Copenhagen: First Impressions

I landed in Denmark, Copenhagen yesterday. The roads here are incredibly wide, the buildings are made out of bricks and look fairly sturdy, many of the buildings might even be mistaken as warehouses at first glance. I've milled about the city core for a few hours after getting in and I have to say that the interior design and decor of the apartments here are pretty slick from what I saw-- marbled walls in some buildings, nice lighting and beautiful furniture.

The city is beautiful. Though most of the buildings have a sort of rectangular shape to them. The buildings are adorned with sorts of character giving embellishments; designs on windows, artistic metal gratings and more.

Big

Other things that struck me was the sheer size of the people, huge, gigantic, but in a tall kind of way. Me, being fairly tall guy for Vancouver (and Japan), I felt like a midget when it came to the towering height of Danes. The women here are my height! The men are at least another head taller than I! Even the buildings here are big. I arrived at the train station for central Copenhagen last night and looked up to see a vast open space leading up towards the arched ceiling of their train terminal.

Tough

The people here look hardy, perhaps even gruff. Even their food tells you that they're tough. I had dinner here yesterday night and the portions were pretty big. A big chunk of meat, somewhat tough, with a salad topped with a kind of mayonnaise. I had breakfast this morning and the salami, ham turkey meat slices and cheese slices were big. I cut through some bread buns that screamed "tough." I could feel my jaw muscles straining as I ripped through every bite of the bun and every time I chewed. It almost feels like that you could simply become tougher just by living here. But that is not to say that the Danes aren't friendly. Actually, they're pretty damn lively.

Lively

These people laugh, a lot. Not just your usual, "ha ha" laugh, but a kind of hearty loud laugh that would echo through the street. I walked through the streets at night, it was nearly all that I could hear, either that or the sounds of lively conversation. Even as I write this entry in my hotel room, I can see the Danes sitting outside, perhaps 30 of them all enjoying breakfast (if you call it that now that it is about 11 am) smiling and eating. Even last night, there were fireworks *in the city* going off at midnight from an amusement park with a loud "crackle and boom." What an interesting place, I like it already.