Postcard from Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN- The carnival music from the Tivoli wafts across the street to the Central. Every couple of minutes, a bus heading to the outskirts of the city arrives, and promptly exits the station. Just that quickly, an individual from “out of town” is inserted into the diverse landscape that is Copenhagen.

København, where even the old spelling of the city conjures the complicated landscape that is their namesake. A walk through one of their oldest cemeteries, which doubles as a park with youth wining and dining in relative seclusion of trimmed six-foot bushes, will elicit a complex feeling. That of a mournful song that exudes brightness through its truth, the eventuality that all the city’s occupants will end up here, buried feet below ground, and future occupants will stroll past.

Some bike past the shaded park, on the cobbled streets, onwards to the shopping malls alongside winding canal ways, or in the opposite direction, steps from The Red Square. The very name of The Red Square elicits the rebellious nature that fills the area: young couples playing on non-conformal swing sets and teenagers skateboarding and whiling away their noontime hours on chipped pavement.

Every evening, at eight, the Danish forces practice launching artillery. At most, lingering tourists by the waterway are startled. What had seemed only a couple of minutes ago like natural, blue ocean waves is abruptly replaced by an unknown quantity. The force of this lurking danger is omnipresent. In the cherry blossoms that populate the marina, there is the sense of complacency amidst thieves and ne’er-do-wells. The police are well aware of this fact, fed by the constant influx and rapid outflow of tourists to the city. The lone ice cream stand near The Little Mermaid also feeds from this constant supply. Their ice cream dolers do so with polite cheer.

Next to City Hall, Hans Christian Anderson’s likeness sits, visited by Chinese tourists, biding time. The medieval iconography of centaurs among other creatures has sat on top of fence prongs surrounding the bricked edifice, guarding, in forever watch, and likely will sit there for some time still.