Nina had been traveling for several weeks when she finally arrived in my arms in the Copenhagen airport on May 10th. Helle was kind enough to meet me at the airport and help us lug home Nina’s bags.
I was really excited to show Nina my beloved Copenhagen and introduce her to my friends. She had been traveling for quite some time and needed to take it easy, and I still had finals to take, so our week was a mix of down time and sightseeing. There were also several items left on my Copenhagen to-do list that I was saving for her visit, which coincided with the unscheduled days of finals week, so it worked out that I got to do lots that was new for me too that week.
We started off our first day by taking a bike tour of Copenhagen that DIS was offering. I envisioned the bike tour to be a good way to introduce Nina to all the classic tourist sights in Copenhagen. However, since we were almost entirely a group of students who had just finished spending four months in Copenhagen and didn't need to see the traditional tourist sights, our guide opted for more of an off the beaten trail tour. We ended up seeing several parts of the city I hadn’t seen before and Nina got a great introduction to parts of Copenhagen that I wouldn’t have shown her on my own. It was also fun to see the city on a bike because biking is so intrinsic to the Danish way of life. So much so that at times our bike leader, a Dane, forgot how much more skilled a biker he was than the rest of us and would often navigate through lanes of traffic or cross intersections only to turn around and realize that we weren’t behind him.
Our tour went to outer Østerbro neighborhood, through Fælledparken, where we were for the labor day celebration, and by the FCK football stadium. Our first stop by N.F.S. Gruntvig’s church, which our guide proclaimed to be the most beautiful church in Copenhagen. I’m not sure that I agree, but I enjoyed seeing its typically Danish architecture, white brick walls, high arched ceilings and simple wooden chairs. We also biked through a tree-lined dirt path that reminded Nina and I of the scene in The Sound of Music where the Von Trapp children bicycle through the trees in their newly created-from-curtains play clothes. The tree path led us to a cemetery that is home to Hans Christian Anderson’s grave. If anyone reading this blog doesn’t know who HC Anderson is, you must, because he is absolutely central to Danish cultural identity. In a culture known for its believe in the Jante Law, the idea that no one is better than anyone else and thus everyone is fairly mediocre, HC Anderson is almost a supernatural Dane in the level of celebrity he has achieved around the world and especially in the Danish psyche. HC Anderson (my visiting mom said most Danish children don’t actually know that the HC stands for Hans Christians because they are just so familiar with his nickname) is an children's author whose famous fairy tales line the bookshelves of every good Danish child. The story of the ugly duckling, and of the little mermaid (the fairy tale which the statue is based on), are some of his most famous.
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| HC Andersen's Grave |
On the way back to the bike rental store we cycled through inner norrebro, considered to be the “bad” neighborhood of Copenhagen mostly because of the large percentage of ethnic immigrants. We saw parks and outdoor markets lively with a diverse immigrant community –it was a real treat to see that part of Copenhagen that I hadn’t been privy to before. The bike tour was way more of a highlight than I ever imagined it would be.
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| Our Bike Tour |
Throughout the semester one of my favorite Copenhagen activities was having a picnic lunch in Kongens Have, the king’s gardens. I loved the natural beauty of the gardens, the elegant Rosenborg castle looming over you as you eat, and the Danes from all walks of life that dot the park on a sunny day. Many a time have groups of friends and I have grabbed all the necessary sandwich fixings from Netto or Fakta and hit the park to enjoy the rays and the people watching. So Thursday of our final week from my European politics class and I had our final picnic in Kongens Have. I think those days in the garden will remain some of my absolute favorites.
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| Goodbye Picnic in Kongens Have |
After the King’s Gardens Nina and I took the metro to Christianshavn and climbed the spire of Vor Frelser Kirke, Our Savior Church. Looking from the ground, the spire is quite striking. It’s dark brown, streaked with gold and topped with a giant hold statue of Jesus holding a flag. To get to the top of the tower one must climb up a series of old rickety staircases, through what used to be the old bell tower. After what feels like several hundred stairs, your head pokes into the open air and there are several more levels of spiral stairs to climb. On a clear day you get a view of the entire city of Copenhagen. I delighted in the beautiful 360 degree panoramic views of all sides of the city that I love so much.
