I couldn’t believe my ears. The DJ was playing Chuck Brown’s “Block Party.” Do Danes have block parties and barbecues? Would they be playing the Godfather of Go Go at such gatherings? First a Grammy nod, now Chuck has gone global. I have hit Danish nightlife pay dirt at … Continue reading
On my way back to my hotel from an uneventful evening in Copenhagen, I saw a woman going too fast on her bike fall head first in the street. Her friends came to her rescue in a fit of laughter, while she stood up and slurred a few words in … Continue reading
There’s a giant thumb in the middle of the cafe at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. It’s standing upright as if to hitch a ride to some unknown place. Abstract animals with large square heads lurk in the garden and a curvy nude, in a Picasso kind of way, reclines … Continue reading
An 86-year-old woman tried to convert me to Scientology yesterday. I was sitting on the 29 bus on the way to Copenhagen’s Central Train Station when she boarded, locked eyes with me and made a beeline for the seat next to me, as if someone else might beat her there.The … Continue reading
If you want anything preserved for over millions of years for posterity, drop it into a Danish peat bog. It’s the original time capsule. I come to this conclusion in Copenhagen’s National Museum, Nationalmuseet in Danish, as I encounter one well-preserved prehistoric corpse after another. The Bronze Age dwellers were buried in … Continue reading
My hotel room at the Scandic Front in Copenhagen is small by American standards, but probably just right by European ones. I have a twin-sized bed with a sleek ebony-colored head and sideboard. The desk is about a foot away from the bed in the same dark wood and there is an … Continue reading
Helen’s neighbor Susan is ebullient. She bursts forth with conversation like a shaken carbonated water. The Brits call it fizzy water, except Susan is not British, she is Canadian. We’ve joined her and her family for dinner to celebrate her niece Megan’s master’s degree in archeology from Oxford. Susan pops … Continue reading
We first spot the garden of Hampton Court from the window of one of its grand staterooms. It beckons us. We’ve already passed through Henry VIII’s Great Hall lined with fading floor-to-ceiling tapestries, site of great dinners where plenty of wine was poured and the gossip of the day flowed. With six … Continue reading