Just when E and I were coming to terms with the idea that we no longer like cities, we came to Copenhagen.
I’ve been talking about going to Scandinavia for years now. I don’t know what happened, but I have been feeling a pull to this part of the world. When I was pregnant with Sage, we took a 3 night trip to Stockholm in September. When we left New York it was 80 degrees, while Stockholm barely hit 50. Still I loved the city, as did Jude. He described it perfectly “it’s city and farmy all at once”. So it came as no surprise that when we arrived in Copenhagen I was completely smitten, as I knew I would be. These are my people! The city is clean and safe. There are so many parks, including many cemeteries that everyone treats as parks. We have seen many families having picnics with their small children and babies among tombstones. Everyone is super active. Running, biking (everywhere!), swimming in the harbor. The food is fresh, seasonal, and of the highest quality. People are polite and extremely friendly to the kids. Their style and aesthetic is also right up my alley. From home design and décor to the clothing. I felt like I wanted to immerse myself in the lifestyle.
Once again, we stayed in an Airbnb, and this one was of a Danish family in a residential area in Copenhagen. The apartment was especially lovely. It was a beautiful old building with huge windows, herringbone floors, a balcony, and a courtyard with fruit trees and playground where the big kids went out and played ON THEIR OWN. I actually just told the story about how excited my kids were to go out to the courtyard ON THEIR OWN, and the sweet Danish family with 3 grown kids of their own couldn’t stop laughing. It is absolutely normal here to allow children to have independence and responsibility with in a safety net of sorts, in this case the courtyard. This is how all Danish children grow up and I can tell just with my two kids, the experience made them feel confident and responsible.
On our first morning in Copenhagen we went out to breakfast and quickly realized that Copenhagen is not as expensive as people led us to believe. Don’t get me wrong, it’s expensive, but in the same way that NYC or London are expensive, not more. We actually made a point to only stay in the city for a few days because we didn’t want to blow our budget, but once seeing things for ourselves wished we had stayed at least a week if not more.
After breakfast and delicious coffee we headed over to Torrenville Market. It’s an indoor and outdoor market. It consists of two buildings in which are small restaraunts, bakeries, fish monger, spices, coffee, and ice cream shops, etc. in between the two buildings there’s a rather large farm stand with fresh produce and lots of tables and benches for outdoor dining as well as some small stands selling prepared food. I feel like my description is not doing this place justice. There are so many different food choices, fresh and prepared, but it’s not at all cheesy and also not at all touristy or over priced, like some similar markets we have visited in other cities. In addition to the great market itself, we also found the Danish people to be friendly and helpful… from the barista at a busy coffee shop happily reading through and translating all the ingredients in their organic oatmilk, to the ladies at the farm stand feeding all our kids strawberries and insisting they take more once they saw Sage stuffing whole large berries in her little face. We ended up visiting the market twice in the 3 days we were in town. When we came a second time, we stumbled on a live opera performance at 10am! I saw lots of moms with babies in prams having their morning coffee and catching up with friends. I said to E, “see I can make friends here! I can see myself coming here in the morning with Sage.” 🙂
Copenhagen is in the midst of the biggest heatwave in 30 years! That worked out great for us. It was sunny and 80 degrees so in the afternoon we pulled out our bathing suits, that we didn’t even think we’d need, and went to the harbor to cool off. So many people were out. Young groups drinking bottles of wine and beer, sunbathing, families with small kids, tourists. Everyone was at the harbor, but it wasn’t crowded. Ahhhh. One of the things that’s been getting to me about New York and other major cities is overcrowding, especially in the summer months when tourism is at its height… Not Copenhagen! Myla, Jude, and I swam in the refreshing yet warm water, while E and Sage hung out on the dock and took pics. Afterwards we walked around the little “street food” area and picked up some organic vegan ice cream for the kids. Hey, organic and vegan is just the regular ice cream being sold on the street. Like I said, these are my people!
We didn’t just eat and drink coffee and wonder around parks/cemeteries. We also did some typical tourist stuff like take a guided grand tour of Copenhagen via a boat ride, that was actually fun. And we took the kids to Tivoli, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, that was less fun. It’s a pretty sweet amusement park as far as amusement parks are concerned and we all agreed that it’s better than Disney Paris, BUT it is still an amusement park!
In the end, we all REALLY liked Copenhagen and hope to come back and spend more time there. Before we left on the big trip E and J read The little book of Lykke, secrets of the worlds Happiest people, written by a Danish Professor. While in Copenhagen we came across another term similar/related to Lykke: Hygge.
Hygge (pronounced hoo-gah):
Generally an untranslatable word: cosiness of the soul. Not meant to be translated, it is meant to be felt.
A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well being.
In essence hygge means creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people.
The practice of creating cosy and congenial environments that promote emotional well being
Social coziness
The Danish Lifestyle
The warm glow of candlelight, family and friends getting together for a meal, reading a good book are all hygge
