The Copenhagen airport is known as “Kastrup,” after the small town in which it lies. The town is about six miles from the city — the big one. Danes, like Scandinavians in general, are good at design. Exceptionally good. Do you like these chairs, in the airport? There are scads of them. Here are two — or is that a bench?
• Speaking of design: Lego, as you may know, is a Danish company. (Makes me think of an ad slogan of my youth: “L’Eggo my Eggo.”) (Eggos were waffles.) (If they still exist, my apologies. I have not kept up with the culture since the previous century.)
• Kastrup, the airport, is chockfull of 7-Elevens. The whole country, it turns out, is dotted — studded — with 7-Elevens. Same in Taiwan, I noticed some years ago. Same in Norway. (About Sweden, I can’t remember.)
The 7-Elevens abroad, in my experience, are different from the ones we have at home. They have very good food — fresh food, enticing food. Delicious baked goods. Why can’t we have convenience stores like this in America?
Where I live, in New York, lines would be out the door . . .
• There is an easy, nifty train into Copenhagen’s Central Station. Here, in the station, there are — more 7-Elevens. Plural? Oh, yes. Very plural. You can hardly walk five feet without encountering another 7-Eleven. What if you’re in the mood for something else? There’s Dunkin’.
Where am I, Boston?
• Across the street from Central Station, you have Tivoli — Tivoli Gardens. This is an amusement park, dating from 1843.
During my stay in Copenhagen, I will pass Tivoli several times. The delighted cries of children, as they ride the rides, are pleasant music.
• The name “Copenhagen” indicates the city’s commercial heritage: “Merchant’s Harbor.” My kind of town.
• Denmark is a member of the EU, but the euro is not the currency here — still the Danish crown.
• You can see so much sky in this city. The sky is so big. Of course, if you live in New York, the sky everywhere (else) seems big. Copenhagen might as well be Montana!
• I have seen this guy all over the world, it seems. He’s always sittin’ there, thinking:
(This particular Thinker thinks outside an art museum, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Does “Carlsberg” refer to the brewery? It certainly does. The art comes from the private collection of the son of the founder.)
• You may recognize this fellow, Hans Christian Andersen. He is probably the most famous Dane in history. (Possible competitors: Kierkegaard and Niels Bohr.)
An aside: I see Hans Christian Andersen back home in New York, too. There is a nice statue of him in Central Park.
• Glad to see, in Copenhagen, a Dante Square. That Italian genius has brightened the whole world.
Another aside: We have a Dante Park in New York (across from Lincoln Center).
• Copenhagen has ultra-familiar sights. Such as the Little Mermaid? Actually, I’m thinking of Burger King, the Hard Rock Cafe, Ripley’s Believe It or Not . . .
Personally, I can hardly believe that Ripley’s is still going. It seemed a little musty even when I was a child.
• As readers of my travel journals may recall, however vaguely, I have a liking for blue clocks — blue-faced clocks. I am spoiled for choice in this city.
• When accused of disliking modernism, I bristle. I am not a total square. (Eighty percent?) Here’s a bridge in Copenhagen that is darn good:
• There is no reason a sugar factory can’t be attractive — as Danes evidently know:
• Ah, Europe. The pedestrians wait at red lights, even when there is no car in sight. My American feet just itch — but I try to do as the Romans, and sometimes succeed.
• I have some Norwegian friends who like Denmark very much — who like visiting here. Years ago, I heard something interesting from one of them. He said, “I was in Denmark over the weekend. It was so nice to be in Europe.” I said, “What are you talking about, Kristian? You live in Oslo.” He said, “Yeah, but Europe begins in Denmark. We are on the outside, up here.”
Sometime later, I said to a mutual friend (another Norwegian), “Kristian told me the strangest thing. He said he considers Denmark Europe, but Norway, not so much.” The mutual friend replied, “Oh, we all feel that way.”
• Every country, every region, has its problems. (So does every person.) But Scandinavia has always struck me as unusually civilized. Orderly. Peaceful. Coherent. In short, civilized.
For the first time in almost 30 years, I’ve thought of a story. Google tells me that the year was 1997. A Danish woman, visiting New York, went into a restaurant. She left her infant daughter outside in a stroller.
Can you imagine a society in which it is safe and normal to leave your baby in her stroller while you go into a restaurant? Well, apparently, such societies exist. (Or maybe this particular mother was a little — reckless, regardless?)
• I have a very hard time pronouncing Danish names — I mean, pronouncing them Danishly. They don’t necessarily sound the way they look. The Danes have this “soft d.” Thanks to Wikipedia, I have learned that it is “a velarized laminal alveolar approximant.”
Ah, that makes sense.
• The first thing I hear when I wake up in the morning is — seagulls. (No, I am not sleeping on the beach, but in a respectable Copenhagen hotel.)
• In countries all over the world, I see immigrants cleaning hotel rooms. Is that bad? Some would tell you yes. Others, including me, say: no.
• Taxi drivers, waiting for fares outside Central Station, get out of their cabs and do some stretching. If you’re a driver, you do a lot of sitting during the day. The same is true of, say, writers. I had better get stretchin’ …
• I meet an Uber driver who’s an immigrant. He says that the government takes 42 percent of his earnings. He’s not complaining, however: He says that the public services are ample.
• At a counter in a café, I pick up a little lunch. I want to tip the cashier — the cashier/preparer. But I don’t have Danish crowns. And she says dollars would be a hassle. And I can’t put a tip on a credit or debit card.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says, with reassurance. “I am worrying about it,” I rejoin. “You know that we Americans tip.” She laughs and says, “I know, but people usually don’t tip here. We make a little more than you do in jobs like mine. So it’s okay.”
