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Shopping in the Rain by Day; Dancing with Danes by Night

 

I couldn’t believe my ears. The DJ was playing Chuck Brown’s “Block Party.” Do Danes have block parties and barbecues? Would they be playing the Godfather of Go Go at such gatherings? First a Grammy nod, now Chuck has gone global. I have hit Danish nightlife pay dirt at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I entered. There were a few tourists listening to a jazz mixologist upstairs. It was a tad odd to see a guy in Ray Bans with headphones spinning jazz tunes. Guess there wasn’t a band available. But the bass was bumping downstairs in what looked like Copenhagen’s version of the Cotton Club. Small tables with white table clothes and candles look over the dance floor and a stage boasts the “Jazzhouse” in soft blue lights. Trumpeter Terence Blanchard played there during Copenhagen’s Jazz Festival earlier this month. But now the DJ was playing Chuck and I was starting to wind up, especially when he played “Double Dutch Bus” followed by “Jungle Boogie.” It’s clear that Danish youth have been fed a healthy helping of soul and I am very appreciative, as are my fellow dancers. It appears to be girls night out and a gaggle of women have taken over the dance floor flailing their arms, hair, entire bodies, this way and that.

Now, when I told people that I was going to Denmark, particularly my single women friends, they were certain that I’d see all sorts of attractive, tall blond Danish men. Sadly, this hasn’t been the case. I’ve mainly seen middle-aged, married Danish men with 2.5 kids on vacation. I even had occassion to dance with a couple at the Jazzhouse. These guys, extremely happy to be out without the wives, made great dance partners. One was tall and gangly and the other short and curly-haired. Both were very polite and quite complimentary. I jumped and bounced to the classic 80s song “Our House” by some UK band with one and started enthusiastically dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” with the other until we realized that it was the super extended remix version. Then I spotted one–a cute Dane–except he didn’t look the way most would expect. He was dark haired, not particularly tall, and smartly dressed. If I am not mistaken, he was smiling and making eyes at me. How fun! Then they play our song,”I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston. No, I am not making this up. He comes over and grabs my hand to dance. He speaks very little English and I can’t catch his name over the music, but it doesn’t matter because he’s cute; and he’s spinning me and he’s singing to me. He’s extremely tone-deaf, but I think that’s cute, too. (See what a cute Dane, in my opinion, looks like, below.) We were only meant to have the one dance. He seemed to be double dating with a friend or brother. Their blond dates didn’t appear to be into dancing, so they left. I, however, kept dancing with married Danish men until about 2 am, when I decided to call it a night. I met Rami and Peter on the walk back, two silly teens, who asked what I would prefer: Have a kangaroo in my house or live in a kangaroo’s pouch. I chose the kangaroo pouch, because I didn’t want a kangaroo to destroy my house and mistakenly kill and eviscerate me with its powerful hind feet and claws. They didn’t expect my very complete answer. I didn’t share the source of my extensive and very random animal knowledge. Sometimes having worked at Animal Planet comes in handy.

 Before dancing with Danes, I dined with the hip and trendy variety at Geist, a spot I noticed on my first night in Copenhagen, a few blocks from my hotel. It turns out this is the new hot spot in Copenhagen with a celebrity chef named Bo Bech running the moody, well decorated place. The staff was super attentive, taking my coat and umbrella and seating me at a communal table with two couples.They were so into each other that they barely knew I was there, which was fine. I was ready to be focused on my food. Geist serves the Danish version of tapas and the waitress says that two is usually enough for most people, so I order a turnip, ginger and shrimp dish and a suckling pig, mashed potatoes and salted butter dish. The suckling pig turned out to be the dish of the night. The mashed potatoes were the consistency of a custard, the pork was juicy and slightly fatty with a salted butter foam on top. What makes pork better? Butter. It was ridiculous. I went light for dessert, which was strawberries in a thickened balsamic vinaigrette with slices of frozen whipped cream on top. With coffee or tea they bring out white cotton candy, which they call candy floss, to end the meal. It was top notch all the way. This one wasn’t in the guide book.

