June 7th

Today, we were back to the grind of being on the study abroad schedule. Which wasn’t, in fact, a grind at all, as we had a semi-late morning. We reached Norreport to meet with Travis, Michelle, and the group by 9:30am. Without time to grab caffeine (I’ve been developing a caffeine dependency on this trip, I swear) I headed to the train. Today, we were off to Gadstrup, I believe? A small rural-seeming area that we reached after two different trains and about 30-40 minutes of riding. Hopping off, I had an amazing first impression, it was the most natural scenic area I’d seen yet on our trip (other than the beach). It kind of reminded me of the greenery and trees I’d seen before when visiting Quebec, or visiting my grandparents in Iowa. Just a rich, lush field, flowers blooming everywhere, and actually decent weather, considering the forecast had warned us of rain today. 

Anyways, our walk from there was a mere 8 minutes away from the station. We headed to this cool farm-y area with a couple workshop-like buildings surrounded by trees. Why were a bunch of design students brought to the middle of nowhere in a lush meadow/forest area? Good question. It was because we were visiting world-known sculptor Thomas Danbo, whose work I actually was familiar with!!! He is the artist responsible for the big wooden troll sculpture in Breckinridge, which I’ve seen someone I know take a photo with at some point. Turns out, he’s made about 100 of these wooden troll sculptures, another one of which I had seen in Christiania the other day in the pouring rain. And there we were, in the middle of rural-ish Denmark, at his studio with 15 full-time employees assisting him.

(the second picture isn't mine, it's one I found online of his sculpture in Breckenridge)

Was I starstruck? Yes. However, the moment he walked out to greet us I noticed some cats. So. I’m ashamed to say I went “pspspsps” and summoned the cat over to give pets while he talked. And much to my delight, the cat came over to me. A big, plump orange tabby with an adorably polite face. I gave them so many pets. I miss my cats so bad.

Anyways, the actually important stuff (not that cats aren’t important). He immediately started talking to us about how this place came to be, his career as a former rap artist and now as a sculptor, projects he’s done outside of the trolls he’s so well-known for, and what it’s like being known for one thing and one thing only and having other people only commission you for that one type of work. Luckily, he didn’t seem too fatigued by pumping out troll sculptures, saying that they can make up to 20 in a year. He seemed so passionate as he talked about his work, and how he made a book that creates a sort of scavenger hunt adventure around Denmark with his sculptures- following the story as one explores the different pieces. Even cooler, he talked about how the book had a solvable puzzle/code in it that, if one solved it, would lead to a giant piece of earth art he had made on his own property, which he proceeded to show us. We walked on a worn path through a grass field, past this whimsical-looking wooden tavern, and out to this sizable arena-type structure he had made with giant boulders. It was cool to climb up upon these huge rocks to sit and listen to him continue to tell us about his work as he stood in the grassy middle of the circle of rocks. He also mentioned how he planned to use the spot as a community sort of area, planning on having a huge bonfire in the middle for their Midsummer celebration (which, as a witchy-pagan type person, I immediately wished so hard that I would still be in the country to attend such an event!). 

As he wrapped up his story of why and how he built the giant boulder sculpture, the focus shifted now to what we had been signed up to do while there- contribute some manual labor towards helping him finish building the little wooden tavern we had passed by on our way to the boulders. I didn’t know that that was what we had been volunteered to do, all I had heard in the past few days was that we would be doing some sort of manual labor.

I honestly panicked a little bit- I’ve barely ever worked with power tools before, but I wound up as part of the group that went with him to gather power tools/screws/building supplies. He gave some of us jigsaws, some of us got drills, and we brought back a huge box of screws to the tavern while the other half of the group got busy hauling wood pallets over to the site for deconstruction and use as tools. Similarly to his sculptures, the tavern was to be built with unwanted/scrap wood, hence the wooden pallets. The team who had dragged them over were quickly shown how to disassemble them, while myself and a few others were brought inside and given a demonstration on how to drill the wood planks into the wall. Kelsey and I were given a wall to work on together and told, basically, to have fun with it and install the wood however we wanted. We started by screwing in some vertical slabs of wood. There wasn’t really a rhythm to our teamwork at first, but eventually we settled into a routine of slab after slab- I would grab a plank, line it up to our previous planks. If it was too long, I’d mark where to cut, take a jigsaw to it, and bring it back. I’d hold it in place as she drilled in the top two screws into the foundation of the structure, then she would screw in the bottom two while I searched for the next plank in the pile of wood they kept adding to as the pallets outside were destroyed. We honestly made quite a bit of progress! We got the entire wall’s worth of vertical planks, started adding some horizontal planks, and found a few odd pieces of wood to fill in awkward spaces left over in the wall. For never having built anything before nor having used power tools in this capacity, our work turned out great and I was pretty proud.

But once we were told to wrap things up I became painfully aware of how hungry and sweaty I had gotten in the process of the work, so I was more than ready to leave. Thomas thanked us all as we walked back to the main courtyard of their space. Some of us freshened up or washed off the fiberglass from touching insulation in their restroom, then we all took back off towards the train. 

The plan now was to stop back in Roskilde, where we had been the other day, for a bite to eat and a bit of free time. We went to the train station, and waited probably a good 20-30 minutes for our train to come. By this point, some interesting, dark clouds had started rolling in. I took a seat on a concrete ledge, popped in my earbuds, and sat watching the clouds as they moved insanely fast across the sky, slowly getting darker. I had another one of those emotional moments I tend to have, this time thinking about how my Grandma and I would cloud watch at my old house when I was really little. I honestly teared up a bit, I forget how much I miss her sometimes. It’s sad that I don’t really cloud-watch anymore, it’s one of those things I feel that adults get judged for doing the older they get because it’s “not productive.” I sat there with those thoughts and feelings, getting quite introspective as I just thought about how quickly it seems my life has gone from then to now, and about who I am as a person. It was a surprisingly deep moment, considering I was sitting on the ground at a train station just waiting for a train. Eventually said train finally came, later than expected.

The ride to Roskilde was quick and uneventful, and soon we set out back in to the town in search of a bite to eat. A good chunk of the group followed Travis and Michelle first to a bagel shop, then, eventually, to a burger shop after the bagel shop didn’t seem to work out. Funnily enough, said burger shop was literally next door to where Tessa, Alice, and I wound up eating- this amazing sushi place. Even though I was low on funds at this point, I was ravenous and felt like splurging $30 on some sushi. So that I did. And it was the best sushi I think I’ve ever had. The fish was so fresh, the rolls were nice and crunchy- one of them had cooked chicken inside which was interesting but oh, so good. Really worth the money, very much so. We sat and ate in this cool indoor patio area, where we could hear the rain that had finally come tapping on the plastic roof overhead while some very American pop-type music from the 2010s played in the background (seriously, everywhere I go I hear pop music that’s exactly what I hear back home).

After our amazing meal, we had a bit more time to kill and popped in to a couple stores. We found a nerdy store that wasn’t nearly as cool as the one we found in Malmo, where I was (barely) able to buy some cards for my boyfriend with cash, because their card reader was down. We then checked out another store full of hygiene and skin care products in search of some lotion, but I couldn’t really read any of the labels and gave up. We spent the rest of our time before it was time to meet back up getting some ice cream. I tried getting some more licorice ice cream, but I think I was given coffee ice cream instead, somehow, which was a bit disappointing. Oh well. 

We eventually went back to the meeting place, waited a bit longer for the group who had went to the burger place, and everyone met and headed in to the train station. As we waited for this train, I didn’t have the chance to get up in my emotions again, because, overhead, some birds were…uh… having some sort of weird birdy threesome. I don’t know how else to put it. It was really strange. There was a bigger pigeon and two smaller pigeons on either side of it- and that moment was how I, very unfortunately, found out that pigeons begin making moves on each other by “making out” similarly to how humans do. Which is.. Exactly what I witnessed. It was pretty uncomfortable, but they were making a lot of noise and it was hard to look away.

Anyways.

Uh.

This train ride went pretty uneventfully as well, and soon we were back at Norreport. From there, I went with Beia and Tessa to continue with a bit of shopping and exploring. Our first stop was near the Lego store to a nerdy comic book type store called Cigarer Faroen (or something like that) where I finally bought my boyfriend a Magic the Gathering art book. We ventured back to the street-mall type area we had grown familiar with, and found a more bougie souvenir shop where I finally knocked out the rest of my souvenir shopping. Still no luck with ornaments, so I gave up and got a keychain to turn in to an ornament later. Feeling successful with having finally wrapped up my gift shopping, I followed Beia back out to more shops in her search for her own souvenirs.l think, at this point, I had no more money for souvenirs- just for food- which was a damn shame because we then went into this HUGE store that was in and of itself the size of a small mall that had so many things- from home decor, to posters, to home goods, to jewelry, clothes, and so much more. So many things I wanted. I spent a good half hour checking out some of their wares, but eventually sat on some stairs for a break after my foot pain started coming back. That wound up being okay, because if I had continued to walk around and torture myself with cool stuff I wanted to buy, I would probably wind up with a sizable credit card bill.

We left empty-handed, Beia deciding to come back and do more shopping later when she was out adventuring on her own after the rest of the group left for Colorado/their homes.

From the store, we headed back to BaseCamp, taking a scenic (and very damp) walk back through the beautiful garden surrounding Rosenborg castle. I really savored this gorgeous walk, considering this would be one of the last times I’d have the chance to go through there. Eventually it came to an end, and we went to our rooms to rest and take a break before getting up to anything else. After all, I had promised Tessa that I’d help bleach and dye her hair. Which is exactly what I went to do after laying face-down on the bed mindlessly scrolling social media for a good 40-45 minutes. 

I went up with some garbage bags in hand to be used as tarps, and knocked on Tessa’s door. She quickly welcomed me in, and I got to work making and laying down tarps in a big square in her room. She already had bought some bleach and some dye, so after setting up the tarps and turning on some music (Frank Sinatra, interestingly enough,) I threw on gloves and got to work with the bleach. It was quite an experience having to interpret Danish instructions, relying on Google Translate’s camera feature and the labeled steps on the bottles. Eventually, I made it work, the bleach was on, and we sat and chatted until her hair was blonde-gingerish. She showered, let her hair dry, then I slapped on a smaller coat of bleach to fill in areas where it had become patchy. After another shower, we needed to wait for her hair to fully air dry before adding color so, to kill time, we decided to go get another bite to eat at the 24/7 McDonalds near Norreport. I grabbed a yummy Chicken Caesar sandwich, some fries, and some nuggets, and was once again in awe of the fact that their Mcdonald's looked and tasted like real, fresh food. Alice had tagged along for food after we bumped into her in the hall, so she sat with Tessa and I, ate, and talked a bit. Eventually, after we were done and decided Tessa’s hair was dry enough, we headed back to add some color. Alice wound up going back to her room, so it was down to just Tessa and I again. I was getting tired, so after re-gloving and applying the dye- squeezing every last drop out of the bottle, we sat for a bit while it processed, and then Tessa showered and I basically left right afterward. Tired, I collapsed right into my bed without the energy to work on anything (hence why this blog entry is being uploaded super late).

