 |
| hostel room |
August 9 
It was raining when we finally got out and wandered until we decided to take a bus through town to just witness what was what. It took us farther than we thought into a Muslim area, and around through the Christianshavn area that had some wild neighborhoods—what looked like houseboats on land, long graffiti’d fence with lush trees and bohemian homes. It also housed the schools of theater, dance and design. At the end was the modern glass and wood opera house. From there, you could see the national theater, with a big glass square around it’s midsection, and a circus tent set up on a promontory. We went back to the middle of the action, had coffee and some bakery goods before we caught the boat transport that goes up and down the long channel through town (these tickets that give you free access to all public transportation is VERY cool!). We got off at the castle on the north of town and discovered we were at the Museum of the Danish Resistance. At first it seemed so small, but they packed so much of the history of those resisting the Nazi takeover of Europe and the world. They had printing presses, videos of interviews of those who took part, uniforms, stamped silverware with the swastika, banners, photos, helmets with holes in them, an old radio scene, codes, secret things (hats, pins, the coins were soft enough to add your own sentiment like “Down with Hitler” that you could pass around, or stickers printed with anti-Nazi phrases) that indicated you were with England, videos of newsletters falling from some high window and people snatching them up from the street, uniforms of the Jews and gays from concentration camps, and so much more that we didn’t get to examine because it closed. From there, we walked past the castle where “the Little
 |
| Les afraid of sea snakes! |
Mermaid” resides by the ocean to catch the transport to the Ballet up in Klamponborg. We found the theater by a beautiful beach where men were playing volleyball and the life guards were testing someone in a surf rescue.
 |
| Jack at the Copenhagen Theater |
 |
| The ticket office for C. Theater |
 |
| Jim! See how often the trains come?! Better than London! |
The water was cool and green; people were swimming for exercise and fun, crewing boats and sailing. Sweden was in sight. When we found someone in the theater, it turns out it’s not outside, and it’s not free, and tonight is sold out. I said I was going to be gone on Friday and said I was a choreographer from the US. She made a call and we got tickets that had been cancelled for ½ price because it was a dress rehearsal. The program was interesting, with a fantastic flamenco/contemporary/tap dancer that followed a singer singing Orbison’s “Crying” in Spanish (the theme of the show). A love interest showed up who turned out to be the link throughout the show. The second piece was nice in concept, but the unison phrases didn’t make sense and didn’t suit the man’s technical ability. It did have an impressive curtain made of silver beads on which they projected video and split it open to enter, and used as a scrim to have dancing going on behind the curtain. The third piece was entertaining with fantastical costumes with capes that had both heavy elements and silk that shown in the black light. I got irritated at the long legged long-haired street dancer who couldn’t hold her focus, but the rest were tight and well done with elements on a bench. After the intermission, a man started his dance on the highest chair of 7 rigged on the wall stage right. He slid from one to the other, when the flamenco dancer showed up and spurred him. The last section was a mishmash of sections we had seen before, and people showing the best of what they do in their genres. It was colorful, chaotic like a party, and featured large tables that they could stack precariously, open like doors. At one point the Flamenco dancer came in on the tables with a red dress with a train about 45 feel long. At the end they projected onto the silver bead curtain a live feed from overhead to show another layer of the chaos—that of the flamenco dancer getting lowered into the square hole that the tables made center stage. We enjoyed it very much. The women next to us took us home. One was an American who does choreography for gymnasts; one whom she hopes will go to the Olympics in Brazil.
day! We walked past Tivoli to the Carlsberg museum, and oh my, was this an impressive collection! I spent the whole time looking at ancient Egyptian and Greek artifacts including mummies, miniature scenes of people in kitchens, boats, breweries, weaving studios, etc. to put in graves. The rest were statues of people and animals with wonderful explanations of how the hairstyle changed, or the techniques in the carvings. Les finally found me after looking so long and took me to the Degas and Rodin section where we saw the little ballerina and the thinker, along with the big piece about the losing men taking the key to the city to the winner that Pat Knowles choreographed from. These artists did so many trials of their work!
I saw 6 or so of the same dancer doing penché, then others looking at her foot, and more with leg devant. 
Soon I was famished and wanted to find the restaurant that Hollis said was her favorite in the world. As usual, we walked indirectly to it, but found the French Bistro and made a reservation for tomorrow, and devoured a little sandwich on hard Danish bread and fresh apple, ginger and raspberry juice. Time to go to the free ballet in yet another village. We stamped our transport tickets and went way out to Roskilde. It started sprinkling when we took our seats in the amphitheater. The ballet dancers were having class on stage. After a ½ hour sitting under our umbrellas, they announced that it was too wet to perform. We went home and had a Carlsberg beer on the second floor of the hostel. I probably shouldn’t have, since I have a sore throat developing… Oh, Les got me laughing—he had some really stinky socks, and when I came back from the bathroom, he started rubbing those skanky socks all over my bed and pillow. I was so disgusted and gave him that “look,” but he kept going and going! When I protested, he showed me that he was using a clean sock and I laughed for hours at his joke. I’m still laughing.
August 11
We got out in time to get to our reservation to Hollis Johnson’s favorite restaurant of all time: “L’educacion Internacionale.” Indeed it did not disappoint. Their lunch of the day was salmon in a butter sauce, oh yeah, yum. Also there were tiny potatoes and a stack of vegetables including a scrumptious tomato and some eggplant. It came with several sprigs of thyme, which Les and I played a little charade game with the word time; like he hovered one spring of thyme over another, and I was to guess “overtime.” It was in a cute shopping area, and no Dane seemed to notice that it was raining. We found a bus that circled the city and took the long way home. I worked out how much money we had spent so far and it’s been about $2800 each for the past six weeks. Europe is expensive! I also repaired some clothing items that had holes, rips and worn spots. Tomorrow we go to Amsterdam on the night train. One funny thing was that there was a machine with a red cross on it and a big hole in the middle. Les said we should get our blood pressure taken, so I stuck in my arm and a little alarm went off and the far end of the hole started to rotate. It wasn’t blood pressure, it was a bottle recycling machine!!  |
| Fred's Church |
August 12
We took the walking tour with a huge group (40 people?) but our guide rolled with it. She was from Vancouver with an opera singing major, and sang us a little aria outside the opera house. Nice tales of the Danish 007, the resistance, the first castle, the many, many fires, the red light harbor that was taken over by good citizen boats to keep out the partying sailors only to have the swing gate swell shut in the heat and trap them for days. It ended up that the city liked that look and the boats were kept as an open air museum. There are many 3x3x3’ decorated elephants around the town to help raise support for saving the Indian elephant. We learned about bishop Absalon who built the first castle here and who won a whole war by knocking over their images of gods. It was a nice tour; she works only for tips, so we gave her 50Kr. My cold is progressing, but I’m eating better and sleeping well. I hope it abates.
No comments:
Post a Comment