Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Old Travel Diaries: Copenhagen, October 2004

So I decided to go Copenhagen to see the city and visit Mette - a girl I met some time last June in San Francisco. We hung out with her and her friend in Anu and then 1015 - they were students returning from a semester in Washington and doing the American sightseeing. We had a good time and exchanged information, which I have to admit, I haven't used much.

Still, when I re-opened the contact with her when I came to Krakow, she immediately invited me to visit her in Copenhagen.

And so I booked my flight - a direct one from Krakow, for a change. It was very convenient, actually. I was in the Danish capital by 3 pm. Mette instructed me how to get to her area of town by train, and then she met me at the station. I was a little worried I might not recognize her after almost half a year and having seen her very briefly and mostly at night. But we both recognized each other straight away.

We went for a quick walk, despite the light drizzle. However, thanks precisely to the rain, the Little Mermaid - only 10 minutes walk from Mette's place - was almost deserted, quite unusually, as she'’s normally surrounded by scores of tourists with cameras. It's sad, really, that Copenhagen's most famous sight is a less-than human sized simple sculpture of a girl with a fishtail facing into the industrial harbour. We also checked out some of the sights I once briefly say 11 years ago, on my first trip to Denmark (and Western Europe). As I only spent less than 2 days in Copenhagen back then, I almost forgot about most of the sights. Granted, most of them are rather modest. Nyhavn, a canal with some of the most picture-perfect houses in the city, was more like a construction site - they were renovating something. Mette and I had a beer, which was some of the most expensive I ever had (7 Euros each), and that definitely helped breaking the ice a little bit.


Then we came back and went for dinner at Mette's student dorm (disgusting food, really), and met some of her friends. One of them - a guy named Christian - seemed to be her best friend. He apparently had heard about me, and we sort of hit it off relatively quickly. He was very friendly, smart and like most Danes, spoke very good English.

Later, Mette managed to borrow a bike for me, and the 3 of us - she, Christian and I -– drove off to some big student party. It was weird riding a bike through the whole city, but apparently, public transport, as alcohol, is beyond most students' means in Scandinavia. At the party, however, drinks were reasonably cheap, and it was fun for me to watch the young Danes, a small but proud and fun-loving people, enjoy themselves.

The next day was drizzly again, and we decided to go to some museums. The National Museum was quite nice and interesting. They had a curious exhibit of old art alongside modern paintings on similar themes. Very impressive.

Then we met up again with Christian who had some kind of a date with an extremely dorky and skinny English PhD student, and we did a bit more sightseeing of the evening Copenhagen.

I kept asking Mette anbd Christian for something traditional Danish to eat, and we came to a rather stuck-up restaurant full of elderly people in suits and ties. Mette and Christian kept giggling about how funny this whole thing was to them. They must never normally come to that sort of establishments. Then we tried to hit the nightlife, but again, the prices were dear, and we had to reject some bars and clubs. Finally, we ended up in a rather OK club, where we even danced a little bit and had a couple of drinks.

On Sunday, Christian had to do studying, so Mette suggested we borrowed her parents'’ car and drove around a bit. It sounded like a good idea to me, and we took a train to a suburb where her parents lived. They were not at home, her brother was though. He’s a young fellow, looking a bit different-– dark hair and all. Mette's father's Hungarian, and he must look more like him than she does.

We drove to a relatively well-known museum of modern art in Humlebaek -– Louisiana. It's part indoors, part outdoors. The exhibit was just the right size - manageable without being too tiring, and we had a lovely light lunch in the cafeteria there. I must say that some of the best shots in this whole trip so far were taken on that day. Louisiana overlooks Oresund, the straight between Denmark and Sweden, and the cloudy weather was actually very photogenic. I ended up having a whole series of photos of Oresund, as this was the closest to any nature trip I had taken since I arrived to Poland.


This was a special trip in other aspects, too. Denmark had always occupied a part in my heart dearer than most other countries. This was the place I visited back in 1993, still a teenager, when I, by a total fluke, got an opportunity to work for a beekeeper Hans Roy for the summer. I actually had to go to Moscow to get the visa, as I was really excited indeed about it. I had been to Poland prior to that, which barely counted as a trip abroad, and of course in the US, but never in Western Europe.

I remember how Denmark struck me as almost a fairy-tale land, a toy country. Everything was small and tidy, highly organized, but pleasant, clean, tasty and nice. Except the weather, which was unusually cold that summer. On some days, it was as low as 13 degrees. As a result, many flowers were not in bloom, the bees were hungry and unproductive, and Hans was angry and grumpy. He was a bit strict with me, and I didn't really feel too happy. I was staying at his house in Ringkjobing, on the west coast of Jutland, which was picturesque, and the town was cute, at least for me who until then had never really seen any Northern European towns. But I got quickly bored. There was nothing to do after 5 pm when the work was finished. Hans liked to sit at home and read newspapers after work. He did take me to a couple of local happenings, such as an air show or a parade. I actually got to fly on a 2-seater plane, which was very cool, although back then I had no idea how much people normally pay for such a pleasure, so I probably didn't appreciate it as much. I remember a Latvian girl, called I believe Liga, who I almost fell in love with upon a brief encounter or two. She was a worker with another beekeeper like me, but unlike me, she spoke fluent Danish. I was really smitten with her actually, but nothing much happened between the two of us. The other beekeeper stopped coming to us, and I had never seen or heard from her again.


Then I took up to hitchhike every weekend to cities nearby - Herning, Holstebro, Esbjerg, Skjern. It was surprisingly easy. I would prepare placards with a name of a place I wanted to go to, and people would frequently just pick me up. I must have looked pretty innocent at 18. Everybody spoke English, and as I told people about myself, they often treated me with beer, food or even offered me money, as one old couple did. Alas, these times are long gone... I'd like to see myself try to hitch a ride now.

Still, these trips were not without risk. The risk that one day I would not be able to find the ride back. Mind, I had to take one-day trips as I could'’t exactly afford a hotel or even a hostel. Hans was paying me the equivalent of about $100 a month, which seemed like a lot of money to me, and it would be in Belarus, but Denmark has always been one of the most expensive countries. As the circle of my cities expanded - I got cheeky enough to hitchhike to Viborg, Aarhus, Kolding, Vejle, Ribe.– I once got stuck as I could not pick up a ride. It was late and dark, and I had to make that difficult call to Ringkobing to ask Hans to get me out of Herning. Fortunately, it was only about 40 minutes away. Still, I must have got him out of his bed, as he barely spoke to me after that.

Another highlight of my stay with Hans was a couple of times we went to a tiny island of Avernako south of Funen, where he kept a colony of bees for breeding purposes. No other bees were allowed on the island except his. It was interesting getting up early, driving across the country, and going there on a ferry.

So there were plenty of differences between that Danish trip and this recent one. I could actually afford to go out, eat out and visit the sights this time. I was not bothered by the sound of passing cars. And I even had a Danish girl that was taking and showing me around.

So overall, this was an unusual and a special trip. Mette and I parted as good friends, and we still email each other. Heck, she invites me back already.

2 Comments:

Blogger Aubrey Andel said...

Now that's more like it. Great story...Hans and the bees and hitchhiking. I'd like to request more entries like that.

7:44 PM

 
Blogger sheeep said...

I like this kind of entries too. It is always interesting to hear about the world I have never been...

9:38 PM

 

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