Copenhagen Part 1

Part One
With the long, summer break approaching, and little desire to spend all of August in Naples with no work, closed shops, empty streets and heaving beaches I booked a flight to Copenhagen. On a whim, I invited an old (as in from earlier times, not as in elderly) work mate to join me and was pleased when Tom jumped at the idea. A trip to remember is how I’ll look back on the two weeks I spent in Denmark and Germany in August.

Though first, let me introduce you to the cast:
Tom: English, 40’ish, single, tall, adventurous, great conversationalist. We first met in 1994 while working for an Italian merchant bank in London.
Birgitte: Danish, mid 30’s, married, blonde and pale, energetic, considerate, currently studying medicine. We first met on a train travelling to southern Thailand in 1987 as exchange students.
Pernille (aka Penny): Danish, early 20’s, blonde, independent, sweet. Penny was a community service exchange participant who lived with my parents in Brisbane.
Kjeld: Danish, Birgitte’s husband, martial arts expert, fit, calm, dedicated father. I met Kjeld when they visited Naples earlier this year.
Henrik: 10 months old, Birgitte and Kjeld’s son, delightful, alert, relaxed.
Kenneth: Danish, tall, lean, early 20’s, intense blue eyes, in the military, on/off (more off) boyfriend of Penny.
Vibeke: Danish, retired, widow, sparkly, Penny’s mother, very hospitable.
Heidi (aka FS Farmer sister): Penny’s older sister, lives on a farm, down to earth.
Karina (aka DS Divorced Sister): Penny’s older sister, well groomed, two children.
Esther: German, 19, talkative, demonstrative, vivacious, attending highschool. Esther was an exchange student in Brisbane who she spent 5 weeks living with my parents.
Gregor: Esther’s father, proudly German, both serious and mischievous, works for the Catholic Church, intelligent, organised. Tom and I had the pleasure of staying with Esther’s family, and her father very kindly drove 1½ hours to collect us from the Dusseldorf airport late at night.
Ute: Esther’s mother, German, art historian, pretends not to speak English when other family members are around, interesting, warm hearted.
Mattias: Esther’s boyfriend, German, foppish dark blonde hair, 21, studying fashion design in Holland, mild mannered, softly spoken, kind, tolerant.

With classes over, I took a train up to Rome on 1st August to catch a flight to Copenhagen. The best trips always start with a little airport theatre. I waited in the queue behind tall, blonde Danish tourists sporting tans and composure in contrast to the surrounding bedlam and hustle. With amused interest, I watched as Italians skirted along the queue obviously unprepared to wait their turn, jumping in at random spots as though no one would notice. The Danes gracefully accommodated this local custom, while I grumbled under my breath about their insolence and audacity. It was with smugness that I later observed the same queue jumpers impatiently waiting at the gate to board the plane, their earlier queue jumping having resulted in nothing more than a longer wait for a delayed plane.

Crammed into my window seat I was both dismayed and entertained by my fellow passengers, a mother and daughter team. The daughter must have been in her 60s, a tall, refined woman with a dominating aura who completely dwarfed her elderly mother in personality, stature and style. The two of them spent the entire flight nit picking at each other, bossing, fussing, engaged in a game of exasperated tolerance that had obviously been playing out for decades.

After collecting my luggage, I followed the other passengers into the arrivals area hoping to be greeted effusively by Penny and/or Birgitte. Nobody called my name. No one came rushing towards me. I circled the dwindling crowd, wondering what to do next. Should I call? Did I have the number? I certainly didn’t have either of their addresses. Bugger, I thought, maybe I’d assumed too much, expecting the girls to work out who was going to meet me at the airport. Maybe I should have confirmed the arrangements!

I stopped to survey the crowd, now sparsely spread, small pockets of people wrapped up in greeting. The suited men holding name signs had disappeared. A cleaner pushing a trolley loaded with equipment and chemicals sidled passed me. I noticed a Starbucks café in the corner, and it occurred to me that I could wait there. Then I saw the baby buggy, and the two blonde women holding coffee cups, absorbed in conversation. As I walked towards them, one of them finally looked up and it seemed like she had just remembered why she was at the airport. I was swamped with hugs and kisses. As I cheekily chastised them for their poor airport skills, they both thrust enormous cardboard cups of milky coffee at me. I was clearly no longer in Naples.

Two days later Tom flew in from London to join me in the role of trusty travel companion.

We spent the most fantastic week in Copenhagen staying in Pernille’s (Penny, as she’s better known in Australia) lovely apartment. It was a delight to have Birgitte acting as tour guide almost every day. Birgitte and I were in Thailand on exchange in 1987 and apart from a few days visit to Naples I haven’t spent any time with her in twenty years.

Side story: Thirteen years ago, I was living in London. After working for six months, it was time to embark on the quintessential tour of Europe, a rite of passage for young Australians. I was determined to do it alone. The kick off point was Copenhagen, and having booked the flight, I called my Danish friend Birgitte. We had stayed in touch after being exchange students together in southern Thailand in 1987/88. I was excited to visit Denmark, a land that seemed responsible for my friend’s blonde hair, translucent skin and calm demeanour. The phone call was delicious and soon the news of my imminent arrival bubbled up. I remember a gasp and a pause as the news settled, and she then told me that she was departing for Thailand the day before I arrived. The irony of such bad luck stung us both. While Birgitte assured me I could stay with her friends, a wave of disappointed washed over me. My main reason for going to Copenhagen was to visit her.

Regardless, I went to Copenhagen in September 1994 and enjoyed the hospitality and generosity of her friends. I left the city on a train for Berlin, with memories of a delightful city, where the old and new blend effortlessly, bicycles and people own the streets, canals weave towards the harbour, where practicality and striking design meet and community, consideration and diplomacy are valued along with individuality. I realise now that the glimpse of Copenhagen I’d been given would quietly continue to fuel my desire to visit the city and experience it through Birgitte.

