Coffee & Omelet in Copenhagen
Its sunny outside. A thin wash of clouds across a light blue sky. A light breeze.
Five story buildings of muted and pale oranges and yellows line the boulevard. They are built with classical lines: tall, thin windows; crisp, defined angles broken up by evenly spaced incised lines; a ledge for accent here, an overhang there.
Lots of bicycles. Nearly every inhabitant of the city glides by me, their blond hair waving in the wind behind them. Women in short khaki pants, jeans or black tights under jean miniskirts. Men in jeans and white t-shirts.
Where do I find coffee & breakfast? I have managed to sleep most of Friday away so today, Saturday, I am hungry.
After some walking I find Cafe Moccador. Being of the visual, artistic type I see the letters “Mocc”, translate that into Morrocco and somehow think that I have found something familiar.
Morrocco in Denmark on a Saturday morning surrounded by Europeans whose skin tone is that of a deep pink lemonade! How I came to this conclusion is beyond me but I go in content with some connection no matter how far flung.
Once inside I find one familiar word, Omelete. Actually, I find 4: sandwich, dessert, omelete, and hamburger but only Omelete is talking to me this morning.
Everyone speaks English here so there is no real difficulty but I have forgotten about the resistance we can feel towards unfamiliar things. I have calcified into my English, my Starbucks, my cafe across the street.
I have forgotten that understanding is not necessarily a natural state, but no matter. After breakfast, I will walk out into a sky lit by the same sun as you, if not now, 9 hours from now, more or less.
Flickr Photos
May 25, 2008
It’s overcast outside. The sun is threatening to peek through the clouds. I’m sitting on main street outside of a cafe in front of Ryan Kingsliens house in Los Angeles with Misaki. Lily meets us and we order coffee.
A meth infested street bum sits down across from us and stares at a pretty girl, who nervously sips her coffee. We notice he is wearing black g-string underwear, it’s frilly laces cradle his large, black ass.
The smell of urine is slightly warmed on the street as the sun finally struggles through. The spray paint on the buildings shimmers and calls it’s gang land message to the street below that is filled with cars and buses and trucks stacked two deep and they belch their greasy smoke and scream back in long, deep guttural screams.
I look at the menu. Crepes? Wtf is that? I hope Ryan is fairing better in Copenhagen…
May 26, 2008
Hey Ryan, good to see you are in Europe after all. Let me know when you are coming down to Rome.
Have fun!
May 28, 2008
Hey Ryan,
Nice talking to you on that meebo thing, and funny that you are in Denmark. I hope your stay here will be great like the weather here will be the rest of the week.
Just stay away from those 120 dkr burgers. :P
You have my e-mail now, which is also my aim adress, so if you get to Billund I’ll give you the tour de’ legoland. If I didn’t have quite tight deadlines these coming weeks, I would have come to copenhagen for a coffee or shown you the city.
Anyway, great stuff you are doing – keep it up
//Carsten
May 28, 2008
that is a great reply meats but i’m sure its not that bad in la
May 30, 2008
Hi Ryan
I’m Sofias friend… in Copenhagen..
Good to read that you are having a nice time here..
If you have time to hang out, and want to meet some very nice danish people, you can join us tonight in Tivoli or join us tomorrow for a garden birthday party in a so called kolonihavehus, which is small wooden almost miniature houses with a garden. Kolonihavehus is almost the essence of the danish summer… :-)
I can assure you, if you have time to hang out, that I as a Danish person (as you have observed) also will have blonde hair, khaki coloured shorts and that undefined almost pink limonade skin tone :-) unfortunately my bicycle got stolen last week, otherwise it would have been a very accurate description…
if you have too many plans while here and don’t have the time, I will probably meet you in LA at Alex and Sofias place :-)
take care
Sille
May 31, 2008
Hi Ryan, love the photos, more of the city & countryside if you have time… Are there any animals there, other than the pigeons? How about a Danish dog? Boz says hi. Take care, keep the photos coming.
Best, Jane