A Whole New Copenhagen

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to know a place. Place has been an important concept to me for as long as I can remember; I think it’s something I inherited from my spatially-conscious father. I certainly base a lot of my identity around the place I have lived, more-or-less, for my whole life: Durham, NC. When I went off to college at Rice, I was suddenly in the midst of a whole new, completely different place in Houston. I have to say, it took me the better part of three years to feel that I had an idea of what Houston was, as a place, and it took some effort to force myself out of the Rice bubble and discover there was more to the Bayou City than oil refineries and overpasses.

Part of the reason I applied for the Fulbright grant was to experience a place I wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to see. I was also inspired by my other opportunity to live for an extended period in a new place, my semester abroad in Chile. Unfortunately, I think my wonderful experience there made me misjudge, to a degree, how quickly one can get a sense for a place. In Chile, I lived with a host family and, within a relative short time, was pretty comfortable speaking the native language. In addition, I was part of a program that placed great, almost paramount, emphasis on developing our sense of what Chile was as a place.

In Denmark, I have found it much harder to get a feel for what it means to live here. Though I have some great Danish friends, it’s certainly not the same as living every day in the home of a native. And then there’s the language. I can make the excuse that Danes are so ready to speak in English that it’s hard to practice any Danish, but the truth is I haven’t devoted the time and effort required to learn it. That one’s on me. During my wonderful trip around Western Europe a few weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that a tourist’s experience in a city like Paris or Amsterdam is pretty uniform, consisting of a series of “must-see” sights, “must-do” activities and “must-eat” foods. It felt like, even though I wasn’t part of a guided tour, I was forced through one by my own preconceptions, with an assist to various travel books and websites that all suggested doing the same things. When you go to Madrid for three days, you expect, and are readily spoon-fed, a pre-packaged “value-meal” of Spain.

What was even more disturbing was the realization that I hadn’t really ventured much further from Denmark’s own value meal. Sure, I’ve absorbed a lot more than any tourist would in a week’s time, but I still felt that my sense of Copenhagen in particular was confined to various small areas around major metro stops.

I’m happy to say that I’ve begun to overcome this deficiency through a confluence of factors, some deliberate and some not. For starters, spring has finally arrived. You have to remember, I spent the first three months of my time in Denmark living right beside my university. It’s a nice place, but there’s nothing much there besides the school. When I moved to Copenhagen, I spent my first two weeks at the COP15 conference and then went home for Christmas. When I got back, I had three months of winter weather that made exploring my new city a less-than-inviting proposition. But, with the sun finally shining and the mercury finally rising, I decided to take advantage, and save transit-money, by getting another bike. I had been putting this off, ostensibly, because of the weather, but more because I was still frustrated about my first bike being stolen. However, I finally ran out of excuses and ended up renting a nice road bike from a cool place that uses their profits to send bikes to impoverished areas of Africa.

The reason for the (nicer) road bike was that I had decided to make the three-day-per-week journey to class by cycle instead of by train. I’ve certainly thought twice about my decision when I’ve had to make the 15-mile ride into a stiff Danish wind, but it saves me having to pay both for train tickets and a gym membership. At a little over an hour, it’s not that much longer door-to-door than taking public transit. OK, maybe that’s not true, but still.

As a very welcome consequence, however, I’ve been able to use my bike to explore around Copenhagen, as well. And in this city, more than probably any other in the world, by bike is the only way to travel. Not only does virtually every street have a separate bike lane (not to mention separate traffic signals), but the distances also melt away. I knew Copenhagen was a compact city, but being able to get from my apartment to almost anywhere I’d want to go in 45 minutes max really drives it home.

No longer confined to the most popular metro stops, I’ve been free to roam the immigrant neighborhood of Nørrebro, filled with Turkish bazaars and Jordanian barbershops. I’ve biked along the canals of Christianshavn as young professionals walk their dogs on the old fortress works. In fifteen minutes I can be at a friend’s place in the former working class apartments of Sydhavn. I can fly down Vestergade on a Saturday morning to buy fresh bread from my favorite bakery.

With this newfound freedom of movement, I feel as if Copenhagen has finally opened up to me. By bike, I’m able to get a better sense of the people on the streets around me, not to mention in the cycle lane next to me. I can stop if I see something interesting, rather than being forced to whizz by on a train. It helps that, now that the sun is out (and doesn’t set until 9 pm) everyone is eager to soak it up. I was told during my Fulbright orientation that “the Danes go a little crazy when they get sun” and now I can safely say this wasn’t a lie. You can feel the excitement in the air on a sunny Saturday afternoon as practically the entire city heads to the parks with a blanket and a few beers.

I’m certainly not the first person to feel that they are finally getting a handle on a place as their time there is drawing to a close, and I’d venture a guess that the pressure of leaving forces many to step up their exploration efforts. Regardless, I’m feeling especially excited about my final two months in a city that is just starting to feel, at least a little bit, like home.