Danish Lessons, part 2

Here's the map again if you want to follow along.

Friday, August 1

tak pronounced tahk, short and sharp -- thank you


There's nothing on the wedding agenda until 7pm, so Heej, Francis and I take the train down to Cykelbørsen on Gothersgade to rent bikes for the duration of our stay.  It's about 200 Kroners for four days, which winds up being about $10/day.  For an additional 135 Kroners, I hire myself a helmet because I am a chicken and I love my Mae.  The shop is tended by a jolly white-haired man with a ruddy, healthy complexion and two blue topaz eyes that point in different directions. 

ME: Tak!

BIKE SHOP GUY: Oh, you speak Danish?

ME: No, that's all I know.  But I know the bike hand signals.  Left [left arm points left], right [right arm points right], stop [right hand raised, as though taking an oath].

BIKE SHOP GUY: You'll do just fine, then.

ME: Can I rent a night light from you?

BIKE SHOP GUY: I don't rent those, but you can buy them from a department store for cheap, about 100 Kroners.

ME: You don't sell them?

BIKE SHOP GUY: No.  In the summer, you can ride for 19 hours during the day.  That leaves 3 hours for disco and 2 hours for sleeping.  [laughs]

Bike culture in Copenhagen is amazing.  There are bike lanes on every street, and the small city is easy to navigate.  Most of the streets even have curbs that separate the bike lanes from the automobile traffic.  It feels splendidly safe.  I love getting lost in a new city and exploring by bike.  (Why can't it be less treacherous to ride around Brooklyn and Manhattan?  Our quality of life would be so much better if this were a bicycle town.  The air would be better, we'd get better tans, we'd be healthier, and I might actually get to Williamsburg more than once a season.)

 

We spend the rest of our day orienting ourselves and riding all over the city center. We ride down past the metallic swirls of Tivoli amusement park and Central station to Vesterbro where red light establishments jut up against sweet boutiques and design shops.  We visit Helen at her work, a secondhand clothing shop brimming with Helen's favored print dresses and American prom gowns, all ruffled tiers and lamé and black taffeta.  Then we loop back up the east side, through Kastellet, a 17th century fortress surrounded by a star-shaped moat with long, blond-streaked grasses waving on the banks.  It's ridiculous how pretty this city is.

6 pm, Kongens Have

god smag -- good taste


We consider making dinner for Helen at home, but Helen suggests meeting for a picnic dinner at Kongens Have, the King's Gardens.  "In the summer, it's nice to be outside whenever we can."  Sarah describes Kongens Have this way:

"A park in central Copenhagen. On a sunny day, this is where the Danes drink too many beers and bare their chests (yes, both sexes...). It also happens to be beautifully landscaped. If you get really drunk, you can head over to the Rosenborg castle in the park and check out the crown jewels, although this is technically not really recommended."

We don't see any nipples, but we do see lots of beautiful, tanned young people laying out in the grass next to their prone bikes.  The rectangular gardens are filled with well-maintained bloomage, and the park is clean clean clean.  Lots of folks are enjoying cans of beer, or wheeling babies around in their giant, old-school baby buggies, which seem to be the stroller of choice in Denmark.

We lay out a noshy meal of hummus, a sort of ratatouille, crusty rye bread from a local bakery, olives, green grapes, cherry tomatoes, curried egg salad, cheese and salami, all of which Francis managed to clamp onto the little shelf on the back of his bike.
 


We pick up La Doug on foot at nearby Nørreport St.  He's just taken the metro in from the airport.  After a finishing up our meal, we head to Louise's house in the city center for a cocktail party.  I can't believe we're going to a cocktail party on bikes.  I love it. 

The polka-dotted dress Helen is wearing falls mid-calf; she wears it with white ankle-strap low heels.  She looks amazing on her bike.  She, and many of the ladies of Copenhagen, have the most fluid, elegant way of mounting their bikes -- left foot rests on left pedal, right foot pushes off the ground from the left side of the bike. As the bike propels forward, the right foot swings over the bike frame in one fluid motion and pretty lady glides away.  So chic.

7pm Louise's house


Haps, haps, haps, nu skal vi ha snaps! - A drinking saying which means, yum, yum, yum, we're going to drink schnapps!  The schnapps imbibed is usually the invigorating breakfast shot of Gammel Dansk (Old Danish) which, according to Sarah's brother David, tastes like vomit.

Louise's 2-bdrm flat is stunning.  Pale wood, 2 bedrooms, windows that look out into what may as well be medieval courtyards, and no stuff.  Well, there's a beautifully curved chair here, huge paintings on the walls, a spare table there, but there's zero junk.  Where are all her papers, her desk, her drawer full of pens of many colors, her tchotchke piles?  I WISH I could live like that.  I am so into this Danish minimalist design.



It's hot, I'm drinking white wine with ice cubes somebody has miraculously brought along (because I'm American and because I can), and while I've been instructed not to get too wasted the night before the wedding, I sort of fail.  The Danes are really throwing it back.  It's impressive.  We all dance it out in the front room to Euro pop.  (I keep thinking Ace of Base -- I know it wasn't Ace of Base, but it was something similarly challenging to dance to.)

It's drizzling and I have to admit that I'm kind of excited about the 15 minute ride back to Helen's house.



DOUG: Get in the cab.

GANDA: I'm not leaving my bike!

DOUG: Ganda, you are too drunk to ride your bike home.  Just leave it and we can get it in the morning!

GANDA: I am totally sober!  Look! [While touching my nose with alternating index fingers, eyes closed] Z Y X W V U T --

HELEN: She'll be fine.  We always ride home drunk. 

DOUG: Yes, but she doesn't know this city as well as you do.

GANDA: Seriously, I'm fine!  I'm following Helen.  Seeyouathomebye! 

It's about 12:30am.  I strap my helmet on and follow Helen's lead; Sarah's brothers ride ahead while Heej takes up the rear.  We ride north, following the five lakes west of the city center, past Nørrebro into Østerbro.  The streets are super quiet, with very few cars on the road.  The street lamps' reflections dance on the lake's surface, and the pavement is slick and black with rain. Sarah's gorgeous younger brothers turn back and smile over their shoulders every so often.  The drizzle is chilly, but my blood is pumping and the city's night silence envelops me.  It might be my favorite mental snapshot of Copenhagen.

We make it home minutes after Doug's taxi.  We fall asleep pretty quickly.  I wake up again at 5am, still drunk -- I realize Doug was probably right.  Still, I can't regret the super pretty ride.

To be continued...