Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/49418
her time out The silent carnival COPENHAGEN - IT HADN'T OCCURRED to us that our trip from Germany to Denmark might take us over water, so when our train boarded a ferry and we were instructed to disembark into the ferry's lounges, we followed the crowd, confused and disoriented. The only place to eat on the ferry was a steak and seafood restaurant. We sat at a table feeling like frauds and proceeded to eat greens from the salad buffet. I was excited to arrive on Danish soil — so close to Sweden, where I'd spent a year of my life and felt at home. Suddenly, things looked quite familiar from the window of the train. We passed beautiful villages full of dark red wooden houses and the sound of people speaking Danish warmed my ears. Copenhagen was white with snow. Liz shrivelled when we checked into our hotel, the schedule finally wearing her out. She wrapped herself in heavy hotel blankets and closed her eyes while I wrapped myself in a winter coat and wandered the darkening afternoon streets. The nearby square was like a Christmas wonderland. There was an excitement in the air, as though the whole city had been waiting for the month of December to arrive so they could justify an excess of fairy lights and silly behaviour. Buildings were elaborately decorated with Christmas lights, trees were lit up in sparkling white polka-dots, and neon advertisements that would normally appear tacky on beautiful old buildings suddenly seemed festive. There were people dressed as Santa walking with people dressed as reindeer, advertising Christmas sales. Sex shop windows advertised sexy Mrs Claus costumes. Danish Christmas music subtly leaked from stereos in every store. I walked into a busy shopping street and watched umbrellas popping open and closed in store doorways. I stepped over puddles of icy water where snow had melted and brushed flakes of white drops from my coat. I went into an H&M and bought a pair of black leg-warmers. I stopped at a steaming stand and bought hot sugared almonds packaged in a paper cone from an Australian man. The Scandinavians around me looked beautiful. Not beautiful like the Italians or French, who work hard at being beautiful by wearing expensive clothing and being immaculately groomed, but a more natural, simple beauty. They seemed clean and wealthy, yet not ostentatious. I adored being alone in this beautiful and strange place, surrounded by beautiful people walking through snow-covered neon-lit streets. I drifted back to the hotel to check on Liz. She woke just long enough to tell me she was sick and would miss the gig that night. Dining alone at a Thai restaurant, I bathed in the solitude. I 94 | December/January 2012 | HER MAGAZINE lounged in it like it was my grandfather's deep La-Z-Boy. When the waiter asked to take my order I sent him away so I could prolong my solo date. I sipped on a spicy tom yum soup and nibbled on white rice. I dipped crispy spring rolls filled with thinly sliced vegetables and vermicelli into a sweet, chilli sauce and I lingered over a sweet white wine as members of the Thai royal family watched from antique picture frames hanging on the walls around me. Local musician Dennis Mejdal was the promoter who had booked me to perform at his club night that evening. Klub Mini Vega was a singer-songwriter concert that took place once a month in a corner of the famous Vega venue. The space was filled with low coffee tables, loungy chairs and cushions sprawled across the floor. Dennis played a wonderful set, his deep voice singing accented English lyrics over plucked guitar. Then a British musician who went by the name of Bird played a cool and quirky set of tunes. The audience was intense. They were there to listen and their intensity frightened me a little. My voice was hoarse from the smoky bars in Berlin but I sipped hot water and managed to make it through my set. Much to my relief, the crowd understood me despite my accent and laughed at my travel stories and bad jokes about Germans. It was a full room, with bodies crammed into every space, perched on chair arms and sharing cushions. When I finished my set the crowd politely lined up to approach me with praise, recipes for my book and kroner for CDs. I quickly sold out of albums and had to taxi back to the hotel to pick up more. It was only a few blocks between the venue and the hotel but the ground was wet with melted snow and the sky continued to shed the occasional flake or raindrop. Luckily, a taxi stopped quickly and within 10 minutes I was back at the venue with the remainder of my tour CD stock. The line was still waiting for me and had started discussing recipes with each other. Only the last five people missed out on CDs after I sold out, leaving me both internally triumphant and slightly anxious at the prospect of having none left for Sweden. The evening's performers and some staff from Bird's Danish record label were the only people left in the bar when they asked us to leave. We'd been holding up the far end of the bar for several hours, complaining about the smell of the nearby men's bathroom, drinking peaty Scotch, eating lychees from an artist fruit basket and teaching each other swear words in various languages. Dennis told me stories about the architecture of Vega — a bizarre building with open stairways criss-crossing each other. He said that