Fresh air babies

Okay, yes, more on the Danish babies. Because here's the thing - I'm actively looking forward to being back in the US so I can confirm to myself that the level of babies in the outdoors here is really way more than I'm used to, I'm not just a crazy person stalking babies.

Fresh air. Danes LOVE it. No matter the weather or occasion opening the windows to let in some air is always a good plan. Your bedroom might but frigid as a result but hey! The air is fresh. The fresh air thing combined with the much lower level of germ-phobia concerning babies means that I'm NOT CRAZY - babies are EVERYWHERE. It's not only the fresh air though - Danes are simply much less germ-ophobic (on the whole, yes of course I'm making generalizations) than Americans. I love my litle baby niece very much and I love her parents... but she doesn't go outside NEARLY as much as these babies. She's totally fine. A couple days ago when I was studying for my exam at the nearby library I noticed a baby half-crawl / half-wriggling toward me. She was basically doing the worm - you know, pre-crawling. And squeaking and drooling. Her mom was just casually printing something on the public computer while the baby wriggled away on the floor in a public building. Americans would NOT BE DOWN with that.

In May 1997 there was actually an incident in New York where a Danish tourist was arrested for leaving her 14-month daughter outside in a buggy while she ate lunch inside. Danish Mother's Arrest Blamed on Culture-Clash. It's funny in a certain light because our understandings of parenting are so vastly different... but was also a crazy nightmare for this family - the baby was taken away by Child Protective Services.

To prove my point I did a little survey on my bike yesterday.... I calculated babies per kilometer along my commute to school. I mostly relied upon baby-buggy sightings.... because damn, Danish baby buggies are large and in charge. But there was one occasion when I spotted a free-floating, sans buggy baby in the arms of her father and two occasions when I saw babies in one of the Christiania bike sidecars. I won't try to describe, here's a photo:

I also spotted two self-propelled toddlers (they were walking...) that almost qualify as babies. There are plenty of these about... I didn't count them for my stats unless I got a visual on a baby. I figured it would be reasonable to bike around without a baby in the cart but it would be pretty inexplicable to push a baby buggy around without the baby so it was a safe bet that where there is buggy one can find baby.

The stats!

TRIP ONE:
From Falkoner Allé to Enghave Station via H.C. Ørsteds Vej
               Distance traveled: 3.1 kilometers
               Babies spotted: 37
                              2 Christiania bikes; one containing three children, one containing two children
                              1 buggy carrying twins
                              2 toddlers in snow suits ambling along with a grandparent
             
               BABIES PER KILOMETER: 11.93

TRIP TWO:
From Vesterbrogade to Langelandsvej vis H.C. Ørsteds Vej
               Distance traveled: 2.5 kilometers
               Babies spotted: 19
                              1 baby being carried around without a buggy
                              1 Christiania bike with three kids
                              3 unattended babies outside shops
               Temperature: approx: 7 degrees Celsius

               BABIES PER KILOMETER: 7.6

Side trip:
From Enghave station to Sydhavn station
               This is a largely industrial area.... in other words, not where you'd forcedly expect to see the babies out in force. But I saw no less than four babies in this 1.3 kilometer stretch. That's a little more than THREE BABIES PER KILOMETER, FOLKS.

So what to do with this information.... valid question. I dunno, it's just kinda interesting. Lots of babies.

               

Danish babies here and there, Babies in the public sphere, Danish babies everywhereee

I have been harping on this for months.... Denmark is FULL OF BABIES. It's really pretty overwhelming. I've contemplated doing a survey of my bus rides - the frequency / number of babies per bus ride. But I'm not dedicated enough to baby statistics to pull that off especially since I bike now unless I'm going out and saturday night at 2am is not the highest baby-traffic time. Even though I HAVE seen people pushing strollers around like it ain't no thang on friday at 11:30. I've also considered surveying the relative amount of men and women with babies on public transit... for SURE more daddies with babies in public here than anywhere in the US. If only I had little research assistants to do my bidding, the number of sociological surveys we could get done!

As I write here in a cafe near my house I can see no less than three babies. One baby cries as her mom rocks and soothes her, another happily squirms after having finished up a big bottle of lunch, and a third naps while parents eat lunch. About 15 minutes ago two little boys who were very recently babies left with their parents... they were wearing matching danish-child outfits of rain boots, huge colorful raincoats, and striped t-shirts that are probably more hip than anything I owned before college.

A joke I heard recently:

American: "Why are there so many gay nannies in Denmark?"

Dane: "... those are the children's fathers..."


(You could also insert Sweden or Scandinavia or Norway for Denmark there.... as with most Scandinavia jokes I've ever seen - unless it's one group at the expense of the other)

Think I'm kidding??? here are some real live photos of babies in carriages in Copenhagen. EVERYWHERE, I tell you. The first three I just found online but the others I took along the lakes, in Nørrebro, and in Assistens Kirkegaard respectively.

