Påske i København / Easter in Copenhagen

Friday 22nd / Good Friday, one of those rare days in Ireland where it is illegal to sell alcohol: bought a bottle of Prosecco on the way to Danish friends Christina & Jonas' house for the arranged Easter lunch - traditional Danish style, naturally.  There were approximately 15 in attendance and so the basement had been reserved for the banquet.  Six large tables pieced together to accommodate the crowd and the dazzling abundance of food.  Baskets of rugbrød (rye bread) dotted the table, punctuated by bottles of glistening-from-the-freezer Snaps (almost pure alcohol the Danes love to drink at seasonal events).  Baskets of boiled baby potatoes, boiled eggs, fresh chives, mayonnaise, remolade (like a lumpy tangy mayo), the Mexicans brought a bean dish dripping with melted cheese on top and a large bowl of delicious spicy guacamole, various types of fish: dried white fish from the Faroe islands, marinerede sild, karry sild (types of traditional pickled herring), a giant and unbelievably delicious veggie quiche just bursting with spinach, tomatoes, peppers and various other colourful delights.  It was like Babette's feast without the bankruptcy.  Prior to sitting down indoors, we basked in the hot sunshine, dotted around the big garden on chairs, benches, grass, and sucked on juicy dribbling slices of cool sweet watermelon, just shooting the breeze to the drifting tones of New Orleans jazz humming away like sweet sounds of distant honey bees hovering at blossoms.  The cool shade at the banquet table came as a relief, our appetites now whetted by the watermelon and wine, and we set to work building ever more creative smørbrød (open face sandwich), interrupted regularly for another round of "skål" (cheers!) and a quaffing of ice cold Snaps (potent alcohol!).  

So after a long lovely lunch, with the loveliest bunch of people one could hope to dine with, we shuffled gently out to the garden to bask in the afternoon sun once more. The wine long gone by now, it was beer for the afternoon and evening, with no less than two more outings to the local shop to restock.  That sunshine kept evaporating everything!  Sweet things for dessert started appearing late in the afternoon.  Banana bread, French crepes, little chocolate eggs, all grazed on slowly by full bellied folk as a cow might distractedly chew cud.  As the sun set and the cool early night air started to raise goosebumps, that was the cue to drift homeward.  A spectacularly lovely day, followed by an 8 hour coma.  

Saturday: a slow start to the day, vague notions of going to the library were dismissed in favour of sitting in my back garden in shorts, t-shirt and bare feet with a compendium of readings in search of some topic interesting enough to fill 25 pages.  I should say that summer arrived nearly 2 weeks ago, so it's been shorts and t-shirt weather. I'm a bit tanned actually. The day was interrupted several times, welcome interruptions I might add, firstly by Belfast boy Paul from University out and about on his bike enjoying the sun.  We had coffee and a chat for an hour then off he went on his merry way.  Back to the sunny reading, then another visitor: Alina the Romanian from University this time arrived with a few cans of beer, and who was I to say no to some ice cool beverages on a hot day?  We sat there until the afternoon sun was cut off by the high buildings and then went to make food - a homemade pizza this time, I had prepared dough the night before so it was fat and swollen as it should be.  A delicious pizza later, we headed into town to see one of the CPH PIX (film festival) films - I had lots of tickets from volunteering I did for the festival, so I got to go for free.  We went to Gloria cinema on Rådhuspladsen (town hall square) to see a film about red haired people, the translation roughly being "Our Day Will Come" or something like that.  A French film starring Vincent Cassel (he was in Black Swan).  A wonderful, dark comedy, very action driven which was lucky for me, as when the film started, the subtitles were in Danish and the dialogue, naturally, was in French.  It didn't actually make much difference, I read the subtitles, and listened to the French - a language I once had a basic level of - and it was fine!  And funny, a great film, really enjoyed it.  

Never being one to celebrate Easter, I had no plans for Sunday.  I woke up early as had been a spring habit with the morning sun waking me directly, so I decided that a long run was in order after the Friday Feast.  Now usually I decided my occasional runs based on routes that I already know the distance of - such as Frederiksberg Have, the local park, is 2.4km per circuit.  But on Sunday I decided that I would simply run for an hour, just focusing on time not distance.  I took in a lap of the park for the scenery and elephants (it backs onto the zoo) - I still delight at the sight of those weird prehistoric looking things and just kept on going, occasionally telling myself in a southern drawl to 'run Forrest, run'.  Not that I needed much spurring on.  The warming morning air was just perfect for trotting around the pretty, leafy roads of Frederiksberg.  So exactly an hour of weaving around, I trotted back indoors.  I measured the distance which came out at exactly 8km.  Now, it had slipped my mind that morning that I had said to Belfast boy Paul that I wanted him to take me along to this yoga class he takes up in the far reaches of Nørrebro, a neighbouring area.  I may not have run 8km had I remembered that, so perhaps not a bad thing.  We met up in the afternoon and cycled to what looks like a hippie reclaimed warehouse, up some dark weaving stairs and into a beautiful large light filled studio in the attic room.  There were about 8 or 9 people in attendance, and we all fished out rolled up mats from a little cupboard at the end of the room and laid them out.  I might add that I have never done yoga in my life, but being rather bendy in ways, I always suspected myself to have innate yoga skills!  In some respects, I took to it fine - a few balance issues on the standing poses, but I can grab my two big toes and bring one toe about halfway up to my ear while sitting down (the bow and arrow pose) which I was chuffed with, 'cos you never know when you'll need to bring your toe up to your ear.  The class went on for 2 hours: I was expecting an hour, tops, but it went pretty fast all the same and ended with a 15 minute relaxation which was so nice I had trouble staying awake.  

My body felt so 'worked' after all that, so it was time to abuse it again, we figured.  I headed home for some much needed lunch, then arranged to meet up with Vida the German, Alina the Romanian and Paul again at Nørrebro Bridge to sit lakeside and have a beer in the late afternoon sun.  It was so picturesque: the Dannebrøg (DK flag) had been flying on the bridge for a while now (perhaps since the christening of the handsome Prince's twins a couple of weeks ago?) but as the sun drew nearer the horizon, the flag removers came to take them down.  It was quite lovely to watch then lower these four giant beaming red symbols of lovely Denmark against that perfect clear blue.  And we fell into a thoughtful relaxed silence watching these men at work, when out of the blue (literally) appeared no less than 14 hot air balloons of every colour you can imagine, drifting across the skies over the lakes, their perfect reflections doubling their number!  It was gorgeous and whoops of delight and clicks of cameras became the symphony to the drifting sight.  The day had surely peaked... but no, there was more to come.  A ringing telephone. Chatter in Romanian. Laughter and many many "bina bina bina" - Romanian for an affirmative.  Click, the phone is hung up.  A beaming Alina excitedly announces that a woman who she had befriended on Twitter had just docked her yacht in Christianshavn, and did she want to come over - the posse too!  Easter on a Swedish yacht?  Yes please!  A few bottles of wine purchased and a high speed cycle to Christianshavn, we found a beautiful white yacht, adorned with the Swedish flag, with two smiling faces on board.  We hopped on and thus began a wonderful evening which would end in the early hours, after much interesting conversation with these Swedes (one originally from Romania).  Still in shorts, sandals and t-shirt by 2am, the cold was beginning to catch up on the wine, so it was time to head home.  

That’s how it ended. Easter in Copenhagen. For a thoroughly secular place; they sure do know how to have a happy Easter.