David in København
– FREDERIKSBERG

Whatever you’ve purchased lately, it quite likely has travelled across oceans in a freight container owned by the company David works for. “Twenty percent of the world’s container cargo travels on our ships”, says this busy gentleman from Copenhagen in a striped shirt and a business suit, with the air of someone who has little time for lunch, if in fact he does take a lunch break at all. Seagoing today is very different from what it was in the days of pirates, Venetian explorers and Viking conquerors. What travels today, above all, are things, especially things in containers. “Computers, books, garments – we transport everything. We have over 600 container ships, and 27,000 employees all over the world”, David says. “This table probably travelled with us”. It’s a very beautiful table: irregular, large planks of aged wood, with holes and scars. You can imagine a thousand stories from the lifetime of this wood. “It comes from a port in South America; the planks were in a maritime station halfway underwater, and someone salvaged them to make this fantastic table”. Why did you choose this part of the city to live? I ask David. He smiles as if surprised, with a calm, bemused expression: because it’s the best zone in town, he says. “The apartments are very beautiful, in a style I enjoy, and there are lakes, small, pleasant streets, and elegant shops. I like it here. We have been content in this house, but now we are reaching a phase of life where we need a bit of land with some plants, so we are moving to a house with a garden”. David’s wife is a chef, and chefs are the true stars of our time – artisans who have become artists. “She works for a company that mostly organizes events – big ones, for one thousand people. In effect it’s true, they try to be a bit like rock stars, and they put a lot of creativity into their work”. You’re from Copenhagen, and you live here, I ask David – have you always lived here? “No, I actually studied in France. I really enjoyed the wine. Apart from that, I like living here. I like my work, I like the fact that there are about 15 different nationalities in my work team. I’d get bored in a normal place with only Danes”. I ask him if he plans to raise his kids here. “It’s possible that we will have an experience abroad, someday. Maybe in India. There are more difficulties there, we might say, but also more diversity; it is a very fascinating place, full of contrasts. Here we are all quite similar in terms of social status, so contrasts somehow intrigue me. Also I like Indian cuisine, obviously”.