No control

I have officially been grounded by a little volcano called Eyjafjallajokull (and I thought Finnish was hard to pronounce!) so my trip to Stockholm was cancelled this weekend. Given what the experts say happens when this type of volcanic ash gets into airplane engines, I was ok with waiting a bit to explore Stockholm! Lucky for me, my trip was derailed while I was still at home. Many people are stranded at airports which are closed for an as of yet undetermined amount of time. My friend Justin who met me in Copenhagen last weekend got stuck in London, a client called me yesterday and is stuck in India, and another American consultant and friend of mine who was supposed to start on my case on Monday is now stuck in the US without any safe way to get to Europe. Worse is that none of these people have a reliable idea of when he or she might be able to get in or get out. Amazing to think that despite all of our technological advances a relatively minor eruption of a volcano in an oft-forgotten Nordic island country can bring millions of people across multiple continents to their knees! Just when we think we have everything under control we get reminded with authority that we are not actually in charge.

I did have the opportunity to check out another Scandinavian city though before the volcano erupted and spent last weekend in Copenhagen. I had been to Denmark before years ago but had not been able to visit its famously vibrant capital city. My friend Justin was in London for his case so he met me for the weekend for a touristy introduction to Copenhagen.

The first thing I realized when I got off the plane was how amazingly difficult the Finnish language is compared to a Germanic language. I don’t know a word of Danish but I felt so much more at ease navigating the different Danish signs than I do in Finland because there is actually a chance that a Danish word will look similar to is English counterpart. This isn’t always the case, and probably isn’t the case the majority of the time, but having the chance at all made me feel like I somehow knew the language a bit! A friend of mine in Finland told me that I should forget about learning Finnish (which, to be honest, I hadn’t really intended to do because I had heard it would be nearly impossible!) and learn Swedish instead because it is the second language in Finland and is also a Germanic language so would be much easier for an English speaker to learn. I was so encouraged after Denmark, I am actually considering it!

There are several very famous sights in Copenhagen and maybe the most famous of them all is the classic, old-style amusement park called Tivoli. A trip to Tivoli Gardens is touted as being like a step back in time with its wooden roller-coasters, beautiful park setting, largely non-commercial vendors, and classic old-timey feel. Justin and I had read about it in our guide books and made a point to head here first on Saturday to make sure we had enough time to explore and enjoy. We got to the park entrance but we very confused because no one was around. We had followed the map and should have been standing right outside the gates. Where were we and how could we have missed an amusement park of all things? We continued walking until we got to an iron fence (wrapped with barbed wire at the top – kind of takes away from the cotton candy amusement park feel!) and through it, we saw Tivoli….and a small army of maintenance men, gardeners, mechanics, etc. It was April 10th and Tivoli opened for the summer on April 15th – we had missed it by only five days! Ugh! I have learned by now that there is a major difference throughout Europe between winter and summer hours but I still don’t expect it to go from (literally) 0 to 60 in a day. We were disappointed but laughed it off and went on to the next sights on our list.

Another extremely famous sight in Copenhagen is the Little Mermaid statue, called Den Lille Havfrue in Danish. The Little Mermaid is especially famous because it is supposedly so underwhelming and, at least in our guidebooks, was called “forlorn,” “overrated,” and “unjustly famed.” Some friends at work had told me the same but they said it was also a must-see for Copenhagen, if just a funny must-see. We had just gained a lot of time through our missing of Tivoli’s 2010 opening so began walking in the direction of Den Lille Havfrue which was on the other side of the city.

It was absolutely gorgeous weather – beautiful blue skies and sun, if still a bit chilly – and I was enjoying being in another interesting city and having good American company to boot! We took our time on the way to the mermaid and cruised by Christiania, a commune in the middle of the city founded by hippies and political activities in the 1970s. While there have been constant conflicts between the “citizens” of Christiania and the Danish police over the years, they seem to have reached an unofficial truce to look the other way – the commune does what it wants but keeps their illegal activities at a “reasonable” level and the local police seem to leave them alone as long as they keep things confined within Christiania’s borders. Several years ago hard drugs made their way into the commune and the people there actually fought against this infiltration and pushed these drug dealers out of Christiania. They are still selling and doing illegal drugs in the commune (marijuana is illegal in Denmark) but the local population self polices the types of drugs and people allowed to remain on the premises. The commune area is open to the public and is a very popular tourist destination. To be honest, it just looks like a shabby military barracks with dirty hippies standing around smoking (and selling as well, but that is a bit more shielded).

