Dark Night

Touristing

I picked up Grandpa at the airport and took him to his hotel room. I had the use of my student apartment for another week, and we were spending three days in Copenhagen, so there wasn't much point to getting a hotel room for me too. It was furnished with a double bed, a low bureau that doubled as the nightstand, an armchair, and a kitchenette set with two chairs and a small table. And with that, the room was pretty much filled to capacity. The bathroom was teeny, with a shower that was barely big enough to allow you to wash your feet. So definitely not enough room for Grandpa too. He laughed when he saw it, but I didn't spend much time in it. We took a canal tour the first day and saw the Copenhagen Opera House, Amalienborg Palace, Christiansborg Palace, the Black Diamond Library, and the little Mermaid. Copenhagen is actually pretty small, and walking tours are better than bus tours. The old city is enchanting. We saw the Old Stock Exchange with its unusual tower with four dragons with their tails entwined. We toured Norrebro, a former working class district, which is now well-known as an exciting multi-cultural smorgasbord of funky design shops, diverse restaurants, and what were billed as 'achingly cool dive bars.' Along the way, we explored the concept of 'hygge,' starting with a snack and coffee in a little cafe in Nyboder, exploring the Kongens Have (The King's Garden, once a royal park and one of the first public parks in the world,) talking about Danish design as we sawthe Town Hall Square, which is also the entrance to Strøget, the longest pedestrian street in Europe, which we walked along for a good bit. We explored the Christiansborg Palace, which houses the Parliament, the Queen's official reception rooms, the Prime Minister's office, and the Supreme Court. Our guide discussed the formal and informal ways that Denmark is governed and how the country has created a system with a very high degree of trust and confidence. We got to see the lovely and hidden library garden, and ended at another cafe for coffee and snacks. We thanked our tour guide at the end and set off on our own.

"I still don't quite understand what hygge is," Grandpa said.

"Hygge is a Danish word that kind of expresses a feeling," I said. "It's a feeling or moment, whether alone or with other people, at home or out and around, something that's cosy, charming or special. It's happiness, contentedness, security, familiarity, comfort, reassurance, kinship, simpleness.It's not a thing, it's more the ability to recognize and enjoy the present." I reflected on that as we made our way to the Tivoli Gardens. "For that alone, coming here for some classes has been worth every penny. I'm terrible at really soaking in the moment, but hygge is an important part of life here, and it's kind of forced me to widen my perspective." Grandpa smiled.

"You do get focused on your next step rather than the one you're taking now, punkin."

"It's kind of a way of celebrating little moments in life, making little rituals. Doing that makes me look down and get more out of what I'm doing." We talked about that as we reached the amusement park. "The Tivoli Gardens is the world's second oldest amusement park. It has a wooden roller coaster that still has a brakeman riding along each time. It's so charming, I wish I was going to be here for Christmas. Everybody says it's just magical then." I didn't say that I also wanted to come back here for evenings with a boyfriend; it takes on a different atmosphere once the sun goes down and can be quite romantic. As we walked along, chatting, we enjoyed the live music, immaculate flower beds, and happy people, hearing five different languages from tourists. We passed by the Pantomime Theater, built to look like a Chinese pagoda, home to the Tivoli Ballet Company, the second of Denmark's two, which also featured the Queen as a scenographer. The stage curtain is an immense mechanical peacock's tail. Nazi sympathizers had burned a lot of the park to the ground in 1943, but temporary buildings were put up and it was back in business after only a couple of weeks. We went on a few of the rides, the old roller coaster, the newer Demon roller coaster that is one hell of a ride, a swing ride, the Star Flyer, that gives you a panoramic view of the city, a Ferris Wheel that went up the same year as the park was burned. We passed the Glass Hall and the Moorish Palace, and went out on the lake on one of the Dragon Boats. We had dinner at one of the restaurants, and walked back to Grandpa's hotel, where I dropped him off.

I reported back early the next morning, and we went out to Elsinore to see Kronborg Castle, known primarily for being the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet. Trains run out to the promontory between Denmark and Sweden every twenty minutes from the city's Central Station; it's about a forty minute ride. During the summer there are frequent performances of Hamlet in the courtyard; and in between, you encounter the actors as you move throughout the castle and can interact with them Grandpa and I were becoming real connoisseurs of castles and felt that this was a very fine one; not a ruined castle, but a work of art that is carefully administered as a UNESCO site.  The Renaissance castle is an imposing sight overlooking the sound with its spires, towers, columns, sandstone construction and restored copper roofs.The castle was where all vessels passing by had to pay what was known as the "Sound Dues" and this was enforced with menacing big guns trained over the water. The dues made the beautiful castle possible, and it reached the peak of its refinement in the 1500's under Frederick II. The lavish court life vanished after the great fire of 1629, however, which devoured most of the castle's precious furniture, paintings and its copperroof. After that day, the castle's importance faded. The Swedish king, KarlGustav, occupied and plundered Kronborg,  and for the next threehundred years, Kronborg was only used as a fortress and barracks for the Danisharmy before it was restored. Free WiFi is available throughout the castle, and you can scan QR codes on the windowsills in each of the main rooms to hear a recording describing its function and who lived there. We went down into the casements. Under  the castle's four protruding bastions are the casements, or underground passages. They're gloomy, cold and damp, even though there's electricity down there, but they saved many lives during wartime when soldiers waited out enemy attacks in them. There's a statue of Ogier the Dane, a mythical national hero, that has been sitting down there for hundreds of years. The restoration of the castle included furnishings as well as rehabilitation of the art and ornaments, and highlights include the royal apartments and an enormous  ballroom. It's very much a fortress; there aren't any gardens around, but there are still cannon pointed out over the Sound.

When we got back to the city, we had a class, how to make Danish smorrebrod, or traditional open-faced sandwiches. We learned how to make the dark rye bread and a variety of toppings, including a lightly cured salmon, and we sat down with the rest of the class and ate what we'd made. Grandpa offered me his arm as we left, walking through the streets. "See, Grandpa? That was hygge," I said. "A special moment, enjoying something we'd made with our little community, even if it was only a community for a little while."We explored, stopping here and there to look more closely at something, to go into a shop, getting a dessert in a cafe.

The next morning was another class.  We had fresh coffee, tea and a warm bun to get started, the our instructor  gave us recipes and help making sourdough buns, dark Danish rye bread, and two types of Danish pastries from scratch as well as home made toppings like whipped butter and marmalade. After we took everything out of the ovens, we sat down in the dining room to enjoy a Danish breakfast with all our goodies served with fresh pressed juice, tea, coffee, and a schnapps. Invigorating. 

After that, I had an apartment inspection and returned my keys to the landlord, getting my damage deposit back, and we went to the airport for a short flight to Amsterdam.