I dag

September! Happy Labor Day (has that happened yet?)!

I am still here, still alive, working, consolidating, expanding my zone of comfort in this strange wonderful city, of 2.3ish million people (metropolitan area), the capital of the Danes (total population 5.7 million), on the Øresund - the narrow connection between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea/Atlantic Ocean via Skagerak (the coolest word) and Kattegat, a flat green country, a member or the European Union and the Schengen zone passport control area, built of bricks and stone, populated by unnervingly attractive people, where the sun has just set on the first day in September.

 

I am in my room, in a small apartment which I am sharing with Renato, a 46-year old Sicilian man and his incredibly sweet dog named Cesar. It is on the fourth floor (in the USA we would say the fifth floor) of a mid-century walk-up apartment building, part of a group of buildings of many vintages that enclose a large courtyard with a playground in the center, a housing type that dominates most of Copenhagen and is one of the subjects of my curiosity and study here.

The apartment block where I live

The apartment is in Nørrebro (pronounced "noy-bro" I believe) and it is probably the most diverse neighborhood in Copenhagen. There is a large muslim population, meaning there are many middle-eastern markets, shwarma shops, and there is a large mosque which was recently constructed several blocks away. It is also a youngish, lower-income neighborhood. It might be in danger of gentrifying. It is one of the historic inner-ring quarters of Copenhagen, and is named for its historic relationship to the "northern" gate in the city fortifications - Nørreport.

Old city gates

This neighborhood, along with Østerbro, Vesterbro, Frederiskburg and Christianshavn was quickly built up by the rapidly growing population of the industrializing city of the mid to late 1800's, and linked to the downtown via street cars.

I am very happy to be in an apartment after two weeks spent in hostels, searching for an apartment and living out of my suitcase and backpack.  I have never stayed in hostels in a place where there are so many of them and so many travelers. While there are many young people travelling Europe for pleasure, the hostels also served a number of people like myself who were looking for longer-term housing. I am fairly lucky that I got a place as soon as I did, given how few openings there were and how many frantic students were fighting over each one.

The hostel time was fun to meet people from all over (mostly: Germany, Italy, the UK, and Spain. Also some folks from the USA, Canada, and Argentina). People mostly younger than myself, some in college, some about to begin college, some having graduated and gotten jobs and now travelling on their own. Apparently I do not look my age. Everyone is surprised that I am 29. Perhaps it is how I carry myself, that even after all my twenties I don't live much differently than I did when I was 22. I certainly have changed, but I don't have many more possessions and I have no more wealth, (though I have significantly more debt) than I did then. 

Happy, attractive young people from the UK, Netherlands, and Germany

Quick common-room conversations require you to explain who you are and how you got to this particular place, and I can't help but wonder. I am by all measures immensely lucky to be here, to have funding, to know what I love to learn about, to have the institutional backing and cultural affirmation that it is a worthwhile thing to do to learn about, to be free from a thousand things that could weigh me down and impede my freedom at this point in my life. Traveling can be a deliciously lightening experience, but living in a new place always involves a culture shock, some alienation and anxiety. That I am doing my work independently here, supported in a general way but not port of any particular group or program potentially heightens this anxiety. 

Still, whatever it is that I am, twenty-nine years old, I am a traveler. I have lived on three continents before this one. It was just over ten years ago that I returned  from South Korea (at the behest of their government). It is nine years since I learned to dance and drink rum and also played chess with Andrew Shaw Kitch in the Dominican Republic. It is three years since I came back from the Peace Corps in Paraguay. I do believe in my work, and I find it compelling, and the greatest challenge for me going forward in my time here will be to organize myself and the work I wish to do. I must visualize the work I want to do to make the project I am creating awesome, and plan the time and needed prerequisites in order to do that work.

I will attempt to lay out how I see that project in future posts. I will also try to use this blog to communicate my findings and to regularly publish bits of my work. I am excited to learn and write about the history of this city as well as its European context which is new to me. I am excited to share drawings and images I will be creating to attempt to convey what I am learning. If anyone reads this, I am grateful for your attention and for feedback and questions you may have. I have a limited amount of curiosity and ingenuity that I can deploy at any one stretch and it is wonderful to receive a bit of either from someone else.

This place is fun to draw.