It’s a good world

In a brief departure from my usual long-winded analyses of all things Danish, I just want to share a few stories that have made me really happy, starting on Friday afternoon:

I went exploring with two friends of mine, and we discovered a graveyard in the middle of the Nørrebro neighborhood, and it was beautiful. It was really more of a park than an actual graveyard–lots of trees; long, wide paths with lots of people walking or biking; graves heavily adorned with flowers and candles; wide open greenspaces to walk in. I was really impressed, because while the solemnity of death had not been replaced by people exercising, the graveyard was nevertheless a place to explore rather than avoid–I feel like it was a way to make death a part of life.

Death, be not proud

Continuing on with the awesomeness of the Nørrebro neighborhood, my friends and I wandered into the Landromat Cafe, which is a fairly well-known place in Denmark (at least, famous enough to be mentioned in my guidebooks), and it is exactly what it sounds like: a cafe where one can have a cup of coffee, take a paperback from the long, long shelves of books, and do one’s laundry. It is a very warm place, and remarkably practical if you ask me–you’d be sitting there with your laundry anyway, so why not have tea?

The washing machines are in back

I love the place. I plan on returning on my next trip to Nørreport, which will hopefully be soon. That whole neighborhood in general is pretty amazing, although apparently there were some youth riots there a while back. But then again, I’ve always wanted to see a riot happen (a summer in Boston, and NOTHING), so maybe…

Bidding Nørreport farewell, I took the train and then the bus back to my town of Greve. Now while I would love (and I mean REALLY REALLY LOVE) to use that segue to talk about transportation in Denmark, I’m not going to do so just yet. That day will come later, and it will be a beautiful day. But anyway. I was on the bus, which was just departing the train station. It is important to realize that buses in Denmark run on a pretty tight schedule, so once they are in motion, they generally do not stop (except for, you know, bus stops). But the bus had just started to pull away when it stopped suddenly. I thought there might have been a problem with the bus, but instead the driver opened the door to allow someone who had just gotten to the station to board. The door opened for an elderly woman with a cane. She boarded, smiling warmly and slightly out of breath, a bright blue beret on her head (AWESOME).  Now, another bus would have been along in about ten minutes, but the bus driver disregarded the rules to let this woman on board and let her get into the warmth and comfort that much earlier. That just made me smile.

When I got home, I found my host family in a wonderful mood–particularly, my host father. Now, this is easy to see–it was a Friday afternoon, everyone was home from work or school, and, for my family, it was the beginning of a week-long holiday that they will spend skiing in Sweden. Unfortunately, I cannot go with them (though they invited me) because of classes. To make up for this, I think, they decided to cook burgers–straight-up, smother-them-with-ketchup-and-mustard burgers, with a nod towards me. When I walked in and found them in the kitchen, my host father loudly announced “Welcome to McDonalds!” and handed me the (HUGE) bottle of ketchup to put on the table. The whole family continued to move about the kitchen with an energy that spoke of people with nothing on their mind but the good times ahead, even though they had an entire day’s worth of packing to do.

Shortly thereafter, my father asked his son to go out to the garage and bring in some beer, declaring “Drinking tonight! We shall get drunk!” I wasn’t quite sure if he was kidding or not, but just to be safe I started to prepare myself mentally for the challenge of doing a case-race with my family. But that didn’t end up happening–we had our beer with dinner (and with preparing the food, which may have been unwise considering it was my job to cut open the hamburger buns with a huge knife, but, ya know, you live and learn), and no drinking contests were called for or anything of the sort. It was, once again, the enthusiasm of my host father. But I still got the satisfaction of eating a burger with all the fixings (except onions–they have no place on my burger) and having a beer to wash it all down with. The only way it could have been more American would be if a bald eagle had flown in to open the beer bottles with its talons.

And for the last story to share, I went for a bike ride with my 12-year old host brother, finally putting my skills at biking to the test. Although “test” might not be the right word, given the fact that, rather than taking to the urban (yet cobblestoned) streets of Copenhagen, we biked around the bike paths of Greve Village. Despite the tranquility of this place, I still had my high-tension moments on the bike, like whenever we had to make a turn sharper than, oh, say, 45 degrees. I also thought that the ice that covered one muddly puddle was strong enough to support both me and the bike. It wasn’t, much to my brother’s amusement.

And speaking of my host brother’s amusement, he has also taken to watching me drink my morning shot of bitters every time my host parents encourage me to do so. The shot of bitters is, as you might expect, very bitter. And it has a powerful kick that comes a good couple of seconds after you’ve actually swallowed the drink. It is painful. Very painful. And apparently the faces I make reflect this fact, and do not do a good job hiding my… slow adjustment to the drink of bitters. And my host brother thinks this is hilarious.

It became clear to my host brother that I am not a regular biker. In fact, he informed me, he could tell simply by the way I sit on a bike that I am not a regular biker. I would like to defend myself, saying that this is because the bike seat was too high and my host father and I couldn’t wrestle the bike seat into a proper position, but I really don’t think I have much of an argument. I’m just a lousy biker. But today was the beginning, and I hope in time to be able to keep pace with the couriers of Copenhagen’s business district.

But it wasn’t the biking that makes it worth telling (although my absence of skill certainly made it amusing), it was talking to my host brother. We have a higher language barrier than most, but we still found things to talk about–he told me about his school as we biked past it, I told him about what it’s like to drive around in America. And talking while you bike beside someone is really enjoyable, even if your fellow biker is moving with significantly greater ease than you.

So, yeah. Wrapping up, it’s a good world. I’ll be on my own for the next week, so we’ll see what comes.