People sometimes leave their babies outside in the buggies while they eat / have a coffee date... oh trust and social cohesion. This photo nicely shows how black-on-black-on-black fashion also extends to the baby accessory realm.

Inventive baby bikes...

This looks like a Lagkagehuset, a popular bakery chain... and one extremely attentive Danish baby.

Also note in the right lower corner the baby bike seat.... One of my favorite scenes in Copenhagen is someone biking along with their baby totally asleep, strapped into one of these seats, flopping around behind them. They're totally safe, don't worry. Danes are nothing if not attentive to child bike safety.

That's just cute.

Danish baby wizards

My life has been somewhat of a time warp the last week. Since I've been sick I can count the number of times I've left the apartment (three) and streets I've walked on (two). So I've had time to crawl through my roommate's dvd collection and listen to the entire 20 hour Jim Dale-narrated Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.... and well into the Half-Blood Prince. This thorough look through HP has afforded a fresh perspective on Danish society, because why not!

Here's what I've got: "balance bikes" are for Danish society what toy broomsticks are to Harry Potter society. Both literal and metaphorical training wheels for life.

Toy broomsticks, which allow a young witch or wizard to fly very slowly only about two feet off the ground, were first mentioned in a letter written by Lily Potter to Sirius Black thanking him for the toy broomstick that he sent to Harry for his first birthday. In book four Ron and Harry pass two little witches playing on two broomsticks while walking about the campgrounds at the Quidditch World Cup.... a passing ministry approaches the scene, muttering to themselves, "In broad daylight! Parents having a lie-in I suppose...". The little Danish balance-bikes are so utterly normal here and so utterly interesting to me. Essentially rather than training wheels or pedals the kids push themselves along. So they're less likely to fall and more likely to practice their balance than on, say, a tricycle. 

I relish watching little kids scurry along after their parents on their "balance bikes" because it is so utterly clear that they are practicing their version of how it is normal to live life.... with a bike. Just like the little wizard babies! We all have a normal, whether or not we admit.

THEN I get to thinking (no I'm not dropping the metaphor yet) - I'm a Muggle born to Danish society. And there's nothing wrong with that! I will never be a pure-blood, but that shouldn't exclude me or mark me as lesser.... and if we want to bring back in the baby broomstick. I did not ride around on baby balance bikes as a wee kiddo.... but I'm fine biking. Some of my Danish friends might beg to differ, but I'm learning! Just like Hermione and Harry didn't grow up playing with toy broomsticks (apart from the one Sirius gave him until he was one) - but there's nothing less magical about them. So of course then I have to start thinking about integration, immigration, assimilation.... what model is Harry Potter really bringing forth? Seems pretty assimilationist actually - it's not like Hermione gets to bring in her life from the Muggle world more than the occasional mention of floss and dentistry since her parents are dentists. They only appear rarely in the series. But then again one of the most marvelous things about the Harry Potter series is the emphasis it places on giving everyone a fair chance, love, equality, kindness, not caring where someone is from but what they're all about and where's they're headed.

Conclusion: Harry Potter is always relevant.

Scandinavian Public Transit / Fredricksborg Slot

Today I'm feeling like one sick puppy so I am home in my pajamas, listening to Harry Potter.... 8 chapters into the Goblet of Fire already. It's sort of good to be reminded by my body that I need to slooow down and take a moment to do a little bit of nothing. Our course exams are coming up - mine is on the 24th. We have the choice between a 24 hours written and a half hour oral exam. I'm doing the oral... I'd rather have it more quickly over with than anxiously losing sleep for a day. And I like to talk.

Public transit. I don't have much to say about the actual workings of public transit.... it's much better here than a lot of the US, especially the West Coast, which is my referent for American. About a third of Copenhageners simply bike... which of course significantly lessens the burden placed on public transit and roads. Biking isn't a hip eco-friendly or athletic statement about who you are... it's mostly just a way to move around. I love my bike :) It's only one gear and I've got quite the beast of a hill up to my place, but all the better for my workout.

BUT WHAT I MEANT TO TALK ABOUT - Danes / Scandinavians on public transit. My Finnish friend, Lotta, told me a story the other day that so beautifully captures the atmosphere on Danish public transit that I have to share. She was reading a Swedish book on the train (Swedish is her first language, not Finnish), sandwiched in between two guys - one who she presumed was a Dane and another who - !!! - was reading a Swedish book as well. She contemplated striking up a conversation with him - he's a cute guy, reading an interesting book, in Swedish, they have some time before the central station... but then she decided against it thinking - "no nono, Lotta you don't bother people on the train!" So instead she leaned her book pointedly into his field of vision, near to his book. Nothing. When the other guy at the window seat got up to pass them a bit later she said "Excuse me" to the maybe-Swedish guy with as thick a Swedish accent as she could muster. Didn't work out.

