Arrived in a rainy and grey October Copenhagen the day after the triple summer party, with a kinder hangover than I probably deserved. While running on the luggage belt to optimise the baggage delivery system, I managed to pick up my phone and accept a lunch invitation. And trust me, Danish rye bread lunch with pork sausages, salmon and pâté has never tasted so nice. From thereon, the Danish hospitality increased to a very appreciated level with magnificent home made spare ribs in the evening. Might be a bit of a mission to handle two batches of 5 kg, each requiring some 10 hrs in the oven, but man they were good, Henrik.
Once the workweek started, the private hospitality had to be replaced by professional hospitality, which was quickly proved to be very much absent, at various restaurants in the city. Since I sort of felt like a semi-Dane together with the Danish residents Trinidadian and Canadian colleagues, we thought we should find a nice place to eat together with our fellow work mates on the Wednesday night. First attempt might have been a bit ambitious, too big a crowd for too small a restaurant when not having a table reserved – fair enough to be rejected at the door. Second attempt put Denmark at the very bottom of the scale when it comes to service, even below the extraordinary shop assistants you normally come across in the country. Kind of hard to explain to the foreign visitors, why the owner had to physically shove us out the door of a half empty restaurant, well kind of hard to understand it at all in the first place. After another couple of attempts and loosing half of the party with the words “F**k this, we’re going to _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.” (replace the dashes with random letters making the name of a slightly famous hamburger chain) we gave up the search for getting some sort of special dinner and dived into one of the main stream steak houses. Luckily, there were only four other guests to be spotted in the school canteen so not impossible that they would find us a spot.
However, only after convincing the girl at the door that they wouldn’t have to speak English to us and that we would manage with Danish menus, we got a table - food in sight, finally! Or so we thought. Polite as we were, spite the close to starving status of our stomachs, we sat down and waited to be attended to. And we waited, and waited, and waited a bit more. In a desperate attempt to get some attention, and at least a drink perhaps, the Scotsman yelled out “Hej!” in his very best Danish when the next waitress galloped by. He got an instant reply of “Hej hej.” and she was gone again. Hm…perhaps the hint wasn’t clear enough.
Somehow, I don’t get how the excellent Danish private hospitality can turn into such disasters when applied professionally. The only native Dane of the party on the shocker night was clearly both bothered and embarrassed. After apologizing for someone else for the N’th time he gave up. We agreed in unison at the table that we much rather have three guys playing statues and eavesdropping behind our chairs, like at restaurants in Brazil, than having to bring out signal flags and sirens in attempts to get in contact with any random personnel, as in Scandinavia.
Luckily, the Danish week was finished off at the private hospitality level. After being able to count the home cooked meals during the last five weeks on one hand, chickpea soup with chilli and lentils, served with freshly baked naan bread and enjoyed in nice company, was definitely spot on. Thanks Andreas, it’s always nice to leave with a last positive impression.
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