June 6th, 2022

Today was a free day, ours to do with whatever we wanted. So, obviously, Beia and I finally slept in. I woke up at 10 to find the weather was grey and moist once more (frowny face). The evening before, we had made reservations at this adorably expensive brunch place, Far’s Dreng, so, after killing time in the morning for a few hours, we met with Tessa and Alice and walked over for our 12:15 reservation. Immediately, I loved the vibe of the restaurant. It was what I could only describe as uniquely Instagrammable and quirky, with fake plants in macrame hangers dangling down from the ceiling all around and above us. The menu was very pricey, so I readied my wallet (lol). There was a menu of smorebrod, the open faced sandwiches which are very popular over here, where they recommended, for a satisfying meal, to order at least two (for like $10 each). The rest of the menu had sandwiches and waffles and other brunchy things. I ordered the Chevron sandwich, this delicious grilled panini type thing with sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, and gooey, creamy goat cheese. I, again, keep saying stuff like this, but I think it may have been the best sandwich I’ve ever had. I then got the best waffle I’ve ever had in my life- named the “Love Waffle-“ it was crunchy yet doughy, and covered in the syrup of a berry I’d never heard of before with some raspberries and blueberries on top. I also had a matcha latte. I’d definitely say it was all worth the price. It was some damn good brunch.

Afterwards, we killed some time as the rain picked up by doing some shopping. Beia had set up a tattoo appointment for today and Tessa and I had agreed to tag along as emotional support, so we walked around filling the time until the appointment came. We ducked into one store where Alice tried on some cute clothes and bought something. Afterwards, we popped in to a few souvenir stores- so far on this trip, I have been on a very unsuccessful hunt to find quality Christmas ornaments. These souvenir shops were also kind of a let down in that regard- can’t find a single ornament that says “Copenhagen/Kobenhavn” or has anything resembling the city on it! It’s all little dolls on ornament hooks, a few with a (kind of wimpy) Danish flag on them. Luckily, I found a few other cute things to bring back home, and a souvenir pencil for my boyfriend. 

By the time we were finished with the stores, it was time to head out for Beia’s tattoo appointment at this place called “Betty Zoo Tattoo.” Alice wanted to do more shopping, so we parted ways and the remaining three of us made it to the studio, descending a small flight of stairs and opening the door to this adorably decorated clean-looking studio that smelled of flowers, had plants everywhere, and was covered in aesthetically pleasing art. By this point, I could tell Beia was getting a bit nervous, so I tried my very best to reassure her (which probably came across as awkward, but oh well lol). Her appointment, however, went super smoothly! Her artist came down, she airdropped her tattoo design to the artist, the artist made a few adjustments so that the tattoo would fade well, and they got to the chair! Her artist (whose name I’ve forgotten) diligently went to work tattooing the tiny thin-line windmill design Beia came in with on the back of her lower leg, not saying a word the whole time. Meanwhile, Tessa and I sat on the couch and kinda shared space to peek over at the artist in work. All in all, it really only took about 15 minutes to complete! I didn’t get to see the outcome at this point, because the artist immediately wrapped it. Beia got up, reeling a bit from adrenaline, and asked about payment only to find out that the shop only accepted cash or MobilePay (Denmark’s equivalent of Venmo/Cashapp, that didn’t allow anyone with an American phone number to sign up on it). So, we needed to go find an ATM for her to use. She took a break before setting out to find an ATM, feeling a bit shaken up still. I’m honestly so surprised by how trusting her artist was to let her walk out the door without paying to go find an ATM. Eventually, we followed as she went all the way back by Norreport station to use one of the ATMs we had been passing by daily. She got her cash, and we walked another 15 or so minutes back to complete the transaction. 

Once her tattoo process was finally wrapped up, we were all a bit snackish. Wanting to spend some more time exploring Nyhavn, we headed that way and found an Espresso House (which seems to be their equivalent of Starbucks?) to grab a quick bite at. Normally I would get a coffee, but I wasn’t feeling the need for caffeine, so I ordered a chocolate croissant (they are SO good over here) and this delicious toasted bagel (which had warm veggies on it… definitely an interesting choice). We sat to eat and chat, mostly about our pets- finding out that Tessa and Beia also have family cats. As I ate, I looked up and noticed something odd in the shop’s rafters- a pigeon had managed to sneak in to the cafe! The employees seemed to have noticed it about when I had, so they took a broomstick and started trying to get the pigeon down. All this accomplished, however, was making the pigeon scoot a couple feet away from them to the left. Oddly enough, as far as I can tell, the employees gave up trying to kick it out after this? As we finished our snacks and left, the pigeon was still there. Lucky bird, I guess. 

Anyways, we went back out into the street only to find that, between us and some of the stores I wanted to shop at, was a marathon! To cross the street, we had to climb on this terribly shaky about 20-foot-high temporary metal bridge they had set up. I could feel every tremble of the metal all around me, and sat there hoping that they designed the flimsy metal panels under my feet to withstand someone plus-sized lol. Definitely kicked my fear of heights into action. 

Anyways, Nyhavn was understandably super crowded with people watching the marathon either from the sidewalk or from a restaurant table. So that made it a bit less fun to explore. 

As we walked amongst the crowds, I noticed a few touristy shops to pop in to for souvenirs. Frustratingly, still no luck with finding a Christmas ornament! How frustrating. Shopping was otherwise uneventful, and it seemed it was only the streets and restaurants crowded with people there for the marathon event. After shopping, we sat down at a restaurant right next to (what a classmate had said was) one of the oldest running tattoo shops in the world, which I thought was neat. Seemed like a small hole in the wall type place, almost literally (we peeked down through the windows and it looked like it was only one room!). Anyways, we sat at one of the few open tables, I had an overpriced beer, and I did some tarot readings for Beia and Tessa with the new tarot deck I had gotten the other day. They went well! I’m always pleasantly surprised when I do readings for people and they resonate or are otherwise super accurate. I’m not really the best tarot reader out there, and I don’t practice nearly enough (it’s no fun reading tarot for yourself), but I love when I do get to read for others. Almost lost some cards while shuffling, which wasn’t great.  

After beer and tarot, we stood up again to see if there were any other interesting stores nearby, finding that most of Nyhavn seemed to have places for food or drink and not a whole lot else. That was alright, though, because we had made plans with Dane and the others in the “introvert group” to meet up once again at Bastard Cafe for another night of drinks, delicious fries, and board games! So, after wrapping up our second exploration of Nyhavn, we headed straight to Bastard Cafe. We were the first there, so we grabbed a long table outside. I was going to try to order some food and drink through their mobile app, but wasn’t seeing what I wanted, so I and a couple others went inside to order. We got some more delicious salt and vinegar fries with truffle mayo (thanks to Beia, this time) and I ordered some wine that was supposed to taste like Pina Colada. It kind of did! It was really more of a Sangria, but that’s alright. 

By the time food and drinks arrived at our table the others had made it. Dane went to go search out some games- the first game of the night was to be Cards Against Muggles, a Harry Potter parody of Cards Against Humanity. Admittedly, I wasn’t super hyped for this. I like CAH-style games, to an extent, but where we were sitting was very loud and I’m never excited to have my turn as the card czar and try to speak up over both our table and everyone else outside to read peoples’ card submissions. I also know next to nothing about Harry Potter. I mean, I know my house and I’ve watched most of the movies, but if you ask me who tf Neville Longbottom is I don’t think I can answer. The game played alright. I think most of us felt about the same about it. Funny enough, as we asked each other our houses, I noticed that there were more Hufflepuffs than anything, and that the four of us had grouped together on one end of the table unknowingly. But yeah, other than houses, I don’t really know anything and others were in the same boat, so the game died kind of quickly, sending Dane in search of some other good games for a group of 8ish. 

He came back with another CAH-style game, Cards Against Disney. This game played quite a bit better, either because more of us understood Disney references than Harry Potter references, or because a good handful of us were getting somewhat tipsy, myself included. I had gotten a delicious fruity Rose after the sangria, but it sure hit harder than I expected it to! Needless to say I got no other alcohol after that one. As for the game, we had a reasonable amount of fun. Some of us just weren’t into it. I think, once you reach a certain age, that’s kind of how playing CAH-style games goes. For me, the novelty of this type of game kind of wore off around when I was 18. Although I gotta say, for a game about Disney characters/movies (and that was probably sponsored by Disney), it was EXTREMELY raunchy. I was so expecting it to be a family-friendly game because Disney is notorious for their “Wholesome, family-friendly” brand (which is why they’ve canceled one of my favorite cartoons in the whole world just for having just one same-sex couple), making it quite a bit hypocritical to have a card game available with jokes about extremely gross, taboo topics. I mean, Disney’s hypocrisy aside, it did make it more interesting than if it wasn’t raunchy, I guess.

Anyways, the Disney game eventually sort of died out as well. Eventually, we said f it, and went in search of Secret Hitler. Those of us familiar with the game liked it a lot and wanted to play again and teach Jacob and Brandon how to play, as they hadn’t been with us for the first visit to Bastard Cafe. And we had a blast. Brandon’s facial expressions were so funny when handing out the Chancellor plaque/making policy decisions in the game, Jacob was just as funny, I’m glad they made it this time! There were some good rounds. I wound up with the role of “Fascist” more in the rounds we played then I probably ever have when playing the game back home. There was a round where all of the girls who were playing wound up with fascist cards, I think Beia was the Secret Hitler that round- which wound up pretty hilariously. Every time the guys would accuse us of being fascists (which happened often because Alice has like no poker face), I’d accuse them of being sexist, even though (especially Brandon) was basically on to us. I think somebody accused me of being the Secret Hitler and wound up dead in the game because they were wrong. If I remember right, us gals won, though. It was a blast. However, we didn’t play too many more rounds after this because we were all getting a little tired, and the cafe was only really open for another hour anyways. 

We headed home around 10PM, right as the sun was setting. The sky above was so gorgeous. I still find their sunrise/sunset times so strange, though, and struggle to picture what it’s like in the winter, when the opposite is the case and there’s only 5-6 hours of daylight. Regardless, it’s been surreal walking around at what I’d consider to be night time with a bright blue sky or a sunset overhead (plus knowing that the sun just comes right back at 3-4AM).

Once we made it back, I relaxed and spent some time working on blogs and journals again. I’ve started falling behind, so I have a feeling these blogs are going to start being more than a day behind. Maybe I shouldn’t be typing so much for each day………………. Nah.

June 5th, 2022

Today was another much more laid back, relaxed sort of day. Technically an optional day out, most of us still chose to hang out with Travis and Michelle to explore and see some of the museums we hadn’t yet visited while we still had our Copenhagen cards. Cool enough, the first stop of the day was to be the Rosenborg castle (literally the castle that we can walk to in 5 minutes from where we’re staying). Originally the plan was to meet with bikes, but there was apparently no bike parking where we needed to be, so after reaching our meeting point I had to turn around and come back bikeless. We then grouped up and headed to get in to the castle. Even with our Copenhagen cards, we needed a group ticket, which we patiently waited in line for. 