This seemed like such a caricature of Scandinavians interacting in the public sphere that I had to sphere. I have gotten better at the subtle body language that says "my stop is coming soon" and saves you from actually saying anything to your seat mate.

On Tuesday, Lotta, Hege and I visited Fredricksborg Slot in northern Sjælland! Sjælland is the island Copenhagen is on.... Fredricksborg slot is the largest Renasissance castle in Scandinavia. It's been a national museum since the late 1800s and is full of paintings depicted various stages in Danish history. It was particularly cool to be there with Hege and Lotta because of their own connects to Nordic history...  In one room there was a painting of a Danish guy who was the founder of Hege's town in Southern Norway and a guy that has supermarkets in her town named after him. There was of course many battles with Sweden and Norway as well. The weather for our trip was less than perfect.... but that made it a little bit hilarious and "extreme". Here are some photos... the first is of me sprinting across the large castle courtyard in order to limit my time in the torrential downpour and tropical storm caliber winds.

Bikes and photos...

Hello all! We've been very busy with the summer academy the past week... I have led two days as the "program coordinator" which was pretty stressful but a good experience. I really enjoy the program fellows but it has often been extremely frustrating to be responsible for facilitating debates / dialogs with the speakers because I do not find their way of interacting with speakers to be respectful. Even now as I'm writing this I am listening to one of the fellows ask a LONG long question... it's hard to navigate. But I do like them all a lot on an individual basis - it'll all work out in the wash (like my mom says, haha).

 

But anyway.... above is a photo of the Danish metro system... taken by Eda Tibet, an amazing photographer who is one of the fellows on the program.

 

Here is a photo from the "Constitution Day" celebrations that I talked about last time. This guy is AWESOME. I major activist and voice in Nørrebro. He has collaborated on some songs with Aisha Fukushima, who heads up the RAPtivism movement for global justice. http://raptivism.tumblr.com/

 

 BIKES!

Hello Again - I have not quite figured out how to do paragraph breaks on this thing... they show up in the draft but not when I post it - so my apologies for now! These last few days I have been having quite the cycling experience!

Copenhagen is an insanely good place to bike. It's SO so flat, there bike lanes absolutely everywhere, and it's just how most people get around. Still... Thomas was quite nervous about me being on a bike. He went over the hand signing and traffic rules with incredible urgency. As much as I can obviously ride a bike, Copenhagen biking is NOT for the faint of heart. On the one hand cars respect bikes… but bikes don’t always respect each other. As the program director of HIA put it to me this afternoon, "Bikers in Copenhagen don't necessarily tolerate - well, they don't tolerate it if you don't know the rules". Danes are big on "tolerance" so that's saying something. The art of turning left in Copenhagen is my next hurdle. You have to cross the street and pull over and then turn with the other lane... all very interesting to read about, I'm sure. Seriously though, learning to bike in Copenhagen is, in my opinion, the absolute best way to see the place and get attuned to the 'beat' of it. I already feel much more centered and comfortable after just a couple days of exploring. I notice myself fading in between tourist and worker. When I have somewhere to be by a certain time I feel much more in synch with the flow of traffic and the city generally.

Because let's face it, Copenhageners don't head to the palace and little mermaid every day. Then when I don't have anything specifically to do - like the later afternoon today - I find myself meandering, checking the map more often. That's also nice. I toodled around the Marble Church, Amalienborg Castle courtyard, and the King's Garden. Still, I'm looking forward to getting more and more into the rhythm of living here. Anyhow! I've been having some meetings with the HIA staff and also had a chance to meet with the senior fellows network. I think I might run to be on the Senior Fellows Board next year! Great way to keep in touch with people, integrate into the senior fellows network, and of course practice my Danish.

Major Danish successes today = buying a transit card for logistics over the next couple of days all in Danish and carrying on enough of a conversation with an old man today in a church courtyard that he didn't realize I don't speak Danish. But who knows how deaf he is so I'm not giving myself a standing ovation on that one. Thomas and Sarah continue to be SO so kind to me. They want me to have “real Danish rye bread” so started making it on Monday – it’s a process.... SO GOOD. Really hard on the outside and moist/amazing on the inside. I will definitely be trying to recreate it with their guidance. 

Looking very much forward to the summer program... the final schedule is all printed and ready to go! It's a bit of a strange, amorphous role I play - I'm on staff but also the go between between participants and staff. A challenge to balance but it's going to be just great. Kærlighed til jer alle, Alice