Not so wonderful Copenhagen

We had a lovely time in Copenhagen with great weather, plenty of pastries and hot dogs, and a fun-filled trip to Tivoli (more about that later in the week). Unlike some though, our partying didn’t get too wild. 

On Friday night a party organised in the centre of Copenhagen got way beyond out-of-hand. Parked cars were smashed and shop windows were covered in graffiti and broken, as around 300-400 people went on the rampage. I took some photos on Sunday morning of the after-effects. Unbelievable. 

This isn’t the first incident of its kind in the city and I’m sure that there are many reasons for such behaviour. It’s hard however as a foreigner to avoid making some connection with such anarchy and the ready, cheap supply of alcohol in Denmark. It surprises me everytime we go there. People seem to drink cans of Carlsberg and Tuborg as if they were Cola (I think they might be as cheap to buy) – on the Metro, the train, filing up their cars with petrol, on the streets, on boats sailing along the river at midday. Beer is very, very cheap and there seems to be no restriction on drinking it wherever you want, whenever you want. 

While I often get frustrated with the obstacles to buying beer and wine in Norway – price, availability, opening hours - each time we arrive in Denmark, I find myself nodding my head like an old woman at the more sensible Norwegian approach.  

As I said though, we had a lovely time.

A dry weekend - in more ways than one

It's a bank holiday weekend and the weather is fabulous. However, there's a problem with long weekends here: the shops shut at 4 PM on Saturday not to re-open until Tuesday morning. This means planning food and drink shopping in advance; there's no such thing as a last-minute dash to a 24-hour Tesco for ketchup, chicken, milk or nappies. There's no nice convenience store open either; that would simply be too, well, convenient and 21st century.
So today we braved the supermarket to stock up on grill food and essentials. Supermarkets here are prohibited from selling wine and spirits, even to self-determined adults over 30, but they do sell over-priced beer to anyone over 18. I plucked a six-pack of Tuborg from the shelf, imagining myself a few hours later sipping it, or at least 1/6 th of it, on the terrace as the sun sank behind the trees.
I'm not on the terrace now obviously - the glare and my laptop don't complement each other -and I didn't get to buy any beer either. I was told at the checkout that beer sales finished at 3 PM so I couldn't have any at 3.21 PM. I've been in Norway long enough not to be surprised at this - I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to say what I was thinking - but REALLY what is the point of this? Am I not old enough to decide for myself if I am allowed to have a saturday afternoon beer, or not? Is there any logical or operational reason for forbidding a cashier to pass six beverage bottles through the checkout within an hour of shop closing time? It's just plain ridiculous and I defy anyone to convince me otherwise.