Whimsical Copenhagen (1)

Upon my return to Bavaria yesterday, a friend asked how my ‘fantastic voyage’ had been. I replied that my bones were weary but I felt so full mentally. My ‘dream gallery,’ which is something that will make little sense here, even when explained, but has to do with lucid dreaming and the REM cycle, was especially wonderful during those nights of travel or when I fell asleep on the metro. This was largely influenced by the plethora of images I was exposed to in the past few days. My head, I went on, is crammed to the point of extremity, but it’s a good kind of chaos and overload.


In addition this madness and delight, I read and finished the best book of my [relatively young] life, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. While I am already susceptible to empathizing with fictional characters too strongly, never before have I identified with or adored any figure more than Oskar Schell. Read this book immediately if you have not already done so.

I documented the Copenhagen trip in tall, skinny notebook with interwoven designs of deep purple and green. This book was, for all purposes, my travel companion during the journey, and quite a good one at that. Who else would receive my observations, witty and banal alike, in such a welcoming manner? For your benefit, I’ll only reproduce the mildly or more interesting segments here and leave the more mind-numbing or personal aspects on the pages bound together by string.

On July 28th, the date of my departure, my good friend S. and I discussed potential travel plans for next summer while drinking tea and eating plums in my room in Munich. Included among these fantastical what-ifs was a road trip into the Deep South with J. and then on to Chicago to see friends at Northwestern. I have been harboring this desire to see Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia, as well as St. Paul, plus New Orleans and some of the Midwest, namely Minneapolis, Minnesota and Topeka, Kansas. The urge and momentum behind all this is the necessity of seeing more of my home country than just my West Coast and Southwestern corner. I want to become educated about the US in the way that I have during this past year, in more than just a surface level fashion, about Europe. Visual and exploratory learning is what I mean by this. Perhaps this is why we travel – or why I do, at least – to collect these powerful images and memories out of which we can form a personal gallery. No, not perhaps. This is a definite reason for travel or merely living more fully and intensely. I am an avid collector of memories, it seems.

During the wait period before the flight, I sat in the airport, watching men in stiff business suits and a little boy playing with dinosaurs while his sister dressed her dolls and his mother yawned in a chair, flipping through a magazine.

Later that day, at 4:05pm (June 28th):
Shortly we’ll land in Berlin. Hello, lovely city. I adore you. Don’t believe for an instant that you’ll never see the likes of me again.

I then proceeded to draw for some time. Among said doodles was a computer as a dementor, as it is quite a life-sucking box of diversion and fun. The metaphor isn’t too accurate in terms of adjectives, but I’ll ignore this if you will. More drawings included a mandala, a beer bottle used as a flower vase and the oddly futuristic paper towel dispenser in the airport restroom.

The security and staff at Berlin’s Tegel Airport are amusing and adorable. The man at the check-in counter started speaking to me in Spanish. ¿A Dónde va? I think the bangs are what cause me to be taken for a Spaniard, but I like this mistake a rather lot and shall refrain from complaint. Another man at the security and bag check area allowed someone to first go through the metal detector and then down his Apfelschorle, which was far above the standard liquid allowance. “Auf X!” the employee bellowed encouragingly, as if the man were drinking a beer. He congratulated him at the end and promptly gave directions to the next bathroom. Ah! Such hilarity and perfect delivery. Rampant overgeneralization: modern Berliners are a light-hearted bunch.

Arrival
Copenhagen proves to be a stunningly beautiful city populated with absurdly fashionable young hipsters, none of which even border on overweight. So this is where the fashionista robots are made! I am by the river in Nørrebro, a marvelous location full of cafés, bars and vintage shops. There is more than a sufficient amount of high quality street art, and I am beside myself with pleasure.


