Jazz in the city

written by Lindsay

Late last week, we were trying to figure out what we would do for fun over the weekend. Our options usually include staying home and cleaning the house, walking to a nearby playground, attempting to go shopping (although everything we find is too expensive and we can't bring ourselves to buy anything) or going "out" somewhere to explore. I thought it might be fun to find some live music, so that Cavan could see people playing instruments. He loves getting the guitars out at home to play with them, and always pretends the bass guitar is an upright bass. I wish I had a picture of him doing it, cause he actually has really good pretend technique. Anyway, Tom looked online at the Copenhagen This Week site, and we actually found that there would be a free kids' jazz event at a coffee shop downtown. So Saturday, after allowing Cavan a short nap, we headed out by bus and train into the city.

Cavan does really well on the train these days. We usually take along a snack, a couple of his little animals, and a car and he is pretty content to sit all the way there. Once we got to the main train station in Copenhagen, it was about a 5 minute walk to the coffee shop called PH-Cafeen. This place actually reminded me of the coffee places back in Seattle, which seem to be pretty rare here. Street cafes, where they serve not just coffee, but food and alcohol as well, are much more common.

In the back room of the coffee shop, we found the show just beginning: the jazz musicians wearing grey wigs, and the MC/singer dressed up as god knows what. I couldn't understand too much of what she was saying, but throughout the show she was shedding some kind of grey fuzz all over the place. Despite the odd costuming and rather depressing story line, the music was great. Tom got us some drinks and a candy bar to share, and we sat and enjoyed some jazz for about 45 minutes. At that time, Cavan told us, "All done!" We had noticed some other families with small children making their exit already, so we didn't feel too bad about leaving during the show. And when Cavan's done, he's done.

It was still early in the afternoon after the show, so we decided to wander around the neighborhood and see what we could see. We began heading west toward Vesterbro, uncertain of exactly where we were, since we had neglected to bring our map book. Much to our luck, we stumbled upon a huge playground, hidden behind a very old-looking city wall or gateway. It was bustling with activity, with families out enjoying the rather warm fall day. Cavan took his time scouting the place out before finally deciding on some equipment to play on.

Around 4:30 we decided to head out of the city. We took the train to Holte, a small town about a 10 minute bus ride away from our house. There is a rather small city center there, with a few restaurant options. So we decided to have dinner out. Cavan had such a long day on little sleep, but instead of getting cranky, he got completely silly. He provided some really interesting dinner entertainment for us, including the unforgettable moment where we asked Cavan if he wanted to "boogie" (to the music) and he said "yeah" and pointed up his nose. We had such a great day,