Københvn (2)

The chronicle of my Copenhagen tales continues.

12:45pm, July 29th:
I made my own bike tour for free!

Just a moment. Before I expand on this, it must be said that four middle-aged German women just passed, all wearing identical white capris. What’s more, all but one wore matching black shirts. The fourth woman, who donned a hot pink shirt vest, didn’t get the second memo, I believe.

Regarding the DIY tour: geographical skills + + +
I made it all over the place, biking like a Dane on one of the city bikes, courtesy of Copenhagen’s bike share program. You put 20 crowns, which is approximately 2,70 Euro into the slot, unlock the bike and proceed to gallivant around on two wheels. The deposit is returned if you find one of the racks elsewhere and drop off the bike. On the handlebars is a map of the city (mine was ripped off, but I wasn’t dissuaded in the least) and the seats are rather cushy and comfortable. The bikes are designed for travelers, as Copenhageners statistically own two bikes each. The share program is encouraging and more widespread than in Barcelona, or in most cities, for that matter!


After dropping off the bike and walking around a bit, I stepped into Overgaden, a small gallery filled with contemporary Danish artists’ work. I liked the feel of it a great deal and actually got a lot more substance out of an essay one artist wrote about his work than his actual creation of stacked soda cans. Articulate man, weird execution. I then strolled over to Café Wilder, a place I’d highly and emphatically recommend. It has the best atmosphere and great, inexpensive organic food. Everything tasted so fresh and crisp, but as I am not a food critic, I’ll trail off here. My legs, especially my upper thighs, are unbelievably sore from the night of dancing and few hours on the bicycle. This is the good kind of pain, though; the kind that reminds you that you are living. Oh, another note about the café: they play music from Jack Johnson’s first album, which is always remarkably effective in putting me at ease. Two other minor observations were that of a father teaching his toddler the names of different draft beers and the conclusion that Danish sounds like Simlish mixed with French and Dutch.

I became so enthralled in an exhibit at Charlottenborg, the contemporary art museum, that they had to usher me out at closing. Lonely Planet lied and claimed the hours went until 7pm on Wednesdays, but I was promised that I could return tomorrow, free of charge. Now I am in Kongens Have, or the King’s Gardens, relaxing after the overwhelming nature of Christiania and a great deal of walking. I think I’ll nap and mellow out with a Radiolab podcast before heading back to Nørrebro to find a small restaurant that serves veggie burgers. I’ve an irrationally powerful craving for one right now, and the walnuts and raisins do not suffice. A short note on Christiania: no photos are allowed to be taken there, which perhaps lets it retain a bit of its magic, but I will say that it’s a combination of Saturday Market, a modernized hippie commune and the Sunnyside neighborhood in Portland. It didn’t feel like Santa Cruz, oddly enough. I bought a turquoise ring and abruptly stopped myself while admiring the pattern on a pair of those wretched bohemian balloon pants now in fashion.

Later that evening:
Two housemates just went dumpster diving, biking off into the night armed with multiple plastic bags and grungy clothing. This made me think of my friend N. as well as a girl I used to work with during the summers. We once salvaged decent cupcakes from a ritzy specialty bakery in SE Portland on 4th of July and ate them together with apples taken from a community garden while we watched the fireworks in a park. I’ve recalled this memory numerous times, yet it still feels accurate and good, despite the difficult emotional backdrop it stood against. The dumpster divers are back with a [purchased] bottle of wine and some organic cookies that taste of chocolate dust. In the background, the Juno soundtrack minus Kimya Dawson songs is playing. Piazza, New York Catcher, one of my favorite songs of all time, was just on. Ok, wine. Adieu.

July 30th
I stopped at the botanical gardens today on the way to the Staatens Museum for Kunst. It was, without a doubt, one of the most spiritual moments I have experienced since doubting and then rejecting the validity of what religion could offer me in terms of explanation and comfort. I idled around outside at first, comparing it to the Portland Rose Garden or the Desert Botanical Gardens in Arizona. I circled the greenhouses and was initially distraught by their shut doors. Then I found a lake with willow trees, lily pads and a small rowboat just down the hill. It was nearly identical to how I had imagined the backyard in Sophie’s World. I was entirely at peace there and just stood, taking in the serenity of it all in the lightly falling rain.

Shortly after, I made my way up to a gazebo-style greenhouse full of trees. If there was ever a trace of doubt in my conversion to lover of science and its beauty in nature, it evaporated in this instant. At first I walked the perimeter of each room, eyeing the tropical and familiar plants alike. As I came closer to the final room and the air turned thick and muggy, I dove straight into the heart of the area and relished in the divine greenery all around. It was quite fitting and certainly over-the-top that I wore a dress covered with a leafy pattern and golden brown leaf earrings today. I felt like an unintentional chameleon, blending in with the trees.