I was taking a picture when a guy from the commune ran up to me and started babbling about it being illegal to take pictures in the commune because they could be published somewhere and get people from the commune in trouble. (I, of course, didn’t know there was anything wrong with taking pictures there but did see a couple “no pictures” signs up around the commune after this incident.) He demanded that he see the pictures I had taken to make sure they were ok and approached me rather aggressively, standing very much in my personal space. I was irritated (I get very annoyed when I feel like someone is encroaching upon my privacy rights….even if I left them in the US!) but so surprised that I showed him the three very benign pictures I had taken…but not without saying, “I don’t think it is illegal to take pictures in here and you really don’t need to worry about someone getting a hold of these and publishing them. They are my personal pictures and you don’t have a right to see them.” That didn’t go over too well with him so well and now he was mad and started talking about how he had to protect the commune, blah, blah, blah. He backed off when he realized I wasn’t taking mug shots of the local dealers but I was a bit taken aback by the whole incident. One thing I have noticed in the Nordics is how egalitarian the culture is with respect to gender. This is great on a lot of different levels but one thing I don’t like about it is that men will speak to women much more aggressively and, I think, disrespectfully than they would generally do in the US, for example. I am all for equality between men and women but get some manners, hippie boy, and don’t stand so close to me while you’re at it! (Justin thought the guy was going to swipe my camera which, to hippie boy’s credit, he did not.)

After Christiania, we got back on track to see the mermaid and, on the way, passed by a really pretty and unique church with a spiral tower. We were so impressed with the gold spiral steeple that we decided to check it out and see if we could climb to the top. Turns out we had stumbled into another very famous sight, Vor Frelsers Kirke, Our Savior’s Church, and the climb to the top of the steeple offered some of the best views of the city. The climb up was a lot longer than I had estimated from the ground, maybe 14-15 flights, and often quite cramped and crowded on steep steps but the views were amazing and climbing up and around the spiral steeple was pretty cool too since we were actually on the outside of the steeple for the last few flights. We climbed until the spiral came to a stop at the top at which point I looked down and realized we were much higher than I had anticipated (and I am not a fan of heights) and it had also gotten progressively colder and windier which was actually quite an uncomfortable feeling! I don’t really like strong wind when I’m on the outside of building on a small staircase 15 flights up! We snapped a few pictures of the city which really was gorgeous from that view and then I high-tailed it back down. No need to stand in that wind for too long! There was a girl at the top who was clearly very scared of heights and had been ok going up but was practically paralyzed coming back down because she now had to actually look down and see how far she was from solid ground. Poor thing! I was thinking, “I’ve been there too, honey! Move fast and leave the boyfriend up there if he wants to stay – he will forgive you later!”

We kept going on our mission to see the Little Mermaid and still had quite a ways to walk (we had taken a very indirect route on our way to Tivoli, Christiania, and Vor Frelsers Kirke). It was also seemingly getting colder and colder. Granted, it was still probably twenty degrees warmer than Helsinki but it was very windy and cold, particularly on the water. The sun had been bright and the wind nonexistent when we had set out that morning so Justin had not brought his coat…and was paying dearly for it now. We walked and walked, the wind got stronger and the clouds covered the sun so it was now quite cold. I felt badly that we were going to such great lengths to see a “forlorn” and “overrated” tourist sight but Justin was a great sport and went along with it because he knew I wanted to see the Little Mermaid. We laughed and said, “Watch, she probably won’t be there or something after all of this. It will be another Tivoli. Ha!”