Because we were a pretty sizable group, we had to kill an hour before they would have availability to let us in, so Noreen, Tessa, Alice, Beia, and I took off to go grab some treats at a cafe that I had literally no idea existed in the park- Herkules Pavillionen. Tucked behind some cool sculpture was this hole-in-the-wall cafe with a huge freaking line. Honestly, the waiting in line took longer than getting food. We stood, baking in the GORGEOUS weather (finally, some good f**king weather!) for about a half hour. Finally reaching the front, I ordered some hot mint tea for my raw throat and some scrumptious Pain au Chocolat. 

Would’ve been nice to enjoy our goodies sitting down, but we were quickly back on the move. My tea was pretty interesting- they literally stuck an entire sprig of mint into hot water. Gave me some ideas for my mint plant back home (provided it’s somehow still alive by the time I get back… don’t kill my plants, dad!). However, because drinks weren’t allowed inside, I had to shove it into a locker (where it got sour and not super tasty anymore). 

We waited outside the Rosenborg castle, which was cool seeing up close after observing it from afar. Intimidatingly enough, armed guards with bayonets paced the perimeter of the castle (Which I’m not entirely sure why this was necessary, maybe because of the jewels in the basement? Who knows). We shuffled in pretty quickly. My experience with this castle, sadly, wasn’t as fun as that of the others we’ve visited simply because it was very crowded, and some of the viewing rooms had plastic-paneled sections that allowed for maybe two viewers to go in at best. I’ve also been getting a little fatigued of all of the ornate decor rich royal Danish people were obsessed with hundreds of years ago. I know that’s quite a cynical way to look at it, but I’ve always carried with me a disdain for the rich- of any period in time. It’s like, okay, cool, another table with elaborate designs that probably took a peasant artist months to complete. Another ornate object made out of gold or ivory. Oh, another over-the-top portrait of someone who was born lucky. I don’t know, maybe back on the subject of past lives I could have been one of the people guillotining the rich in France. I just felt this grumpy deep-seated energy about some of what I saw. However, please don’t get me wrong, as an artist I was overjoyed- if not overstimulated- by the rich detail in everything. I took entirely too many photos. It was gorgeous and I know that travelling internationally and just getting to be here and see it in person is more than some get to do in their lifetime.. but rich people are rich people, exploitative both then and now, and I couldn’t help myself. I mean no disrespect by it. 

However, where I do mean (playful) disrespect is in how many portraits I saw where I couldn’t help but to assume that the subject depicted was the result of inbreeding. But even then, that’s historically accurate to how royal family trees worked. Not outright disrespect. Some of the royalty in the portraits did not look human, and, cool enough, I saw some familiar (VERY distinct) faces from all of the art in the Hillerod castle. I think it’s pretty humorous that a group of humans long ago got so obsessed and self-absorbed with the idea that their blood is somehow special, “royal” blood that must not be diluted with the likes of peasants to the extent that they would say “Oh, here you go, your cousin Christian is looking pretty single, better marry and keep up that bloodline!” It’s like they forgot that wealth is a made up concept and someone born as royalty is no more important than someone born a peasant, just luckier.

Anyways I’m doing that thing again where I stop talking about said study abroad in favor of getting all weird and introspective, so I will stop doing that before this blog takes me 2 hours to write instead of 1. 

As a whole, I’d say I liked Rosenborg castle. Not my favorite of what we’ve seen, but it was still a cool experience to visit it, considering it, again, was right next to us this whole time and all. 

After Rosenborg, the plan was to head back to Reffen/Refshaleoen, the magical place with all the cool, various food trucks that we had visited the other day. I was extremely happy about this, as I was not yet done trying all the cool food in there.  We met back in BaseCamp, grabbed bikes, and biked on over (I love biking the streets of Copenhagen. Unique experience, very therapeutic, and prevents me from raging foot pain!) We met Travis and Michelle at Mikkeler, I grabbed this interesting cherry brew from the bar, and we sat outside talking, listening to the catchy folky music that kind of reminded me of home, and absorbing the gorgeous weather and sunshine. This was another one of those moments I wish I could live inside of- shades on, looking out at the riverfront/canal thingy with huge boats docked nearby, listening to enjoyable music with people I’ve connected with, drinking a yummy drink and feeling good about being alive. It was a revitalizing moment. One I think I’ll revisit when told to “think of your happy place.” 

From there, we sought out some food. There are, again, easily 20+ food trucks all with foods of various cultural background. After re-scoping out the place Beia and I decided that one of us would get the gourmet Parmesan fries with truffle mayo, the other would get some sushi, and we could share. So I did exactly that. I waited, baking in the sun, for a good while for the sushi line- I was surprised to see only 2 employees tackling an endless stream of orders (Seriously, Reffen was easily 3x as busy today as it was when we last went!). I eventually got my food and met with everyone over at a table. The sushi was heavenly, the fish oh so fresh, the chicken skewer it came with even better, and the fries Beia bought were literally the best. I guess they were doused in Parmesan and the dip wound up being this rich creamy Caesar sauce. So good. We ate and actually started feeling quite toasty under the sun, which was surprising after days and days of rainy, drizzly, cold weather. It was nice to have the opposite problem- I’ll take re-applying sunscreen over raincoats and umbrellas any day. We sat, listened to cool covers of popular music (like an acoustic version of All-star), enjoyed the food and company. Tessa and I grabbed some (expensive) fancy juice smoothies with banana and rhubarb (really good), and the group got up to head to our next spot- the contemporary art museum. 

Now, after having experienced the Louisiana museum, I was really going in to this one expecting a lot of the same- lots of art, some of which took very little technical skill and a lot of brain power to interpret/respect. However, my experience was quite opposite! This museum greatly exceeded my expectations. It was themed around light and space, and every single piece was a visual delight. The first wall was huge and covered in interesting lights, then there were pieces that played with light and reflection. I even found myself enjoying a piece by an artist I despise, Anish Kapoor, where he painted a canvas in his “blackest black” (a pigment he invented and reserved for only himself, refusing to make it available for other artists to use) and it literally looked like a cartoon hole in the wall. As I walked around it, I found myself almost convinced that it was a window into another, much darker and much more mysterious room. 

As I walked on, there were a few exhibits that required we wear covers over our shoes. The first was a pitch black room, where the intent of the experience was to sit in it long enough that vision becomes arbitrary and you start seeing bursts of light and color. I tried my best, and was almost there, but some people trying to enter the exhibit pulled open the curtain and destroyed my immersion. Oh well, it was kind of scary being in there anyways. Poor Alice had to hold my hand lol.

Next, we went into a light installation by Doug Wheeler. Walking in to this one felt unreal. The entire shape of the space was curved- so it had the illusion, almost like a planetarium display, of infinite space. Walking in, it felt like entering a space ship. I wish I had photos I could share, but none were allowed. The way the walls were shaped and lights set up, it looked like a futuristic alien environment of infinite white with a subtle violet tone. The walls echoed like crazy, you could hear every single footstep. Being in this room, looking around, felt like every single time I’ve ever worn VR headsets. It was an uncanny sense of un-reality that, yet, I was seeing with my own eyes. The door through which we came looked like a monolith from where we stood. Vision and sound just worked differently in this room. It was so wild.

The last of the large, immersive experiences had about a 30-minute wait. The employees and people who left it said it was worth it (I kind of retroactively beg to differ, but it is what it is). Once it was our time and the waiting was over, we were ushered into a room against the wall to get told rules. Again, no photography- no shoes- etc. I, at this point, was wondering where the exhibit was! All I saw was a set of stairs and a giant square on the wall that looked like a projection. Boy, was I wrong. We set down our bags and took off our shoes, and walked up the stairs… into a room! It was a door, somehow. This room, like the last, was curved, infinite-feeling, and very alien. The walls were white, and subtly shifting in color across the rainbow. At the end of the room was a huge screen (and, apparently, a 2 meter drop?!) but really everything was illusionistic. I couldn’t tell where one thing started and another ended, the room was just one big rectangular tube with a huge wall of light that we all faced. At first, the colors shifted rather slowly, and it was just a nice ambient feature to watch while we explored this alien room we were put into. Then, as it went on, the screen started having intense flashes of color. I honestly started to hallucinate all of these crazy out-of-this-world shapes! Honest! I saw infinite spirals of hexagons, triangles upon triangles, I kept staring at the giant flashing screen (Which always remained one solid color by the way, nothing on the screen showed any variation in shapes the likes of which my eyes were creating for me). For a solid 1-2 minutes we all sat, jaws dropped, hypnotized by this thing while our eyes created visuals unlike anything I’ve experienced in my life! And I know I wasn’t the only one- after we left the room, I asked my friends if they had witnessed the same, and they affirmed that they had. I have no idea what Turell put into this room, “Aftershock,” but it was such an otherworldly psychedelic experience once the flashing happened. I honestly wish the flashing had gone on for longer! Once more, a totally unreal, uncanny valley out-of-this-world experience. This museum had some of the coolest art I think I’ve seen in a long while. Between my visit here, my experience in Yayoi Kusama’s installation, and the presentation from Yoke the other day, I’m really thinking about the ways in which we can design art and experiences to put viewers in other worlds. I am so, so into that. Maybe escapism isn’t what we need right now, but it is absolutely insane to me how, with a bit of coding or with some arranging of lights and mirrors, we can literally create experiences that put viewers into other states of existence, whether it be their own eyes creating visual wonders for them, or the illusion of mirrors creating an infinite dreamscape around them on all sides. It’s something I’ve never really thought about before, but the potential for creating new art with all this new technology at our hands is so limitless! If only I knew where to start in terms of learning how to do any of this. Crazy cool stuff.

Anyways, wow, we did so, so much stuff today. Thinking back on it all. Here’s what happened next: we left the museum, dazed and inspired and oh, so glad that we were some of the only students on the trip to check it out (it was optional). We hopped on our bikes to go spend some time at Nyhavn. After leaving Reffen, I navigated us (very roughly) to Nyhavn and we did exactly that. I found some perfect cheesy tourist merch, but still really had a few places I wanted to come back and check out, probably tomorrow. I also finally had the perfect time and weather to get a cheesy photo of myself in front of the iconic colorful houses and water canal! 

Eventually, the four of us (Beia, Tessa, Alice, and I) decided to part ways for a little while to take a breather, as we had planned to finally go to Tivoli Gardens afterwards. So Beia and Alice went back to the dorms, Tessa walked around live-streaming for a bit, and I decided to go see if a store I’ve been meaning to visit was open. It was really refreshing just being able to hop on my bike, pop in headphones with music and directions, and explore the city by bike. I got a little lost, but I wasn’t even remotely worried. It was such a cool, therapeutic experience. I honestly felt like the main character in a movie. I eventually found my way near the shop, hopped off and parked my bike, only to realize, duhh, it’s a Sunday! The entire street of shops were all shut. So, instead, I took a pleasant stroll down one of the streets to a 7/11 that was still open (it’s so weird, 7/11’s here are just as common as Starbucks back home), grabbed a yummy chocolate croissant and energy shake/juice, and walked back to the bike. At this point, I could feel the pain demons gnawing again and wasn’t super thrilled about the prospect of walking even more tonight, but I’ll be damned if a bit of pain is going to ruin my once-in-a-lifetime trip!

