Copenhagen – Welcome to Scandinavia!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What is a busbie?
A. A hair cut, similar to an American “buzz cut”.
B. The Danish equivalent of an American quarter (25 cents)
C. The Danish national bird
D. A hat worn by the Danish National guards
We flew out of Amsterdam and arrived in Copenhagen around 11:00 PM. Thankfully, a nice Danish man helped us get out of the airport and onto the right train headed for our hotel. We checked in and fell into bed around 1:00 AM. Though we really wanted to sleep in, we were up bright and early, as we had a lot of ground to cover. We headed out to the royal Amalienborg Palace to view the changing of the Danish guard. With much pomp and circumstance, and bearskin busbies, they wowed us with their synchronized marching and dead-pan expressions. From there we viewed Frederikskirke, or the Marble Church, a huge copper-domed cathedral. We saw a bronze statue of the “Little Mermaid” located along the Baltic Sea and didn’t realize that the story of Disney’s Little Mermaid was an original Hans Christian Andersen story long before it ever hit the big screen. We enjoyed a leisure boat ride through the canals and out into the Baltic Sea. We climbed the Round Tower, a public observatory that is reached by hiking up a brick-laden spiral ramp, then opening up to a gorgeous panoramic view of Copenhagen. The second day we took a short train ride to Malmo, Sweden, crossing over a small stretch of Baltic Sea and visited the Malmo Hus Castle. It is a Renaissance strong-hold, dating back to the 15th century and today, holds five different museums, as well as the royal castle where the Swedish nobility once lived. Since I shop at IKEA, I was so proud of myself that I recognized some Swedish words!! Didn’t help much though, so we ate at Burger King for lunch where we knew what we were ordering. We did finally experience some traditional Danish cuisine for dinner, finding a reasonably –priced restaurant which served a Danish all-you-can-eat buffet. The culminating experience for us was witnessing the opening ceremonies for the World Out Games (Gay Olympics) being held in Copenhagen that week. There was an extravagant parade, similar to the opening parade for the Olympics we’re all familiar with, and almost 100 countries were represented. It was a major world event and was interesting and eye-opening to observe it. Next stop……..Prague.
ANSWER: A busbie is a tall, bearskin hat worn by the Royal Palace Guards.