks. That had taken around 827 hours to build. I won’t even dare to think of how long Mt. Rushmore here too then.

To top it all off we hopped into the largest Lego store in Europe and got some awesome space stuff, which I’ll probably show off when all of it is built.

On a final note, my dad snapped a huge bunch of shots too. I’ll have him upload them to Flickr and update this post with a link.

There’s a pretty cool playground – the Traffic Playground – near my place, which I’ll blog about someother time when I have more pictures from there. Suffice it to say it’s a playground that has a working traffic light and loads of other cool stuff.

But just found this one shot on my phone from the last time I went there. And since it’s a sign of the times without further ado…

Even the old gas tanks can be used for a bit of propaganda for the kids.

Lately I’ve been playing the absolutely brilliant puzzle game Braid in the evenings. It’s not only headspinningly well designed, both at the gameplay and graphic level, but the music is absolutely haunting.

Check out the game’s trailer – gorgeous eh?

Also you can dig into the music here. I’d buy the tunes, but haven’t gotten around to spending $15 on a membership to Magnatunes just yet. I bet it’s worth every penny though.

Maybe it’s just me, but the combination of classical music – albeit from modern composers – along with a modern digital medium is just a brilliant juxtaposition. I’m completely and utterly in love with this.

Oh and on a sidenote, I picked up the Mac version of Braid via Steam.

I decided on a whim to take Eskild with me to the Experimentarium, which is a hybrid museum and playground for the natural sciences.

They label themselves as a science centre, which is pretty accurate if you ask me.

The main thing is that it’s good fun. Everything is really hands on and there’s a tonne of stuff to actually do.

Spiderman scaling the walls

It’s great for the younger kids, since there really are few things you can’t touch. Which is also relaxing for us parents since we don’t have to be wearing our parental radar helmets all the time here.

Spin, spin, spin! Yes - my automatic thumbnail cropping, does some funny stuff once in a while.

Also it was hot today despite it being overcast and even though they’ve opened up a beach just a few kilometres from my appartment, the water is still absolutely, horribly not warm enough to swim in. At least for a bastard like me who learned to swim in pools cooled down to 26˚C in Kuwait.

Luckyly there are several huge water installations to mess about with – and get appropriately wet when playing with.

Opening the flood gates, drenched and happy!

I was at my friend Søren’s workplace, Apide, on Friday to have a nice cool beer.

It’s kind of a Danish tradition to have what’s called a Friday Beer at the offices around town, on well you guessed it Fridays.

As you also may be aware of, at parties – and things reminiscent of parties – the place to be is the kitchen. And this Friday was no different. And me, being a curious sort just had to open one of the cupboards. Lo and behold the treasure within:

A treasure trove of all things instant noodle at the Apide offices

I really like that there’s not just one boring kind, but a whole host of flavours to chose from. Obviously they could stack more in there if they really wanted.

Bon appetit, Lads!

My bike got stolen about three weeks ago, and I’ve been stuck in the car for that time going to work.

The issue for me is that I don’t really experience Copenhagen when I drive. I get neither the sights or sounds properly, and even worse, I don’t get inspired to stop at a small shop and grab a coffee or look at a clothes store.

No longer bikeless

So yesterday I finally got my act together and went to my favourite bike shop AH Cykler in Istedgade.

They’re great, hardworking guys and today I could pick up this baby:

My new awesome wheels for getting 'round town again

It’s a really sweet ride. Nice thing racing tyres, the front “baggage holder” is custom buildt to hold a laptop bag, no gear, gorgeous leather handles and a Brooks saddle.

I’m number three in Denmark to own the front fork

Allan, who owns the bike shop, told me he got the baggage holder specially buildt by a guy in Bulgaria. Apparently I’m the third person in Denmark to own one of them babies.

Normally they don’t have the second bar going all the way around, but this design lets me have a laptop there without having to worry about it sliding off. Brilliant!

Time to experience Copenhagen again

I’ll buzz off with my new retro bike ramble and instead head out and glide through the town once again. Feeling like an old man on new wheels.

A few weeks back I took my son to the Garden of the Senses in a nearby park. It’s an odd sort of playground with loads of things to touch, climb on and bash.

An odd little wooden sculpture, but the textures of the different "foods" are great.

Springtime and summer do it more justice than these pictures, but despite the rain and a bit of hail we did catch a few magical moments. Take this fun contraption:

An obviously Japanese inspired contraption with a mallet

The mallet gets put to good use

Brilliant noise! Nothing beats a good crash beat.

Speaking og spring and summer then this hobbit hole always looks brilliant when surrounded by leaves:

The circular entrance invokes a sense of mystery and wonder in me

Valbyparken another option

I came across another cool park while googling for an English text about the Garden of the Senses. I think we’ll go there next weekend, but you can check out the playground in Valbyparken today – although you’ll have to scroll down a little for the text in English.

The "Irma" girl - an iconoclastic logo

I realized I needed to fishing up my thrilling trilogy of the fantastic tour de super marché in my neighborhood. So here’s my favourite – not my wallet’s favourtie unfortunately. I present Irma.

Irma is the place I like to go when I actually have to by food and not food-like products. They’ve usually got a nice selection of organic vegetables, a crap load of different types of good meat, proper orange juice and a massive selection of good cheese.

Of course not forgetting my favourite wine i a box; the aptly named Nun’s Blood.

But to be honest I think the main thing I like here is that you can mainly buy food – and not a load of other crap – and also that the food is treated and presented properly. To me at least it tells me that the personel care about what they’re selling, which is a huge plus in my book.