Tivoli

Thursday, July 14, 2016--Copenhagen

My friend Kurt was out of town earlier staying at a summer house in Jutland.  He contacted me on Monday when he returned to see if we could arrange to meet, and we set today for the day.

I went to his place at 11:00.  He said he had made a reservation for us to have lunch in Tivoli.  We visited briefly about the problems he has been having with arthritis,  and he showed me the changes that have taken place there at the apartment since I was here last time.  Then we took the metro and train to town.

I've always found Tivoli to be interesting.  It has existed since 1843, has rides that are based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, and makes maximum use of its space.  In 1949, Walt Disney visited.  Then 7 years later he opened Disneyland which has rides that are based on Disney cartoon characters and makes maximum use of its space.  Everyone in American has always thought that Disney was so creative in coming up with the idea for his parks.  All he did was observe a park that had already been in existence for over 100 years and build a larger version personalized on his own cartoon characters.  The Disney parks are impressive, but Disney himself was more of a great adapter rather than an imaginative creator.

We walked around the park observing the people.  It was very crowded.  When I used to go in the afternoons, there were few people at that time.  It has always been more active at night when the lights are on and people are off work.  But Copenhagen has had a tremendous increase in summer tourism which can partially be attributed to the number of huge cruise ships that are either stationed here or make stops here.

There were many changes in the park since the last time I was there--new rides, new features, etc.  Most of the restaurants, however, are still the classics which have been there at least for decades.  We ate at Paafluglen which is in a glass house and specializes in Danish food--open-faced sandwiches, fish, meatballs, etc.  We each had a plate with the fixings for 3 types of open-faced sandwhich and a fried filet of plaice fish.

After eating and catching up on news in each other's lives, Kurt excused himself to go home and left me to enjoy being in the park a little longer.  I wandered around watching people and noticing the changes everywhere.

So far, I have been lucky with the weather.  It's like winning at the casino, since it is usually more likely for rain to fall than to have sunny days.  But I still have not used my umbrella.  And the air is fresh and nice--like the outdoors is air conditioned.

Note:  I will be in the countryside for the next 2-3 days visiting friends at summer houses.  Usually, there is no Internet there, so it's likely I will have to post my blog entries after I return to town on Sunday.