As of now, I have watched "All The President's Men" and AM watching "The Spy Who Loved Me" (that's James Bond for you uncultured types), which makes for a good day. But that's not why I'm here. Hmmm, why am I here? Come to think of it, why is anyone here? Is it enough to live, or are we meant to do something greater, somethi....Sorry, just a bit of freshman year flashback. It's astounding how damn BRILLIANT you can be tanked up on Cheerwine and stained orange by stale Cheetos at five in the morning. But all that's beside the point.

What is the point? Last weekend was a good one. I had visitors. Yes, yes, I know. You're all thinking: "What, hold on, visitors? How did he manage that?" The answer is simply that it really didn't have anything to do with me, or the fifteen goat livers I roasted on hot stones last week under the half moon. It appears, strangely enough, that they just wanted to come, and I wasn't one to argue. So Stacy and Jenny arrived Saturday afternoon under a beautiful northern German sky, an endless, formless, expanse of blinding white driven by persistent wind and pissing rain. Now, in case you, my dear reader, have, I don't know, slept under a rock for the last ten months, there isn't a whole lot to do here if you don't rent a house and mind supping on ice cream and sleeping in a beach basket all summer. If that's your scene, you're set, but if you're one of the 15,000 people who call Fehmarn home for twelve months of the year, you're kind of screwed.

That said, I'm impressed how it all worked out, and not just because I was actually able to find something for us all to do for an entire day; it gave me the chance to see the island through a fresh set of eyes, which helped me appreciate it more. The first part of the day was taken up with eating lunch at a seafood place on Markt and taking a blitz tour of the old church while waiting for the next bus to Puttgarden. Oh, there are taxis, but they were all busy, or so the guy on the phone told me. ALL of them. Every single one. I don't know why I was surprised, because there had to be several thousand tourists here for the Pfingsten (Pentacost) holiday weekend. While I'm on this whole tourist thing, tell me: does it make a bad person that I sometimes want to push the old ladies off the sidewalk who walk about 0.00001 miles per hour side by side, affectively blocking your way as they stare at EVERY postcard on EVERY rack on the street? If your answer that that question is an "affirmative," keep in mind that it was more of a rhetorical question, a critical prompt, if you will. If, on the other hand, your answer is a "negative," feel free to write.

Anyway, the day before, I thought to myself: "Hey, you know, riding the ferry over to Denmark would be fun. I mean, I've never done it." It was one of those ideas that hit me with a mixure of excitement and ripened guilt all at once; I was excited because I've never done it, but that enthusiasm only served to drive home the fact that I SHOULD have by now. Yes, this is how I think. Welcome.

Stacy and Jenny didn't have their passports with them, and neither did I, come to think of it, but we decided to give it a shot anyway and ask someone near the ferry who looked like they might have the scoop on this whole "going to another country" thing. We weren't too worried about it, really. I mean, this is the German-Danish Border, which is kind of like the US-Canadian line after smoking three joints while knitting a loose fitting cap to Bob Marley: Greatest Hits records. "Welcome to Denmark: Whatever, Dude." And can you blame them? All that square paper pushing can, like, totally harsh your mellow.

But not being citizens of the EU, the world's only running Super Nation, we thought it would be better to ask someone if we needed our passes, someone who, in this case, turned out to be an older man standing right by the entrance to the ferry. Convenient. OK, los geht's. "Excuse me," Jenny said, walking up, "but we were wondering: do we need our passes to get on the ferry. Our passports. We don't have them."

"What?" Apparently, the question smelled something like rotten eggs wrapped in wet dog hair, because he managed to bring his eye brows all the way down to the bridge of his nose, pushing them together at the bottom so they assumed the rough outline of a dead caterpiller.

"Do we need our passports to get on the ferry?"

"I don't give a shit, I just take your tickets."

Well, OK then.

As it turns out, no one checked through the whole 45 minute trip, so I was free to stop and watch the gray waves and imagine fleets of trading ships bound for England or Russia, and the small pirate ships that ambushed them. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, the ships come with names and histories. It's what I do. But back to the real boat.

A border, with all the duty free perks, is probably the best way to describe it. It was huge, with six decks according to the buttons in the lower deck elevator, and I can believe it. I've watched the ferries dock before while waiting for the train from Copenhagen to roll off, and they look like something out of Star Wars (the original, please, none of this "Special Edition" or Episodes I, II, or III crap. I have standards), and by "something" I mean the Jawa droid trader vehicle in the first one. And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. I know who you are.

At this point, you might be asking yourselves where the ferry docks in Denmark. Well, the map will tell you Rødby, something approaching a town, but it's really Rødbyhaven, or harbor, an industrial wasteland with just enough houses to provide for the population needed to give the place the desired "Twilight Zone" ambiance. It was a real post-Apocalyptic metropolis, let me tell you. The city plan was unnaturally wide and empty; the streets are more like asphalt and brick boulevards than small town thoroughfares. There was a bar called "The Golden Lady" and an ATM machine. Oh, and a Greasy Spoon joint, complete with washed out, yellowed pictures of the menu outside. That was it. Rødbyhaven isn't dead, it's already buried.

So I don't know why we were so surprized when the bus to Rødby didn't show up. The plan said it was supposed to run on Saturdays, but the shit-eating grins we got from people passing in their cars told us otherwise. Having a bus stop must have been one of those things the city designer read about in a magazine, one of those accessories that takes your end-of-the-earth hamlet and transforms it into a real city.

All that, though, didn't change the fact that we were in Denmark! I couldn't read a damn thing, except the sign for the "Golden Lady," and it was great, if not a bit confusing; I had started to take the fact that I can read signs and books for granted, I think. It might sound lame, but walking around a deteriorating Danish village was one of the coolest things I've done in a while. I mean, I came over the ocean just to get there! This reaction was pretty common in our little group, by the way.

But that doesn't mean we stayed all that long.

Once we got back to Fehmarn, we heading on down to the Südstrand (South Beach) to look at the ocean now that the weather had cleared up, and it didn't disappoint. The Baltic on a good day is actually a light blue color, almost greenish, which I guess has something to do with its very low salt content. The wind was puffing at that "knock you off your feet" strength, but that only added to the authentic northern German experience. There was a fest, too, where we all bought the world famous Danish Hot Dog. And no, I didn't miss the irony there.

The Danish Hot Dog is composed of the following elements:

1) Bright Red Sausage, thin
2) Equal squirts Ketchup, Mustard, and some kind of Romoulade or Sweet Mayonnaise
3) Fried French Onion Bits
4) Sweet Danish Pickle Slices

Think it sounds nasty, don't you? Well, you're wrong: it was delicious.

Denmark, land of contrasts, how good you are.