 

But I did take Lonely Planet’s advice and hit Copenhagen’s main shopping areas–Stroget, Straedt and Latin Quarter –during the day as the sky spit rain and openly cried rivers off and on. There were the places you see everywhere like the H&M, Top Shop, Tommy Hilfiger, Louis Vuitton, etc. But further exploration lead to cute jewelry shops and home stores selling colorful Danish designed soap dishes, pillows and the like. When I could take down my umbrella, I took a few photos. Check them out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Don’t Bike Ride While Drunk and Sometimes the Guidebook is Wrong

On my way back to my hotel from an uneventful evening in Copenhagen, I saw a woman going too fast on her bike fall head first in the street. Her friends came to her rescue in a fit of laughter, while she stood up and slurred a few words in Danish. It’s easy to catch slurring in any language. One thing is for sure, the Danes like to drink and they like to bike. Together it could be a dangerous combination as they don’t wear helmets. On my way to a restaurant/bar/dj spot in Norrebro, I saw a biker misjudge a street barricade, doing a clotheline in the process with bike going one way, him another. I wanted to help, but I wasn’t sure what I could do. Luckily, a pair of guys from the place I was going rushed over to help. He was shaken, but appeared to be OK.

 I walked about 30 minutes from the tourist haven of Nyhavn to the grittier, more lived-in neighborhood of Norrebro to check out Bodega, a place that Lonely Planet called “one of the hottest spots in one of the hottest neighborhoods.” There are two people inside other than the  staff and a few people having drinks outside when I arrive around 9:15. A blonde with an assymetric bob wearing a cut-off “I Love New York” t-shirt tells me that the kitchen is closed and there’s no DJ and they will probably close at midnight because it’ll just be her working. I guess I should have come up with a plan B when the woman at the front desk of my hotel said she hadn’t heard of the place. I decide to make the best of it and order a Bodega at Bodega, which is a bourbon with ginger ale and mint, which actually is a mint julep. Oh, well. It is tasty and I take in my environs. It has the makings of a hot spot with colorful banquets lining the bar area and multicolored pillows. A disco ball hangs from a corner and there is actually a DJ booth, just no DJ spinning R&B and funk grroves as promised. I do hear some mellow R&B that sounds like it could be from the B side of some neo-soul artist album–something that you’ve never heard but sounds vaguely familiar. A bit later one of the guys working in the bar switches the music to the slighty more upbeat Kings of Leon song, “Use Somebody,” and I head off to another nearby spot where I am able to score chocolate cake and a coffee.

 Not the evening, I envisioned, but I had a day packed with more cultural activity. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek has a pretty impressive post-Impression collection and I’m a nut for the Impressionists. My favorite is Paul Gaughin and the museum had a comprehensive display of the development of his works and style from the 1880s to the 1890s. His paint dappled canvases of French women and landscapes evolves into the bolder, more colorfully stroked canvases of Tahitian women and mythical places. I was surprised to learn that Gaughin worked in cermamics and elaborate wood carvings as well. I was so enamored that I even bought a little book about him at the gift shop. While in the Etruscan and ancient art collection, I was thrilled to connect my wonderment at the Trajan Columns at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with the statue of Emperor Trajan himself here. (I am a total nerd, I know, but what are the chances?)  I was also happy to have meandered through an amazing  sculpture collection including Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, who I’d never heard of, to the great August Rodin. Carl Jacobsen, the beer barron and founder of the museum was apparently close friends with the sculptor and had access to many of his original works. I spent time among the works of Danish artists as well and stopped to snap a photo of Mother Denmark.

I took a break to have a hot dog at Andersen’s Bakery next to Tivoli and across from the Central Train Station.  Copenhagen is actually known for it’s hot dogs and I can say without a doubt that this hot dog is the best hot dog, I have had, EVER. It was called the Great Danois and was filled with the meatiest and most flavorful pork sausage along with ketchup, a dijon mustard with kick, a pickle-infused remoulade and topped with crispy bits of deep-fried onion and pickled cucumber. All of this was in the softest, fresh-baked bun. It was tough to eat, its contents oozing out of the bun and onto my fingers, but I made it work. It put the street vendor version I had earlier in the week to shame, and it wasn’t bad either.

Rejuvenated by pork-product, I move on to the near-by Dansk Design Center. If you didn’t know, Denmark is pretty much the center of the design universe. After World War II, the country began filling the needs that consumers across the world never thought they had with Legos, tabletop telephones, stackable bowls, tea sets and even chairs. Danes realized that we needed swivel office chairs and desktop file holders to be more efficient at work. At times the permanent exhibit looked like an old 1970s family room complete with leather egg chair and the first Bang & Olufsen television set, and at others an Ikea meets Crate and Barrel store. It was definitely fun to see Denmark’s inventive spirit on display.

