Week 7, part 7
| It was about 3 when we got to Morning Place, and the food was some of the best we'd found in Europe. For about five bucks you could get a meal that included a main dish (there were three choices, which changed every night) and two salads (six choices, same deal). We ate like starving people, though by that time of this particular day, we felt like we WERE starving people. We spent three nights in Copenhagen, and every night we ate at Morning Place. We don't mean to disparage any of the other fine food we've been able to experience on this continent, but we feel that we can safely say that this was the most wholesome and satisfying food we've found in all of Europe. It was getting dark when we got done eating, even though it wasn't even 4 yet. Such is the price we pay for going to a country as far north as southern Alaska in mid-November. During the entire train trip up, it felt as though the morning sun was shining through our train window. The problem is that the sun is ALWAYS low at this time of year. It was dark when we'd wake up at 8:30. It was dark at 4 in the afternoon, and the noon-day sun did not rise above the tree tops. For sun worshippers, the window of opportunity is very short at this time of year. But in spite of the northern latitude and short days, the climate was very mild. Many flowers were still blooming, and the grass remained green.
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 In this Copenhagen neighborhood, there are far more bicycles kept than there are cars.
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From what we saw in Copenhagen, the Danes are the most bike-happy people we've come across. We'd already read about how taxes, registration fees, and insurance make car ownership obscenely expensive. What we found was a city overrun with bicycles of all shapes and sizes, and a street system that gives the bicycles a lot of space. Most major streets had two curbs on each side: one to separate the motorized lane from the bike lane, and one to separate the bike lane from the sidewalk. Bicycles and pedestrians are given generous amounts of space on both sides of the street. Our biggest problem with traffic was that the cars were all driven very aggressively, but then we found this to be the case all over Europe. It seems that the rich and arrogant drive that way everywhere, and in Denmark the rich and arrogant are the only people who can afford to drive at all. The other seemingly trivial thing we must point out about Denmark is the quality of the toilets. Nowhere have we found such stylish and immaculately maintained potty rooms. Even the funky hippie cafe in Christiania - where we'd had breakfast a couple of times - had toilets that looked like they belonged in a five-star hotel. The toilets on the Danish trains were the most pristine we'd found on any trains in Europe. We don't know what it is except that the Danes must have very high standards when it comes to maintaining their privies.
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 Most major streets in Copenhagen have bicycle lanes that are well segregated from pedestrian traffic on one side and motorized traffic on the other.
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