We finally got to the point on the map where she supposedly was and, well, we just couldn’t find her. I knew that she was supposed to be small and underwhelming but was she really that small? So small we couldn’t find her? This was getting downright embarrassing. We looked at the map again. Yep, we’re where we should be. Nope, no mermaid. There was a little tourist shop there selling coffee and hot chocolate and I looked at Justin and said, “Well, we have to ask. We can’t have come here to not even find her.” We didn’t really have another choice but to look like idiots so I asked the woman at the shop, “Hi! Where is the Little Mermaid? We can’t seem to find her.” The woman replied, “She’s in China. It’s sooo stupid.” I just looked at her for a second and blinked. I have a hard time reading Finns because they don’t show much facial expression and was wondering if Danes were the same…was she being serious or just a smart ass? I said, “China?” She said, “Yes, she’s on tour in China.” I looked at Justin, who was a popsicle at this point, and we just laughed. You have got to be kidding me. I made him take a picture with me and a pint-sized tchotchke of the statue. It was so pathetic.

Given the fact that Justin had now been freezing for hours and we had just made the longish trek to see the sad Little Mermaid who happened to be out of the country on tour, we booked it back to the central part of the city and, I think, sat down at the very first restaurant we found. I had noticed earlier that there were a lot of good looking people around but when I actually sat down and had a chance to people watch, I was able to see not only how many were good looking but how extremely good looking they all were! The women were beautiful and smiley. The men were beautiful but also somehow rugged looking (Viking blood?). It was really quite striking and impressive. I haven’t been to Norway yet but I hope to find the same thing there or I will want to trade gene pools!

On Sunday, we had plans to tour a local castle and then meet up with a Finnish friend of mine, Mirka, who had just transferred from Helsinki to the Copenhagen office. Justin and I started out at Rosenborg Slot, a 17th century castle in the middle of the city, to tour the castle itself, the very pretty grounds, and to see the royal treasury. The castle itself is very classic baroque style and, as such, was decorated with sculptures, statues, tapestries, wood paneling, paintings, gold gilded everything, to within an inch of its life. The amount of stuff covering the walls, ceilings, and floors in that place was really unbelievable. The items in the treasury were the same…jewelry boxes literally covered in layers of beads, tiny sculptures, jewels, precious metals, you name it. It was really kind of cool to see the king’s old riding outfit, including the matching one for his horse, which was elaborately hand sown and intricately beaded. My favorite part of the visit though was touring the grounds and, more specifically, the huge field of white and purple flowers which were just beginning to bloom. I am a sucker for spring at this point, for what should be obvious reasons, and I just go crazy for flowers. I can only imagine what the castle grounds, and Copenhagen overall, looks like in June!

I was so excited that we were able to meet up with Mirka for lunch and she, having just moved herself, hadn’t yet explored her new city herself so was happy to join the American tourists. We stopped for a classic Danish lunch of smørrebrød, the literal translation for which is “buttered bread,” and I have to say I wasn’t expecting much. I mean, how can “buttered bread” be a country’s most famed national dish? Turns out I was to be very pleasantly surprised. Smørrebrød are actually small open-faced sandwiches which consist of a slice of (buttered) bread piled high with all sorts of “fillings” from smoked salmon with dill sauce to chicken curry salad to roast beef and horseradish to pickled herring. You typically order a few of these smørrebrød for a meal and so can sample many very different flavors at a single sitting. We sat outside in a particularly pretty part of town and enjoyed our smørrebrød with wine and beer in the sun. It was really great to enjoy the day and the city with friends and was a nice break from the tourist sights. (And another chance to look at all the very pretty Danes!) I was thinking at lunch about how relaxing the weekend had been and then realized it was probably because I had supervision for this trip so couldn’t get myself into the trouble I usually do when alone! (Maybe I should invest in a babysitter?)

We spent the afternoon checking out the Amalienborg Palace, the current home of the royal family (since 1794) and walking through the “Marble Church” (Frederikskirken) which was structurally impressive and really very beautiful before we each had to catch our flights back to Helsinki and London. As always, the weekend was much too short and I have decided that I will definitely go back to Copenhagen while I’m living in the Nordics (assuming they allow us to fly again sometime this year!). Cross your fingers for me that the wind starts blowing and the flights get back up and running…I’m supposed to be in Monte Carlo this Friday!