 

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Art That Makes You Say Hmm, Ooo and Aaah

 There’s a giant thumb in the middle of the cafe at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. It’s standing upright as if to hitch a ride to some unknown place. Abstract animals with large square heads lurk in the garden and a curvy nude, in a Picasso kind of way, reclines at the edge of the sea. The Louisiana mixes whimsy with some seriously thought-provoking exhibitions. The current exhibition of its main collection is focused on landscapes. A circle of rocks in the middle of one room denotes a rocky landscape. A bright oil painting of the Grand Canyon is a great interpretation of the place. Roy Lichtenstein, the American whose works always have a comic book feel, presents figures in a landscape with his same large scale comic figures and a few hints of green. Another piece by a Danish and Jewish artist named Tal R, features an abstract landscape in Israel of painted and drawn tanks moving up and down pastel yellow hills.

It is easy to get enveloped in the expansive museum with wood floors and at times open glass walls that look out onto the garden and seascape. In these spaces, I realize that I really like a sculptor named Alberto Giacometti. His bronze walking figures are lithe and fluid despite the fact that they are metal and immovable. I took a few pictures.

Sadly, I couldn’t take pictures of David Hockney’s exhibit, “Me Draw on iPad.” A dimly lit room displays 20 iPads and 20 iPhones along with larger slide shows of Hockney’s iPad and iPhone portraits and stills. They are so colorful and just lovely. There are mostly stills of flowers and other mundane objects like cups, scissors and shoes. If I had an iPad or iPhone, I would love one of these as my background. A film shows the artist in the act of creating an iPad masterpiece. He paints the red Calder mobile outside the Louisiana cafe.

But the most thought-provoking exhibit at the museum was the final installment of its Living: Frontiers of Architecture series on how we live, where, why and with whom. It basically asked the question, “What is home?” in a variety of ways. It explored home as community and offered the Burning Man Festival where thousands flock to the Nevada desert to form a community around art, trade and the ability to be free to express yourself with clothes or without. Conceptual artist Arne Quinze created a stilt house in the Louisiana garden as his definition of home and also burnt one of his creations at a recent Burning Man gathering. Second Life, the virtual community was another example of a place that became home for some. There was the concept of home being where the heart is as seen with mobile homes or homes that you could easily move. There were homes as defined by politics, where communism created block apartments and when viewed via Google Earth, they all look exactly the same in uniform patterns.There were examples of communities first choosing like minded people they wanted to live around and then building homes together with communal space. A Japanese architectural firm is building homes based on what’s most important to its owners, so married writers get a massive library attached to their home where they can work and neighbors can enjoy the books, too. The exhibit closes with the homes of the future. Could the apartment be re-imagined as houses stacked on one another, in what looks like helter-skelter fashion. Could we reclaim the environment by growing trees inside our homes? But one thing that could actually happen is that a 600-unit pyramidal living space created a big Danish design firm could spout up next to the Hudson River in New York in the not so distant future  of 2015. The building will be green and provide green space, but it looks more like something from space.

I close out my tour of the museum with one of its permanent art installations, “Gleaming Lights of the Souls.” I enter a room full of small hanging light bulbs and close the door behind me. The lights dim and change colors. There are mirrors all around and I appear to be standing in infinity, bathed in blue, then green, then yellow and orange light. It was pretty darned funky and a fabulous way to spend a rainy day in Denmark.

 

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Scientology in Copenhagen and Living Medieval History in Roskilde

An 86-year-old woman tried to convert me to Scientology yesterday. I was sitting on the 29 bus on the way to Copenhagen’s Central Train Station when she boarded, locked eyes with me and made a beeline for the seat next to me, as if someone else might beat her there.The bus was practically empty. Violette–I find out her name later–has red hair and wears turquoise eyeliner. Her lips are painted pink and her pale skin is smooth for someone her age. We started in light conversation about Copenhagen. She asked if I was visiting, where I was from and what I did for a living. I told her that I was a journalist and she asked if I wrote the truth.I told her that good journalists try to cover every side of a story. She asks if I’ve heard of Scientology and she tells me that she has been a scientologist for 30 years. She tells me that Scientologists don’t believe that journalists tell the truth. Violette asks where my parents are from and I explain that they are American, too. I think she was expecting me to say that they were African. She says her church works with a lot of Africans and in African countries. At this point, I detect a slight accent from Violette and I ask where she is from. She tells me that she is French and that she came to Denmark for her “higher studies.” Violette runs out of time to convert me as we reach our destination. We kiss each other on the cheek as we depart and I wonder if she’ll find a better candidate for Scientology conversion.

