Paco´s Life: Madrid

Copenhagen Life

People coming to this great city, you better pay attention (specially you Rafa). Here is the post about the life of a spanish exiled guy in this interesting place called København (Copenhagen for friends). No more funny stories about danish teenagers nor travel projects and let´s focus on giving my personal view about life here. I will start saying that, according to danish people, nothing beats summertime in Copenhagen. And, as far as I have seen, I definitely agree, maybe is because of the fact that, also according to them, we are having the best weather in the last years. There are cities in which having sun is not too important and other ones in which is essential. Copenhagen belongs to the second group, there are hundreds of parks spread all over the city, lakes in the center and the bay next to the city. All of them offer you a really simple plan to spend the afternoon. It basically consist on getting a good provision of Tuborg beer, wine or whatever is available, get together with some friends and spend the time laying on the grass only worrying about chatting. If you add complements such as those “portable one time use” Danish barbecues that I could not try so far but I saw everywhere then the picture becomes idealic. It is a real pleasure to get lost in any of the parks and see all those danish happily hanging arround, eating shitloads of saussages, playing rugby or just getting a sun-bath in bikini. Of course, with their byciles perfectly parked next to them. Nice isnt it? I dont know how long is this danish summer going to last, I am afraid that it will soon become just a nice memory so I better take advantage of it. It may sound unbelievable but I even had time to have a couple of baths in beaches which do not envy much to the ones we have in Spain, I am the kind of person who always find the water cold but the temperature here is perfect for me. Not to mention about that bath naked at 6 am in one of Copenhagen´s central channels, anyway that´s a really though history that I better dont explain too much… So, my conclussion is that Copenhagen is a perfect place to spend the time withouth doing anything too complicated. My Scandinavian guide says August is the time for festivals here, let´s see how they are…

About the locals, I can not say I am getting really involved with them, my friends circle is reduced to other foreign people, I will talk about them further, but the truth is that the impression I have about danish is really possitive so far. They are friendly and smiling, always willing to help you when you ask them for something. Concrete examples: I book my flight ticket to Singapore in a danish web so I get confirmation in that language, nobody speaks Danish in my work so I go to the office next door to ask a woman working there that I didnt know before. She takes the paper and fully translate it for me, it seems that I have to pick up the ticket in the airport and then, even though I did not ask for anything else, she takes the phone and call the Scandinavian airlines office at the airport to ask for the collection time table… Another example, it happens to be that I am very ankward and I forget the card which opens the garage where I leave my bicycle, I ask to someone who was arround and he says he can´t open the door either but he offers to drive me home. Not to mention about that woman who spent a lot of time explaining me how to deal with that public laundry I have to use due to my neibourghs courtesy. Always with a perfect English and a big smile. And nothing makes them more happy than listening how you say “thank you” in Danish (Tak!). Obviously what I still have to do is to become friend of a Danish guy on my age and start checking out how they live. I have got the feeling that they behave like Germans, they are not too friendly until they get drunk. Then they become all simpathy. The other day I was getting home at 3 am, I got into the backyard and there was a couple of my young neibourghs drinking like hell with their checks girlfriends. So I was locking the bicycle when I heard them shouting. Are they calling me? No way, it must be someone behind me… No! they are actually calling me, lets see what they want… and what they wanted was basically that I joined them and get drunk with them. So a few more beers before hiting the bed, is a pity that the checks girls got very drunk and they need to take them home. But I tell you, next time I meet them when they are sober I am sure there will be back in the cold version. For those of you interested in the danish teenagers hardcore stories, that night, at 4am, I found Sara and her friend inside Sara´s room with two guys.. I dont wanna know when the guys left…

So, not too much social life with Danish so far. Who am I hanging arround with then?. Well, so far it´s all about three great and very different between them characters. First, Leo, the ICEX guy here in Copenhagen, a friend of St Domingo(you better get ready for your visit Jose) my computer mate when the trainning in Madrid. Yes, true, this ICEX thing is like a big family, you end up having friends even in hell Big man this Leo guy, he is totally in love with the country, deperately looking for a way to stay here. He says I brought him bad luck just because I made him Flint and the guy does not remember anything about that night and woke up full of wounds. A witness recently told me the reason: he fell down from the bike, but the funny thing is that he was stopped at that moment, he just fell down like one of this slow motion movies. I knew bikes were not a good thing. Anyway, nice guy, I hope he wont be kicked out from the ICEX because of getting involved with my nights out in the middle of the week. Good luck with your job search man, I hope you can make it to stay here.

Then we have another experienced night professional, one of the best I ever met, maybe only at the level of that legend called Lolo that I met in Newcastle. His name is Giorgos, greek and work mate. He has been in the city four years and perfectly knows all the places. Good guy for you girls, plenty of money, luxury car and apartment… And an unnatural skill to drink as much as we do but remain sober (or at least he looks like he is). Spectacular, he always has everything under control and is the person to ask next morning about what really happened the night before. One of my goals this summer is to get him drunk. Leo is a responsible guy, concerned about his very serious ICEX responsabilites and sometimes go home earlier but Giorgos never say no to the last drink and you can always count with him for any plan.

And finally (but not the last one), we have Anni, a finish girl who destroyed all my topics about that cold country. Very friendly and sociable girl but always teasing and teasing, whatever you say she has the funny answer, dont get into “verbal fights” with her because you will loose for sure! Definetely one of these persons you have fun with. Funny sentences, acid comments, jokes.. an essential company for these afternoons at the park I was mentioning before.

Appart from these people, I started to know some other promising people, Maria, Spanish, work mate of Leo, Morris, a chinesse guy who is known as a very effective womanizer (maybe because he is a great cook), Ioana, rumanian girl, work mate of Anni, and finally, today I will have a beer with my main blog reference before coming here: Ivan. But I promise I will manage to add some danish people to this collection before the end of the summer. So, you put all these things together, you shake it and you get the coktail of my life here. I am kind of pissed with all these trips cause in the end I wont have too much time to enjoy this but I guess you can not pretend to have everything…All right folks, thats enough for today, probably some of you already gave up reading. For the next chapter, when I will hopefullly have more info, I promise to talk about Copenhagen clubs. But that´s another history…