I’m still uncomfortable . . .
• Copenhagen, with its canals, can feel like a Scandinavian Venice:
• One morning, I see three or four people taking a dip in a canal. Not young either. Fit, too — fit old Danes.
I’ll start tomorrow morning. Or maybe the day after that . . .
• Lots of Christians in Denmark — I mean, men named “Christian.” Certainly kings. Here is Christian IX:
• And this is Christiansborg Palace — where parliament sits, and the supreme court sits, and the prime minister has his office:
I said “and the prime minister has his office,” because that’s the way English works. But, just to let you know, the current prime minister is a woman, Mette Frederiksen.
• I see this color in Scandinavia — Austria too — and like it. Not sure what to call it.
By the way, I have pictured the Thorvaldsen Museum, which houses the art of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844). (Who else was born in 1770? Correct, Beethoven. He died in ’27.)
• I see a sign — a big banner on a building — that says, in Danish, “Voting Rights for Children.” Hmmm.
• There is a big sign for the Danish Language School — and that’s what it says, in English: “Danish Language School.”
• From what I can tell, Danes speak their English with an American accent (roughly speaking). That must be because of movies and television. But on the trains, when announcements are given in English, the voice is British — posh (and female). The words are British, too: “Mind the gap.”
• Here is a beautiful and moving monument — the Maritime Monument, commemorating civilian Danish sailors who died in World War I:
• Bear with me for a second. All my life, I had heard, “You can’t believe how hilly Augusta National is. You can’t tell on television. When you get there, you see that the course is really, steeply hilly. You’re so surprised.”
(For those who may not know, the Augusta National Golf Club is in Augusta, Ga., and is the site of the Masters tournament.)
“The Little Mermaid is really small,” people have told me. “You may be disappointed. You’ll be surprised at how small it is.”
So, I am not surprised at all. Moreover, I find this creature lovely and touching:
Have another view:
Hans Christian Andersen wrote The Little Mermaid in 1837. This sculpture (bronze), by Edvard Eriksen, was installed in 1913. It is the very symbol of Copenhagen, I think.
• Marie was a Frenchwoman — a French princess, more particularly. But she married a Danish prince, Valdemar. Here she is:
(Princess Marie of Orléans was born in 1865 and lived until 1909.)
• St. Alban’s Church — more commonly known as “the English Church”:
• Next to that fetching structure is Churchill Park. Here is that vital, practically indispensable man:
• Spring is underway:
In a mood for yellow?
And something very graceful:
• “What are you, ten years old?” people have told me. Um — guilty, I guess:
• To elevate the tone in this journal, have a look at Amalienborg, the official residence of the Danish royal family:
• Count Peder Griffenfeld (1635–99) is commemorated in the garden of the Royal Library. Interesting, turbulent life (including 22 years in prison). (Politics.)
• As St. Alban’s is more commonly known as “the English Church,” Frederik’s is more commonly known as “the Marble Church”:
• Care for another Christian? This one is the Fifth:
• In free countries everywhere, people are flying the Ukrainian flag — to express solidarity with that country, which has been set upon by wolves, seeking to devour it. Many Americans scorn the Ukrainian flag and people who display it. I suppose this division in the world is as old as time.
• Some words are recognizable in practically any language:
• Our National Theater — or rather, Denmark’s:
• I have done many a journal from a sister capital: Oslo. There, the National Theater has three names etched into the façade: “Holberg,” “Ibsen,” “Bjørnson.” These names constitute a pantheon. Who is the great pantheonic Danish writer? Well, Holberg . . .
What gives? Holberg was born in Bergen, when Denmark and Norway were in union. He studied in Copenhagen and then worked here. He wrote in Danish (as well as Latin). So, this bard belongs to both countries.
There is another bard, sitting in front of the National Theater. He is Adam Oehlenschläger:
• Staying with the arts (and letters), who are the Danish composers? Chief, I think, is Carl Nielsen (1865–1931). Then I would name Niels Gade (1817–1890).
• Staying with music, was this little street — in a country town, about 20 miles from the capital — named after Lauritz Melchior, the great tenor, who became a hit in America? Not sure.
• I have long had a complaint, which I won’t spend too much time on here and now: Stupidly, the color of the Democrats in America is blue, and the color of the Republicans, red. In every other country I can think of, red is associated with the Left and blue with the Right. So it is here, in Denmark (with its “red bloc” and “blue bloc”).
• A less complaining thought, or sight: the grand and glorious Hôtel d’Angleterre, in the heart of Copenhagen:
“Hotel of England,” rendered in French, sitting in the Danish capital. How cosmopolitan . . .
• On a quiet lane, a father runs alongside his young son, as the lad tries a two-wheeler, wobbly but determined. A beautiful sight, which never gets old.
• Where I live, “New Haven” is apt to mean the Connecticut town where Yale is. In Copenhagen, New Haven, or “Nyhavn,” is this:
One more shot, of this sparkling, colorful place, on a sparkling, crisp morning:
• I’m standing in line at the airport, at the point where EU passport-holders go one way and all the rest of us go the other way. An English voice behind me says (to his wife), “We’re not part of the EU anymore, thanks to your parents.” The other voice says, defensively, “My mom didn’t vote for Brexit. Dad, maybe.”
• I have seen several euphemisms for “used.” This is a new one on me — “pre-loved”:
• Why wear underwear when you can wear . . .
• I’m not sure I’ve ever associated 7-Eleven with reading, but . . .
Thanks so much for joining me, my friends. See you later.
If you would like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.