So far during my stay in Denmark, I’ve seen a lot of blond-haired Danes. I am coming to realize that they’ve come to Copenhagen for summer vacation. At the Central Train Station, I see a more diverse crowd with Asians, Africans and Arabs mixed in with fair-haired Scandinavians. The train is quiet and spacious for a commuter train and I arrive in Roskilde in minutes. It was once the capital of Denmark, but it looks like a tiny burg in comparison to Copenhagen. In fact, the main thoroughfare leading to its tourist sites is almost devoid of people. The people that are there even move about quietly. There is a modest crowd rummaging about a small open air market, but that is about all the local activity. My first stop here is the Roskilde Cathedral which looks very different from the massive gothic cathedrals, I’ve been seeing in England. This cathedral dating back to the Middle Ages appears to be be fairly modest on the outside and made of simple red brick. But a look inside reveals a magnificent hodgepodge of architectural styles artfully cobbled together over hundreds of years. I am torn between photographing the golden door behind me with faces pushing through or the golden altar piece down the nave in front of me. The door, known as the King’s Door because only the royals may enter through it, wins out. The faces protruding from either side are the faces of bowing disciples and the door is actually polished brass. One of the most recent additions to the church in 2010, it replaces an old oak door and provides the perfect balance to the gleam of the alter piece. Behind the altar lies the gold and marble tomb of Queen Margrethe I, in fact all past royals, numbering 22 and starting with Harold Bluetooth, are buried through out the cathedral and its grounds. Bluetooth, the first king of Denmark, unified Danish and Norwegian kingdoms, and gave a Scandinavian company the idea for a name for its new wireless connectivity device.

Two chapels in the cathedral capture my attention as well because they couldn’t be more different. In the chapel of Christian IV his statue looks over his own sarcophagus along with those of the rest of his family and floor-to-ceiling paintings tell the story of his greatness. Just next door is the newest chapel, St. Andrew’s, featuring a golden mosaic and a modern interpretation of Christ’s suffering.

I am pleased to have visited such a grand space, but the main reason that I have come to Roskilde is for the Viking Ship Museum and this is thanks to my middle school medieval history teacher, Ruth Ann Williamson. Because of her, the most popular question of the 7th grade at National Cathedral School for Girls was: Are you going to make a ship or write a saga? These were the choices for our final project of the class. The overwhelming majority of the class decided to make a Viking ship and I could never understand why. If your boat failed to float in a tub of water, you were threatened with failure. Seemed to be too much risk involved, so I choose to write a saga about the great exploits of a Viking named Svar Svargaarson, or something like that. If my classmates had visited the Viking Ship Museum, they would have written a saga too, because building a Viking ship is pretty darned hard, nothing short of an engineering feat. It is also pretty hard to row or sail a Viking ship, which I find out first hand in the waters of Roskilde’s fjord. Our rag tag crew of Danes, Germans and one American set sail aboard the Oselven, a 12-oar replica of a Nordic boat similar to what the Vikings would have used in their voyages. Before we leave the fjord our sailing instructor gives us the basics on rowing technique and vocabulary like learning our port from our starboard sides. We think we’ve got it, until we start rowing, which we soon realize requires your full body along some rhythm, coordination and all your listening skills. A German teen, called “Green hair” by the instructor, was having a particularly hard time with the rhythm and coordination part, her oar going in wrong direction and slapping the oar of the rower in front of her instead of the water. Finally, our instructor had had enough and after about 15 minutes many of us had had enough, too. We’d barely gotten away from the museum’s dock. She instructed us to pull our oars in so that we could sail and one of the vacationing crew members promptly lost his oar in the water. We had to do an emergency rowing maneuver to get the oar back. Oar rescued, we could hoist our sail made of wool and covered in pig’s fat and tar for water resistance, just like in the good old Viking days. It was a lovely day to be sailing on a calm fjord.

Back on land and with a little Viking ship sailing experience under my belt, I head to the Viking Ship Hall, home of five real Viking ships deliberately sunk at the mouth of the Roskilde Fjord in the 11th century to protect the capital from an attack, then recovered by archaeologists in the 1960s. What’s left of the ships are displayed in minimalist fashion to be walked around an imagined. The boats vary in size and purpose, the largest, about a 100-foot warship. The museum’s shipbuilders set about recreating this 60-oared ship recently and charted a course from Roskilde to Dublin and back in 2008. It all worked out and the replica is back at the museum for everyone to enjoy.