Copenhagen is a great city, one of the world’s best in my opinion. With 1.5 million residents, it is big enough to have everything - intercultural influences, great parks, modern infrastructure, excellent entertainment and food. However, it’s not so big that it’s crowded. The public transport system is great, and about 60% of the population ride bicycles. Cars are uncommon, which means there is less noise and pollution. There is a beach in the middle of the city. The shopping is good. The food is great. The weather (which had been miserable apparently) was perfect. The people are warm and welcoming, and most speak English. It’s all so flat, green and clean. I wandered around sounding very much like my mother, ‘Oh, it’s all so neat and tidy!’

We did lots of sightseeing. Here are some of the highlights.
Thursday 2nd August
First was a visit to Dyrehaven, the Royal Deer Park just north of the city. Its many acres of parkland are home to herds of roe deer and red deer, the only large mammals naturally occurring in Denmark. The red deer males live alone or in casual groups, stand up to 1.2 metres tall and has branched antlers. The sight of them resting peacefully under the trees had both Penny and I excited and curious as we crept towards them for a closer look. In contrast, the roe deer, the common name for the smallest Eurasian deer, stand at about 71 cm tall. In amongst the groups feeding in the long grass it was the mother and fawn pairs that were the most endearing. Having been born sometime in May the youngsters will stay with their mothers for 2-3 years. We strode out through the woodlands, enjoying the warm weather and natural surroundings. The park was once a private hunting area for the Royal Family, but is now open to the public although in October a day of traditional hunting still takes place. We were overtaken by intent looking joggers, families on horseback and women on bicycles, their baskets loaded with breadsticks and fresh produce gossiping as they dinged their bells in warning. After climbing a gently sloping hill, we circled the small pristine royal palace, its copper roof green with age. Birgitte produced a range of sandwiches prepared by husband Kjeld, including sliced apple and cinnamon that we enjoyed spread out on a Mexican blanket in the sunshine. After rousing ourselves, we stopped at a café with white stuccoed walls, a thatched roof, red umbrellas and red and white check tablecloths where the freshly brewed coffee was served with charm and kindness.

That evening Penny and I went to have dinner at Birgitte and Kjeld’s apartment. I was interested to see how they managed to live with a growing baby in a one-bedroom apartment. My first impression was that it was firstly a home, literally one bedroom, a small kitchen hardly big enough for two people, a toilet and a lovely room that doubled as both a dining, lounge and office space. It was warm, orderly and full of the things of life that they could afford (in terms of space) to accumulate. The shower was a little cubicle tucked into the corner of their bedroom, but it was obvious that with the arrival of Henrik they were quickly outgrowing the space. I wandered around taking in the inventiveness of Danish storage solutions and design, repeatedly returning to the little kitchen where Birgitte was preparing dinner. The previous day she’d been to visit her parents who live outside of the city. Her father had provided a supply of fresh berries and vegetables, and the mainstay of the meal - pigeons. At first, I was a little shocked and even Penny’s politely raised eyebrow reflected her surprise. Assuring me that the pigeons were not of the feral variety that we know as flying rats, but hand bred (and butchered) by her father I realised that in the interest of being a good guest I was destined to eating pigeons. The only other problem though was my innate, and unreasonable, dislike of eating fiddly food. If it means eating it with my hands, or working around a bunch of finicky bones (think chicken wings, spare ribs, quail, frogs legs) where the effort is not adequately rewarded with substance and taste I’m generally of the opinion that I just can’t be bothered. As Penny, took her seat beside me at the table, I also remembered that she’d been a vegetarian in Australia, and while she was eating some meat again I wasn’t sure that the idea of little birds would have been a preferred option.

Dishes of steaming potatoes, bright carrots and green beans hit the table followed by the pot of glazed pigeons in a dark sauce. They were bigger than I had imagined. They were also very tasty. The meat itself was dark, and very lean. Apart from the wings, there was a surprising amount of meat, although I was pleased when Birgitte offered seconds. Two birds later and a plate piled with little tiny bones I was highly amused when my lovely hostess asked, ‘Should I take the bones away?’ as though removing the evidence might make the crime disappear. Unable to resist I’d asked about the butchering process. Upon learning that Birgitte herself helped snap the necks of the birds and then pluck the feathers while the bodies were still warm I have to admit I was rather impressed. It’s not something that I could imagine doing routinely. To support my inner thoughts I recounted a childhood story of my uncle trapping rabbits on his farm, stowing them in a hessian sack flung onto the back of his utility track, beside my sisters and I. I remember we plotted to undo the rope and release the little critters, although we never worked up the courage to do so. The image of a rabbit caught in a steel trap, frantically going around in circles on its good leg, still haunts me.

Returning to the pigeons, did you know that pigeons and doves are the same thing? I, unwisely, debated with my hosts that they must have two different words in their native language of Danish, because I was convinced they were two different birds. Surely, I thought, everyone knows that pigeons are the mangy, filthy grey things that defecate on statues or deliver messages, while doves are elegant, white, clean and an international symbol of peace and Noah’s ark. Wrong. Danish has one word for both, as does Italian. I am left with yet another example of multiple English words for the same thing, although none of my Italian students believes that the English language has a larger vocabulary than their beloved Dante-developed Italian lingo.

The other cultural delight was Penny’s reference to ‘cowboy’ skirts. She meant ‘denim skirts’, but was translating literally from Danish where jeans are called ‘cowboy jeans’. I only wish I felt more like a real cowgirl in my denim skirt.