Copenhagen

August 20, 2006- And Counting
(photos:Tivoli entrance,
Tivoli at night)

So yesterday was 89 and sunny; today was in the 70's and drizzly. As Yves tells us no matter what the weather is doing it’s sunny for us because today is the only day we have to count on. The Danes, however, can count on 75% tax. It’s unimaginable.

We played dodge ‘em with a UNICEF walkathon sponsored by ECCO shoes. Our huge bus was re-routed and wove among the walkers to join the hundreds of other buses maneuvering through narrow streets and into tiny parking spaces.

Ida, our city guide, had unaccented colloquial English. We found out why. She was married to an American and lived in New York for twenty years. He died eleven years ago and she returned to Copenhagen with her five children. The children are grown and one has already returned to New York She thinks they all will at which time she’ll move too. She’s Jewish and said that even she couldn’t get us into the synagogue mid-week. There are 3,000 Jews who are members of either the orthodox or upstart Reform congregations. The Reform meets in a home and flies a rabbi in from the States monthly. There might be an equal number of unaffiliated Jews. Being self-consciously egalitarian, Danes don’t count people by religion, but somehow she knew that 95% of Danes were Lutheran. They attend church three times in their lives: birth, marriage, death.

Landmarks

As we drove past the Citadel on our half-day tour, Ida mentioned it was built to fend off the oldest enemy of Denmark, the Swedes. Swedish POW’s dug some of the canals here. In the old days Denmark was a world power. They had many colonies and owned the Virgin Islands. Selling it to the U.S. was one of their biggest mistakes. The sun-starved Danes would love to have an island holiday retreat in the tropics all their own. Another regret is that they participated in the slave trade. They ‘ve tried to make up for it ever since.

We got off the bus to take pictures of the Little Mermaid statue that sits forlornly on a rock near the cleanest harbor in the world. The water is fit for swimming and the Danes are proud of their hard work and achievement. If only they’d clean their streets as well. This town reminds me of Amsterdam in more than canals and building style. It’s as messy. The mermaid is tinier than I thought and unfortunately had a lap full of bird poop this morning. Hans Christian Anderson told the fairy tale about a mermaid who fell in love with a prince. She asked a witch to change her tail into legs. The witch warned that she could do that but the mermaid would feel like she was walking on glass the rest of her life. The mermaid insisted and the witch complied. As fate would have it the prince had fallen in love with another. Ida said the moral of the story is that’s what happens when a woman loses her tail. Many think that Hans Christian Anderson was telling his story and he too suffered unrequited love. Actually, Mr. Jacobson saw the story danced in a ballet and fell in love with the ballerina. Since he was already married he identified with the mermaid. He had the ballerina pose for the life-size statue and commissioned it. As if a lovelorn life wasn’t enough vandals have twice cut her head off and once tried to blow up the rock thus beheading her again.

At 1,000 years Denmark is the oldest monarchy in Europe and has numerous kings and queens for school children to memorize. One of them is playfully called the Great Dane. Christian IV fathered twenty-seven known children and many unaccounted for. They think of him as the true father of the country. It’s now a constitutional monarchy with the royal family being figureheads. Despite that they are beloved. Queen Margaret (aka Daisy) is rumored to smoke four packs of cigarettes a day and at sixty-six seems fit. When the younger prince divorced his Chinese wife everyone was shocked but the prince is in disfavor and the wife and children stayed. It was rumored that the prince is gay. I guess the monarchy talks the liberal talk but cannot walk the walk.

We piled out off the bus to watch the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Palace, the residence of the queen, and were warned not to get in their way. They don’t stop and have been seen walking over photo-obsessed Japanese tourists with their steel-toed boots. The guard is the cream of the crop. They are on twenty-four hours and off twenty four. They stand guard at two-hour intervals with two-hours break. They aren’t as strait laced as the Palace Guard in England and will pose for photos, but are armed with real guns holding real bullets. The prestige of being a royal guard lasts a lifetime and opens doors. There’s a compulsory draft and lottery. Only one-third are drafted each year.

There was a $3,000 reward for the winner of a contest for the best name for the new opera house. We crossed the canal once again to see that marvel of modern architecture. The flat roof is cantilevered over the water and seems to want to soar into the sky. The three chandeliers in the lobby were made in Iceland and even on a dreary day refract the light into beacons of rainbows. The marble walls are hollow and we thumped them playing music as we walked downstairs to the rest rooms. By the way, the winning name for the structure was Opera House.

On our way to the next stop we passed summer gardens. Danes who moved into the city from farms missed getting their hands dirty and growing things. The government gave them small plots that have evolved into a community of the tiniest most charming array of one-room cottages. There are no facilities and the people may only stay overnight on weekends but the area is a bit of the country in the city.

I asked about the many flat roofs we’d seen and was told there’s little snow here. They mostly have wind and ice. Ida said that aside from not getting snow Denmark is flat so Danes are excellent sailors, great bikers, but abysmal failures as skiers. But they are great bakers. We visited a bakery where we were permitted to indulge ourselves and buy to our hearts content. There’s a fantastic ice cream place nearby as well. We’re in hog heaven. The ice cream is the best deal in Scandinavia at eighty-five cents for two scoops.

On Our Own

We wandered along the waterfront until we found an outdoor café that was appealing. They’re open all year round and have heaters and blankets for their customers comfort I had lox (the Danish word for salmon is lochs) and David had an open-face roast beef sandwich with horseradish sauce. We should have gone to the pizzeria.

The afternoon was free and stores are closed Sunday. We were going to walk to the grave of Kirkegard, the philosopher, but it was way too far. We stopped at the halfway point at Rosemborg Castle. We turned into the wrong gate and were asked to “HALT” by an armed guard. We did and he directed us to the correct entrance. The main attraction was the crown jewels. They are all real, all in a vault, and you dare not sneeze. I mean that literally. Yves told us that a woman on one of his tours sneezed and activated the emergency gate. It’s timed not to open for an hour and they were locked in. When I saw so many jewels and gold and glimmering glittering baubles it looked unreal. It was so much paste to me. I’d never say it to a Dane since they revere the monarchy but I’d have it all melted down and re-set.

The castle was built in 1606 by King Christian IV as a summerhouse. It’s small and cute but the dark wood, marble and stone floors, Flemish paintings, and lack of light made it seem dreary. Plaster Cherubs drip from the ceilings like so many stalactites. We saw no large tour groups. They would overwhelm the place.

We went in search of bananas on the way home and realized why they stick a Danish flag in the box when they have them in stock. Good bananas are rare here. The ones we saw were either small and green or yellow and bruised. I’ll have to get my potassium elsewhere.

We ate a simple dinner with people from our group at the Hercegovina Grill in the Tivoli Gardens and enjoyed goulash and salad. When I went to the ladies room I saw a mother changing her babys diaper and heard her singing O Susanna. I was fine until the two words I recognized turned into Danish. Tivoli is a miniature old European amusement park and was more interesting to me than the crown jewels. It’s illuminated at night and transformed into a fairyland. It’s where hoards of Danes assemble and where the real diversity of the country can be found. I found it to be the anti-Epcot.

Tomorrow is free all day until our home hosted dinner. We have tentative plans to go to a hippy area with Yves. I assume he knows what he’s doing and we will not be arrested for hanging with druggies.

Toby