 

 

 Proud of my day’s accomplishment, I think I should treat myself to a nice meal. Orangereit turns out to be the perfect place. About a 15-minute walk from my hotel, the restaurant backs Kongens Have, Copenhagen’s oldest park. I decide to sit outside and let the waiter select his favorite dishes and wines from the menu. I know the service will be awesome as he offers me a glass of champagne before we even get to the business of ordering. First, I have hake with horseradish foam, wild watercress and beet root as a starter, followed by my main dish of sole with seasonal vegetables. Both of which were very pleasing to the palate, particularly the wild watercress. Who knew? It tasted like they picked it fresh. I was bit apprehensive about dessert. My waiter said that it was indescribable, but that it was one of his favorites. Since I was leaving things up to him, I decided to go along for the culinary ride. It’s called Koldskaal, which literally translates to cold ball in English. Basically, the small orange berries on a Rowan tree (I looked this up after tasting) are made into an ice cream. A scoop of this is in the center of the bowl along with the actual berries and small sweet crunchy biscuits, then a small jar of buttermilk is poured over the top to make a sweet cold soup. The berries themselves are tart and citrusy, but once those are eaten the soup tastes more like a cold vanilla custard. I can understand my waiter’s difficulty in describing such a complex dish. I am glad I decided to take the risk.

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Denmark’s Peat Boggy Past and Picturesque Present

If you want anything preserved for over millions of years for posterity, drop it into a Danish peat bog. It’s the original time capsule. I come to this conclusion in Copenhagen’s National Museum, Nationalmuseet in Danish, as I encounter one well-preserved prehistoric corpse after another. The Bronze Age dwellers were buried in hollowed-out oak trees and recovered almost completely intact minus skin and some hair wearing wool clothing, bronze belts, swords and hair combs. The museum comprehensively chronicles Danish prehistory from Cro-magnon man and Ice Age reindeer hunters to the Bronze Age and the rise of the Vikings. More than bodies have been pulled from the peat bogs, stone, bronze, gold and amber tools and jewelry were recovered too. Possible offerings to the sun god and other prehistoric gods. I thought the Viking piece of the exhibit was a little thin. The most impressive piece in display was one of the first wood-paneled boats recovered. There was special care taken not to portray the Vikings as wild rapists and pillagers, but as people engaged in exploration and commerce.

 Denmark’s past peeks out from behind its new more modern facades as I see on a gorgeous canal tour. At first, I wasn’t sure about enduring the crushing tourist crowds to take the tour, but I couldn’t think of a better way to get an overview of Copenhagen than by boat. It was perfect, especially on a cloudless day that felt like 80 degrees. We left Nyhavn Canal cruising into the harbor to see Copenhagen’s new opera house and through Christianhavn Canal, created by Christian IV who was inspired by the commercial canals of Amsterdam. Now the harbor is filled with houseboats from the lifestyles of the rich and famous, not quite as ostentatious as yachts that I saw a couple of years ago in Marbella, Spain, but not far off. Deeper along the canals and under a few tight bridges we pass Denmark’s Parliament building, which also houses its Supreme Court. Making our way through the city in a loop, we also pass the home of the current Danish royals, Amelienborg Slot, aka palace. Sadly, Queen Margarethe II is away for summer vacation. Another must see from the harbor is the statue of the Little Mermaid, the protagonist of the fairytale written by Hans Christian Andersen. She looks nothing like the Disney version and in fact is a model of the artist’s wife. Later on the tour we see one of the homes that Anderson lived in along Nyhaven Canal.

  

  

 Taking in Copenhagen by water whet my appetite for more and I decide to take a boat to the National Museum where I fill up on all my Danish history as mentioned above. From there, I walk over to the playground of the Danes, Tivoli Gardens, the world’s second oldest amusement park. Second only to another park just outside Copenhagen. Tivoli is a feast for the eyes. I don’t think I’ve taken this many photos my entire trip. There are roller coasters and any manner of whirly-gigs, gardens, fountains, a pirate ship, with bits of old Danish architecture popping into view here and there. Before I subjected myself to this sensory overload, I had a delicious traditional danish meal of smorrebrod, known as open-faced sandwiches, at Grofteninside Tivoli. The restaurant was just as fanciful as the park with multicolored lights strung about and red and white checkered table clothes. I order a Carlesburg, the native brew, along with a fried fish fillet smorrebrod, smoked eel and scrambled egg and a hot pork smorrebrod. My waitress tells me that the portions are big and that I may have overdone it. When the plates arrive, I know she is right. The fried fish was tasty on top of a slice of carraway bread and a flavorful remoulade. I am practically full when I try the eel which tasted just like smoked salmon. At this point, I tell the waitress to nix the pork, since there is no way I can fit another thing in my stomach, until she tempts me with raspberry pie. So, you see I HAD to walk around all of Tivoli, through carnival-esque and Chinese and Morroccan-themed spaces, twice just to work off my Danish dinner. I may have been a bit mesmerized. I couldn’t bring myself to leave, so I have a nightcap at Nimb, a hotel, restaurant and bar that looked like the Taj Mahal. In a lounge lit by candles and two gorgeous chandeliers, I step back into the past and sipped a Seelbach cocktail of champagne and brandy in an gray suede chaise.

