21 June 2018

A bit of catching up

I've gone through my camera roll and there are tons of little glimpses from the last couple of months. Here are a few;
March 25: I come by Nyhavn on a grey afternoon. I do understand why all tourists gasp when they see this, it must be the most postcard perfect place in Copenhagen.
April 1: We make plans to go to Berlin.
April 2: I go to the cinema with my brother to watch a French film from 1965, and the houses in front of the Cinemateket are lovely as ever, especially in spring evening light.
April 15: I've spent the night in my father's apartment in Østerbro. On my way out to get breakfast I pass by this little lady. It makes me think of my childhood in Paris.
April 17: I'm in Vesterbro and snap these colourful houses on my way.
 April 25: There is a sharp spring light in my living room.
May 5: The summer starts to arrive.
After a movie on May 8th, I look up and am overwhelmed by that special magic that spring fills the city with. It gets me every year, and I fall even more in love with Copenhagen.
The same evening I walk down Elmegade in Nørrebro.
May 9: Tine invites over for dinner in her garden. We drink bubbles and talk shamelessly about private stuff and laugh so hard. The neighbours are in for a treat...
May 13t: We're in Aarhus and take in the view of the city from Salling Rooftop and I walk down memory lane on Mejlgade where I lived from 2008-2009. How long ago it suddenly is...
May 19: We eat at Apollo Bar just off Nyhavn. The food is great - tartare and burrata - but it's still not summer yet so we get too cold and head inside for wine.
 I love this photo of ever beautiful Iben.
The next day is my niece's baptism, and Sølve and Fredericke are by far the coolest dressed guests (they always are).
May 23: I have morning coffee and a vulgar Danish at the Corner Café with Sheila from Canada. She's in Denmark over a few weeks and it's always nice to catch up.
On my way home, I cross the harbour.
May 26: We watch Klaudia and Jean-Luc get married in a little garden in Frederiksberg. I love those girls, we've known each other for 15 years now and we've had so many great experiences together. Witnessing one of us get married was definitely one of them!
May 28: I do my first tourist tour with an American family. I show them around Copenhagen and we're fortunate to have amazing weather and it's such a fun experience!
When we come home from Porto on June 4th, there's the most pastel of views from my father's apartment. I love the beginning of summer!
June 7: We eat sushi outside.
June 9: It's melting hot and I meet Chris for lunch at Auto.
June 10: I bike down Ryesgade after having visited a friend in her new apartment. It's a part of Copenhagen I rarely go to for some reason.
June 12: I go on a spontaneous roadtrip with Tine. We head up the coast and blast Céline Dion, Disney-songs and ABBA loudly from the car and sing along. It's one of my favourite things. When we get back to Copenhagen, I walk by a mirror on my way home and snap a rare selfie.
These days, I spend a lot of time working in my house. This is my view from the table where I write and whenever I'm stuck in a sentence, I look up and see my plants and all the colours and they make me so happy. I love living here.

11 June 2018

P O R T O

So, we went to Porto. It was my 30th birthday gift from my father and his wife, and we spent three days in the hilly, colourful, vibrant and interesting city, my first time in Portugal. And it will definitely not be my last; I felt I had been plunged into a place dripping with feeling, as if the city was bursting with life, and it was very inspiring. I took in the colours, the smells, the language and became quite taken. So here are a few glimpses of what we did;
Porto is a city of layers. The city's many hills make the buildings pop up as if they're fighting for the best spot. I like layered cities, and we walked so many hills!
After breakfast and a fleamarket-trip, we hit the Vila Nova di Gaia side of the city. Porto is on one side of the Douro river and Vila Nova di Gaia is on the other. All the port wine houses that the city is famous for are actually located on the Gaia side. We tasted our way through two port houses and felt perfectly happy afterwards.
I had booked a table at Cantina 32 for the night and it was the best food I've had for a long time. Interesting compositions and mouth-watering dishes that left us ooh-ah-ing all over the place.
Just look at this! It's not my personal taste but it looked so impressive.
Next morning, on our way to breakfast, we came by this tiled building that I'd seen on Instagram. He matched the tiles perfectly with his shirt and I get so happy every time I look at this photo.
After breakfast, we wanted to take an old tram out to the Atlantic sea but after having waited for about an hour, we jumped on one of those tourist buses instead. My father and his wife had brought port wine and cakes and it was happy times on the bus.
And we ate pasteis de nata by the sea.
The conquistador.
Walked past this little Wes Anderson-looking house and wanted to put it in my pocket.
On Monday, we only had a few hours in the city before our flight back home. So we walked across the impressive Dom Luìs Bridge and took the téléphérique back down. The views were amazing, even as the weather changed from sun to rain every few seconds.
Oh Porto, I'm definitely coming back!