This weekend I am in Copenhagen, meeting friends and getting inspiration for my current WIP, Maybe Tomorrow. And, as always, this city never disappoints. One of the things that I love about coming to Copenhagen is that–even when the weather is not stellar–there is always something interesting to do.
This weekend, everyone in Copenhagen is Eurovision crazy. Don’t know what Eurovision is? It’s an annual song contest that is most famous for introducing ABBA to the world. They won with the song “Waterloo”–which I think everyone and their mom knows. When I moved to Europe, I had no clue what Eurovision was. I still don’t really get the insane hype around it, but I guess the closest thing we have to it in the US is Idol, X-Factor or America’s Got Talent. And those are three programs I don’t watch and never found interesting so I guess that’s why Eurovision is lost on me.
Anyway, to get back on topic, all of Strøget has been taken over as the Eurovision Fan Mile. There are free concerts going on and outdoor screens if you want to follow the final tonight (I think I will skip it, but it’s amusing watching all the people dressed up). For those of us who don’t care about Eurovision, the local pubs and bars are always a good place for people-watching, which I will do later after I’ve had dinner.
Already, I’ve come up with some good ideas for where to set scenes, soaked up some atmosphere. Last night, after dinner, I had a drink in the courtyard of the very hotel that inspired Maybe Baby. While I was sitting there, a young Danish woman and her boyfriend joined me. They saw I was jotting down notes and asked if I was a journalist. I told them I was working on a novel. The woman laughed and said, “You could write a novel about Danish men! They are wacky!”
I told her about Maybe Baby and she looked it up immediately on her iPhone and then she said, “Now I bought it in paperback!” Then she showed me her purchase confirmation. Nice! 🙂
I asked her boyfriend if he thought Danish men , like Swedish men were slow to approach women. Before he could even answer, his girlfriend said, “Danish men take forever to approach Danish women–but if they see a foreign girl they like, they don’t waste time. They just go for it.”
I then asked her boyfriend if this was true, and he said, “It’s because Danish women are scary intense.” He grinned and then told a charming story about how he met his girlfriend at a party a few months ago and how she made sure it was clear to everyone, through body language that he was going to be hers. Then he blushed and said, “I’ve never been pursued like that before. It was kind of sexy but kind of scary too. But see? Now we’re together, so good she knew what she wanted.”
Maybe I will have to put some of this in my new book.
