THINGS that HAPPEN in COPENHAGEN (part 1)

      BIKE CULTURE

The single most overhwhelmingly obvious thing about this city is that EVERYONE rides bicycles EVERYWHERE. The roads are so full of bikes that there can even be traffic jams in bike lanes. There is a sea of bikes on every street corner, you could easily injure yourself climbing over piles of bikes trying to get into the supermarket, and every quiet alley or nook is bound to have at least a few sad, lonely abandonned bikes in it…. It took me a while to get used to the cycling thing…. Often I look at the road and see more bikes than cars and still catch myself thinking ‘Wow, there must be some kind of bike race on or something!’….then I remember that I’m in Copenhagen, and it’s just normal. 

The thing is, the bike lane is between the parked cars lane and the footpath, and it looks a lot like a footpath, and the bikes on it go REALLY fast, which is not a good combination for people like me fresh from the land of Oz…. Not to mention that everything is happening on the wrong side of the road! However, I’ve developed a lot more awareness with this now, after a few near misses, and now I reckon I’m as savvy as any Copenhagener! Not only that, but I have a bike of my own now! Jorrit found me a sad abandoned bike, fixed it up, and now I’m riding around the city (and even out to the forest!) on my new set of wheels…. :-)
 

There are also special bikes called ‘Christiana bikes’ made in the Free Land of Christiana (another topic for another day) that have 3 wheels and a big box attached to the front of the bike, which conveniently carries up to 4 pre-school aged children, or your grandmother, or ALL your grocery shopping, or your building supplies for your home renovations, or...… ;-) Playgroup nannies use Christiana bikes to take the kids to the park etc, and many families use them as their main means of transportation…. What a nice way to travel!

It's a New World, it's a New Day, it's a New LIFE!

Hi lovelies!

So I’ve just created this blog as a way to keep in touch, without writing such long emails to everyone separately… This does not mean that I will no longer write personal emails, or respond to the ones you write me, it just means that you’ll be able to look here and have a vague idea of what is going on in my life and how things are in Copenhagen! The city has turned me into one of those people who doesn’t seem to have much free time, so I decided to start this blog in the interest of spending more of that free time outside riding my bike along the sea or through beautiful oak forests, exploring Copenhagen, or heaven forbid, doing yoga or EVEN meditating! Don’t expect anything too coherent here, it’s more likely to be a jumbled mish-mash of ideas, thoughts, musings and reflections…. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

So, since I moved here almost 3 months ago, I’ve been on a huge rollercoaster ride…. First the culture shock. The last place I lived before moving here was a big, beautiful treehouse in the hills of Mullumbimby, just a short drive to the beach, crackling open fireplace, super peaceful, a lovely little food garden, amazing living space surrounded by nature with wallabies, bush turkeys, our own chickens, the occasional goanna trying to eat the chickens…. You get the idea…. Life was very relaxing!

Here, I live in the city, with 35 flatmates instead of 2, on the 6^th floor of our yoga school building. My living space is a curtained off end of the attic (temporarily, as I am waiting for a room to be vacated). I’m suddenly in Denmark, I don’t speak Danish, and I don’t know how anything WORKS here…. (You know that feeling when even buying a bus ticket is a huge challenge!) Then, I’m working as a massage therapist… (We have a Therapy Centre as part of the yoga school) almost full time hours, so that’s a big change! However, I’ve settled in very well in the last few months, happy to be back in the same country as Jorrit again, I’ve made some wonderful new friends, and now I love it here, I know it’s exactly where I need to be right now.

I do what is called ‘Karma Yoga’ – the Yoga of action. In the yoga school, some of us work for the school full time, as Karma Yogis. We receive a space to live, our electricity, phone, gas etc paid, all our yoga courses paid, any extra retreats, events or workshops we want to do through the school are paid for (even in some other countries), 5 weeks holiday per year, AND an allowance for food, essentials and other things we want. It’s not enough to save, but it’s enough to live. And I’ll hopefully have some other little jobs on the side from time to time….

When I first arrived, it was FREEZING cold, I was wearing all my clothes at once and going outside involved an epic mission using all kinds of weird garments that we never really need in Australia – gloves, scarves, beanies, leg warmers, woolly socks, thermal fleece layers…. Luckily I arrived at the END of Winter, so it was only getting warmer…. And now it’s beautiful outside! Summer starts officially in a few days, but it’s already nice and balmy, we are all happy to be wearing our summer clothes again…. I’m loving seeing all the Copenhageners enjoying being outside in the sunshine after months of cold weather. The parks are filled with semi-naked bodies, they are even swimming in the sea already! I’ve been told to soak up the perfect weather while it lasts here, so that’s what I’m doing!