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| View from Vor Frelser Kirke spire |
On Friday Nina and I got up early to journey to Humlabaek, a small town to the north of Copenhagen. My friend Heather lives in a folkehøjskole (pronounced like folk-high school) in Humlabaek so although our trip was primarily to see the Louisiana, a contemporary art museum in Humlabaek, we stopped first at Heather’s folkehøjskole to eat lunch and see what a folkehøjskole is really like. folkehøjskoles are a uniquely Danish creation. They are communities where Danish students live and also go to school. From my understanding most students spend a year or two at a folkehøjskole when they want to take time off from traditional school. Students in a folkehøjskole don’t have homework or rigorous academics but instead study subjects such as dance, photography or philosophy. These institutions were founded as part of N.F.S. Gruntvig’s liberal education movement. DIS students are given the opportunity to chose this as their housing option, although they take classes at DIS with the rest of us Americans. Heather, and all the other students I’ve talked to who have lived in folkehøjskoles really love the close knit, lively community. Heather gave us a tour of the folkehøjskole and we joined Heather and her friends for lunch. Each folkehøjskole has a chef that prepares meals for all the residents. Although I appreciated the culinary skills that I was forced to acquire living in a kollegium, the food at that folkehøjskole was DELICIOUS, much better than anything I’d cooked for myself all semester. From Heather’s folkehøjskole it is a short walk to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. A small museum, the Louisiana is striking in its location right on the waterfront; there is a beautiful outdoor sculpture garden and terrace with the sea as a backdrop. There are a few permanent exhibits and several temporary ones. The largest temporary exhibit on display when we went was an exhibit on Picasso. It had a large collection of his early works, including the famous peace dove sketch which has since been used in peace movements all over the world. Did you know that Picasso was the original artist to draw the peace dove? I didn’t. Nina was so impressed she had me take her picture with the artwork despite express warnings from the security guards not to take pictures. There was an exhibit on David Hockney called “Me draw on ipad” in which artist David Hockney began using the ipod drawing program, and then later the ipad, to draw beautiful doodles, landscapes, portraits and still lifes. I thought it was an innovative idea and found the pieces to be quite beautiful.
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| Outdoors at the Louisiana |
Friday evening was time for a truly Copenhagen treat that I’d been waiting all semester for: Tivoli! Tivoli is an amusement park located in the center of the city that served as an inspiration for Disney World. Tivoli is on my walk to school from central station every morning but isn’t open until April and so I’d spent months eying the high gates trying to catch a glimpse of the majestic scenery inside. Even from the outside the tall towers of many of the rides peer above the walls. I was eager to finally see the inside. Upon entering, Nina and I enthusiastically bounded in and ran from one eye-catching exhibit to another until we realized we didn’t really know where we were and which direction we wanted to go so we found a map to consult. Tivoli is quite a large place - wandering aimlessly is recommended only if you have lots of time on your hands and no specific agenda. As we arrived a group of my friends who had gotten there earlier were almost at the front of a long line for a ride that looked like an airplane that would throw you to your death. This airplane, which seated four, was attached to a metal arm that wrenched the airplane up, down and around. I’m all for scary amusement park rides but, valuing our life and the rest of our time in Copenhagen, we passed on the airplane ride. We attempted to select a calmer ride for our first but failed, as what looked like a standard tilt-a-whirl contraption turned left, right and fully upside down quite violently. Next was the red demon, a tall and curving roller coaster with several drops.
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| The Red Demon roller coaster |
After the demon Nina and I headed to the swing ride, which lifts riders hundreds of feet above Copenhagen and gives a splendid view of the city. At most amusement parks rides high in the air provide you with a view of the rest of the park at best but at Tivoli you can see Rahaplasen, Christiansborg and all the other buildings that make up the Copenhagen skyline.
