My host Nanna met me at my bus stop in Copenhagen. When she offered to pick me up at my bus stop, I assumed she had a car and appreciated that she was going out of her way. When I realized she must have taken the bus to come meet me and bring me back to her place, I was especially touched by the kindhearted gesture.
We went back to her beautiful apartment about 30 minutes out of the city. When her precious cat came out to meet us I greeted her with an emphatic "BABY!" which as it turns out, is her given name.
That night we made dinner at her apartment and enjoyed a good long talk. I had met Nanna and her parents once before, at Alyssa and Kevin's (my sister and brother-in-law) wedding. Although we met very briefly, something about her made an impression on me, although even now I can't articulate why.
When I talked to Alyssa and Kevin about traveling to Denmark they encouraged me to get in touch with Nanna, and even went so far as to suggest I ask whether she could host me. It seemed like a very bold move to ask a near-stranger to host me, but I figured it was worth a try, and to my pleasant surprise she agreed to host me for 4 nights. She even offered to spend a day showing me around.
I couldn't have imagined how extremely generous Nanna would be not just with her time and space but also with her thoughtfulness and positive energy. That first night we made dinner and talked for a good long while. We discussed pop culture (music especially), the school system in Denmark compared to the US (she's studying to be a teacher and also did a year of school in the US), family, love, forgiveness, resilience, our pasts, present, and thoughts for the future.
The next day Nanna worked until 5 and we made plans to go out in the evening. I took the metro to the city, but only walked around for a few hours because I was pretty exhausted and wanted to catch up rest. I went back to her place and played with Baby until she got home, then her Serbian friend Kristina came over.
We went out for Indian food before hitting the town for J-day, the official start to the Christmas season as the holiday beer is released. It was really cool to get a taste of Danish nightlife as drunk men sang Danish folk songs with their arms wrapped around each other and the DJ played Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars, and N'sync. The tables were covered in fake snow, which obviously resulted in an epic snow battle at our table.
On Saturday Nanna worked until 2. I stayed in, searching for a place to spend the holiday season, buying a bus ticket to Hamburg, and tying up some loose ends back home which would earn me a small bit of extra money. When she got back from work we went out to the city and Nanna took me to the Round Tower (Rundetaarn).
The tower was originally built as some kind of planetarium or observatory. It is quite a walk up without stairs, the path winds around and around in circles until you reach the top. There is one spot where you can poke your head in to see all the way down the center of the tower, which is one of the few in my life I've experienced vertigo. From the top of the tower you can see the whole city, and I was happy to have Nanna with me to tell me what were the places I pointed out.
Of course, a minute after we reached the top it started to rain. Although it had drizzled in Oslo, this was my first official rain of the trip. We didn't let it deter us from taking our time at the tower, and afterward we took a stroll down the main shopping street (Stroeget).
We headed back to Nanna's place and had another deep conversation. In some ways, these conversations I'm having with a variety of people feels as important as the travel itself. I've gotten very deep very quickly with people I hardly knew, and the insights they've provided are a piece that I believe will stick with me for the rest of my life.
The next day, Nanna took the time to show me all the big sights around the city. We went to Amaliehaven, home of the Royal family, and talked a bit about Danish politics, which I found fascinating. I asked about the Royal bodyguards surrounding the palace, and Nanna told me that here they're called lifeguards because "they are not just protecting a body, they are guarding a life."
Apparently the Queen has a real presence in the society and people love her for it. Nanna told me as example that on the Queen's birthday, the people come out to Amalienborg early in the morning wake her up, and she steps out to greet her people.
"You mean, like, behind bulletproof glass?" I asked.
She laughed and said "no! She doesn't need it."
"Oh," I said, "so they do security checks of everyone before they're allowed into the square?"
She answered, "not at all."
"Aren't there assassination attempts all the time then?"
"Not that I've ever heard of."
Near Amalienborg is the Marble Church (Frederik's Kirke) which is as beautiful inside as out. We also walked around inside of Church of our Savior, which has an incredible spiral staircase on top.
We walked through Christianshavn to Christiana, a tiny island proclaimed a nation in itself, separate from Denmark and the EU. Every surface there seems to be covered in art, whether it's painting, sculpture built from repurposed materials, multimedia or mosaic. There is a beautiful path along the woods and the water. There is an entirely female blacksmith's collective, workspace and shop with an incredible variety of beautiful and practical work. And there is the Green Light District, which is exactly what it sounds like.
I was surprised to find a drug culture out here, and a little culture-shocked by the way they do it. The center of the green-light district is called Pusher Street, which is lined with kiosks from which marijuana is sold. The kiosks are draped on top with some sort of fabric which can just barely be seen through, so the customer can hardly see the people selling on the other side of it. Even with the fabric draped over their faces, many of the dealers wear scarves up to just under their eyes, sunglasses, and hats, so you can barely see a centimeter of skin.
As I learned on a tour of the area the next day, the police turn a blind eye to the drug dealing here as long as the products are all marijuana based and as opposed to hard drugs. They do raids when there's suspicion of harder drugs in the area. The police allow this street to keep running because they prefer to know all the drug trade is in one area rather than spreading out among the city.
There are three rules of the green light district: (1) Have fun (gotta love that they put that first); (2) don't run, it causes panic (apparently when they see someone running, all of Pusher Street is trained to shut down in under 3 minutes flat); (3) No pictures! I asked my tour guide the next day (kuddos to Copenhagen Free Tours!) whether there's a lot of crime in the area besides the obvious drug trade, and he told me that Pusher Street is probably the safest street in Copenhagen. He said that people really look out for each other there, perhaps because they can't afford to get the police involved in their business.
We spent just long enough in that district for me to get a sense of what happens there, and quickly moved on. We went to Kastellet which is a huge old fort with a very old windmill, then to see the little mermaid statue right nearby. Apparently the little mermaid statue ranks the second most disappointing landmark in Europe because she's smaller than most people expect. I thought she was beautiful and found her morose expression of longing to be very poignant.
We went to Nyhavn, which was the historic redlight district on the waterfront, and today is full of high-end restaurants and shops. We walked by some beautiful architecture too, including the opera house, the black diamond, the dome of vision, and the royal theatre. Back at Nanna's place that night we made fresh burgers (so delicious) and had a good laugh watching an old Miley Cyrus flick called "So Undercover" about Miley as a detective undercover in a sorority house. The night ended with another long conversation and a hug goodbye, as in the morning I would take off for a hostel for the remainder of my stay in Copenhagen.