I once again popped in my earbuds and had a pleasant ride back to BaseCamp to drop off all of my souvenir goodies, change clothes, and make sure I didn’t have to carry a bag around for my time in the Tivoli riding rides. We met back up in the courtyard and headed to the train, as Tivoli is right next to Copenhagen central station. While we waited for the train, a couple of people headed to Malmo, Sweden (The city we visited the other day), asked us which train they should take, which was hilarious- as if we would know! The train system here is very confusing and not friendly to beginners. We, ourselves, had barely understood it. We told them the way the best we could have- lucky for them, like I said, we had just been there. Then we hopped on the train only to hop back off a couple minutes later.

We soon made it to Tivoli. It was nice to be back in again, and our Copenhagen cards got us right on through. Excited, we walked down the quirky cool alleyways and straight to a cute Viking boat spinny ride. We waited in line only to find out that getting past the doors was not the only charge- if we wanted to actually ride any of the rides, it would be an extra $30 for an all-inclusive pass. So freaking lame. But, there was the option to pay for individual rides, which we took (honestly, though, the $30 pass would have been smarter and cheaper in the long run). The first ride was a lot of fun and cost around $8. It was hilarious, Alice hadn’t been on any sort of ride in a while so she was screaming and hollering at even the simplest rotation of the ride. We, then, wanted to go on a few more rides before eating. We found this cool old-fashioned coaster simply titled “The Rollercoaster.” This one, I think, was the most fun of the three we went on. It took us through a mountain-themed track, had lots of up/down drops (hello butterflies lol), and was just generally fun. I think I also enjoyed it most because it was free for me- I couldn’t get either of my cards to work once I had reached the front of the line so the guy had just said whatever and let me by. Also, for some reason, there was a conductor type guy on the car with us who was standing up the whole time and touching the walls and stuff as we zoomed past. Last of all was a $13 coaster (that was not worth that much in any way shape or form) that was built more recently, it looked more similar to what you’d find at Elitches/Six Flags. It didn’t go upside down, rather, it zoomed around in a tight circle and went around the same, small track about 3 times. I was honestly kind of let down by it, not gonna lie.

After we had our (expensive) fun on the coasters, we wanted a bite to eat. I had been through this area before, so I was familiar with the awesome food court tucked inside one of the buildings. It was, like the rest of the park, bustling with people. Similarly to the food truck situation, I had so many options and so few decisions! Eventually, I decided on some yummy basil pasta that I couldn’t pronounce that took about 30-40 min from waiting in line to getting the food. Once everyone had their meal, we sat outside and dined next to the cool Taj Mahal-looking building lit up with glimmering lights.

Eventually the food court and rides closed around 10:00PM, but the park stayed open longer, so we were ushered out back into the park. We decided on some ice cream, so two of us ran off to get some for the group, the other two (Alice and I) stayed, sat in some comfy chairs by this cool Chinese theater stage, and talked. The other two wound up taking forever because they had to go on a wild goose chase for ice cream, one stand shutting down in the middle of them waiting in line. Eventually they got us all ice cream, which we sat and enjoyed as the air got, frankly, way too chilly for me to be in just a tank top like I was. As the sun ever so slowly sank (it never seems to set! It’s still bright out at 10PM most nights and still not fully dark by 12), the park slowly got more and more beautiful, lights everywhere. The whole amusement park is honestly similar to Epcot’s international lake thingy, and, because Tivoli is much older, I’m pretty sure this is where Disney got inspiration for that park. It’s gorgeous- a variety of structures and sculptures inspired by different cultures, ambient lighting from fairy lights and other dim lights from everywhere, and adorable little streets with beautiful plant life. It was so cool to sit there, talk, and watch the sun set. At some point, some little kid crawled up on to the Chinese theatre stage we were near and started dancing and performing for his parents, it was so cute so we clapped for him once he was done and the lights shut off on him. In the background, music came from somewhere and ABBA was playing in the background, so we all started rocking out.

It really was such a chill end to a very eventful day. By the time we reached the train, I was too in pain to walk another step. Luckily I parked my bike to hop on to to ride home. I literally passed out the moment I hit the bed.

June 4th, 2022

Today I woke up excited for a day of minimal walking and visiting the beach. Even better, we got to sleep in a little bit and wake up more refreshed and well-rested. Travis and Michelle met us in the BaseCamp courtyard, just like old times (sniffle), and helped us activate another round of Copenhagen Cards (Which basically get us in to a lot of cool museums/touristy things for free and makes most train/bus travel free as well, if I didn’t explain that before). From there, we headed to the train station, taking a few pit stops for coffee (I went back to Taffelbay, where I got the best pastry I’ve ever had once more- still just as good), where I ran to the grocery store real quick for an energy drink and period supplies (because of course Shark Week hit in the middle of travelling abroad). All in all, I was prepared, excited, dressed adorably (in some flowy hippie pants, crop top, space buns, sunglasses, and oversized flannel), and ready for a relaxing day out looking at art and going to the beach in some finally, FINALLY nice weather (while it lasts :/ ).

We quickly took off to the train, headed to our destination, Humelbaek (I believe) to go visit the Louisiana Art Museum (hard not to think of the states with a name like that, though). Once we got off the train, we walked down the streets of the most aesthetically pleasing neighborhood I think I’ve ever seen. The houses weren’t that big, but all of them looked a bit like cottages. Every house had its own tall fence/wall around it covered in plants or just looking otherwise fancy. Once again, everything we saw was lush and in full bloom and just overall gorgeous.

After a 10-15 minute walk, we made it to the art museum. We were a bit early and waited in line, and from the outside of it, I really wasn’t sure of what to expect. What I was looking at was a relatively small courtyard that looked like it could’ve been a house, with walls and fences layered in vines. They had some posters with some of the artists on display here, some of whom I was familiar with (like Diane Arbus and Sonia Delaunay), so I was kind of excited to head on in. The space definitely was a lot bigger and more museum-like on the inside than on the outside. There was a big, cool gift shop and on the other side of it were some doors to the exhibits.

It started off with a long hallway and a few works I found neat. Going further in, we started getting to some of the names I recognized. The first gallery like that was a small Andy Warhol display, with a handful of his iconic Campbells Soups prints (which were bigger in person than I had thought they would be! Huh). The next artist on display that I recognized was Marina Abramovic, who had a couple of video displays on TVs side by side. Known for her daring performance art, these pieces were no different. One video featured her and her romantic and creative partner, Ulay, taking turns slapping each other’s faces with increasing intensity- the other was a video of her screaming until her voice died. As I kept walking I saw a few pieces I found interesting, and another whose artist wasn’t super well-known yet but whom I had watched an Art21 documentary about, so it was cool seeing her work in person.

Going further, there was a rather freaky display that literally was a forest of big logs that resembled knees with varicose veins, beaten and bruised-looking, and just overall incredibly unsettling to look at.

I then found a video that really captivated me. I think a lot about time, death, and other existential things (which I’m sure most of us ponder on at some point), and I found this piece, “Sybil” by William Kentridge that touched on that in a really cool-looking sort of abstract way. The video was what looked like stop-motion and featured animation and type drawn straight onto the pages of a dictionary- the type saying things like “You will live longer than a horse. But not nearly as long as a crow” and “Death grows its tree inside you. Inside you is lodged the stone of death. It is too late now.” I don’t quite know why, but just the way the video was made felt like a very direct message to enjoy one’s life and not let it go to waste. The privilege of being overseas right now has made me look back at the person that I am at home and reflect on the things I’m not satisfied with in my current life. I feel like I waste too much of my time on things that don’t make me happy, like TikTok, and just sitting alone in my room isolated from my friends and especially my family, all of whom are under the same roof for who knows how much longer. I really want to spend time with everyone, but it feels like some invisible barrier within me ties me back to that stupid room or that stupid phone, wasting precious moments that could be spent with my sister, for example, who’s going away to college soon. I don’t think I’ve processed yet how much I’m going to miss her, and how much I regret being so self-isolated from everyone in my house. How much I regret spending so much of my time sitting in a bed not making meaningful memories with people I love or doing things that actually make me happy (like painting, instead of scrolling endlessly on TikTok). I’ve just been thinking about how most of the things I take for granted are fleeting, and things will not always be this stable version of life I’ve found myself in. One day I won’t share a roof with my family- I’ll have to pay all of my own bills and take care of myself and be utterly alone. And I think I need to live my life more grateful for the people and things I’m glad to have while I still have them.

Anyways, right, the art museum. After this video came a huge display for an artist I’d never heard of - Dorothy Iannone. Immediately, I loved her style. A lot of her art was pretty crass (at least I think that’s the right word). Her style is this cool, rough, confrontational, and almost sketch-like style, and most of her work was either about gender roles, sex, or her experiences as an artist and as a person. Considering I had never seen her work before, I was immediately enchanted by her style, the subject matter, and her use of color. Thought it was all pretty sick! It reminded me that art doesn’t have to be realism to be visually captivating- because, again, a lot of her work had a sketch-like quality and not-quite-right anatomy, but it’s still good enough to have a whole few rooms in an art museum!

Then, for some strange reason, in the middle of Iannone’s work was a permanent installation from a huge, world-known artist, Yayoi Kusama! Would have missed it if I didn’t see people standing in line for it. The work had, maybe, one tiny label on the wall (that you wouldn’t be naturally inclined to look at because if you walked straight on, it would be behind you). Behind a nondescript door was a gorgeous infinite world of wonders that I wish I was allowed to stay within for longer than just a minute. Her piece, “Gleaming Lights of the Souls” was just this infinite reflective chamber of mirrors with lights arranged in such a way that, the farther into the mirrors you looked, the more they resembled either space or a city at night. As you stood in there, the lights gently changed colors. I think it’s one of the coolest art experiences I’ve ever had. It literally felt like walking in to another world. So magical and so, so aesthetically pleasing.

By this point, however, my body started reminding me that it can’t be walking as much as I have been walking without fuel. Like an idiot, I hadn’t fed myself on the way out the door this morning, and my stomach was crying out. Sadly, the built-in cafe in the museum simply did not agree with my wallet, so I chose hunger. Besides, our next stop was to be an adorable fishing village, and I wanted to get some nice, fresh seafood while I’m still on a big island and not a landlocked state. In a dazed state, I pushed on through the museum to the Sonia Delaunay exhibit. She is one of the artists I’d learned about in my Modernist art history course two semesters ago, so it was really cool seeing her work and her textile designs in-person. What I admire most about her body of creative work was her dedication to living her art. Not only would she paint and draw, she would wear fabrics of her own design, and actively designed things like cars in her unique style. I also love her use of color. Similarly to my time in Hillerod, I really wish I wasn’t cranky while in the exhibit so I could have appreciated it more. I think I need to manage my discomfort better, because this sour mood (and resentment that the food was so expensive) continued all the way through their extensive Diane Arbus exhibit and their Forensic Art exhibit. Everything kind of went by in a blur, and I was really just wanting to leave to go find some food back near the train station or sit to take some of the pressure off of my ever-sore feet.

