KBH

Kobenhavn; also known as Copenhagen.  I’ve already written about my emergency fiasco with the hospital.  I ended up sleeping in until or past noon that day; it was a day of recovery.  My sore throat was gone, the sun was out and I was feeling great.  We took our sweet time getting ready to venture out into the city, as there was still an abundance of time of daylight still left in the day.

Copenhagen is a clean city; the water from the harbors is so clean, it’s safe to swim in it.  There are designated swimming areas where the children swim and the youth/adults tan on the grass.  I’m not sure about the quality of air, but I’m wondering if the cleanliness of the city had anything to do with my speedy recovery from my cold.  If that were the case, I need to leave NY ASAP.  Similar to Holland, everybody bikes everywhere.  There are bike lanes on both side of the street usually, with vehicular traffic taking up the middle of the road.  It’s definitely nicer to have designated bicycle lanes; you don’t have to worry about being run over by a bicycle on the sidewalk. 

We walked around Copenhagen relaxingly, looking into different stores and shops, visiting museums, architecture centers, and taking a canal tour.  We had great weather for the time we were there, but were told that it could get very depressing in the winter time. 

The traditional Danish food is the open sandwich.  It seemed like an over sized orderve; meat or vegetable placed on a piece of bread, to be eaten, oddly enough, with a fork and a knife.  It was edible and certainly tasty, but I wasn’t too impressed with them.  There’s also the Danish pastry, which we enjoyed pretty much every morning/afternoon as our first meal of the day. 

We were recommended by a friend to try a drink made from Elderflower.  In most cases, it’s called Elderflower juice.  I accidentally bought a concentrate of it, which had to be diluted with water at about 4:1 ratio.  Let me tell you, it’s absolutely delicious.  It’s sweet and refreshing on a hot day, and I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything like it anywhere.  Even in Japan. (The picture below is a soda version, that I bought from a 7-11, which is everywhere).

One of the days, we took a train out to the outskirts of town to see some development housing by the former architecture firm PLOT.  As this area was just coming together as a community, it reminded me of the area I grew up in Tokyo.  The housings were really cool, but I bet they are very expensive to own/rent.  Aside from all the cool housing, I can’t get over the whole cycling community outside of the US.  And I mean cycling as in everyone and their mom riding their bicycles to get to everyday destinations. The only people you see riding bicycles in the US are kids, who aren’t old enough to drive and people who can’t afford to buy a car.  It is absolutely amazing to see the number of kids, youth, and adults ride their bikes to just about anywhere.  I wish the US would pick up on these healthy habits, but of course that would never happen in a country dominated by auto-mobilization. 

We left Copenhagen, sun-kissed and warm.  I found a creative way to document all of the different currencies of Europe in my sketchbook, so the long train rides aren't as boring (not originally my idea).