Meet Josefine, my personal tour guide for all things Copenhagen. A Danish beauty in every regard: (Naturally) blonde hair, Alaskan Husky blue eyes, an ever-so-gentle voice with just enough British in her accent and Jackie Onassis-caliber elegance. A real catch, in every sense of the word.

Except for one thing.


Like everyone else in her hometown, Josefine is an unabashed, serial bike thief.


Josefine (pictured right) isn't actually riding a stolen bike at this particular moment. But that's only because she was fortunate enough to have access to a friend's wheels that night. Otherwise, she would have had no qualms about simply taking the first one that wasn't chained up to a pole like a hippie to a Redwood.

"I don't steal bikes anymore," she claims. "That was when I was like 15 or so."

Right. And I don't pick my nose anymore -- that was when I was like 5 or so. Give me a break. Not only did Josefine order me, without hesitation, to jack someone's free city bike shortly before this photo was taken ("free" only if you're able to reclaim your 20-kroner -- or roughly 3€ -- deposit once you're finished riding it), but she also expressed zero concern at her professional break dancer friend's brazen lift of a total P.O.S. non-city bike a few days later, jacked as we were leaving the swimming spot by the canal.

The blasé attitude towards bike theft among well-educated, middle-class youth in this city was astounding. Horrified by its acceptance among everyone I met, I refused to let the issue drop.

That's how I finally pried the truth from Josefine's lips; the actual reason that she hadn't stolen someone's ride in quite a while. Here's a hint: It has nothing to do with some newfound sense of maturity.

"I haven't stolen anyone's in a long time!" she said, semi-annoyed at my persistence in the matter. The "after all" follow-up was clearly next, judging by the look on her face.

"I have a bike at the moment."

So now the real story comes out, doesn't it? As you can guess, that excuse wasn't enough to shut me up. If anything, it fed my fire more than that Redwood would feed a paper mill.

"But you CAN'T do that," I explained, hoping that the proper inflections in my admonition would help convey the self-evidence of such a truth. "It's not like you're stealing the stuff I used to steal in ninth grade: Keychains, lighters and the occasional spaghetti plate from the Humps lunch line at Strake.

"You're stealing someone's bike."

The logic wasn't computing for Josefine.

"But ... someone stole my bike first," she said, staring confusedly at me, the ancient eye-for-an-eye defense being proferred for the jury.

The logic wasn't computing for Billy.

"SO?????"

Josefine is harmless, just like all Danes. Her people are nice; they're welcoming; they're peace-loving folk. Far from from using sticks and stones to break people's bones, the most Danes ever do to hurt people is depict a prophet or two in some political cartoons.

But they do have one glaring maleficence: They steal bikes, and they steal them with abandon.

So just beware the next time you're locking your wheels up to a pole on the sidewalks of Copenhagen -- and don't let a pretty blonde with eyes like the clear blue sky lull you into a false sense of security. It could be Josefine making an eye-for-an-eye contact with you, and there's no guarantee whether or not she'll be on the prowl for a free ride.