Wednesday/Rāapa
We spend the morning walking around and catching up reading at another place on Jægersborggade called The 1612. On the way there we see an early morning soccer training in the park over the road - one female and all the rest were males. She nearly scored a goal - Bend it like Beckham.
This is the green cycling track we went on yesterday which goes past our back door. The guy you can see half way down on the right, chased after me after I took the photo, and he was very fast at getting to me - his bike was electric. He accused me of taking a picture of him. I reacted to him and said I was taking a photo of the path. I could have just told him I would delete the photo. Bill was ahead of me, and something from my past made me very uncomfortable. He replied you don't have to react. This got me out of there very fast. And I didn't have an electric bike!
This is graffiti, which is everywhere. Here it is a form of art. Not so sure about some other graffiti we have seen.
Copenhagen's first impressions occurs as safe, though with the 'Electric bike man' incident I have my guard up. Reading up on Copenhagen I discover its social welfare programmes are the envy of many, with university, schooling and medical all being free. Environmentally it looks to be envied too. It provides many green spaces, which people use. Although I have noticed people leave their litter, bottles and cigarette butts behind, and don't clean up after themselves as well as they could. Bill says he hadn't noticed this.
From a magazine I saw: "Copenhagen was beaten only by Zurich, Switzerland as the cleanest city in Europe according to the European Environmental Bureau. The ranking, however, is based solely on things like the availability of public transportation and air quality. And this is where things get a little paradoxical. Copenhagen’s policies on environmental protection are very lofty. But in practice, Danes’ respect for their environment seem to be at an all-time low. The City of Copenhagen reports that about 80 percent of the trash collected is cigarette butts – at a cost of about two kroner per butt!"
We didn't find the litter as bad as this article says, though I did notice rubbish would just be left behind for someone else to pick up. And someone obviously does. I have no photo to show this and you will have to take my word on that.
We then met Chiara and Lachie at the loft after they had flown from London in the morning. We go out to eat as they are hungry, at another cafe just before Jægersborggade.
Lachie and Chiara walk around town, Bill and I go to another cafe for more reading and I blog, and we all meet for dinner at a place Bill has booked called Restaurant Havfruen. It is in Nyhavn. On the way I grab a few shots. I am guessing this cleans up the weeds.
The bikes after a traffic light turns green. Bill leading the pack.
Dinner is also a catch up with our nephew (and Lachie's cousin) Lars. He is brother John and Helle's eldest son. We talked about family, and had lots of laughs. It was a fun night and a great catch up. Lars was born in Copenhagen and is very grateful for his dual passport - a Danish passport means you are part of the EU and can work in any European country. He says he is happy in Copenhagen, being free spirited, enjoying being social, and a bit of jamming. He has made many friends, and busks occasionally around here. Lars is a festival goer and heads to a hemp farm in Oregon to work at the end of September. He hopes to be there for three months. He can earn more money doing that, and it is physical work. It doesn't sound as if he is in any hurry to return to NZ.
Here is Lars busking in Nyhavn, a few months ago. The song is called 'Who Would Have Known'. This is what he wrote about it:
"Hey friends. 💕💕Here is a deeply personal song about letting go of a dear love of mine, feeling truly happy without that person and adjusting to the change. So our waves of love can drift back into the sea... so we can love again."
And here he is still happy to have his photo taken with his aunt. We all love Lars.