I luckily met up with Beia and left after I’d felt I had seen everything I wanted to see in the museum. We left, walking back along the incredibly aesthetically-pleasing street and back to the train station. Earlier, prior to the museum, we had passed by an adorable flea-market looking setup in the town’s park. Luckily for us, it was still open on our way back, so we spent the rest of the time perusing what was for sale- it was so adorable, it was basically a large yard sale. The only one I actually bought stuff from, however, was this lady who literally had mountains of jewelry for sale. Like, I easily spent 20-30 minutes at her table, rifling through all the necklaces and bracelets she had available. I won’t go into specifics about what specifically I bought because some of it is presents for family (yes, you, mom lol) but I found some good stuff that I’m excited about.

Anyways, after dumping money on impulse, we met back at the station and prepared to head to Gilleleje. The total journey over there was about an hour and some change, and the trains we took went through gorgeous back-country and forests that looked quite literally straight out of a fairy tale. The train had huge windows through which to see everything, and I kinda spent the whole time staring out them and daydreaming of fairy tales.

The closer we got, the more I was excited to finally have a beach day, since I missed out on the option of going to the first one (due to having partied too hard lol). As we arrived, though, I wasn’t the only one on a mission to find food. I got an amazing first impression of the adorable town, as we beelined to this restaurant/deli situation with an impressive variety of seafood. Unfortunately, however, it was all in Danish and the only thing I recognized was Fish and chips. So I made a boring choice that I low key regret, and chowed down on fish and chips. In the moment, however, it was a total godsend. I was literally so, so hungry. It tasted great! Had some yummy, crunchy fries and a delicious garlicky horseradish sauce with it. Someone had gone and bought a couple flavors of pickled herring from a local fish shop just across the street, so I sampled that as well. And, gotta say, I think pickled herring is underrated! On one hand, it was weird to be eating fish and have it taste sweet and bold in the way that it did. On the other, it was so good. I think, of the two flavors I tried, I was most blown away by this one where they added spices like cinnamon and clove that really, surprisingly, added a bit of a bite and enhanced the pickled taste. Interesting flavor, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like it before today. Very tasty. After the bulk of my meal, I realized some of my group had gotten ice cream, so I hopped on the bandwagon and went over to grab a cone. I keep seeing licorice ice cream literally everywhere, so I finally caved and got a scoop. And boy was I glad I did! It was so freaking good. It had the typical licorice-y taste, but the licorice here is infinitely better than the licorice back home. They really know how to make black licorice actually taste good. It’s really grown on me. The ice-cream had this interesting sweet and salty thing going on with my tastebuds, I quite enjoyed it.

Anyways, satisfied and full, I was ready to go to the beach, bask in the sun, and stick my feet in the water and sand. Someone had said the beach was rock-free, and I was so excited to just lay in a pile of sand for a bit. The reality was not quite that. We walked over to the beach only to find it was covered in rocks. Sad day. We found a place for all of us to dump our stuff, and some of us got ready to dive in, others started merely wading out into the shallow part of the water. I was one of those who waded- it was a bit too cold to swim, sadly. However, my wading was rewarded because I was immediately surrounded by jellyfish! I freaked out majorly upon first seeing them, not going to lie, because, duh, I don’t want to get stung! But I was quickly reassured by Beia, who had been abroad before and had already encountered this type of jelly, that these guys were harmless. So a scary time turned into a super cool one! Never in my life had I ever been this close to a jellyfish outside of an aquarium. There were so many- like every 3 feet, a jellyfish. Close enough for them to graze my feet multiple times (almost stepping on them). There were big ones and baby ones, and I kind of felt an affection towards them, even though they quite literally have no brains (lol). Eventually Kayleen started picking some of them up, and I briefly got to hold one. I don’t know how to describe the feeling. They feel how they look, I guess! Cold, kind of rubbery-silicone-y, weirdly slimy but I kind of expected it. But they are definitely solid, and not flowy.

I stayed wading in the shallow end for a while. It was freezing at first, but the sandbar we had all hopped on to was a bit warmer and rather pleasant. My legs and feet felt amazing, sinking into the sand and surrounded by ocean water. The view was gorgeous. In the distance to my right, I could see faint mountains (foothills by Colorado standards), to my left I could see the rest of the town along the coast, different layers of buildings on top of a foothill. The sun was shining bright, the wind was reasonable, the skies clear and oh so blue… such a great moment. I really appreciate whenever I get to visit a beach, especially coming from a landlocked state. Lake beaches don’t even come close.

The rest of the day after the beach went pretty chill. Getting back to the shore from the water sucked- I guess beach rocks feel worse on wet feet than on dry ones. I was also covered in sand with no way to clean off. But, strangely enough, my legs just felt… clean. Every part of me that had been in the water felt kind of satisfied, relaxed, and purified in a sense. Soothed, even. So the walk back to the station was oh so pleasant. At the station, some of us tried to get coffee before our train- I waited in line but to no avail, as the friendly coffee shop owner (who Travis and Michelle had met priorly years ago pre-pandemic) chatted everyone up, giving out free cookies with drinks. I was kind of sad I didn’t make it in in time. There were also some cool postcards I wanted to buy. Anyways, sad moment aside, the train ride back was just as cool as the one on the way there. Gorgeous scenery. Unfortunately, the ride was made awkward because our group had run out of seating so I was forced to sit in tight quarters across from this older couple (which, normally would be no issue) who seemed to be giving me nasty looks. At some point, the man tried to say something to me in Danish, as I was gazing awestruck out the train window. I fumbled, saying something along the lines of “Oh, I’m sorry, I speak English.” He did not respond, and, instead, gave his wife some weird sort of look and they talked to each other like I wasn’t there. No idea what he said, but I have to assume it perhaps wasn’t nice. And I had to sit across from them for a good 20-30 minutes until seats opened up closer to the rest of the group. Awkwarrrdddd.

We made it back, again, uneventfully as compared to the whole train issue in Sweden. I really felt refreshed and revitalized. However, as always, work needed to be done. Beia, Alice, Tessa and I decided that if we went back to our dorms to work we’d all probably be too sleepy to get much of anything done. So we all hung out for a while in the BaseCamp basement lounge, doing homework, chatting, reflecting on things we’ve done and how we’ve been feeling. I really like spending time with these guys. There was drama in the bigger group of us earlier on in the trip, when I was spending all my time with the extroverted crowd. But with this group of us gals, I haven’t felt any of that. We’ve all been really open and trusting with each other. I feel so removed from all the drama and chaos that went down. It’s quite nice. We had a lovely evening working on blogs and journals. Today was a great day.

June 3rd, 2022

At the start of this morning, everyone met at Norreport station once more, prepared for today’s main event- heading off to Sweden once more, this time for a few hours longer than our first visit. We got on the train pretty effortlessly, with 1 ticket to every 2 people (Train buddies!) and sat back, watching gorgeous scenery pass by and about 5 minutes of ocean as we travelled off the island and across a huge bridge to our destination, Malmo, Sweden. It’s crazy how they didn’t even wind up checking our passports or anything- just right over the border! Wild.

Once we arrived in Sweden, of course, before any design studio visits could happen, our very first objective was food. We walked past a creepy fountain, and down a nice road, and a group of us split off to get food from a Swedish Patisserie. I got the most delicious ham and cheese Croque Monsieur sandwich, a yummy spicy chai latte, and this interesting mix of truffle and cookie flavored like licorice (I cannot fully express how much Scandinavians seem to adore licorice. You literally, in my experience, cannot walk 15 feet in Copenhagen without finding a store with something licorice flavored… and salty licorice… a very acquired taste). The cookie was pretty good, I think I’m adapting to the initial weirdness I had with salty licorice flavored things.

Anyhow, once everyone was fed and ready to go, we headed to today’s first studio, UsTwo. The first impression was amazing, the interior of their space on the first floor had such an eclectic design- two large, brightly-colored murals on the walls, a playhouse for (presumably) employee’s children, an arcade room, a sitting room with nice couches, and just generally entertaining and aesthetically pleasing decor. And a clown horn, for some reason? Anyways, they filed us in, had us sign NDA’s (which restricts what I can talk about in the next few paragraphs, sadly). As we signed the NDAs and put our bags away, the most adorable fluffy dog I’ve ever seen galloped down the stairs and towards the new humans. I got to pet them. Literally such an adorable little critter. I need to focus, though- this is about design, not dogs (lol).

Once everyone had signed, Mick, one of the men who gave us our presentation (the other being Mike) guided us upstairs for a brief tour of their studio. All I have to say is, based on decor and the desks/actual workspaces alone, I would love to work in a studio like this one day. Literally so, so cool. We got shown around, then were lead to the room for the presentation. Waiting for us, with utmost evidence of hospitality, were a selection of plain and chocolate croissants and some sodas, which I gladly snagged. We then settled in, only for Mick to announce that we were to do a fun team-building exercise! I was honestly part scared part excited.

The exercise? Start by drawing your (realistic) superpower- depicting yourself as a superhero with the power that you have and giving it a name. For myself, I drew myself with many arms doing many things, and labeled it “Woman O’ Many Talents.” We were only given 5 minutes to do this, by the way. We were then given smaller sticky notes on which to write our names. We were to bring both big and small sticky note to the board (one with our name, the other with our drawing) and stick them to the wall in separate groups. The next task? In 5 minutes, our entire group had to- in complete silence- match names to drawings. If we disagreed with a placement, we would simply wordlessly move the stickies around ourselves. I’m ashamed to admit, but I was too anxious to participate in this step, really. Then, after 5 minutes, we stepped back and checked who was matched correctly and who not- only 5 people weren’t. We then had a second round for corrections, and placed everyone succesfully. It really was a cool exercise, it highlighted the different ways we knew each other- whether it was that we recognized each other’s “super-powers” (like multitasking, leading groups, designing within grids, etc) or each other’s unique quirks. It showed how close we all have grown as a group. It was an amazing, engaging way to start the process.

Now, not wanting to mess with NDA stuff, I won’t go into any specifics about the UsTwo presentation other than the fact that they are responsible for creating some pretty cool things! They are mostly UX/UI designers, which normally isn’t necessarily my cup of tea, but the kind of projects they discussed having worked on really were exciting and creative. (One being a popular game that I’d heard of, Monument Valley). They, essentially, discussed their design process and philosophies and the ways in which, again, the user is at the deepest core part of their design process at all levels. It was, again, a good reminder that, when designing, it’s not always about your desires as the designer so much as it is about effectiveness and usability for your viewer/user. The presentation also exposed me to the concept of “B-corps,” companies that are dedicated to making a positive impact on the world. In order to continually qualify as a B-corp, UsTwo has to constantly filter out and decline any projects they/B-corp standards deem as having a negative effect on people or on the planet, such as working for clients associated with things like pollution or gambling. As a student designer, one of my biggest points of anxiety has been the implications of potentially designing advertisements or brand collateral for companies that don’t put good out into the world- being stuck with clients that don’t match my own ethical approach to the world and to sustainability. However, realizing now that B corps are a thing, I feel hope that maybe I can find a studio to work with one day that, similarly to UsTwo, falls under this category and actively cares about the impact their work ultimately will have on the world.

I feel like I keep saying this, but it is, again, true- I left yet another studio feeling inspired. Seeing all of these different perspectives about design and creativity- all the different possibilities- back to back has really helped shape my outlook on the future of my desired career path and direction of my work as a creative in general.

