Eat at Joe's

My posts have been less frequent lately with the arrival of our guests, but keep checking in on us! Our latest guests, J&P (AKA, Mom & Dad) are off to Norway on the ferry to Oslo. Weather has been a mix of beautiful and not-so-good, but weighted toward the better days so far. Since their arrival on Thursday, we've taken in Rosenborg Slot and the crown jewels, the Botanical Gardens, Amalienborg Palace, the changing of the guard, the waterfront, a bus tour and a boat tour. On Saturday we had dinner and a nice visit with Alexa's cousin from Sweden and her boyfriend. Friday's dinner was at Joe's Restaurant and Cafe in Valby. At the changing of the guard I learned that there are three sizes of guard details. It depends on whether the queen is home or not. When she's home, there's a full detail with band and everything including mounted police for crowd control. The group we saw on Sunday was the smallest detail where they were just guarding the building. Apparently the band also plays on Wednesday up until the middle of June whether the queen is home or not. I've posted an old picture of the full detail.

Joe's Restaurant was just like it sounds - a local place with good food and nice unpretentious atmosphere. When we arrived at 6:30, we were only the second group. By 8:00 the place was packed and we left satisfied at 9:00 while it was still bustling. Unlike the U.S., people spend the whole evening at a restaurant, there's no thought of "turnover" to get multiple customers at a table through the course of the evening. At one Copenhagen buffet restaurant, someone observed that the meal was so quick that the restaurant might serve 2 or even 3 groups in a single night. That's a new concept here, but I still find it awkward to flag down the waiter to get the bill after a couple of hours.

Catching up on something I forgot to mention in the previous post, when G&L were visiting we went for a walk after dinner and decided to go to Kastellet. This was on Thursday May 3 which is the day before Store Bededag. Store Bededag (lit. big prayer day) is the product of a decision a few hundred years ago to combine 10+ religious observences into a single holiday. It also happens that there is a Copenhagen tradition that people walk around the ramparts of Kastellet the evening before Store Bededag. There were over 1000 people walking around with others picnicing and a military band along with a strange hat contest (pictured). Apparently the tradition isn't that big because all of our Danish friends had not heard about this annual event.