    

 

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Denmark First Impression: Simplicity is a Virtue

My hotel room at the Scandic Front in Copenhagen is small by American standards, but probably just right by European ones. I have a twin-sized bed with a sleek ebony-colored head and sideboard. The desk is about a foot away from the bed in the same dark wood and there is an equally sleek black chair next to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street. The walls are painted a mauve color and the carpet is a complimentary plum. It is very minimalist and perfect for someone who doesn’t plan to spend much time in her hotel room. The best feature is the warmed stone floor in the bathroom.

I’ve arrived in Copenhagen around dinner time, so food is on my mind. The other great thing about my hotel is that it couldn’t be more centrally located. It is a block from Nyhavn the famous little canal filled with boats and lined with colorful townhouses. Hans Christian Anderson lives in several of the homes here. Instead of heading there for dinner, I decide to go in the other direction towards the harbor and dine at theRoyal Danish Playhouse at it’s restaurant Ofelia. The playhouse is simple and spare, letting the view from its floor-to-ceiling glass windows do the talking. Ofelia’s takes up a corner of the theater’s main floor along with some outdoor seating. From my seat, I can see tourists and Danes out for an evening stroll along the pier and any kind of boat you can imagine, canal boats, sail boats, motor boats, even jet skis. The only color in Ofelia is from the red woven stacking chairs, which Denmark is apparently known for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ask my waitress for help with the Danish menu and decide to order a pasta dish with cod. It turns out to be an excellent choice. It looks as simple as the place where I am dining–two square-shaped pieces of cod sit atop a bed of egg noodles in a light cream sauce–but it tastes way more complex. The sauce is herbaceous, seasoned with basil and leeks along with the surprising sweet and sour flavor of pickled tomatoes. The dish was small but also surprisingly filling. Along with a glass of pinot blanc, this was a great culinary introduction to the city.

 After dinner, I stroll along Nyhavn and snap photos of the yellow, pink, rust and orange buildings in the fading sunlight. I notice that a lot of the people dining along the strip appear to be Danish. I would have imagined the place to be teaming with tourists and maybe it is during the day. I get beyond Nyhaven and enter a small square with park benches, and painted elephants on display like the pandas in DC or the bulls in New York. Beyond the park is a narrow street for high-end shopping. I have no idea where I am or have any sense of the significance of the streets, I am just wandering to orient myself to the neighborhood. I spot a cool looking restaurant called Geist that I’ll try to check out during my stay. I turn back towards the hotel, taking the same route back and I pick up a sweet smell in the air and spot people holding sugar cones with ice cream. I can’t resist. I haven’t had dessert, so I stop at a place that must translate to the Waffle Shop in English because they are churning out waffles and hand rolling them to be filled to the ice cream of your choice. I decide to have a Belgian waffle with soft serve ice cream on top. I may regret this later, but I am living in the moment. It’s very unfortunate that this place is a block from my hotel. Among the other perks of my new living space is that it has a lot of lounge space with fun colorful chairs, a foosball table and a chalk wall as its guest list. There isn’t much room to leave a mark, but I find there is just enough room to leave my new mantra.

 

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Leaving England: Llama Talk and a Fete

Helen’s neighbor Susan is ebullient. She bursts forth with conversation like a shaken carbonated water. The Brits call it fizzy water, except Susan is not British, she is Canadian. We’ve joined her and her family for dinner to celebrate her niece Megan’s master’s degree in archeology from Oxford. Susan pops in on topics from American politics (She’s afraid of a possible President Sarah Palin) to her wacky in-laws, who actually happened to be dining with us. Cousins on her husband’s side of the family are llama whisperers of sorts and train 8 llamas and an alpaca, which have been taught to jump through hoops and do other odd tricks. Sadly, the llamas have stage fright, so no taking them on the road.

