That was a quote by Soren as we were wandered around Copenhagen yesterday. This is Swathi writing. We had such a wonderful time!! We took the bus from Pedja and Ditte’s home into the center of the city and mostly walked around, hitting up some toy stores, a burger restaurant for lunch, went on a boat tour of the city, then an outdoor food market for an early dinner before heading back home. It was a perfect blue sky day, although a bit cooler than we were prepared for!
It just feels so good to be in Europe again. The delicious baked goods, yogurt, cheese, and food in general, YUM! Soren has successfully eaten ice cream and oatmeal here without any vomiting issues. I love how much more thoughtful routine Danes are about life. For example, Pedja and Ditte live in a 2 BR apt, 3 floor walk-up exactly as we did when we lived in Manhattan – the difference being that they have a little grey shed to store the strollers/bikes whereas we had to carry those up and down all the time in NYC after Soren was born. While we both lived in more “dangerous” neighborhoods with families that were less well-off than us, the playgrounds here are much better than what we had access to in Washington Heights. It was such a pain to get to the waterfront from our apartment, despite being close to such a beautiful space. Here, there is an explicit attempt by the government to try to have people from different walks of life live in the same space and to integrate public housing. Danish people are notorious for being the happiest people on the planet. Sure of course there are problems here as any other place. But having reasonable financial and healthcare security go a long way in how much one is able to enjoy life. 1 year maternity leave, amazing childcare for all kids, these things help young families thrive instead of just get through the tough years. Kids get home-made meals and baked bread in their daycares. Yummm! Anyways, enough comments about society in general.
Short note about our wonderful hosts. I went to college with Pedja at the University of Pittsburgh, but would probably never have met him if it weren’t for my trip to Belgium where I studied abroad for a semester – Pedja was also abroad at the same time. We took an amazing art history course together where we traveled all over Western Europe with our class and visited museums, historical sites, and really had the best time ever. Pedja then did a Humanity-in-Action summer program at the end of his college years through which he went back to Europe and met Ditte, his now wife. Pedja then did the Peace Corps in Morocco where he befriended Clark, my now husband. Clark and I met at a chance encounter on the street when Pedja came to visit D.C. in 2011, when Clark was also living in D.C. A decade and 4 kids later…here we are! Awfully romantic isn’t it?
Today there is more exploration of Copenhagen awaiting us and another beautiful day 🙂
