SUNDAY, JULY 21
COPENHAGEN THOUGHTS
I was telling a friend about Copenhagen on the phone, about how the people seem so happy and relaxed. He laughed saying he always thought all Scandinavians were like the stereotype of the Swedes, dour and dark. So funny our perceptions of “a people.” Chloe and I may know very little based on our short stays, but we feel a unique and distinctive vibe in each city. Copenhagen is special. Hard to put a finger on, but it is definitely a place that seems easy to live, and I think would get better with time.
Like Berlin, there is a sense of experimentation in the structure and design of buildings. Contemporary art flourishes. Around every corner seems to be a museum. Even the people are physically quite beautiful, natural and comfortable in their bodies. The northern beauty of the tall, tan blonds with blue eyes is made all that much more striking by contrast with so many people with dark eyes and dark hair, and skin all shades of brown. It’s a city welcoming to the young, but also multi-generational. Families walk and eat together. And everyone is on bikes…even us!
PLANS THAT GO SIDEWAYS
We had our day mapped out — biking to the market where we would go to Grod, the porridge restaurant (Chloe’s favorite food), visiting the SMK, or the National Gallery of Denmark, and Freetown Christiania, then biking home. Simple…until things went sideways.
We picked up our order of food — Chloe’s oats with Everything In, and my pea risotto — and sat down at a picnic table outside. Chloe started fumbling through her back pack.
“I don’t have my phone,” she said. Silent panic. Where could it be? She figured she must have left it on the bike. The Donkey bikes have this handy holder for your phone on the handlebars so you can use google to navigate while biking. She ran back to where we locked the bikes. I anxiously waited.
She returned shaking her head, “no.” “The bike is gone.” I immediately called the Donkey number and explained what had happened. We knew the name of her bike — all their bikes have names — and the Donkey person was able to trace who took the bike after us. He said he would send an email to the person and get back to us. We ate in silence, both of us thinking about all her photos that would be lost, the fact that this is her new phone from Milan, the fact that her computer doesn’t work. Shit.
About five minutes later, I got a call. Good news, he said, the man who rented the bike has your phone. Jump in a cab right now and go to Christiania. He will wait fifteen minutes, and I will email you his phone number. We left our food only partially eaten and dashed to grab a cab. A lovely cab driver told us a bit about his history — born in Lebanon but raised both of his kids in Copenhagen which he finds such a secure place to live, safe, free medical, free education, nice people. I asked if the reason there are so few cars on the streets is because of restrictions on privately owned cars in the city. He looked confused, and said, “we don’t have restrictions here.” That statement spoke volumes.
It was raining lightly. The wind was strong. Chloe jumped out of the cab (ten minute ride that cost 22 pounds – Yikes). The man, his son and her phone were waiting at the main entrance to Christiania. Thank you, Copenhagen!
CHRISTIANIA
Chloe was literally shaking as we wandered around Christiania, a strange, self-governed enclave in the center of Copenhagen. Lots of hippies, lots of drunks and buildings put together haphazardly, like homesteading, and covered in graffiti. Not our scene. We left for the SMK.
A lovely walk along canals, including Nyhavn, which is lined with restaurants, and tourists (the only place we encountered tourists), and through Kongens Have, the park by the Rosenborg Castle to the SMK, where benches had been placed inside, literally inside, a concrete pond/fountain. I thought of our friends in NYC who were burning up — and wished they could sit on those benches and chairs.
THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF DENMARK, SMK
The SMK was our choice of the day because we have seen so much contemporary art and wanted to see Danish and Nordic art, which was exactly what we found. The Museum, housed in a powerful, old structure, with a modern and light-filled back wing, includes European as well as Danish and Nordic art. We visited one side of the museum, tracing Danish and Nordic art from the 1700s to the present. When we reached the contemporary works at the back of the building, a two-floor glass view of a park behind the museum is presented as art itself, and you can sit on terraced benches, pause and think, a sculpture court at your back.
At dinner, Chloe said, “I’m sad. This is our last day.” We realized we were leaving the world of languages we don’t speak, cities loaded with culture and art, and heading back to places we have been before, to a more familiar world, mentally preparing for the day we return to Vancouver. I am sad, too. Why can’t this continue….