I am back in Oxford and Ugo has come along to see another part of England. After a few hours of navigating the streets of Oxford crawling with tourists and doing a bit of shopping, we enjoy an entertaining evening with Susan and family. Her brother-in-law’s name is Robert, but the family calls him Robin for short. We dine on the delicious pub food at Helen’s neighborhood pub, the Anchor, and wish Megan well on the next stage of her life. Susan is still bubbling with conversation and invites us back to her house to see what an original Victorian home looks like. She is proud that her home maintains its original footprint in stark contrast to Helen’s landlord’s home, which caused a stir in the neighborhood with the addition of a pvc pipe and plastic porch construction or monstrosity, if you ask Susan. She is somewhat of a neighborhood historian and tells us that Hayfield Road was where Oxford’s poor lived. Susan’s home has two of the original fireplaces that would have been in each room of the house and the french doors in her living room overlook a narrow 18-foot yard where families would have kept their pigs and chickens. Susan’s yard boasts two bushy trees bending with apples and other flora. We chat late into the evening about books, being a working woman in the 1960’s and having the freedom to choose your career path in 2011.

The next morning Ugo heads back London and Helen and I embark upon another pub walk, this time to  to The Perch. It is a mere 25-minute walk through Port Meadow in comparison to the hour-long trek to The Trout the week prior. Port Meadow is still scenic. This time we see more fishermen and horses than cows along the way. But what is really beautiful is the pathway to The Perch, lined with trees and vined greenery. It seems that we could be walking in an enchanted forest and The Perch magically appears before us, a rustic hutch surrounded by picnic tables. It looks to be the perfect place for Lewis Carroll to perform his first reading of “Through the Looking Glass” per local lore. Inside, The Perch is still rustic but quite sophisticated as we are greeted by a well-dressed, pony-tailed maitre’d. Helen and I decide on the Lazy Sunday Lunch, because, well, it’s a lazy Sunday. She has a deconstructed nicoise salad as her starter and I have the gazpacho, which is smoothly pureed and refreshing. We both opted for the pork roast as our main course and could barely finish the savory meat and perfectly roasted vegetables, which were the true stars of the meal.

After capping the meal with espresso and coffee Helen spots an Oxford colleague and fellow Swarthmore grad named Tia who specializes in Chinese political science. We go out to the garden and meet her husband Tom also a Swarthmorean. They are having beers with a few other Oxford academics, a typical Sunday activity. We move on to check out the Binsey Fete. We saw signs for it along our walk and decided not to miss this bit of local culture. The Brits have eschewed the French pronunciation of fete for something that sounds like fate or fait. We aren’t sure why. The Binsey Fete was akin to something like a country fair meets a neighborhood block party in an open field. There were moon bounces which they call bouncy houses, tractor rides, bales of hay for climbing and you could guess the prized chicken. Each chicken was inventively named making it hard to choose. Kate and Naomi were named for the models, a mohawked chick was named for Sid Vicious and an aging but impressive chicken was named for Methuselah. But the thing that gave this party its truly British feel were the Morris dancers. They were young and old, tall and stout, male and female and each had a spring in their step. Bells attached to their calves jangled as they waved white kerchiefs in the air. Helen didn’t quite know the origins of this quirky tradition, but according to Wikipedia, if you count it as a reliable source, Morris dance may have originated in Spain as a dance celebrating the defeat of the Moors. Moorish may have evolved to Morris and is now a traditional British dance performed on holidays like May Day and the day after Christmas. Whatever its origins, it is proof that Brits can be sprightly and spry at times, particularly when silver mugs full of beer are involved. I think it’s the perfect way to end my time in England, seeing and experiencing something so authentically British. I wonder what surprises Denmark holds. I look forward to finding out.

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Henry VIII’s Candy Land and Dancing With the Brits

We first spot the garden of Hampton Court from the window of one of its grand staterooms. It beckons us. We’ve already passed through Henry VIII’s Great Hall lined with fading floor-to-ceiling tapestries, site of great dinners where plenty of wine was poured and the gossip of the day flowed. With six wives, there would have been plenty of gossip. The pride of the palace were its privies, aka toilets, in each guest apartment and conveniently located throughout. An internal toilet meant the height of luxury in those days. Portraits tell the tale of Henry’s many marriages in the quest for a male heir, while a stunning chapel with gilded ceilings and a balcony for the royals to kneel on plush red pillows reveals Henry’s devoutness despite his break with Rome.  We visit the kitchen, which really is more like several houses–one room dedicated to pies, another to bread and yet another devoted to the roasting of meat. Much of the palace appeared to be dark and at other times light shown through in the most unexpected places.

