Tuesday, 18th May

Another beautiful day! I think the Danish weather heard my appeal. I biked to Frederiksberg Haven this afternoon, which is one of the larger parks in the city. Frederiksberg is actually a separate city/county than Copenhagen, and is one of the more exclusive/upscale residential areas. It's also home to the Copenhagen Business School, where both Peter Thing and cousin Kasper are studying. I took one of my architectural history books and made a feeble attempt at studying...

Later, Christian Thing picked me up in his new BMW convertible (gotta enjoy those sunny days while you can!) and sped up to their house in Gentofte for dinner with cousins Ida and Peter. Vibeke and Mogens came to spend the night. They're flying to Lake Garda in Italy early in the morning.

Monday, 17th May

Finally, a day requiring sunglasses! I met my friend Jane for a coffee at this café on Christianshavn (Christian's harbor). It's another Copenhagen neighborhood just over the bridge, and one of my favorite places in the city. It was traditionally home to merchants, and has narrow houses lining the canals, much like you would see in Amsterdam, so it looks very old and quaint. If you take the canal boat tour here, you'll definitely see it. It's also home to one of the best temptations/bakeries in town, Lagekagehuset (the layer cake house). It's great to pick up a treat and eat it outside by the canal. If you come to visit me here, I'll take you there.

Thomas works near here, on Holmen, which used to be the Navy yards. They've converted the old buildings (and by old, the gunboat house where his office is was built in the 1600s) into offices, apartments and institutions. The Royal Academy of Architecture and the Film School are both here, which was the primary reason for my visit: to check out books on the history of modern architecture, from my summer reading list. While I was there, I picked up a flyer for Thursday's lecture on the role of architecture in James Bond films. Yeah, I think I need to go to that.

Nørrebro

Copenhagen has three major neighborhoods which lie just outside the lakes: Østerbro, Nørrebro and Vesterbro. 'Bro' means bridge, and the three neighborhoods are in the east, north and west. The lakes were once used as a moat around the city, and the names of the three subway stations, Østerport, Nørreport and Vesterport relate to where the gates or doors to the city once were.

Pictured: Husumgade. Thomas' building is the brick one with the yellow first floor.

Thomas lives in Nørrebro, which like Vesterbro is a traditionally working-class neighborhood. More recently it's become populated with immigrants from Arab and African countries, so it's more diverse than some other parts of Copenhagen. (A bonus, in TK's opinion.) The main thoroughfare, Nørrebrogade, is home to cafés, shawarma bars and green grocers. It has been closed to car traffic for some time because of the high number of cyclists--imagine, they had to expand the bike lanes! There's a digital sign as you bike from the city over the bridge into Nørrebro, that says "you're biker number xxx today." That number easily reaches 10,000, and reports have shown that Copenhageners bike 1 million kilometers on an average work day. Imagine if all of those people were driving cars!

Thomas' apartment is sandwiched between Nørrebroparken, which is part of a greenway system that runs all the way across the city, and Assistens Kirkegård, one of the largest and most beautiful cemeteries in the city. A number of famous Danes are buried here, including Hans Christian Andersen, Søren Kierkegaard and Niels Bohr. What's nice is that people use it like a park, going for a stroll or a picnic on the grounds.