Scientific study: 100% of Evas are beautiful

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Geo: 55.6763, 12.5681

Yet another crappy sleep - the room was pretty stuffy last night. It was nice that it rained last night, because the room freshened quickly once the windows were opened. Had some juice then went for a walk - the town was even more deserted, but it was a Sunday afternoon, after all.

Back to the hostel for breakfast - some yogurt that I bought last night. Berry - rich, thick, chunky, and good. The Swedish guy from yesterday was also there, and having quite the breakfast - pineapple on toast, with melted cheese. He also had some leftover rice from last night with some canned fish - big eater! He offered me some toast, but I wasn't in the mood for any.

With great difficulty, we tried to have a conversation. I guess he's out here for a kayaking holiday. I asked if he spoke Spanish or French - I have no idea why I asked about French because even if he did speak it, I still wouldn't understand much more than I understand of his Swedish! I tried to describe Canada, but the best I could do was start naming hockey players "Hakan Loob? Peter Forsberg?" He later told me "With more alcohol, speaking no problem!"

While eating, I noticed a girl walking up to the house - unfortunately, it wasn't the one from last night 😞 I dropped off my keys with her and inquired about last night's girl - her name is Odeta ... oh ... Odeta ... and she confirmed that she had a boyfriend 😞

Then I looked closer at the new girl - she was also very beautiful, and looked a lot like Odeta. "Are you sisters? You look like her." In fact, she was - very interesting because while both beautiful, Odeta was the model type, and Eva is the cuter girl-next-door type. I blurted out "Your family has such beautiful daughters!" The funny thing was that I said it very matter-of-factly, but slightly shocked - almost how one would say "Holy crap, Spain is so HOT!!!"

She giggled and smiled at my comment, and I almost swooned. I've met three Evas in the last few years - one was a pretty French Canadian, one was an unbelievably beautiful Spanish senorita, and now this Eva. My scientific research forces me to conclude that 100% of all Evas are beautiful. This is now an indisputable fact!

I also conclude that Kalmar is the Swedish equivalent of Toledo on the "Hottie Hotel Receptionist" scale. This place gets 10 senoritas out of 10! Hopefully Odeta and Eva's parents did mankind a favour and had 20 daughters. Holy gene pool, Batman!

Some of these small European towns are intriguing - for a town of 60,000, Kalmar sure has a high percentage of beautiful women walking around. I remember Carcassonne, with its multitude of beautiful ladies working in the souvenir shops and selling ice cream (see Euro 2006 blog entitled "A mix of Disney, baguette, fromage, and merde!" http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pwong/europe_2006/1153739220/tpod.html?tweb_UID=pwong )

Unfortunately, I could no longer inquire about Eva's status - can you imagine how that would sound? "Oh, so Odeta isn't single, but what about you? You're not? Do you have any other sisters? Cousins???" Eva was cleaning the kitchen when we spoke - you'd think wearing rubber gloves and scrubbing the sink would've made her unattractive, but it definitely did not!

But it made me wonder how Odeta could've done any cleaning in what she was wearing yesterday. Hmm ... that could be quite interesting. I guess that would be a Swedish Maid outfit, instead of a French Maid's? Maybe a return visit to Kalmar next summer is in order! I know the first names and place of employment, so I can easily stalk these two sisters!

Off to the train station - once again, many seats were seemingly reserved but had nobody sitting in them. The train conductor was actually a lady that I saw at the grocery last night, when I was shopping by numbers. I thought it was cute how they announced the time on board - "We will arrive at 14 point 12."

Upon arrival, it was very sunny in Copenhagen. The hostel was like a huge, impersonal hotel. I ended up getting a hosteling card here - I'll save enough money on this trip to make it worthwhile, but maybe should've gotten it a bit earlier, because I would have saved a bit of money at some earlier hostels.

First up on the sightseeing list was the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (and yes, it's named after Carlsberg, the beer). It's free on Sundays, and I had to rush through it all since it was closing in only 30 minutes. There was TONS of sculpture - my fave!

Stephen Sinding's work was prominently displayed - he's been described as the Nordic Rodin, and there's at least a small amount of truth to that. There were also many lesser works by famous painters such as Gaugin, Picasso, Renoir, and Van Gogh. Paintings usually don't do it for me - it needs to be absolutely stunning to catch my attention, whereas almost any sculpture will catch my eye.

I basically ran through the entire museum but missed an entire wing loaded with sculptures - it was the French wing, and was filled with Rodin's!!! Noooooooooo!!! The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, it was all there but I couldn't see it up close! I managed to sneak in for a minute to take a picture of the wing, but that was it.

Why did I waste so much time on the Roman and Greek stuff that I don't even like? I should've taken a few minutes upon arrival to plan my visit, then I would've hit the French wing first. I needed another 30 minutes! Anyway, the Glyptotek is considered one of the premier Scandinavian art galleries - I have to concur with that assessment. Even on a non-free day, it is definitely worth a visit.

