they're all on bikes

Pictures of Amsterdam HERE
Pictures of Berlin HERE
Pictures of Copenhagen HERE


They're all on bikes. Some wearing skirts while others in suits, some having a baby in front or behind, they're not allowed to have their partner ride sidesaddle on the back or really have two people on the bike at all unless it's a tandem, but regardless, they're all on bikes. There is traffic too in the well maintained bike lanes raised up a couple inches above the car lanes that run beside. The stop lights sometimes have a secondary light with a bicycle above to make sure the people, bikes and cars all cooperate. While beautiful, it's also a bit surreal for a city that sees only a few hours of light per day during the winter months and sits next to the North Sea on the west and Sweden just a 20 kilometer train ride to the east. Even though the snow is only periodic, the wind can knock people over when it pours off those firgid bodies of water. As much as I love my bike, I couldn't imagine riding it during that time of year, but then again, it would be pretty brutal to walk as well.

So, welcome to Copenhagen Denmark. I've been here since last Friday and am staying till this Saturday with Celeste and until yesterday her husband as well. You know, I'm not entirely sure if it's the city itself or just being back with a couple close friends that makes me feel so comfortable here. I've lived with Celeste twice and Christopher once back in Austin and now here we all are under the same roof again and even though one of us is on the floor and the other the couch, it feels uncannily like we're back home (if Austin had 6th floor apartments with no elevators). Really, yes it is expensive here and I'm not really doing much that costs money because of it, but there is something here they seem to have figured out. I'd be very tempted to move here if given the opportunity although I do admit that the weather scares the hell out of me.

Today we rented bicycles and went through the town a little and then wandering through the national cemetery which is really more like a park. Knotted old trees hang over aged gravestones, some markers towering a couple meters in the air. Hans Christian Anderson is buried there which is one of the most famous people from this small country. But the cemetery/park was nice. Visiting a place for the dead, on this scale at least, as a tourist has always made me feel a little strange but here it is something entirely different. People running, walking and holding hands, there was even a small family having a picnic and a little girl about 3 or 4 had made one grave her personal play area with her dolls while her older sisters were learning to rollerblade on the path next to her. As I saw all this life around, I started to feel that we in fact had it a bit wrong. I'm unsure about the ideas of spirits and anything really once we die, but I like to think that burial places are not made as spaces for permanent mourning and death. If anything, I think they should be places where life is celebrated. Not by some gaudy shopping district running along it's perimeter or carnival style rides inside, but having it be a place that people actually use for "life" seems right. In this way, it's a celebration of life past and current. It is also the case that more people probably see these graves than in most places ensuring that the names of these people might last longer than they do in most countries. Death is not meant to always be a time/place of mourning, instead, let those places we bury people be a celebration of life and a place where we can help keep their memories with us as long as possible.

More soon.