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| The swing ride and the accompanying Danish flags |
A plate of fries, one feathered purple hat and one more ride of the swings later, Tivoli magic was coursing through our veins. It is a majestic fantasy world inside, complete with a giant Taj Majal that is lit up at night. We felt warm, fuzzy and Danish as we walked down the lantern-lined path and out of Tivoli.
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| Tivoli at night |
Nina had been hoping to add Sweden to her list of countries visited, and I hadn’t yet taken been to Malmö, so on Saturday we got up early to make a trip to Southern Sweden. Malmö is a popular destination for visitors to Copenhagen because it is only a half hour ride away on the regional trains and bam! you're in another country! The part of Southern Sweden where Malmö is located used to be part of the Danish kingdom and so many say that Malmö feels more like Copenhagen than like Sweden. Still, they use the Swedish kroner and speak Swedish (there are even two dots over the o!), so it was definitely different enough for us to check Sweden off our list. The sad thing, as a comment on how far out of the city my kollegium was, is that it took roughly the same amount of time to get to Sweden as it took me to get home to Roskilde every day.
Malmö is a darling small town. A canal with boats, all flying the Swedish flag, greeted us when we walked out of the train station.
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| The water in Malmö |
We walked to Malmöhus, a large red castle surrounded by a mote and a beautiful garden. In addition to being an old castle, Malmöhus is a museum for the city of malmö with a little bit of everything – natural history, a reptile room, and even some modern art. The Malmöhus museum had free admission the day we were there –it doesn’t get any better than that! After the museum, we sat in the gardens and ate the sandwiches we had packed. The gardens were extensive and really breathtakingly beautiful. There was a small pond that people were kayaking in and bridges over the water. The whole thing reminded me of the secret garden.
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| The gardens surrounding Malmöhus |
From Malmöhus, we walked to Lila Torg, a cute city square with outdoor cafes, and then walked down Stortorget, the main pedestrian shopping street in Malmö. I really do love these walking streets that are all around Europe; nothing I like more than strolling and window shopping.
Heading back to Copenhagen, Helle picked us up at Høje Taastrup and we went to her house for a delicious home cooked dinner. She made frikadeller to give Nina a chance to try the delicious Danish favorite. That evening we all crowded around the TV for the annual Eurovision competition. Eurovision is a singing competition that is held every year in Europe, in which European countries each send one musical act to compete against one another for the Eurovision title. From my limited knowledge of Eurovision, each country has twelve votes that they cast among the other countries, and viewers also vote for their favorite country via text message. Nationals of a country are not allowed to vote for their own country to prevent each country rigging the competition in favor of their own team. Many European families watch and enjoy cheering on their favorite act, cheering on their country’s act, or just making fun of the ridiculousness of the acts.
Not to be biased for our home country or anything, but the musical group from Denmark really was the best. Their group was called A Friend in London and their song "A New Tomorrow", was just so catchy and upbeat. We had fun singing the lyrics over and over again (they show each act numerous times and then recap it for you), “c’mon girls, c’mon boys, in this crazy crazy world…” Unfortunately Denmark did not win, nor did it even make the top four – what an outrage! What really killed us what that Sweden – whose act was DEFINITELY inferior to Denmark’s - placed above us. We also lost the $50 that we placed on an online bet on Denmark ranking at the top Nordic country. Robbed! Robbed!
Nina and I had successfully jampacked our days in Copenhagen thus far and had done and seen so many fun things. But alas, since we did have to entirely move out of my kollegium and catch a plane early Wednesday morning (not to mention the two final exams I had to study for and take), on Sunday we started to slow down and divide our remaining days between sightseeing and packing/studying. I had showed Nina a lot of Copenhagen but had not taken her on the classic tourist walk along the harbor which I had perfected from the many visitors I'd had over the semester. We met up with my friend Alyssa and walked down Strøget to Kongens Nytorv, to Nyhavn, all the way to the Little Mermaid. As we walked along the harbor it went from grey skies to down pouring rain to hail. We hid under a nearby bridge for cover. Just when I thought our sightseeing ventures were sunk, the hail stopped and made way for absolutely beautiful, sunny blue skies. Perfect for our little mermaid tourist photos.