I smiled at the enormous dog ear leaves that licked my face as I passed and marveled at the elaborate dangling flowers, which posed motionless and with complete grace. The walls were glass windows and, though such bright light was let in, branches and trunks had entangled themselves to form impressive crevices and dark, mysterious corners. The rounded metal object at the top of each greenhouse room looked rather like a chandelier, and vines had taken the liberty of crawling up the sides of walls and railings to reach it, creating a circus tent effect. In the final room, I was beside myself with oversized water lilies, numerous rare trees and spiraling antique staircases that stood out like a Victorian house in the jungle. I climbed one staircase and took it all in while having vaguely megalomaniacal but mostly light-hearted thoughts like, “this is your kingdom!” Simba must have felt the same when looking over the Pridelands. Beautiful, beautiful place.

Now I’ve just reached the Staatens Museum for Kunst, which is enormous and kostenlos. I must tell Steve of the “Flying Steamroller” piece outside that looks like a NASA flight simulator device holding a medium-sized steamroller. Truction truck, as baby Steve would say. Really I have no idea as to the accuracy of this story, as I was negative five to three years old. Still though, I think he’d love this creation.

Oi. Just spent two hours in the museum and now I’m taking a break for soup in the café, This is painfully oversimplified, but the only way to describe the collection is ‘thought-provoking.’ So for the time being, I am stewing in my own thoughts and far too preoccupied to write them down. It’s raining today, which, truthfully, is fairly comforting. The rain is something to rely on, in a way.

Later:
On the now sunny steps outside Charlottenborg, I play with ladybug and am thrilled by the absurd truth that this is not just any aphid, but a Danish one. This detail alone doesn’t cause it to differ from its North American ladybug brethren, but something about it still seems novel. Charlottenborg is among my favorite museums on this earth. The ‘Culture Camping: spend the night in a museum’ event occurs every Friday, and beds with white linen have been pushed together in the center of the room for this activity. Visitors are encouraged to sleep there during opening hours as well, and I was pleased to oblige. From the ceiling hang hundreds of long white ropes, evenly spaced out to form a vast expanse of unconventional stars at 90-degree angles. They do not touch you upon sitting up, but lightly brush the top of your head. Lying on my back, looking up at them, I was reminded of that old Windows screensaver in which you were constantly zooming through a pixilated, planetless galaxy. Today is all about finding Zen, I suppose.


Eventually:
I purchased lovely new pens and am now very pleased with the world. Other activities included forgoing the design museum due to a distraction caused by the charming but outrageously pricey Urban Outfitters. Oh capitalism, how you lure me with your make-believe harmless talons. My excuse, though none should be permitted, is that the chain does not exist in Munich, and I never saw a store on my previous travels. I am on a never-ending quest to find a second pair of these perfect jeans I bought there two years ago. If you had these pants, you’d understand. I actually needed a moment to process all the art I consumed recently as well, and was not so much in the mood to rush through the design museum.

Ha. The World Out Games are going on and several clips from related films or performances are being broadcast in the square below my coffee shop vantage point. Two female performers were just doing things onstage that would make Madonna blush crimson and Britney or Christina cover their eyes and giggle. To dwell further on my failure to make it to the third museum, however, I’ll also argue that I bought the pens out of inspiration to produce my own work, so there. This microscopic shopping spree of six felt-tip pens and a blouse has reduced me to a five-year-old, it seems. At least I’m a five-year-old drinking a cappuccino. Oh lord, could there be anything worse?

The Danes who work in the service industry are insanely fluent in English, and no matter how much I strain to say hej and tak, the moment I order an Italian-sounding coffee, they’re on to me and my English-speaking ways. I find it fairly relieving, honestly. “Ok, you can continue to say hi and thank you, but when we require real sentences, cut the charade,” they smirk. Clever multilingual Danes.

At a plaza there were musicians playing traditional Incan music with wooden flutes, wearing Navaho headdresses and moccasins. My geography bone hurt.


That night:
My last evening in Copenhagen left me drowsy during the early morning flight to Stockholm, but the marvel of it all was worth it. All the collective housemates, plus three friends and three couchsurfers (myself among them), dined and drank together late into the night. I really connected with the newest couchsurfer from Melbourne and we had simultaneous and spastic bouts of glee upon hearing of all the films, music, people and places the other had no knowledge of but would surely love. We switched notebooks and furiously wrote down everything we could think of for one another that seemed somehow relevant. R., the couchsurfer, studies photography and just finished a semester in New York. Now she’s come to Copenhagen for another semester abroad before returning to Australia. I was at once envious of and glad not to be in her position – at the beginning of the abroad experience.


We smoked Parliaments and I thought of all the hyper-stressed debaters I knew; we occasionally remembered to socialize with the others at the table, who enjoyed their own parallel worlds, and we exchanged contact information. A friend of O.’s, who told of how she got lucky through a start-up company with her former professor involved in promoting arts and culture in Scandinavia, began playing the violin and making skat noises. Soon after, O. found the King Louie Jungle Book song online and we all sang along, transported back to our childhoods in the process. I wanna be like you-oooh-oooh, do everything that you do-oooh-oooh. I wanna walk like you, talk like you, oh yeaah! Come now, don’t say the song is not magical.

Oh, I am so tired and content.