Copenhagen

Lotje Deelman was editor-in-chief of ELLE Eten, has been working for Allerhande for almost 15 years, and worked behind the scenes on television programmes such as MasterChef, de Worsten van Babel On Tour and De Nieuwe Lekkerbek. She ate pig’s trotter with Anthony Bourdain and flirted with Gordon Ramsay in his Aston Martin. Lotje is the (co-)author of more than ten cookbooks and, in her kitchen in the Drenthe countryside, is never afraid to set something on fire. On FavorFlav, Lotje shares what’s on her mind every week. This time: a Copenhagen hater who just won’t stop.

I’m standing at the bus stop in Amstelveen. He’s there too. A friendly, but not particularly decisive-looking man in his late twenties. Expensive jeans, a nondescript windbreaker, a little beard somewhere between hip and I-don’t-care-what-I-look-like. She comes walking up. About the same age. Determined, practical, mid-length winter coat with a thick scarf on a fresh, sunny spring day. He greets her in English with a Mediterranean accent. I gather from their conversation that they work for the same company. The tone is light until she asks whether he’s doing anything special this weekend.

“Actually I am,” he says enthusiastically, “I am going to Copenhagen!” She freezes and says nothing in response. “To Copenhagen, for the weekend!” he says again, laughing. Maybe she didn’t understand him properly. She responds with a deep sigh, then says in a funereal voice: “I hope you’ll have a better experience than me.”

Silence

I suppress a smile and unobtrusively move a little closer so I won’t miss any of the conversation. He’s no longer laughing, and I see him hesitate. Afraid that he won’t ask her what she means, she launches into it. “I really don’t want to spoil it for you, but Copenhagen is a horrible city. Ab-so-lu-te-ly horrible.” He looks at the ground, at his shoes. Perhaps he thinks that if he ignores her, she’ll stop talking. She seems to take the silence as encouragement.

“The weather is really horrible in Copenhagen. Very cold and rainy”,  she says. He looks up hopefully from the paving slabs. He can work with this: “I googled it and it is about the same as here this weekend. Not too cold, and no rain”,  he says hopefully. And a little questioningly at the same time, as if she’s in charge of the weather in Copenhagen. She shakes her head resolutely. “I really don’t want to be the one telling you this, but the weather in Copenhagen is always much worse than here. Always.”

Pretty much everywhere

He recovers again and says that, of course, the weather isn’t the most important thing, but the city itself, the people, and good food and drink, naturally, are all the more important. She completely agrees. “But it’s a really dirty city. At least where I was. And I was pretty much everywhere.” Just as he is about to respond, the bus arrives, one of those extra-long ones. I lose sight of them.

BYM

I get off at Zuid Station, and as I walk towards the train, I hear in front of me: “Lunch. Guess what lunch costs in Copenhagen. Guess how much?” She doesn’t wait for his answer, but angrily lets loose, each syllable like a gunshot. “Forty-five euro’s. Forty-five. For two persons. With only one Carlsberg. Forty-five euro’s.” By now she genuinely doesn’t know how to stop. “I have only one thing to say to you if you are going to Copenhagen. Bring your money. Bring your money. That’s how expensive it is.”

I gently tap him on the shoulder and whisper: “I had a beautiful time in Copenhagen. Don’t listen to her. It’s a really nice, clean city, with really nice people and really good food.”  For a moment he looks startled. His eyes dart back and forth, from me to her and back again. Then he smiles. “Thank you. That’s a really nice thing of you to say.”

More Lotje? Read her other columns here.