Day three of my trek through Scandinavia and already I'm sick of that four letter F word. No, not that one, but the F word that describes those creatures covered with scales that travel under water. You know the ones. They have the tiny bones you pick the protein off of. You spend several minutes separating the bones from the flesh just to consume a piece of white meat the size of a thimble. In the same amount of time you could have consumed an entire three-quarter pound burger at Lumpy's Downtown, or you could have filled that thimble with Jagermeister and done about three shots, or both. Now I ask you, would you feel better after consuming a thimble-sized piece of fish, or wolfing down a Lumpy's burger and three small shots of Jager?

I arrived in Copenhagen from the states to find a city virtually shut down by something they call "holiday." All those tales of wild, beautiful women and a hot nightlife seem to be a figment of some travel writers' imagination. A writer who, no doubt, got a free flight over here, and complimentary food, booze and hotels. What do you expect from that writer? Certainly not the truth. How many free trips do you think he or she would get after this one if they wrote about a boring nightlife and fish, fish, fish.

To be fair, Copenhagen is a beautiful city. It's clean and safe and shows off some beautiful architecture built hundreds of years ago. And the fish is excellent. Soft, flaky, delicious and plentiful. Let me see, I could choose from pickled herring that comes baked, boiled or semi-raw. There's also the catch of the day, fresh salmon and even fried, breaded fish just like they do in Britain. So, on every menu there are 20 fish entrees and one with chicken, pork or beef. When I say beef, we are not talking about a thick, juicy flavorful Nebraska corn fed steak. We're talking gristle. Tendons, fat and little in the way of meat. Now why their pork isn't simply wonderful I am not sure because I've been told that Denmark has 50 million pigs and less than 6 million people.

The ever-saving grace which is a delight in any foreign country, even developing nations, is locally made beer. It never exposes you to microbes unlike the local water and my friends who imbibe tell me it always makes you 'feel' better. So the restaurant solution in Copenhagen would seem to be about 4 bottles of Carlsberg or Tuborg and the homemade bread. You just can't go wrong and it makes your thoughts about those beautiful women and hot nightspots dissipate considerably.

I've just taken the ferry from Frederikshavn, Denmark to Gothenburg, Sweden and am traveling by bus to Stockholm where I'll check to see if I can twist some arms for a Nobel Prize nomination. I'm also going in search of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and those famous meatballs. I'll report next time on whether they are a figment of everyone's imagination and are also made of fish. Randall "Olaf" Carlisle in the land of fish eternal. Sent from my iPad