I seem fated not to be able to do a genuine travel blog. Nor to write much of anything here lately. But as I am planning another trip to Italy I thought I might as well finish Copenhagen--from (gulp) last August.
Hay4You was very nice about trying to get the internet fixed. The problem was the modem and wireless transmitter were in the locked room marked PRIVATE, and the only back-up available didn't work on the Macs. Actually it didn't work on out third roomie's PC either. One day while Jim and I were out the Hay4You guy Oliver came and smashed the lock on the PRIVATE room. He said the modem wasn't even on...huh? I still don't know how we had a robust connection the first day if that was the case. That network kept coming up as a LAN, also a secure version of it for which we had no password. But we simply couldn't get the LAN to work after day 1. And I still don't know if that was the network we were supposed to be on. Jim discovered that if you opened the kitchen window and propped your computer up on the counter you could grab a teeny bit of bandwidth from the same network Brian was using (his room, like the kitchen, overlooked the courtyard).
I liked our rental a lot, but they to need to get more detailed instructions for stuff like wireless and the washing machine, etc. The "welcome letter" we didn't receive until the third day wasn't much help, except to tell us what the phone number was for the flat and if we washed bras that had bows, please to put them in the lingerie bag provided. That was an odd and highly specific directive, but nothing about, for instance, where to put the trash, how to use the wireless, etc. At any rate the day Oliver came to break the lock he left 1000 krone on the kitchen counter to make up for the trouble. We thought that was downright generous, and we hadn't even asked. So on Oliver we bought some more groceries and another round of metro click cards, went to the movies, and had enough left over to defray costs of Tivoli. With the last of the Oliver money, we toasted him heartily there--but I am getting ahead of myself.
Louisiana: How could we not go? Well, actually, as much as I love Renaissance art, every now again going into a modern museum is refreshing, and this one was first-rate. We were starving by the time we got there so walked straight back to the cafe, overlooking the water, as promised. By this time I was resigned to paying 10 or 15 bucks for a sandwich, another 5 for a beverage. It was nice enough, nothing special, but by this time I had also decided that Denmark is not my food mecca. The view, though, was to die for, up on a hill with groomed grass running down and sculpture artfully arranged at the top so it stood out with the sound and sky in the background.
I loved the Giacometti room, but the best thing was coming around a corner and hearing the sound of water, then making another corner and there is a big, no huge, screen--and I recognize immediately it's a Bill Viola, one I've never seen or even heard of. And it was, as I always find him, amazing. Describing it won't suffice, but I shall try. Remember that the screen is immense. One sits before it on a long bench. On the video, in slow motion people gather, as if waiting for a bus. They are from all walks of life, all sizes and shapes. There are some mysteries: one man has a book and people seem to defer to him, but it's hard to tell if they are indeed, or looking off screen. Mostly they face us and ignore each other, each in his/her own world. They mirror us. Water begins to shoot out at them, all in slow motion, as if fire hoses are trained on them from either side of the frame. It's horrible to watch: people are tumbled, covering their heads, struggling to make it through the water torture, the sound is roaring--and then slowly the stream dies down. There are moments when you see them waiting, making sure, merely trying to breathe, and then they begin to get up--and help one another. Some don't or just stagger away. Some do help each other though, and it actually made me weep to see this. A woman with long hair shakes it out and in slow motion it is lovely. It is over.
I wanted to sit through it again but it was time to go. What a lovely surprise.
Brisk hike back to the train station, and back in the city we change to the Metro to get across to the University where we might just make conference registration and where we have arranged to meet our third roomie, Brian, who has been traveling up north in Denmark, looking for his mother's roots.
For reasons we don't understand, the metro shoots right by our stop. We get out in confusion and get on a train going back the other way. Stuff is being said in Danish over the loudspeakers, but it doesn't sound like a warning and people about us don't seem to react to it. The train going back shoots by our stop as well, and goes a few more before we are disgorged. This is getting consternating, and now we are late. Somehow we get on the wrong train the next time, the wrong line, but we were clearly on the right track. What is going on here? We reverse again, then back to a connecting station, then finally a young man helps us out by explaining that there has been some sort of accident--something about a bicycle?--and that the trains are routing around it. He helps us get squared away. We finally reach the Amager campus, run several blocks to our building, and find it absolutely deserted, registration table empty. Oops. Back on the train, which now behaves, and back to the flat where Brian is sitting on his suitcase, waiting patiently.
During the train confusion I have begun to feel ill again. There are patches of this trip I have forgotten, but this is because I was in and out of fever (and didn't even know it for several days--I thought it was bad jet lag and something I ate). The day we went to Blixen's, Elsinore, and Louisiana was the last day I was really *there* except for the last evening of the trip, when I pretty much forced myself to feel well enough to go to Tivoli.
Some more photos from the good day out follow:
Karen Blixen's house
Kronborg Castle
Ramparts & Castle
There is a poem I like, and I can't remember who wrote it, about Giacometti, and it says, "Look where Giacometti in a room/Dim as a cave of the sea, has built the man/We are, and made him walk."
