There is something about a full moon that makes me stop and look. At Nyvayn, with the moon hanging bright above the dark landscape, the night seemed unusually still.
The moon waxes and wanes, growing brighter and then slowly disappearing from view. We tend to think of the full moon as the complete version, but it is only one moment in a much longer cycle. In a few days, the light will begin to thin again, and eventually there will be only a sliver.
Perhaps that is what I like about it. There is no need for every phase to be full or bright. The moon simply moves through them, one after another.
It was a mere 1.7km on paper, a perfectly manageable distance by any measure. But by the time we reached the Little Mermaid, I wasn’t thinking about Hans Christian Andersen anymore; I was wondering whether a nose could actually freeze off.
I knew Wellington, New Zealand, was famous for its winds. What I didn’t know was that Copenhagen could be just as relentless. And I certainly wasn’t expecting it to feel colder than Tromsø. It was, and my carefully packed winter wardrobe proved no match for the biting wind.
At some point, the hubs suggested we cut inland, or take an Uber. But I insisted we keep going. Apparently, I had become very committed to the Little Mermaid.
Suffice it to say, it was the longest and most painful 1.7km I’ve ever walked.
By the time we arrived, I simply couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm as everyone else gathered around the monument. I was cold, miserable, nursing a headache—and, as it turned out, my nose hadn’t frozen off. I just couldn’t feel it anymore.
The face of someone questioning every life choice that led to this 1.7km walk.
Maybe it was the biting wind talking, but I found the Little Mermaid surprisingly underwhelming. She was much smaller than I’d expected, and the skyline was more smokestacks than storybook. It wasn’t exactly the fairy-tale setting I’d imagined.
In retrospect, I probably should have listened to the man and saved myself the misery.
