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Copenhagen is the largest city in Scandinavia at just over one million residents. But it doesn't have that big city feel at all. The neighborhoods of Copenhagen have distinct personalities, and people seem to shuffle into Vesterbro, Norrebro, Christianhavn or Fredriksberg according to their status as student, immigrant, yuppie or hippy. People move around at this calculated pace, all the time aware and seemingly appreciative of the many rules that govern every moment of their life. Thousands of bicycles pedal their way around the centre, looking straight ahead, with the canals and palaces and parks in the periphery. The metro runs unmanned and on time; the buses and taxis make up the majority of city traffic. No one seems to take mind when the weather turns from wispy white clouds to cold hard rain and back again in minutes. I understand well when this place is described as utopia. The Scandinavian model of government, this cradle-to-grave, everything fresh and clean, and on time, works..here. I've now talked politics with enough Danes - and Norwegians and Finns, for that matter - to see where their vantage point lies. It's impossible for me to lookout from it, because you have to be born into it. It's surprising, and it gives some insight into the idealogical rift between European thinking and U.S.-centric thinking. Sorry to impose my thoughts, but it makes more sense in type than swimming around my head.

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The Copenhagen Jazz Festival has been running for at least a week, and I had the chance to catch some of it last night. There are many shows each day, spread all over the city, from the Copenhagen Jazzhouse to a dive in Christiania. I went down to the center to Mojo, a place I'd been once before a Thursday long ago with Tim Revelle. Mojo is a blues-only bar, and when you step from the cool street into the bar, the smell of smoke and the heat produced by sardine-packed patrons hits you at once. I don't smoke, and I hate when my clothes smell of it the morning after, but there's something about a smoky blues bar. And with a SRV-esque guitarist joined on the stage by a bass, sax and drum, a few Elephant beers taste all the better.

On tap for tonight: a Danish film, After the Wedding, and maybe another Jazz Festival show. Tomorrow brings a day of class, a Kathrine "house party", and my first trip out to the Kulor Bar. Then departing for Berlin..