The Ten Dollar Hot Dog

Getting Phallic after 14 hours.

Journeying around the world is tough business. I can't sleep on airplanes so it's doubly difficult on me. After a grueling fourteen hour journey, I've finally landed in Copenhagen and decided to grab a quick bite at the airport. Hot dogs are evidently quite popular here and they come in fancy clothing.

For the typical American (and I guess most inhabitants of Planet Earth), a hot dog is typically adorned with a plain, old hot dog bun: basically a long piece of bread sliced lengthwise and you place the meat between the bun halves. In Denmark, they've got a unique bun that's also long but it's got a hole on one end that you first squirt a bit of mayonnaise and ketchup before shoving your meat into the hole.

And if you think that sounds phallic, consider the erect hot dog in the picture above...

From there, you hold the whole thing in your hand and start eating the hot dog. Danish Dogs, they're quite tasty actually and they also come in a variety of combinations and flavors. The only problem is that this hot dog and soda combo costs ten dollars.

Not the most economical way to start your visit to Copenhagen.

Copenhagen

Travel Kills.

The thing I detest the most about travel is: summer. The summer season means that everyone and their mother is traveling. I had hoped that the failing American dollar would keep travelers away from Europe but I arrived at Dulles airport only find thousands of people waiting in line to check in. Even the coveted Mileage Plus Premier Executive check-in line had about a hundred people queued. After all that time sitting on my ass in a seat flying across the world meant nothing since the only open like was the International First Class/Global Services/100K member line.

The flights to Zurich and then on to Copenhagen were packed. The Zurich leg wasn't too bad - until I decided that I needed sleep, and then I couldn't get comfortable. By the time the Copenhagen flight boarded, I was so exhausted, I couldn't help but fall asleep. Good thing too since I was hungry and didn't have either Euros, Swiss Francs or Danish Kroners.

After checking into the DGI-Byens Hotel, I wanted to crash out but doing so would only cause me to screw up my jetlag even more. Luckily, I ran into Andrew Barnett and Holger downstairs and we set out on a day of adventure. First stop, the hall where the World Barista Championship would be held. They're still getting stuff together so then we were off to visit the boys at Coffee Collective where we found Sigadorra, Liz, Edwin Martinez and his wife Nina, as well as Peter, Linus and Casey. Klaus was home sick.

After lots of chatting, hanging out and too much coffee, we headed over to Kontra Coffee where we found Troels and Michael finishing up their days' work and ready for a couple of beers in the rapidly chilling weather. From there, we headed over to Michael's flat in a rather posh section of the city for a round of pizzas, chianti, peach liquor, beer and ice cream - along with numerous shots of espresso pulled on Michael's home La Marzocco GS3.

And now that it's past one in the morning, I'm ready to crash out and try to catch up with this time zone.