Copenhagen – Notes
A few random notes from a week in Copenhagen back in April 2023.
Enghave Plats is full of people enjoying the sun, beers, and coffee as I leave the metro station and dive into the soft murmur of a foreign language. Later, my host excitedly tells me that it’s the first day that feels like spring this year. She talks about the relief she and everyone else feels. Back on the square, I join the crowds with a beer from a bar across the road. A loaf of rye bread sits heavy in my bag for breakfast tomorrow. Soon, I put away the book that I had brought; instead, I observe; blue skies seagulls, conversations, someone playing music as they pass by, singing along, and a bottle of cava plopping open.
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When booking, I hadn’t noticed that my Copenhagen apartment would be where Tove Ditlevsen grew up and lived. The name of the school next door and of a restaurant gave it away. I read her autobiographical book “Childhood, Youth, Dependency” last year, but as I walk down Istedgade, I realise how little I remember.
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I spent my first evening in Copenhagen, attending a gig at Vega. The venue is just around the corner from my «Copenhagen home». The audience is quiet during the songs and loud in between; they ask for an encore by cheering and stomping their feet. After the concert, they stick around for beers in the empty concert hall. Aldous Harding's performance was strange but beautiful; her voice gave me goosebumps, as did her appreciation towards the audience.
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At the Ramen joint, they play a pop playlist. Every now and then, in between ramen slurps, someone around the bar starts breaking out in song along one of the tunes – complete with a bit of dance on their bar stool.
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I am spending my days out and about walking 15k steps and more, discovering places and taking pictures. My legs are constantly in motion, my mind clear, and my senses heightened. This is my perfect state of being.
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I said this before, but my favourite museum, the most exciting exhibition, is the window sills of other people. Whatever they display voluntarily or involuntarily says so much about places, cities, and neighbourhoods.
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I rarely take the metro or bus while I am here. They can be welcome shortcuts, but the time spent going through tunnels or driving through streets obscures so many aspects of a place. All the side streets, the lesser-known areas, the in-betweens would remain undiscovered. Walking is about embracing slowness. I am setting my own pace; I get lost and arrive at places I did not even intend to end up at.
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Looking back at the pictures I take during the day, I seem to have become obsessed with flowers in Copenhagen. They glow so brightly; bouquets of primary colours seem to be all the rage. Flowers in shop and in living room windows, an act of conservation, a collection of souvenirs.
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Frederiksberg Have is home to a colony of herons; I spot the majestic birds everywhere as I stroll around the pathways of the park. It feels surreal, so many of them in a single space, crisscrossing above me with twigs in their beaks, collecting material for their nests.
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The concert had already sold out when I realized that Kings of Convenience would be playing on my last evening in Copenhagen. But I kept looking, and then just a few days before the gig, I found a resale ticket. The spirits were high and there was lots of banter and anecdotes between songs, some in English, some in their native Norwegian. I was surprised that I could make some sense of the latter with the bits of Swedish I know. When they played "Know How", the room took over so beautifully for the part of Leslie Feist, it made my heart burst. Later: "Homesick" slowly wrapped itself around me.
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It’s my last day in Copenhagen. I spent a large portion of it sitting in the exact spot on Enghave Plats, where I drank a beer on the first day. This time, coffee, a pastry – it’s morning still. This is the spot I will see myself in when I think of that week in Copenhagen, the first one I will head to the next time I visit.
April 2023
