The chilly autumn air has come to Denmark, and I can’t quite believe that I’ve been here a year. Today is my last day in Copenhagen, and tomorrow, along with way too many suitcases, I will head back to Boston.
I have spent the last two months enjoying that most European of traditions, the summer holiday. For those of you in the United States who do not know what that is (hint: many of you live in New York), it does not involve work. It lasts more than one week. My extended holiday involved six countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, Spain, and Austria – and I had a wonderful time in all.
In Denmark, no one works in July. The entire country is on holiday. I am not exaggerating; for example, I made the mistake of trying to get a suit dry cleaned in mid-July. I went to five different dry cleaners before I found one that was open. I spent the hottest week of July in Sweden, exploring the countryside and jumping into ice-cold Swedish lakes, and basically thoroughly enjoying the summer. I also played tour guide around Copenhagen for three visitors, and I am happy to report that I have now memorized the narration for the Copenhagen canal boat tour. (Only the English and Danish, though, not the French and German, so I don’t think they’ll let me be an official tour guide yet.) I went on a pilgrimage to Legoland, where I saw Lego Mt. Rushmore, the Lego Statue of Liberty, Lego Copenhagen, and even the Lego Göta Canal (I’d seen the real canal in Sweden the week before). I also visited more castles than I can count – including the Danish royal family’s summer residence, Fredensborg Slot (Slot means castle in Danish). I went to Fredensborg Slot with a visiting American friend, and we arrived just in time for the start of a guided tour. The only way to visit this castle was by guided tour, but the tour starting then was in Danish – the English tour wouldn’t start for another 90 minutes. We made the decision that we’d join the Danish tour, and I’d attempt to translate. Well, I understood most of what was going on, but every time I’d try to communicate a key tidbit, I’d miss the next piece. It was interesting, but because it was the Danish tour, it assumed a lot of basic knowledge about the royal family that I didn’t have – like the who’s who of random royal cousins.
Like most things I’ve experienced recently in the Danish language, I remember it a bit hazily – like I took the entire tour while under sedation. (I can assure you that I was not – and I have only visited the ‘free town’ of Christiania once, purely for its tourist value and not to patronize the merchants on ‘Pusher Street.’) I have realized that this lack of full remembrance is because I only understood about 80% to begin with. This probably means that my Danish has become a little better – of course, just in time to leave. (My spoken Danish, alas, still prompts responses like, ‘You’re American, right?’)
My linguistic ability was further challenged by my travels this past month. I spent a week driving around the south of France with friends, starting from Bourdeaux and heading south towards Basque country. We even crossed over into Spain for a day. We swam in the Atlantic, saw a really huge sand dune, and visited Bourdeaux wine cellars. I got sunburned, of course, and had a fantastic time. Of course, I managed to speak Danish to the French (Danish always seemed to come out in reply to questions I understood in French), which confused people greatly, but I had three fluent French speakers along to help me out.
After my week in France, I headed to Vienna, where I had a wonderful, relaxing time visiting museums, touring the city, walking around city parks, and relaxing near the banks of the Danube. I spent just over a week there, and my sunburn turned to tan (well, almost) in the gorgeous summer weather. I spent time looking at art and architecture, reading, and chatting – three of my favorite activities.
So, last week, fully refreshed and thoroughly relaxed, I returned to Copenhagen and began to pack. I made it back here just a few days before a big event -- last Saturday was a big day in Scandinavia, because it was the day of the Norwegian royal wedding, which was covered from beginning to end on Danish television. Since I can now read the Danish tabloids nearly perfectly, I found out all the details of who was there, with whom, what they were wearing, what they ate, and what the latest rumors were about now-Princess Mette-Marit’s wild past. (The Norwegian tabloids had some great pictures of the festivities, and I could read most of their articles too.) I am now a fountain of useless information on Scandinavian royalty.
So, I’m just about finished packing. I’ve made friends in the local post office, sent four boxes of books and documents on the slow boat to Boston, and tomorrow, I’ll try to convince Air France to let me on the plane with suitcases the size of Montana. All in all, it’s been a great year. I’ll miss the pastry, the 3 am midsummer twilight, the trendy night spots in Nørrebro, sitting in the afternoon sun at the sidewalk cafes in Nyhavn, biking up the coast to the beach, the funny Danish and Swedish TV commercials, yoghurt in a milk carton, good mobile phone coverage, the weirdly bilingual Viking haunted house at Tivoli, eating lunch in the gardens at Rosenborg castle, the letters ø, å, and æ, speeding over the bridge to Sweden in the occasionally-functioning Øresund train, Danish modern design, two-tone police and fire sirens, Diet Coke in glass bottles, MTV-Nordic, signs that say ‘slutspurt,’ Tuesday morning breakfast meetings at the European Environment Agency, and biking past the Little Mermaid on the way home on warm spring afternoons. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to English language bookstores, Dunkin Donuts, foliage trips to New Hampshire, C-SPAN, fall afternoons by the Charles River, MSNBC, Cape Cod beaches, wrap sandwiches, reading morning newspapers online at midnight (not 6 am), good libraries, Oreos, subscribing to the New Yorker, good Chinese food, foreign films (with English subtitles), and cold, crisp, sunny winter mornings. See you in Boston.