Being 4 PM and having eaten nothing but junk all day, I sucked down a crappy banana and peach yogurt before I passed out. I knew that I'd be having an early dinner very shortly, but couldn't wait to have a snack.

Some interesting Denmark facts - car taxes are 180% here, and everything else is automatically taxed 20%! Denmark is the most heavily-taxed country in the world. Also, Copenhagen's Stroget is apparently the street that all other pedestrian streets in Europe were modeled after.

I poked around the beautiful courtyard of St. Peders church, and heard some beautiful jazz playing nearby, but I was too late to catch any of it. Danes are big Jazz connoisseurs, and the big Copenhagen jazz festival is taking place this week.

Walking past the cathedral, I noticed three Spanish senoritas exiting - ahhh ... I'm glad the Spanish like traveling to Scandinavia ... Was starving so had an early dinner at Riz Raz, a place with a vegetarian buffet. Normally I wouldn't do that, but hey, it's all you can eat and a relative bargain at 79 Danish Kroner! With a Tuborg beer, dinner was about $21 CAD.

Pretty bad service in seating me - the guy at the bar was busy filling drink orders, but a simple nod of acknowledgment would have been nice. I finally snagged a table outside and went at it!

After three plates of gorging, I wanted to puke! But I didn't, because the waitress had a cute Danish accent - I didn't want to leave a big mess for her! So I went over to guy who ignored me earlier at the bar, and puked in his section ...

I needed to walk off this massive meal - I waddled from the Stroget over to Kongens Nytorv, a square with a big food market going on. It was mostly junk food and snacks, but I was still tempted, despite the massive meal I just had.

Over to the train station to use some cheap internet - score! Some lady was leaving and gave me her remaining time, almost 30 minutes worth! After, it was back to the hostel, where I found some new bunkmates from the UK. They were here for the Roskilde music festival - I had no idea that it was such a massive festival!

They apologized for their smell, having not showered in four days - I joked "You don't smell too terribly, considering it's been four days!" I'm such a nice guy, aren't I?

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Photos

a
Some would call this a crappy little snack, but while I'm backpacking and traveling on trains in expensive Scandinavia, I call it lunch!

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Stunning winter garden inside of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

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Some of the sculpture highlights - The Prodigal Son.

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Death and the Maiden

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The Barbarian's Mother

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Adam and Eve - a powerful piece, making you wonder what is happening. Most likely, as Adam is gazing down at his crotch, he is saying "Geez ... this has never happened to me before ...", while Eve is thinking "Sigh ... when will they invent Viagra?"

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Adoration - I must admit, I've wanted to do this on more than one occasion while walking down the streets of Spain. I must admit that I've wanted to do this many times. I must admit that I've wanted to do this many more times than I can count.

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The French Wing!!! The Kiss is on the right, and in the very back is the Burghers of Calais.

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Back view of Rodin's "The Thinker"

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Statue of Copenhagen's most famous son, Hans Christian Andersen.

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Cool sculpture in the courtyard of St. Peders.

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I have no idea who this is, but with such a creepy poster, I'd love to go to the concert!

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The exit to Tivoli Gardens - a few more weeks of starvation in Scandinavia, and I'll be able to squeeze right through!

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Those two golden girls tell the weather in Copenhagen - the girl on the bike comes out when it's sunny, and the one with the umbrella indicates it's rainy. The girl on the bike rarely comes out - and notice the temperature indicator - it maxes out at 28 degrees.

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Dinner at Riz Raz. The pizza was crappy - hard crust and devoid of any flavour. There was a good tomato stew that went nicely with some couscous like grains.
The stewed curry cauliflower was awesome, but the moussaka wasn't quite right. It's OK, I just scooped off the melted cheese and ate that on subsequent visits to the buffet. The triangular pita bread were great - puffy, soft, and hot out of the oven.

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I also had some sort of bean salad (bad), some cheesy spinach mixture, tabbouli with grains, zucchini stew - none of this stuff was too memorable. The corn was quite strange - very hard, dry, and flavourless. The falafels were tasty but were a little greasy after eating a bunch of them.

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The third and final round. The roasted potatoes were terrible, very hard and dry - but improved a little with a good dollop of the cheesy spinach mixture. The roasted peppers were good, but aren't they always?

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Neat sculpture.

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Plaque says "Here stood the town's whipping post until 1780".

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Another neat sculpture.

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Jazz performance at Nyhavn.

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I grabbed an ice cream at Nyhavn (New Harbour) - normally I try and get the homemade stuff, but this one place was making fresh waffle cones, so I couldn't resist! It was Nestle-brand pistachio and chocolate - pretty blah ice cream, but tasted better while eating it in this bustling area.

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Interesting fountain - she's got some pretty powerful teats to squirt out water like that!