I don’t know if I will really do anything this evening, as I got in later (though thankfully it’s still light out), aside from take a few photos of my surroundings and socialize with the co-op people. Just earlier, a friend of the group and I talked briefly of India and Nepal, where she had spent some months traveling and teaching. My knowledge of the countries is entirely textbook-based, but extensive enough to permit informed discussion. I bought a bottle of inexpensive red wine at a grocery store in hopes of bonding with the housemates through alcohol and as a token of appreciation for their hospitality. I love how these people live amidst the chaos of parallel creative projects but with some semblance of structure and tidiness.

Tangent – some observations:
Surrounding me are strollers and small animals. There are fledgling ducks, whose head feathers are all ruffled, as if they used a styling product to get the intended messy look. They are not such babies, I realize upon closer inspection, and are more like preteen ducks in actuality. Still uncontrollably cute, though. The woman to my left has a small dog that Em would throw fits of joy over. Scottish terrier? He bounds across the grass in that way little legless dogs do. The ducks seem to litter the water and there are hoards of them. Does their quantity subtract from their fluffy adorableness? Not in the slightest, but this saccharine topic is making me feel a little crazy. At least seven of the girls who just passed on the dirt pathway in front of me have been wearing those damn gladiator shoes, which are everywhere, really. Ok, I should plan tomorrow, but all I want to do is read more of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I already pummeled through 70 pages today. Must. Enjoy. Slowly. Do not devour! It is a dark chocolate. Genieß es langsam, bitte.

July 29th:
Last night was splendid, to use my grandmother’s favored adjective. The housemates, their friends and I sat in the kitchen/dining/living room and exchanged stories over wine and beer. It got late and all but two other souls and I headed to bed. We continued discussing film, linguistics ad the obscene cost of education. Earlier one had mentioned some screenings going on as part of a larger festival, and it was then suggested that we casually make our way over. I was lent a bike far too high for me but in wonderful condition, and we pedaled off across the bridge, first to the park, which seemed to be dead aside for some undesirable activity, and then to a bar and club area downtown.

We went to two different locals, chatted at the first and danced for hours at the second. Shortly after two, I was interested in heading home so that I could see museums, galleries and the alternative village community the next day. Meanwhile, the guys considered further bar options. The biked suddenly seemed to have grown tremendously in height and I swear it was like having to mount a horse, but with a small push, I was off and successfully navigated my way back along the elegant bike paths. Once back, I happily washed up and lay down on the couch made up with the softest comforter of my life. Ahh… sweet dreams.


I’m now sitting in a café with yellow tables, bottles filled with long-stemmed daisies, quickly burning candles, rust-colored chairs and rugs my parents would surely admire. Ok, hygge. I get it. It is Gemütlichkeit, but more sophisticated. Also, candles at 10am? That’s lovely. This cappuccino may be the best of my entire existence, which sounds hyperbolic and over-the-top, but it has the strong flavor of Barcelona espresso and the perfect amount of foam. Nebenbemerkung: I’d like to reiterate that people here are unbelievably stylish. I can hardly deal cope with it and want to photograph them so badly.

Hmm… it’s fairly unwise to skip breakfast, but I feasted on some bread slices in the apartment. To further exaggerate food and drink quality, it must be stated that Denmark has better bread than any other place in the world where I have dined. Better bread that Switzerland, even! As far as my own rations go, I’ve some raisins and walnuts with me and will probably buy some fruit before having a large lunch. This illustrates how similar I am to my father when he travels, forgoing physical hunger for the mental kind, craving more sights, more stimuli, more moments in which I laugh subtly to myself.


Yes, I love being a solitary traveler when it is framed within something as marvelous as a young people’s collective, replete with quirky types and a silver mannequin. Quite obviously, the reason I save money when traveling is that I don’t eat out as much – case in point being breakfast today – on my own as when I’m with others. Naturally it’s more fun to share a meal with a friend, but I won’t ever be ashamed to be the woman reading while eating. For god’s sake, I am that woman right now, writing in a journal while glancing over at an emptied, ground-stained cappuccino and its saucer.

Part Two still to come.