Category Archives: Pictures

Grundtvigs Kirke

Lisbeth and I rode up to Grundtvigs Kirke today. (Kirke is church in Danish.) By European standards, this is a very new church, having been completed in 1940.

Grundtvig's Church, as seen through the Bispebjerg cemetaryLisbeth, looking at Grundtvig's churchGrundtvig's Church

Grundtvig (1783 to 1872) was a Danish theologian and priest who had a major impact on the church and education in Denmark. In addition to writing around 1500 hymns, he is credited for the creation of the “Højskole” schools — specialized schools that are still around today.

Lisbeth at Grundtvig's churchGrundtvig's church doorGrundtvig's church

The front the church, in my opinion, looks like a nuclear warhead. Lisbeth thinks it looks more like the pope’s hat (which, she admitted, also looks like a nuclear warhead.)

Grundtvig's santuaryGrundtvig's sanctuaryGrundtvig's santuary

The inside of the church is undecorated, and surprisingly beautiful. It’s very much unlike the vast majority of churches I’ve seen. There are no pews, for example. (Apparently there were originally.)

Grundtvig's santuaryThe organ at Grundtvig's churchThe organ at Grundtvig's church

There’s an incredible pipe organ opposite the altar — I’ve certainly never seen anything like it.

The organ at Grundtvig's churchGrundtvig's santuaryGrundtvig's church, from the side

As you can see in the first row of pictures, the church is next to a massive cemetery. Danish cemeteries are hard to describe and hard to photograph, but they’re beautiful. Each grave is offset with hedges, and there are trees and flowers everywhere. In fact, take the graves away, and it’s a beautiful park in its own right.

‘grats to the grads

It’s gradation time, and city is alive with the shouts and singing of thousands of happy and drunk eighteen year olds. Seeing legally drunken teenagers is weird, and their mode of transport is pretty strange too.

No seatbelts for us!Oh we're going to be hurting tomorrow!Take more pictures!

That’s right. They ride around the city all day in big trucks, some of which are clearly used to haul hay and cattle normally. They start in the morning with breakfast and drinks at one of the kid’s houses, and then they pile into the truck, and go to another kid’s house, where they have another drink, and so forth. They generally try to visit each kid’s house, so even for a class of 12… well, they get drunk — no question about that. The rest of the night is spent climbing on statues, fumbling with zippers and condoms, and throwing up outside bars.

It sounds terrible (except, perhaps not if you’re the one graduating), but there is a certain rationale to it all. I’ve asked a number of Danes about it, and they point out that the kids are going to get drunk anyway, so why not in a setting where they are accompanied by sober adults (a parent or hired driver is the only one that gets behind the wheel). Furthermore, since they are visiting each house, parents have a chance to prevent drunk kids from getting super-drunk.

But it’s still hard to get used to — especially the attitude of the adults. Last year I was watching a swarm of grads stumbling around and shouting, and one of my Danish friends smiled at them and said to me, “Isn’t it great to see young people having fun?” That’s amazing to me, because so many American adults, seeing a truckload of un-belted drunk teenagers shouting and waving bottles of beer around would call the police immediately.

But that’s a major difference. In Denmark the legal drinking age is fifteen. That means you can buy alcohol, but you can’t drink in a bar until you are eighteen. So a Dane is drinking legally six years before most Americans, and drinking in bars three years before most Americans.

I only know two things. First, the longer I live in Europe, the more bizarre it seems that most Americans can’t legally drink until they’re twenty one. Second, regardless of what your position is, these kids are having a lot of fun.

Around Midnight…

Up until recently I’ve done long-exposure shots using the camera’s “self-portrait” timer because touching the camera to trigger the shutter blurs the shot. Using the timer works, but it’s frustrating because you can’t always anticipate the action you’re trying to capture. The shortest setting is two seconds, and that’s a long time.

Rådhusplassen, as seen from VesterbrogadeWhere H.C. Andersen and Vesterbrogade meet..._Probably_ the best beer in town

I just got a wireless remote (Nikon ML-L3) and now I don’t have to anticipate shots anymore. These are the first pictures I took with the remote. They don’t do a fantastic job of demonstrating captured action (trains, after all, aren’t all that unpredicable), but I thought they were post-worthy pictures.

The tracks near Dybbølsbro stationThe tracks near Dybbølsbro stationThe tracks near Dybbølsbro station

I took these on one of the longest days of the year, at midnight, and, especially in these last shots, you can tell it never got fully dark.

Dybbølsbro stationDybbølsbro stationDybbølsbro station

Castles, gardens, and happy accidents

On Saturday, Lisbeth and I decided to see some sights outside of Copenhagen. I wanted to see a castle I’d seen pictures of, but I couldn’t remember the name, so she picked out Fredensborg Palace because she’d never seen it before.

One of many paths in the Fredensborg Place gardenPath to the lake in Fredensborg Palace

Fredensborg Palace was completed in 1726, and is home to the royal family during the autumn and spring. It is surrounded by a “slotshave”, or “castle garden”, which impressed me more than the palace itself. The garden has long straight paths that radiate out from the palace, and most of them are stunning canopies of folaige.

The shore of Lake Esrum, near Fredensborg PalaceThe shore of Lake Esrum, near Fredensborg PalaceLake Esrum, near Fredensborg Palace

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Summer at latitude 55

It’s still a month until the longest day of the year, but the days are already quite long — currently about 17 hours. I took these tonight, the first at 10:30 pm, and the second at 10:50 pm, and you can see the sky is still somewhat blue, even an hour from midnight.

dusk at 10:30 pm still not dark at 10:50 pm

It sounds great (and it is — don’t get me wrong, especially after a long, dark winter), but there are disadvantages.

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High tide, low light, long exposure

I know — there are a LOT of pictures of canals on this blog, but, well, they’re very pretty — and they’re all over the place. (There are canals in three directions from my apartment, each within a block.) But the main thing that prompted these pictures was the tide. I’d never seen it so high. The boats are practically at the same level as the cars.

Very high tide in Christianshavn canalVery high tide in Christianshavn canalVery high tide in Christianshavn canal

Look at the bridge in the third image. There’s no way anything but a row boat would have been able to pass that night.

These are six second exposures, which is why the water appears glossy and the lights are so dramatic. I took these in January, in case you’re wondering why there are no leaves on the trees.

Graffiti time

Copenhagen, like most cities, has a lot of graffiti. In most places it gets painted over right away, but in some places it stays up for a long time. Naturally the vast majority is an eyesore, but sometimes you’ll see stuff that is… not terribly painful to look at.

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Towers, piers, bridges, and fishlust

I went for a fantastic 44 kilometer ride on Saturday, down to the south of Amager. I went through Tårnby on the way down, which is a fairly unremarkable area, not far from the Ørestad area mentioned in a previous post. Unremarkable, except for this strange tower.

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My bike, my camera, and me

Copenhagen is a fantastic place to ride. There are bike lanes on just about every street, and bike racks everywhere. Better yet, drivers are terrified of bikers because legally it’s always the fault of the driver if there’s a bike/car accident. Now that it’s spring and weather is nice, I’ve been riding a lot. I took all of these pictures in the last two weeks.

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Ørestad City

In Copenhagen, there’s no shortage of old buildings, but you don’t have to go far to find new ones. On Amager, the island south of Copenhagen, there’s a building boom in progress, and every building is new. The area being developed is called Ørestad. The developers are marketing the central region as “Ørestad City.” There’s even an English version of the Ørestad website.

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