Days 121 and 124 - May 1 and 4

Saturday

May First in Denmark is a holiday, but not May Day. It’s May Day, too, but for Denmark (or at least Copenhagen?), more importantly it’s something like National Day of Workers’ Right to Protest. I still am not exactly sure what it’s about, but it involves a lot of people converging on Fælledparken, a lot of beer, music, and political speeches.

Dori, Tamar, and I decided to check it out. It was a bit like a carnival/county fair mixed with an outdoor concert. Dori and I then met up with Claudia, Sara, and Allison (who I had met randomly in Paris – and we’ve been meaning to get coffee ever since but things have been hectic…but the small world that it is, we have mutual friends!).









My flatmates

When it started getting really windy and felt like a storm was coming, we sought refuge with the Polish guys, who live about five minutes away.

That meant more lessons in Polish. The phrase I like best is:
Byłam żółwiem. Jestem żółwiem. Będę żółwiem

And if you Google translate that – yes, it does mean I was a turtle. I am a turtle. I will be a turtle.

On the way back to Signalhuset, I had two Danish conversations. However, bad as I am at Danish, it took me even longer to answer because my head was feeling very full with Polish. Thus, when the first girl asked me what time it is, I took way too long to remember what time it was in ENGLISH. However, in both conversations (the other one was a girl asking me if the train went to Malmø), I gave them their answer without them switching into English. So success! Of course I’m finally able to sort of carry on a conversation right when I’m about to leave.

Tuesday

I finally tried out this restaurant in the city called Dalle Valle that has half price every Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Julia and I got there right at 5, and good thing, because within half an hour, there was quite the line. Good food, too, for a reasonable price – I didn’t think this was possible in Copenhagen!

After dinner, we attended My Fair Lady – in Danish. Neither of us knew what language it would be in, but we didn’t think they would translate this, considering how it’s based off the English language and since the Danes are all basically fluent in English anyway. However, it was, in fact, in Danish, but I still enjoyed it, and got excited every time I could pick out a word or phrase. It wasn’t quite so elegant in Danish, and “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain” became “En snegl på vejen er tegn på regn i Spanien” – A snail on the road is a sign of rain in Spain. At least they got Spain, right?

And I’m now a legitimate Copenhagen biker. We biked there and back, in the rain. I thought it a fitting first bike ride to the city.