But now back to having fun in a foreign city. Because, as much as I love feeling inspired and motivated about my future work, I am human and want to buy nice trinkets and eat yummy food.

Needless to say, we went shopping. We had some time to kill, and checked out this neat design store (Which there seem to be quite a lot of here) that was too expensive for me to get anything, really. But again, it was cool to window-shop within it. Lots of cool things not quite cool enough to turn in to souvenirs or gifts. From there, we popped in to yet another metaphysical store! It’s like the universe wants me to be broke. This one was bigger, and had a wider, more tempting array of books and tarot decks- and lots of fancy jewelry. I resisted temptation as far as tarot and books went, but splurged a little bit on some crystals (they were cut so beautifully here, how could I nottttt). After the metaphysical store, we sort of split off to a couple of different places. I found this store that was basically nerdy heaven. It had merch for basically every nerdy thing you can think of- from things for cat lovers, anime merch, manga, world of Warcraft, Harry Potter, magic the gathering… the list goes on. The sad part? I spent so much time looking that I had no time to buy anything. This place was full of potential souvenirs and I was pulled away from it much too soon. This is because we were going to be running late to our next studio if we didn’t eat soon.

We took off, then, in search of a place to eat near our next destination, Massive Studios (a subset of Ubisoft). I was so excited. In the meantime, we found a Hawaiian Poke place that looked really good, and boy was it! I ordered this bowl with fresh, plump salmon, perfectly cooked black rice, edamame, chili mayo- and so many other yummy ingredients. I, unfortunately, had to chow down pretty quickly so as not to have to have leftovers later, but.. so good! Annoyingly, next to where we ate was an American-themed steakhouse blasting country music. So that ruined the good mood pretty quickly lol.

What ruined the good mood even more? We were not, in fact, dining just across the street from our destination. In actuality, we were easily a 15 minute walk away from Massive, with just about 12 minutes to make it before our 2PM appointment with them. So we booked it. And by we, I mean Beia, Tessa, and Alice. I, however, am literally falling apart at the seams from walking 5-8 miles per day and lagged behind the other three literally the entire walk. My speed walk was really more of a speed limp. I don’t know what’s been wrong- my feet, for the most part, have been feeling alright after the first few solid days of raging pain. Now, I have weird tingles shooting up my back every time I twist a certain way, and my leg near my bottom just gives me a sharp shooting muscle-level pain every time I shift my weight on my legs (for example, as one does when one walks). Anywho, we made it just on time, but suffice it to say I was not doing well after hobbling along in misery and wanted to do nothing more than to sit.

As we reached Massive’s office, we went through some doors and were met with a pretty fancy looking place. They handed out branded lanyards (That we didn’t even get to keep for some reason?) with our names on them, and immediately showed us… the place where they sit to eat, drink, and do work outside of their office. So, not even their workplace. Not to sound ungrateful, but it kinda gets worse. It was still cool, they had a neat statue with a list of gamertags. They were very hospitable, offering us coffee, tea, water. We then went to the conference room for a presentation, where waiting for us was some cool merch- notebooks, pens, pop sockets, and some chocolate. We sat in excitement for the presentation and what we were about to find out (we signed an NDA, mind you).. and, I don’t even know what the NDA was for, really. With UsTwo, I understand why we had to sign an NDA- they discussed with us some projects that haven’t been released yet. But… in this presentation, part of the slides were them not knowing the names of Ubisoft’s own games (come ON! As a huuuuuge Assassin’s Creed fan, I wanted to scream when they didn’t even know the name of the game when listing off games Ubisoft was responsible for), them discussing games they’re working on that have already been announced (And literally not giving us any other details- we didn’t learn anything about the design process, the creative environment, the production pipeline- nada, they just reiterated things that the public already knows), them showing us a promotional video about the country/workplace, and an entire 15 minutes of discussion about how to set up a resume. Again, what was the NDA for? I mean, if this blog is in violation of it somehow, I will gladly take this part out. But we really learned nothing about the creative process. The people talking to us were job recruiters. Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful to even have stepped foot into the studio (After recovering from that walk. Ugh), but most of us left Massive pretty disappointed. I think this was the studio that everyone was most excited for, and it was the biggest letdown. I’m not exaggerating when I say, every time someone had a question about a specific aspect of the creative process (the 3D pipeline, job options, environmental design), they kind of fumbled and gave a non-answer, like “all of our job listings are posted online.” Somehow, it seems, the studios run by smaller, more passionate groups of employees or individuals were more inspiring and informational than the bigger, much more experienced studio.

After the Massive letdown, we shuffled our way back to the train to depart Sweden once more. Luckily, the rides back home seemed pretty straightforward……… in theory. Until we realized pretty quickly that the first train we had hopped on was the wrong one. So we crawled out, trekked up the stairs and over to the next track, and got on another train. It was going pretty swimmingly, looking like we would get back without issue… until the train kind of just.. stopped. Turns out, at the airport station, a broken luggage cart had wound up blocking the tracks. So, frustrated, we poured out of the train. We passed through the airport (which we’ll be back in in just a few days, weirdly enough), and hopped on the Metro train. Being the big whiny baby that I am, I was not happy about this turn of events. I was quite enjoying sitting down on the bigger, nicer trains with chairs and tables. The Metro is, basically, the Light Rail but with less seating. That meant that I had to stand for a good while, deeply in pain, and barely hanging on to the rails as I got tossed violently to and fro by the motions of the train. Ugh. By the time we reached our station, I was basically ready to pass out, and not too happy about having to go a little farther to get back home.

Needing to recharge, I plopped face down into my blankets. I sat there for a good while. We had made plans to work on journals and blogs in the park, but I really didn’t want to move. Eventually, time crawled on and we figured we should head over. But, again, I’m a crybaby and the park was literally just a couple steps outside of our BaseCamp, basically (just across a street). We leisurely strolled down the dirt path, found a spot, and enjoyed the clear skies, doing homework while sitting literally less than a mile away from a castle. It’s moments of lucidity like these where I stop and really appreciate that I’m in another country. If I wanted to go lay in a park in Denver, I would be harassed by police who think I’m homeless, or bugged by some passerby asking for a lighter. And I certainly wouldn’t be able to look over my shoulder to see lush trees and a big ol’ castle.

We sat and worked for a while, only wishing to leave because we were invited to check out a cool cafe by Dane and because it was actually deceivingly chilly, despite the sky being mostly clear. We quickly went back to the room, put our stuff away, and got ready to go somewhere called “Bastard Cafe.” Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect. When I think of a cafe, I think of, well, a cafe- a usually small place with a bar for treats/pastries and coffee/tea options. Well, as we soon found out, this place was very different. It was unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before! In total, the whole place was about 5 levels- with a basement, a main floor that spanned multiple rooms and across an entire courtyard, and three extra floors above for different kinds of events (one for foreign films, another for music, I forget what the other, still, was). Even better- alllllll over the walls was every single board game possibly imaginable. You’d walk from one room to another on the main floor, and the walls were just covered in them. At the bar (with food options like fries and nachos and some beverages- both alcoholic and non) one could go up, pay a small fee, and have access to any of the board games on the walls. After we all (Bryan, Riley, Alice, Tessa, Beia, Dane, and I) ordered drinks and food (I had a Mojito and some vinegar fries with truffle mayo), Dane asked for game suggestions. Back home, I used to play board games a whole lot with my friend, Sara, and the first that came to mind was a game called Secret Hitler. It’s a lot of fun in large groups, and, basically, works similarly to Among Us (there is, in fact, a secret Hitler whose task is to stay secret and sabotage the other team). We wound up playing, and, after a couple of rough runs, we really got into it. So much so that it wound up being the only game we played tonight! We really had a lot of fun and banter, teasing each other’s body language cues, peering right through poker faces, analyzing everyone’s moves. We got so into the game that we, for some reason, chanted Hitler and immediately remembered that that, in fact, is a very not okay thing to do in normal circumstances- but even less so okay to do anywhere in Europe. It’s funny- all of us that went are typically introverted, but around each other and with a good board game, we all really opened up and connected as people, rather than as introverts. I think this may have been the best time I’ve had on this trip, dare I say, better than (or equal to) my night out clubbing at Jolene! We had a lot of laughs, and I left feeling really good.

I really like it here. I know the day to leave is coming up before I know it, but I don’t want to go. I find myself wishing often to just be able to pause time on special little moments like these- even as I write this blog, there’s a sort of melancholy feeling about reflecting so deeply on these moments that pass by that I’m not always aware of. I think one of the things I’m saddest about is that, realistically, I won’t be friends with most of my trip mates for too much longer after the trip. Tessa, Beia, and Alice may be a different story, but, in my experience with things somewhat comparable to this (mostly the bonds I made at LYNX camp), the friendships sadly die out shortly after everything goes back to normal. I have to, thusly, remind myself that every person has their moment in my life- whether it be big or small- and that all connections I make in my time on this planet are equally meaningful. It’s hard not to think about going back home. But money runs out, and I can’t magically up and live here with everyone forever (besides, I would miss everyone back home way too much), so it’s a weird state of acceptance of the fleeting nature of events like these.

I don’t know, maybe I’m getting too philosophical about it.

June 2nd, 2022

Today started with yet another bike ride (seriously, after walking 20,000 steps on some of these days, I am so, so happy that we’ve shifted back to using the bikes! What a relief on my pain. Now I’m just sore in my legs haha). We biked in some (ugh) light rain under a grey sky to find today’s studio, Yoke. Not going to lie, it was a confusing search. Google Maps lead poor Beia astray more than once, and the area, as we approached, was surrounded by housing/apartments- it definitely didn’t look at all like a place with office space enough for a design studio. But, sure enough, we turned a corner, saw a grocery store, and found Yoke tucked away surrounded by housing. Fed up with the rain, I parked, and sat waiting for everyone to arrive, shivering.

Our presentation from Yoke was so mind-opening. I feel like I’ve been saying that kind of thing a lot, but it’s so true. I had no idea that you could use design the way that Yoke does- as an immersive, interactive experience in which the technological side of things is mostly hidden. They talked about their past projects, and I was hooked. One had viewers blow the seeds off of a virtual dandelion with a hairdryer- others created interactive materials, like liquids and splashes of paint that would respond to viewer’s motions. Watching the videos, it looked as though viewers got so engaged in the experience that they may have even forgotten that tech, code, and design were involved. It seemed like an effortless bridge between the real and the digital. I honestly admired their dedication as a company to keeping the user/viewer in mind first and foremost- their experience matters more than certain aspects of creative nitpickiness, which is something I need to constantly remind myself.