 It is too gorgeous outside to be closed in with ancient relics, so we answer the garden’s call. We stand for a moment to take it all in –the trees are the most whimsical shape, like gum drop trees, and the bushes are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses. With the colorful patches of flowers, it looks like we’ve stepped into Candy Land.  It would be the perfect place for a garden party. The grass is so soft and lush under foot that you want to drop to your knees and lie down for a while. Some folks have succumbed to the urge and lay prone staring up at billowy white clouds. The setting inspires a photo shoot and Ugo and I snap shots of one another under trees, next to multicolored flowerbeds and near classical sculptures. When we think we have enough shots worthy of Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar, we walk into town for tea and cake.

 

 

After a quintessential British day in the country, we return to the city to the London Bridge area. Standing on London Bridge, you think you could be standing on any random urban bridge in the States. Only the very modern sign on the bridge tells you that you are standing on the famed bridge from the schoolyard song.  Beyond the London Bridge is the Tower Bridge, looking more like a postcard for the city. I want to check out the Burough Market, which is nearby, but we’ve just missed it and see merchants packing up their wares and cleaning their stalls. I can only image what it would have been like with bustling crowds. So, we circle back to the London Bridge to walk along the Queen’s Walk, a scenic promenade along the South Bank of the Thames that stretches between the Lambeth Bridge and the Tower Bridge. There’s lots of activity along the walk on a Friday evening as Brits gather at pubs facing the Thames. Couples stroll hand in hand and tourists pose for pics in front of the Tower Bridge. As we walk, the crowd starts to thicken and we start to hear music playing. It sounds like a Michael Jackson song, so I am immediately drawn towards the bumping bass. But Ugo calls out and asks if I’m seeing what’s around me. We are standing in the middle of a photography exhibit.  The photos depict life rituals from around the world—weddings, funerals, births, even circumcision. A woman in Palau breast feeds her newborn baby in one photo; in another a man in Ethiopia leaps naked over bulls to prove that he is a worthy husband to his soon-to-be bride; and in yet another a Turkish family looks on as their young, festively-dressed, son bravely withstands a circumcision. It’s provocative and truly illustrates its point, which is that we are more alike than different.

 I can tell this fact is true as we turn our attention to the pool of dancing Brits just beyond the exhibit. They’ve been captivated by the music we heard earlier too. It’s a free open air concert at the Scoop at MoreLondon, a sunken concrete concert space in front of London’s City Hall. It reminds me of how DC’s hip crowd fills each corner of the Hirshorn’s Sculpture Garden for its Friday night concert series. At the Scoop some have brought their own libations, coolers packed with wine bottles. An older white gentleman in a fedora and shiny gray suit moves effortlessly to the beat, while not far off a rhythmless black Brit bounces off beat. A couple down below show-off their near perfect salsa moves to the pop tunes. It is a diverse crowd blowing off steam after a long week. The band goes through Michael Jackson’s song book hitting much of the “Off the Wall” and “Thriller” albums, before moving on to popular Duffy and Rhianna songs. Finally, the lead singer encourages the crowd to get to know each other like a preacher encouraging his parishioners to give praise and hug and greet each other during a church service. I introduce myself to a black British woman sitting in front of us. Her name is Anne-Marie. She asks about my accent and I tell her I’m from America and she tells us that there are concerts at the scoop during lunch and in the evenings. The band we are listening to are a popular group called the All-Stars. We talk about music a bit. They mention music that I don’t know and I tell them that they should check out Raphael Saadiq at Camden Town on Sunday. The band swings in to a popular British song that we don’t know, but it calls for audience participation with the refrain, “It’s all about the music.” It certainly is as Ugo and I join our musically entranced brethren in dance.

After we’ve enjoyed the musical stylings of the All-Stars, we continue down the Queen’s Walk to Shad Thames, a narrow cobblestone street with its buildings connected by iron bridges and walkways. This is how the warehouse district looked in Victorian times where workers moved cargo like teas, spices and other commodities from boats and from warehouse to warehouse over the iron bridges inland to their destinations. It’s a wonderful place to take a photo, especially in the fading London light. From there we head to Bermondsey Street, which Ugo says is known for its good, off the beaten track restaurants. Except that when we get there, almost every place is packed. We walk up and down the street exploring the menus and we stop at Village East with a menu with a great range of dishes with chicken, fish, pork and beef, but sadly, they are no longer accepting diners in the restaurant and we are forced to sit in the bar area to have a burger. The hostess has however assured us that the burgers are good, even though I’ve heard on several occasions that Brits don’t know how to do a good burger. We take her word for it and give it a try. It turns out she was right. It was a perfect rare on focacia with watercress and a creamy white cheddar cheese. The fries, or chips as they call them, were pretty good too. Another great end to a great day in LondonTown.