Koooopehae - or that's how they say it....

I am honored by the guest blogging spot that Mr. Kahanek has afforded me. I especially appreciate his descriptive use of hyper-cynical. This of course translates to "reality" for me, making interaction with the rest of the world, at times....difficult.

It's been awhile since my trip to Kopenhagen, so I'll have to split it up into the 2 formative experiences....arrival (general appreciation of the city and of CK's appartment)....and when I got my clock cleaned by Americanophiles weilding poker decks.

I came to Kopenhagen via Hamburg, so I took the train, a scant 5 hours from door to door. The train is amazingly pleasant. It's Danish, which means the vast quantities of luxury tax, ie 180% of any vehicle purchase (luxury is defined differently in Europe....probably for the better of the world) go into producing and mainting a public asset. The train is high speed, quiet and comfortable, there were no angry german youths sitting next to me on this trip, brooding about the downfall of their grandfather's dreams that pretended not to speak english when I asked if he "was gonna be an asshole for the whole trip". Only polite passangers of varying nationalities which gives me a change to show off how I know about 1/50th of 3 different languages. I sound like I'm speaking Bladerunner street lingo. The really cool part is when the train boards the ferry and you get to go out on deck and check things out. They've turned the boat into a kind of mall with a bunch of restaurants and duty free stores, so don't bother buying water and a candy bar. You're gonna be stuck behind a 73 year old truck driver buying his monthly stipend of hard liquor.

Once off the boat, you are in Kopenhagen quick enough, and if you are lucky like me, you have what most would assume is a Russian bodyguard or a US Marine waiting for you at the train. Chris is neither of these, although his very open world view, tempered with libertarian American patriotism makes it seem like he has conducted Black Ops in various locales for either of these vocations. We hoofed it to the bus, me lugging all my stuff for the past couple of months, including the 40 pounds of computer gear that I packed into my bag. Chris lives in a residential development. Very nice, very new, lots of families, nothin else goin on. It's almost like Danish master planners looked at Houston and said.....yeah.....that's what we want. There is not much else going on in the hood and it's a bit of a walk to the nearest train. This is kind of interesting as Europe generally gets a good rap about their housing. But what might be a good thing, maybe is just old. When a neighborhood is 50 to 100 years old, buildings change, stores move in, different amenties open to support the local market. With these brand spankin new developements, you get none of that. And in the day and age of building out and low is cheapter, you wonder if these developments will ever engender the kind of density that will turn these projects into Berlin or Paris neighborhoods that people rave about.

After this first introduction, I sit down at Chris's desk and setup my laptop and drives, connect to the internet, not wireless mind you as the IT folks at Thornton Thomasetti have their spies everywhere. I mean....everywhere, and get to work, not to raise my head till my last day in DK.