Brunches and lunches are my thing. If only there is a haute lunch gastronomy culture that does not have to be so formal? Why is it that most Michelin-starred restaurants only epitomizes cuisine by way of dinner? Well if there is a lunch version, please sign me up! I’m definitely up for it. I am sure there is but I cannot seem to easily find them. Dinners for me have always been a traditionally love and hate event. I look forward to and don’t look forward to it. I can’t stand leaving a restaurant with a full stomach and with the notion that I only have a few hours to digest the food I gobbled before hitting the bed. Do you have that problem as well?
It was almost 16:00 when I strolled into Café Norden for a glass of Pinot Noir. I know, quite late for lunch. I went upstairs to check if the view would be better but the first floor was full, this café is so amazingly popular, there are no vacant tables or even seats to be found. So I went back down and saw a just recently vacated table for two on the corner. The red-haired girl sitting beside it confirmed that it is indeed free and gave way for me to sit down. I realised that she was not alone. Her mother was at the counter ordering food.
As I sat down drinking my wine and taking time inspecting the menu, their food came. A big bowl of scrumptious nachos. Umm, I like crunchy and salty. I have been eyeing the nachos option on the menu but I am a bit apprehensive in ordering it as I have an aversion to melted soggy cheese on squelchy nachos. Fortunately, looking at their bowl of nachos, it was not the case. The cheese are indeed melted on top but they probably use a different type of cheese that quickly dries up. I can see that the cheese clings to the nachos giving it a crispy effect. I can hear the crunch! Now, that seems more like my kind of nachos.
So I decided to order the same thing to go with my Pinot Noir, which by the way was really nice.
I guess having the same food and sitting beside each other got the conversation going. When travelling I am not the type who seek out other people to meet. I let events unfold before me, spontaneously and that includes the people I happen to meet along the way.
The fleeting meeting with this mother and daughter brought me to reflect about life. Life can be full of opportunities. But life is not always rousing and fair. It can rob us in fact.
It‘s like ‘Hello Goodbye’, the reality TV Amsterdam Schiphol airport series, but set in Copenhagen.
The mother told me that she has not recovered from her recent losses. She lost her husband 4 years ago to a sudden heart attack. Without any suspicion or imminent knowledge, in the middle of the night while they were sleeping in bed, he died from a heart attack. Death stole him away from her. After this traumatic incident, she lost her father, and then a friend. Now, her mother is just bidding time as she is terminally ill. I can feel the heartache in her voice and through her eyes as she narrates this. She is still going through the grief. She hopes to recover soon, one day and be able to move on with life. I cannot relate. Yet?
The daughter on the other hand is a student of the University of Denmark. She will go to the US next year in Pennsylvania for an exchange course program. She really wants to visit Boston and New York. I told her about my experience in Boston and New York and that she can take the 4-hour train ride. It’s better to arrive in New York from Boston by train than by plane because the airports are outside the city. You save time, money and the hassles. I can see in her eyes, the excitement, the zest for life and the will to learn and discover the future. Youth, something of my past.
Mother and daughter, two different lives, two different experiences, two different futures and two different wishes.
That evening I reflected about my life as well. Life is simple but why does man make it so complicated?
Travel Period: April 2012
Destination: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Happy Travels! Enjoy Life =)