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Tuesday, July 23rd – Copenhagen, 7512 km
I wake up alone at 10 am. Kresten is already up but I am tired and it takes more than the usual effort to get out of bed. Nigel, Kersten's ex-lover, has brought us over fresh breads and joins us for breakfast, which Kresten has been busy preparing. Nigel is Spanish and he is using the bread delivery as an excuse to escape his visiting in-laws from San Sebastien. Nigel is as interesting to talk to, compassionate, sensitive and, unlike Kresten, a much better listener. He tells me he "married" (registered partnership) his Spanish lover here in Denmark last here and now his family has come up to meet him. He has left his lover to attend his family for the duration of our breakfast.
Kresten has AIDS and has many medical conditions associated. After breakfast he develops a strong headache, an aftermath of a bout of shingles he had several years ago. His gaunt features and sunken eyes with dark shadows remind me of a man with AIDS I worked with as a 'emotional support buddy' three years ago, who has since passed away. His muscles were atrophying with his failing health. Kresten looks weak and ill. He is clearly intelligent but his confused instructions last night seems to indicate that his mind has been affected. I am concerned for him.
In spite of his discomfort, he still plays the Servas host after Nigel leaves. He has procured a map of the city and indicated on it several interesting attractions I might want to see. I tell him I have a guide book so there's no need for him to explain every one to me, so that he can get to bed. 
I head out to explore the city, walking first down to the end of his street, which meets a major traffic artery that passes the yellow-walled Assistens Cemetery that Kersten told me about. Hans Christian Anderson and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard are buried here. The wall is two and a half metres high so it provides privacy for those who sunbathe naked on the graves. Apparently it is the only place within the city limits where one can bathe nude. Kersten says when he dies he wants to be buried here, so he will lie in peace knowing young naked people will be lying above him from time to time. 
I continue downtown to the central square and find the nearest park to catch up on my journal writing. I am excited by the vitality of this city it is very walkable and scenic. The number of handsome men is astounding too. My time in Berlin has done anything but quench my thirst for more men so my eyes and checking every man out, and Copenhagen is the perfect place for that. 
I walk past Tivoli, the famous amusement park from the 19th century, the first of its kind, but I don't feel like going in at this time. I have been told it is a must see but that it is best in the evening and for some reason I do not feel like going in alone. I continue on to Nyhavn and to the ticket office where I get information on cruise ships leaving for Oslo. Dozens of people are lined up to check in and board tonight's ship. A woman in the line-up tells me the cheapest ticket would cost 525 DK. The fare is about three times more than what I hoped it would be. I walk away downhearted.
I am in the perfect mood to call home to Toronto, the land of disappointments. I decide to call Mark Cashmore, the fellow I was dating when I left. When I am feeling lonely I usually still think about him, even though I haven't received a letter from
him through Poste Restante since Seville in early May. He answers. It's morning back home. He's doing fine. We exchange platitudes but nothing deeper. He says he has tried to write me, whatever that means. There isn't any sense of intimacy between us in the call. He's probably moved on to one or more guys, knowing Mark, and our time together now seems a world away for me. Time moves at a different speed when I am one the road. A week ago feels like a month away. All I learn from the call is that I am more disassociated from my habitual home life than I have ever been.The call drains me of the remainder of my Danish currency. I only have enough for a coffee at PAN. This realization, along with the cost of the ferry to Oslo, has me in a financially-induced depression. So I go to PAN and find a seat in the courtyard. PAN is a government-owned and controlled chain of gay bars, which is an astonishing concept to me. There is a PAN bar in every major Danish town to ensure there are local meeting places for gays across the country. Just sitting here alleviates my depressed mood. There's a live band on this late Tuesday afternoon. They are playing a rendition (i.e. impersonation) of Louis Armstrong's "It's a Wonderful World" and it is as if I am hearing and feeling the song for the first time. It goes right to my heart.