I think, however, what I found coolest from this presentation was how they walked us through the creative development process of their current project for a building going up in Sweden in the next few years (if I’m remembering correctly). I forget exactly what the building is to be- perhaps a library? Either way, they first revealed that their concept was to create a piece that visually discussed the interplay between art and science, based on the idea that art and science really aren’t that different- they are both tools of understanding, exploring, and reflecting upon the world around us- one merely seeks to understand our world quantifiably, the other is more intuitively. They then showed us installations that they were using as inspiration- such as one where a bunch of mirrors would move as though alive, then, the moment a viewer walked on to their stage, they would all snap and face the viewer (like an audience, but all they’d see is their own face). Another inspiration was a room where rain would funnel down on everything except the viewer. They then showed the specific visual-conceptual inspiration that shaped their current planned outcome- neurons. Their planned final project is intended to look like minimalized/simplified versions of how med students/teachers draw neuron structures. Hearing them talk about the reasons for the choices they made were so cool- with the neurons lighting up on many individual LED panels, each ball of light (each electrical signal in the neuron) representing one person in the building- so the neurons would be firing intensely if the sensors at the doors counted many people in the building, and on slow days, only a few signals would be bouncing up and down the neurons. Honestly, I’ve never considered making designed installations of any kind, and had kind of given up on learning how to code for creative purposes, but this has honestly made me reconsider. I think, at least, I will be picking back up learning code once I’m home and have free time, if nothing else. The possibilities for design are seemingly more endless than I had initially perceived!

Anyways, walking away from Yoke feeling inspired and energized, I was ready for a good bite to eat. Trusting Travis and Michelle’s taste in food, I followed them to Kulturhuset, a fancy-looking cafe with a cool view of some water and other nearby buildings. I got myself some macarons (SO good), a chai latte (been drinking a lot of those lately), and a veggie burger. Travis and Beia, who also got the veggie burger, realized as quickly as I that it was so, so messy (but so good). Everyone sat and talked for a while, and I kind of went into my own head for a bit to recharge my social battery, occasionally butting in to others’ conversations when talked to or when it was relevant. I overheard Dane talking about his mission to find some cheap AirPods so that he’d be able to listen to music and navigation while still here- and his frustrations with trying to meet up with some Danish stranger on Facebook Marketplace. I only mention this, because I wound up tagging along with him to a nearby mall in his pursuit of AirPods.

Beia, Alice, Tessa, Dane, and I spent a good few hours in this mall (Forget the name, sadly). It had a huge, cool metallic sculpture, and a lot of very bougie stories. There was a huuuuge design/home store (there seem to be a lot of those here) that seemed really cool, until you realized that the cheapest item was around $20… So sad, found some good potential souvenirs, but not for the price they were. Seriously, I found a cheap piece of plastic hair clip that I could get at the Dollar Tree…. On sale for $22! AS if. It was a cool store to window shop in. Got some inspiration for a couple art projects there. We then wandered into a strange, kind of sketchy store. The first half, as you windingly walked in, was filled with fidget toys and weird, off-brand bootleg Among Us figurines. Then, as you went in, there was a brief office supplies section, and most of the store turned into party supplies? There was also cheap candy and a sketchy boba bar attached that I didn’t try, boba lover as I may be. Some things are too sketchy for me, and I wasn’t about to find out if that boba was any good. We had some more fun wandering in and out of stores. Their was somebody filming something in the mall, taking up a huge chunk of walkway, then, later, we helped Dane pick out some polos (decidedly, green is his color). There were also these cool walkways that they had instead of escalators, that was like the ones you’d find in an airport, but for going up. We decided to chill and try some of the weird Starbucks flavors available here (oddly enough, this was the very first Starbucks I have seen literally the entire time that we’ve been here. The only one.). As we sat, we discussed zodiac signs, why not to trust air sign men (especially aquarius men), and found out that I had known Alice’s ex boyfriend, Vincent, who apparently was an Aquarius man! Makes sense. As we drank, some weird band came walking by through the store- with a bunch of men who had interesting haircuts (ponytails only, basically, bald elsewhere). So that was neat. We eventually finished our drinks, made a few more stops to windowshop, then decided to leave and head separate ways.

Beia, Tessa, and I headed back into the city to walk around and do some shopping. The entire time I’ve been here, I’ve been meaning to research nearby metaphysical stores, which, lucky me, I wound up just randomly stumbling upon one! It was similar to ones I’d been to back home, but a lot more organized- and with some really cool tarot decks. Mind you, I already have 6-7 tarot decks at home. But I have adult money, and cannot help myself, and bought this amazing Art Nouveau inspired deck that the woman at the counter recommended. Got a nice crystal as well. We left, kept walking around in search of a cart that had been on the street the other day selling roasted nuts. No such luck. Tessa wound up taking off, since the dorms were just a block or so away, and Beia and I, hungry now, revisited the delicious bagel shop we went to one of our first days here. I really should have tried another flavor, but I couldn’t help but to get the Serrano again. Mouth-watering. So much pesto… so many crisp, fresh veggies… whatever meat goes in a Serrano…. Literally nothing tastes this good in the states. Nothing. I am spoiled rotten and probably am going to hate all of the food once I get home. I mean, how can’t I when I’ve stayed this long in a country where even McDonalds burgers look like fine dining! Not. Fair.

Beia and I were getting tired, but wanted to make a few more stops. We wanted to check out this amazing poster store- they had a little bit of everything for every one. Some of the posters were huge. I wish I could’ve gotten something, but I didn’t want to risk taking a poster home and bending it. But seriously- they had vintage art, modern graphic art, art of the city, music-based art, cartoons, modern musicians, and a lot of art historical posters. Could’ve spent hours in there if my feet weren’t acting up and were I not bummed out that I couldn’t get anything big. We then went to go check out a building I had biked past that, in Danish, translates to “Woman House” and had a bunch of cool, eye-catching feminist merch in the windowsill but, alas, its interior was shut down for the day. Before either of these stores, I also had tried to go to a nerdy store to get Mason a souvenir, but the guy inside wagged his finger at me and shoo’ed me away. Bummer.

Anyways, we would have been done for the night, as I personally was super tired, however, there is a 5-6 day rave called Distortion going on all throughout the city, and I wanted to say that I had at LEAST been to it once. So Beia, Tessa, and I geared up, got snazzy, and hit the city to head to the meat-packing district for a “Distortion Street Party.” Figuring out the train was soooo confusing. We almost went to the wrong machine, couldn’t figure out how many zones we needed, barely knew how to get our tickets- almost didn’t because the machine was being stubborn… It was a lot. All for them not to check our tickets once anyways. Lame. Anyways, we made it to Vesterbro (again, the meat-packing/red-light district) to, in fact, find a street party of hundreds and hundreds of people. But, the further we walked in, the more we realized it was just people sitting at benches with friends getting wasted beyond all recognition. We, at this point, had a faint hope of partying for at least an hour, and got some cheap fruity vodka in a can drink. There was, maybe, music in one or two corners of the Main Street. Mostly benches, and garbage, and drunk humans falling over, and broken beer bottles, and people going around collecting cans to make money off of returning them to machines. Seriously. Might have been fun if we were drunk, but seeing all of this sober/buzzed at best just had me feeling sad for the people who have to clean up the mess.

We were going to head to the club that I had gone to a few nights before, Jolene, in hopes of recovering the party spirit of the night (and hoping not to have wasted our time and train ticket), and, in our quest, found a few areas of dancing. One spot seemed very promising- Beia was just talking about wanting to go to a Silent Disco, and a silent disco we found! Excited, we crawled into line for headphones and got ready for a new experience. We got closer, and closer….. and the guy said “We’re closed!” Right as we reached him. So that was fun. We, again, headed towards Jolene. Stopped again, found another area of dancing- a tightly packed crowd that, closer to the stereos, had more dancing and excitement. But, really, most of the people were awkwardly standing around and talking. Super hard to get your boogie on if people just aren’t into it. So, tired, and having an early morning the next day, we gave up on our quest and headed back to the station. Did you know that they charge you to pee in Copenhagen’s Central Station? I was going to fall for the scam, but my card reader didn’t work on their machine. What a scaaaam. Anyways, figuring out the train home was a little bit stressful as well but we got ourselves sorted out. We hopped on, made it back to Norreport, and immediately snacked at the 24/7 McDonalds. I got this weirdly foamy banana shake (probably just not artificial, ngl) and some nuggets with this delicious garlic sauce. Again, gourmet McDonalds compared to the phony stuff American McDonalds sells you. Really fresh food to actually savor, not to buy out of desperation (Which we kinda did anyways). We just went home after eating, but maaaann was I sore. I think I’m falling apart at the seams, pain-level wise, but it’s all kind of numbing together. Both excited for tomorrow- revisiting Sweden for a longer time than just for lunch- and scared- for my poor, poor pain levels. What a day!

(P.S.; These were the “bathrooms” they had available for women at the street party…. Quite literally zero privacy)

June 1st, 2022

We started today with a bike ride to our first design firm of the day, Make. Beia, Tessa, Riley, and I headed over a little bit early and found a bite to eat at this amazing bakery. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a room full of bakers making fresh pastries and bread, so I knew this place was gonna be good. I went up to the counter, found a couple things that looked delicious (a pistachio/violet croissant and and a hazelnut croissant), bought them, and took them outside to munch on. As I ate, flaky pieces of pastry chipped off and fell to the ground, and in to the eager mouths of two very cute pigeons who were practically sitting on all of our feet in anticipation of the food we dropped. One was all white, the other a standard grey pigeon. It was crazy, I’d never had a pigeon so close to me before- I could practically reach down and grab ‘em, and I wanted to so, so badly.

Eventually, we finished up our food and got ready to go into the studio- up 6 flights of stairs. As much as I love my trip mates, they are way too fast. They’re too fast on foot, on bike, and going up the stairs. I trailed behind the back of the pack, slowly turning into a tomato as I tackled flight after flight of stairs.

Luckily, the people at Make are very generous, and had gifts sitting in our seats- some fancy-looking water and a tiny green notebook. We then proceeded to receive an amazing presentation. We found out about the different companies Make has done branding for, their unique approach to client relationships, and some amazing advice in general in terms of approaching branding- such as narrowing down the tone of one’s brand to one descriptor (“Optimism” for Coca Cola, for example, and “Imagination” for a company like G.E.). They broke down the essence of a brand, also, into a “blue script” and a “green script,” as inspired by Hitchcock’s process, the blue being the emphasis on assets and touch points and final visual outcomes, and the green being the brand’s emotions, its narrative, mission, and vision. We were also given an amazing chart for walking through some of the steps they talked about, and learned about developing metaphors for branding and re-branding in general- thinking about what a brand looks like now- if it were a chair/watch/car/animal, which sort would it be- then comparing that to a second metaphor of what chair/watch/car/animal they want to represent them post-rebrand. In my classes, I had sort of touched on this method before, but this made it even more clear to me.

After our visit to Make, we hopped back on our bikes and headed out to do a bit of sightseeing before food. We biked over to where the famous Little Mermaid statue is (and it sure was little… and mermaid-shaped, I guess). I didn’t really get a photo of it myself because I found it underwhelming, but my friend Alice sent me a photo, so I guess that’s close enough. By the time we stopped there, everyone was starting to get ravenous. It was funny, across the bay you could see both the (really, super cool) place we wound up going to eat as well as the next stop some of us made after eating.

