Kobenhavn, May 17th

Met my Danish friends, Stine and Johannes, from Crescent Street, in front of the train station. Spent a great day with them beginning with a walk to their neighborhood past the line of the old city walls and over three enormous lakes that used to be part of the city’s defenses. It turned out that they wanted to show me a new park near their apartment that coincidently was written about in last weeks New Yorker. I had written in my little book a reminder to look this park up if I had time.

A new park I just read about in the New Yorker.

Another view of the park with Stine and Johannes.

We had lunch and a coffee at favorite places they wanted to show off. Great bowl of risotto with asparagus for me. I would have never seen this neighborhood or this restaurant without them. They were excellent guides and clearly loved showing off their town.

After lunch were hopped in the car to visit what was once a little fishing village north of the airport that is now been gentrified and restored to the last detail. Beautiful small cottages, some with thatched roofs all crowned together in perfect harmony. Nantucket has nothing on this place.

With Johannes after eating ice cream with a topping of homemade whipped cream and jam.

We were forced, yes forced, to stop and have ice cream in homemade cones topped with homemade whipped cream and a dollop of jam. We ate too fast for me to get a photo but Stine provided this one just after the damage was done.

Overlooking a beautiful fishing village north of Kobenhavn. Now they just fish for tourist Kroner.

we climbed on to of some old fortifications from WW II for a great view of the village and facing the other direction Sweden. And the bridge that now connects it with Denmark. Stine claimed it was the longest in the world for two weeks until the Japanese completed a longer one just to spite these two little countries. Let’s make Denmark and Sweden great again Donald! They hate being losers too.

Looking out at the coast of Sweden. Bridge on my shoulder.

Frome here we drove back into town to a newly hip area around the new opera house. Old barracks and ship repair sheds are now design studios and cool restaurants along with some expensive new housing.

The opera house.

We were then forced to have dinner – yes forced – at this cavernous warehouse filled with funky street food venders. Very rough and soon to be replaced with a modern facility that will meet fire codes and erase all the coolness out of the experience. We all picked our own vender and had dinner and beers. Great food and i’m glad I got to experience it before the architects got their hands on it.

Conversation has been non stop. Everything from Johannes assuring me that the earth is not doomed to spiral down into the sun. (Whew, I was almost not going to get out of bed tomorrow. ) to politics, to green energy, limited equity apartments in Kobenhavn to the absolute necessity of ice cream even on cold days. The day went by very quickly but we dedided to end it back in their neighborhood at a bar that had more than 25 beers on tap.

Johannes saying grace before he had his beer. Never knew he was so pious.

A beer that is the perfect size for me.

Stine and Johannes drove me home and I was asleep 10 minutes after I got in. I’ll have to work quite hard to show them such a nice outing when I get back to Cambridge.