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| Outside Amalienborg Palace |
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| Copenhagen Waterfront |
Monday arrived and I was so heartbroken about my time in Copenhagen almost being over that I steadfastly denied the reality. I spent most of the day reluctantly putting stuff into piles, and then into suitcases, and eating all the remaining food I had in my kollegium. Naturally having acquired far more stuff than when I departed for Copenhagen, I used the last 100 kroner of my food stipend card from DIS to buy a new rolly suitcase to check as my third bag on the plane ride home. Refusing to use any more of my remaining time than absolutely necessary to study for the two finals I had left, I spent about an hour Sunday studying for my human trafficking final Monday and another hour Monday studying for my Danish politics final the following day (fear not, my final grade reports have now arrived and I did fine in both classes). Slowly my room began to clear of stuff, as Nina continued to diligently remind me that I in fact had very little time left to pack, throw away and clean everything. With her help we had several suitcases fully packed and several partially packed, with fairly organized piles all around the room.
Tuesday, after my Danish politics final, my friends and I headed directly to the DIS spring 2011 closing ceremony. Anders Uhrskov proceeded to make corny jokes and metaphors about the journey we had taken since being in Copenhagen, similarly to the opening ceremony, and the DIS strings band played many a song. From the opening ceremony DIS students and faculty headed to studenterhuset for a champagne reception.
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| Champagne Reception at Studenterhuset |
Many of my favorite professors were at the champagne reception, it was really fun to hang out with them and say goodbye one last time. The reception was bittersweet – we all were enjoying each other immensely, but we knew that today was our last day together and so we were postponing the tearful goodbyes as much as possible. I picked Nina up from the train station (she had been getting things done at home while I was taking my final – she made it to nørreport all by herself!) and a group of us went to our friend’s kollegium for a barbeque. It wasn’t particularly nice weather out and we didn’t have a grill, so we cooked the burgers inside on a stove. No worries though, my friend’s kollegium is plenty nice to house a party –it’s got a large shiny kitchen, big long tables and a spacious living room, and even an indoor badminton court! We ate delicious burgers and reminisced on our fondest memories of the semester.
For our last night in Copenhagen DIS hosted a farewell party at a nightclub that looked more like a castle on the water. We danced to the songs that we had danced to so many times before, but soon enough the first of our friends had to leave and the heartwrenching goodbyes began. As my friend Heather proceeded to give everyone in the group hugs, someone began to cry, and then someone else and then nearly the whole group was tearful. It’s not that we’ll never see each other again – we probably will, and we plan to have reunions. But we won’t see each with the near daily frequency we had been, and we certainly won’t be in Copenhagen. The tears were an acknowledgement of a semester rich in friendship and experiences, of opening our hearts to a city, and to an experience, that I think many of had serious doubts whether we were ever going to love. Throughout the night, as each friend left, we would shed more tears and then go back to dancing until the next friend left. I gave everyone big hugs and headed home at the responsible hour of 10:30, at Nina’s insistence that we really had quite a bit more getting ready to do before our flight the next morning (she was right –we stayed up until 3:30am packing and cleaning). I cried when we got on the bus to take us home.
I’ll reflect more on my experiences in my post-Copenhagen-I’ve-arrived-home blog post, but I’ll just say that the tears that night felt right, like appropriate closure on something that would probably never happen again, but that was pretty magical nonetheless.
Now, for a little spoiler for next week’s blog post: Nina and I made in to Spain on Wednesday! And the crazy adventures ensued from there. I suggest you keep reading.
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