Whitsun, Danish lunch, Folketinget

We had intended to go to the library yesterday, but it was closed for the second day of Whitsun (Pentecost) holiday. The royal library is a very interesting-looking building, called the `black diamond':



Which backs up to the Danish Jewish museum (we didn't go in):



Instead, we walked around some of the city we hadn't visited yet, particularly around Christianborg (government and royal buildings). The building below in the distance with the scaffolding is the parliament building.



The parliament is called the `Folketinget.' It's unicameral; they abolished the upper house in 1953. We took an English-language tour of the parliament in the afternoon, with another family from New Zealand (one of whom was also also a political scientist). The Danish pride themselves on their transparent democracy, and it was a very interesting tour. Ivy starts interviewing people in this building today.

We got lunch (actually before we took the tour) at a traditional Danish lunch place (though it was in the tourist area, and we were surrounded by British, Dutch, and apparently a team of Californian bicyclists). For lunch, Greg had a lunch plate (various herring and bread), while Ivy had a smoked salmon salad -- all delicious. So much food that we didn't eat dinner.





We did, however stop for an ice cream in the late afternoon. Greg had basil-flavored ice cream -- which was really quite good!