I call Kersten, thinking he might be expecting me back at any moment. He's preparing a potato salad for dinner and needs another hour so. I change more money at the train station nearby and then return to my courtyard table at PAN.
This time I am sharing my table with a hunky, soft-spoken Finn who now lives in Malmo, Sweden, across the strait from Copenhagen. His name is Alta. He's bigger than I usually like my men to be, and as quiet and bland as Melba toast, but he has a charming smile and thick black horn-rimmed glasses that disguise his rugged features and give him a delicious, nerdy appeal.
We are joined by a slender, blond, out-going Dane who seems to be interested in me. I ask him his name. "Dan, as in DANmark, not DENmark", he replies with a somewhat accusatory tone, as if he is lecturing me even though he hasn't heard me say the name of his country. He asks me my name. "Ken, as in HeineKEN," I answer, holding up my bottle of Heineken. Alta comes alive for the first time, breaking into a reel of laughter. Dan is mildly taken aback at first, but from that point onward we have great fun exchanging wisecracks while Alta sparkles with laughter. I excuse myself at the end of the hour to return to Kersten's for dinner. I ask them if they will be going out to the disco here later. Dan isn't sure but Alta says 'probably'. Kersten has made a lovely dinner of potato salad, green salad with a whipped cream with sugar vinaigrette, meatballs and wine. He puts the meatballs on to fry as I walk in the door. I enjoy his conversation more tonight, as he takes an interest in what I have done. He seems more focused and determined to enjoy himself too. After dinner he offers to go out with me downtown. I secretly wish he'd let me prowl on my own as I am hoping to get lucky with either Dan or Alta.
Kersten insists on taking a taxi. He wants to take me to a bar called Hollywood, but I tell him I am hoping to meet Dana and Alta at PAN so we go there instead. We are too late, however. Dan and Alta are both there but Alta has become seduced by Dan's charms and is clearly only interested in him. I try to hide my disappointment as they leave, their arms around each other as they stop to kiss in the doorway. The wind is out of my sails but I stay to enjoy Kersten's company as best I can. He is getting drunker by the minute and is fondling every younger man who crosses his path, with no positive results. I chat with Jurgen, and older cyclist who takes a brief interest before he disappears into the disco and doesn't return. We meet a tall, pleasant, older fellow named Erik who tries to chat me up. Kersten makes a fool of himself, coming onto him in an insistent, groping way until Eric rejects him bluntly. He sticks around though, because he likes me. Ironically, he does nothing for me.
The three of us head to another dance bar, the Pink Room, but it is dead on this Tuesday night. Kersten is annoyingly drunk and not in the best mood after receiving his well-deserved rejection, so we convince him to take a cab home. Erik asks me home as soon as Kersten leaves, but I turn him down. He invites me to walk with him and I do. He tries a couple more times to convince me to come home with him, wrapping his arms around me, kissing me and groping my ass, but I am unmoved. I leave him near the Tivoli, where he immediately goes cruising through the bushes looking for men. I glance back a minute later and catch a glimpse of him on his knees going down of some stranger, and I instinctively wipe his kiss off on my sleeve.
It's a warm, clear night as I walk back through the city. It is quiet and peaceful. If I was walking home in Toronto on a weekend the streets would be crowded. There would be a steady stream of uncouth young thugs bellowing from the safely of their cars at every woman they see, "Hey Baby, sit on my face. I'll guess your weight and eat the difference," and occasionally hanging their unshaved scrotums and ass cheeks out the window for the world to see. But this is Copenhagen. It is safe and civilized. When I enter Kersten's apartment I can hear him snoring.
PHOTO 1: Assistens Cemetery
PHOTO 2: Soerne So, one of the four rectangular lakes by the core
PHOTO 3: statue of chess players by Soerne So
PHOTO 4: in Copenhagen's downtown
PHOTO 5: city of spires, this one made from 4 crocodiles' tails
PHOTO 6: bikes outside a cafe
PHOTO 7: elevated bike lane between sidewalk and road
PHOTO 8: Copenhagen harbour in the evening
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