Hungover from the night party the night before I hung with Henrik at the shop. In between customers we sat in the sun as still as possible, sipping water and rehashing the events of the evening. We got a bit hungry and he mentioned we could order the best pizza in Copenhagen. I quickly agreed and I less than 20 minutes a personal pizza with potatoes and bacon sat in front of each of us.

On the same day I met Stig and his Olives I took the Copenhagen guys out for dinner. Their choice of course. Henrik took us over to a restaurant/bar that lived in a converted laundromat space. As soon as we walked in Henrik ordered up three plates and some beers.

When the meal came it looked deliciously Danish. A heaping mound of the best potato salad I have ever had was topped with some hot, fresh, rare, roast beef. The salad was cool with a great balance of red onion, dill, butcher ground pepper and homemade mayonnaise. I savored ever bite while sipping liberally on a Danish microbrew.

When the plates were clean we ordered another round of beers and Henrik took the liberty of ordering a round of shots. The shots were of the local Danish kind(actually Italian). I can not remember what it was called but it had a dark color and a burnt wine, licorace-ish taste. After our second shot Mikael smartly left us and headed home to his family. Henrik and I stayed and kept our drink on.

Typically this post would now be over. But, I have to keep going for two reasons. First, you rarely have nights like what will follow in your life. Second, I had a gps enabled, picture taking bike with me. That makes for a great photo stream of the night. So, here it is.

It started with Henrik and I making friends with Louise, Tina and Mette at the landro-bar-aurant. We played a little game called listen to my soul with a pair of headphones and a make shift earplug. Soon after, Stig (yes, the olive guy) showed up and jumped behind the bar treating us all to shots.

The spot called last call and we all poured out into the now dark streets. Remember Copenhagen stays light until about 10:30pm. It is probably about 12am at this point and Tina has a new party for us to hit. Catch is, it is all the way across down in Christiania. Henrik is skeptical, I am pretty drunk and we are riding our bikes to the party. How else would we get around in Copenhagen? I have to say it made me feel like I was 15 again. I loved riding all over town from party to party.

20 minutes later we had crossed two rivers and made it to the back ally, lake front party in Christiania. Christania is known for its bohemian, idealistic, drug pushing citizens. We walked ourselves into an outdoor, underground party with a DJ booth floating in the lake and tunes that ran the gamut from 80’s USA to Danish rap. The best way for me to explain why this guy is in the water, who that beautiful Italian girl is and what happened to these 4 beers is to go to the video tape.

Before you click play remember this, we arrived at 12:30am, he sun came up at 4:30am and I got home at 9am.

The ride home was a bright and energizing ride through an ever quiet, still Copenhagen.

I got back to my hotel thanks to Louise’s door-to-door service and had about 3 hours to plop down in my pink room before checking out and heading off to London.

One last thing. You might be wondering what the yBike saw through the course of the night. Well, here is his birds eye view.

Slide show of bike

After the ship I hung in Copenhagen for a few days to meet up with my CPH yBike riders, Henrik and Mikael. Henrik runs a bike rental shop in town and the three of spent an afternoon doing a few interviews for my Yahoo! Purple Pedals Project (when they are done I will link to them from here).

We had Henrik’s interview in the can and we were about to venture out to a park to film Mikael’s when Stig, Henrik’s neighbor, stopped by. Stig makes olives around the corner. And, he makes them with a passion. We got to chatting about all things olive, Italy and oil. Next thing I knew we had traveled around the corner, Stig had opened his shop, brought us into the back and started feeding me olives.

We started with fresh-made sundried tomatoes. Then Stig worked me into a few Spanish olives before introducing me to some Greek and Italian ones. All of it cured himself right in the shop. He then smeared some tapenade into my palm and dragged me back to the front of the shop. There, Henrik and Mikael were waiting for us. With 4 wine glasses in hand, Stig proceeded to pop open a bottle of lambrusco, a delicious fruity, bubbly wine usually made in Italy.

We needed to move on to shoot Mikael’s interview but Stig wouldn’t let us leave until we finished the bottle and I promised to try and get back to Copenhagen for the big food fest in July. We will see if we can make that promise come true.

Later in the evening Stig made an appearance at the bar we were hanging in. No Olives this time but he did jump behind the bar and start pouring us all shots.

I didn’t think you would want to marinate a nut but I was wrong. As an accoutrement to my dessert plate this nut not only opened my palette but my imagination. Let me back up a quick sec. I was looking for a quiet meal in Copenhagen after having spent 10 days on the ship with Ant. This giant cigarette butt wound up being the landmark that steered me to a small café which served up a delicious Spanish jamon, a savory lamb shank and that peculiar little nut I was just fantasizing about.

Spanish jamon, fresh mozzarella, rocket lettuce, pearl onions and grilled bread

Veal shank with a wine reduction, farrow, baby beets, peas and a snappy rice

Five different cheeses and marinated nuts