One torturous bike ride spent once again trying to catch up to the faster half of our group, we made it to Refshaleoen- literally an entire yard of food trucks of all different kinds with cool music, cool seating, and overall good vibes. It was quite literally a foodie’s paradise- Greek food, Mexican food, steak dinners, mussels, ice cream, fries, Indian food, really just a little bit of everything. At the moment, I was craving gyros and went with the Greek food, but honestly, if it wasn’t so far away, I would go back there at least 2 more times to try some of the other places. It was unlike anything I’d been to before- even other food truck events paled in comparison to this place. Anyways, we ate, figured out getting a couple of students help in finding where we were after they got lost, and talked about a little bit of everything. All the while, seagulls, pigeons, and the weird raven-looking things were swarming around us begging for us to drop just a scrap of food. Eventually I gave in and fed them some chicken, which felt wrong on some level but, hey, they were gonna find their way in to the garbage to eat it anyways.

Our next (optional) stop was that of Copenhill- a gigantic man-made hill with fake grass that people can ski down any time of the year. The building itself is a gigantic garbage incinerator about 80m tall, with an intimidatingly tall rock climbing wall (hellllooo fear of heights). After arriving by bike, we parked and (luckily) took the giant elevator, not the stairs, up to the very top of the slope. After a very scary elevator ride up (you could see through the elevator and aaaaaalll the way down in the big warehouse), we reached the top of the slope and the rooftop cafe where we climbed a little higher and were met with a breathtaking view of the entire city and surrounding ocean. And, gotta, say, considering there was a giant cloud of smoke just above us, very little of the rooftop smelled like garbage, like, at all. We took in the view, awestruck, took some wonderful selfies, and made fun of all of the people who chose not to come with us to the slope. It really was such a unique experience, and I’m so, so glad I went. We walked all the way down the stairs back to the bottom, gawking at the structure above us all the way down. That is when rain started to roll in.

And roll in, it did. On our way to our second studio of the day, “Ja,” we passed through Free Town Christiania (fighting the urge to take photos the entire time, as they don’t want people taking photos there) to see what Travis and Michelle kept calling “Green George” As we did, it started drizzling as we walked our bikes through the city. We kept walking, closer to the statue, the rain got heavier. We made it to the statue- it was POURING. There was literally a waterfall in the middle of the dirt path running off of a building. We camped out, after taking a sneaky group photo, under some big, lush trees with just enough cover. Then someone decided it would be a good idea to bike to the DIS classroom which was near the studio to wait out the rain. A good idea, in theory…

It poured heavier, somehow. Thunder started clapping above. We kept biking. My “water proof” jacket was not, in fact, water proof. It started hailing. I definitely could not see anymore- between the rain, the hail, and the fact that the rain was making my contacts move around on the surface of my eyeball, I was a second away from crashing and having a panic attack when we pulled off to the side and under the cover of a store’s awning. We were all good sports about it, but we were all soaked down to the underwear/socks. We waited until the hail stopped, eventually, and hopped back on the bikes, still soaking wet, to the DIS classroom to squeeze the moisture out of our clothes before our stop at the studio. We had maybe 15 minutes to do this? We took off jackets and layers to squeeze the water out, made sure our phones and other tech weren’t thoroughly destroyed, and put all the wet layers right back on to our bodies and started walking to the studio.

We were met by this amazingly cool woman, Kigge Hvid, who has had a long, fascinating, and successful design career. However, it was immediately clear that she was most passionate about plants. She immediately started giving us amazing, cool facts about plants and the balance of life within ecosystems- how certain trees will have a mother tree that sends out nutrients to others, how dying trees give all of their nutrients to trees the same kind as them once they die- how trees are connected through a network of underground fungi. It sounds like she’s done some really meaningful work using plants as art- such as an installation for a mourning room for mothers suffering miscarriages in hospitals. I was really inspired by her, in all honesty. By her history, her success, her current studio, and, most of all, her passion. I think I want to start incorporating plants and nature into my process as a creative more now than ever. I tried to network with her afterwards but, honestly, it turned into me asking for book reccommendations to learn about plants and nature. What a cool lady!

Leaving her studio left my day on a great note. Surprisingly, despite having to stand the whole time, damp down to my bones, I felt alright and didn’t even feel the need to shower once I got some dry clothes on.

I spent some time recuperating and regaining all the energy lost from being soaked and bombarded with hail (seriously, we almost got cut by the hail! Crazy stuff). This took a couple of hours that should have been spent doing work (hence why the blogs for these next few days are being posted pretty late). I still wasn’t in the mood to work, so I wound up heading down to the basement’s “Plug and Play” to hang out with Dane, Riley, and Bryan playing Smash Bros (which I am in fact slowly learning how to actually play instead of merely button mash. Nowhere near my boyfriend, Mason’s, level of playing. Maybe never will be). It was definitely a chill night after a day out in the bad weather. I really hope the weather will clear- or, at least, that this was the worst of it. I can handle some sprinkling, but what I really want is some of the warmth and sunshine we got on our first day or so here!

May 31st, 2022

I started out today with a stop by “J&C (Juice & Coffee)”, where I got a delicious spicy chai latte and this scrumptious Serrano sandwich on a long, dark bread with some pesto and just the right amount of crunch. Looking at the menu there was pretty funny, as a lot of their drinks were named after cities and states in the U.S, and their milkshakes were named after presidents- with delightful options such as the Obama, the Reagan, the Roosevelt, the Eisenhower, and the Biden. Gave Beia and I a good chuckle.

After eating and chatting for a bit, we met the rest of the group at the fountain near the DIS classroom building, and all piled in to listen to a presentation by a member of this group called INDEX, which supports and raises up design projects that are intended to improve the world in categories of home, work, education/play, body/self, and/or community. Ditte, who gave us the presentation, talked about several INDEX award winning projects- including things like a book that tracked down every single product that the pieces of a single pig wound up in (which was crazy- the byproducts of a single pig went into multiple hundreds of individual products), a centrifuge (device for separating blood to test for blood-borne diseases) made out of paper in an origami-like process, baby clothes designed to grow with the baby, the Lifestraw (a Danish invention, btw), a helmet that looks like a scarf and inflates only when you get into a crash on your bike, and an incredibly exciting potential new form of non-hormonal birth control with (seemingly) little to no negative side effects! It was really intriguing and inspiring to hear about all of these projects and the ways in which design can be realistically used to improve the world. It made me want to start thinking of ways in which the problems I encounter in life could be solved by design.

Oh, it was also super cool to hear that something I found out about on TikTok actually won a serious design award from them- this elaborate Minecraft world built/used by journalists in countries where there is no freedom of press and censorship that may, on occasion, include death. It made me rethink how I had perceived that project when I had first discovered it. Hearing about it on TikTok, I kinda laughed off this idea, that something beneficial could be stored in a Minecraft world. But, the more I think about it, the cooler of an idea it is that a video game invented for leisure and creative interaction with a digital world has so much unlimited creative potential that one can build an actual library within the program, one with real-world effects on journalism and as a tool to bypass censorship. It was wild.

Anyways, after the presentation, out next stop was Glyptotek, a really awesome art museum not too far away from our dorms. I biked over, locked up my bike and my stuff, and immediately dived in to looking at some art. I, as a whole, enjoyed seeing art from a lot of Danish artists whom I’d never heard of. Everything I saw, for the most part, was just as good as the paintings I had been taught about in my art history classes, so I figure Danish artists didn’t make the cut to be taught about simply because, perhaps, there were many artists of that skill level at the time.

However, I definitely spent most of my time in the exhibits about French artists and other European artists associated with their movements, like Gauguin, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Degas, and, my favorite, Van Gogh!

Not exaggerating, I spent most of my time in the exhibit looking at the bigger painting of Van Gogh’s that they had on display, “Landscape from Saint-Remy” (1889). The only other Van Gogh I’d ever seen was a much smaller piece at the Denver Art Museum, so seeing one of his works of this scale in person was truly mind-blowing. I know a lot of people say that he’s their favorite artist, but I am certainly no exception. Something about the way he used color… and the visual language of his lines and spots of paint- and, even better, seeing up close (literally, I was so close to the painting the security guard kept giving me a funny look) the textural quality of his work…. Unf! Total art nerd moment. But really, something about seeing it in person- three-dimensional globs of paint an all, was really transformative. This also was a piece I hadn’t seen (even digitally/in classes) before, and knowing that the way he rendered things like clouds is so similar to the way that I do it just intuitively- I don’t know. I feel a weird sense of kinship, I feel like I understand how he saw the world. Plus, knowing the story of his life… and, being a nerd, I couldn’t help but think of the scene from Doctor Who (that I wish could’ve been real) where they took him to the Louvre to see how much people appreciate his work post-Mortem- that scene makes me cry every time. I’m getting a bit off-topic but, hey, if you’re reading this, you know these blog entries are very train-of-thought.

Anyways, part of the exhibit was an entire room of Gauguin’s work. It was neat. I wish I could’ve enjoyed it more, but I’m really, really not a fan of Gauguin- his art is amazing, don’t get me wrong- but he was kind of an icky human being with a colonizer mentality, and something about the way he fetishized indigenous people in some of his work has always rubbed me the wrong way. Plus, if I’m remembering my art history correctly (and not confusing Gauguin for someone else entirely), he was kind of a dick to Van Gogh and possibly the reason for his worsening mental condition. So, yeah, if I’m not getting people mixed up, fuck Gauguin (Seriously, pardon my cursing. I know it’s unprofessional, but these are big, nerdy feelings about art history and there is no better way to express them). My personal feelings aside, I had no idea that Gauguin had lived in Copenhagen for a while, and had had a Danish wife! What was funniest to me was that the entire time he lived in Denmark, he was miserable and constantly complained about it. Sounds about right. (Seriously, this guy seems like a whiner, I’m loving it here!) But that was the reason they had an entire room of his art on display. It was interesting seeing some of his pieces from before he found the distinctive style he’s known for- seeing how traces of it come through in how he used color and markmaking- but it wasn’t quite where it had developed later on.

Anyways, other than nerding out about Impressionists and the French artists they had on display, I mused on a few other things while walking around the museum. One wall highlighted the artistic practice of nude studies/painting studies in general. On this wall there were 5-6 examples of the same model, same pose, from different artists who were there studying her. I, again, felt a weird artsy kinship. It reminded me of times in life drawing classes where we’d be studying a model with charcoal for about an hour, and I’d get to go around the circle of us and take delight in noting how we all have the same basic attributes and pose down, but with each piece having its own distinct artistic stylization based on the artist. I think seeing an older version of this really made me aware of how interesting it is that something I have lived experience doing is has art historical precedent- and, on a different level of analysis- the fact that I am getting to experience these same practices as a woman! My understanding of art studies in previous eras is that, for a long while, live studies were exclusively men- from the artists to the models. Eventually, as the exhibit wall discussed in the museum, it shifted so that female models were allowed. Only within the past 100-200 years, however, have women been able to be, like men, both model and/or artist. It’s something that I take for granted, honestly.

On that note, viewing historical art as a female is just a bizarre experience at times in general. In multiple pieces that I saw, women were featured not as people, but as decoration. Maybe I saw a few objectified male figures, but the difference in numbers between the two was stark. It was a pretty depressing reminder that, for most of history (and even now at times), we have been viewed as second-class citizens. And every time a woman has tried to speak up on this, she gets shut down, has her feelings invalidated, or, in modern times, has been viewed as a “man-hating feminist.” We shouldn’t have to be objectified or sexualized just because of the parts we were born with. Yet male artists seem to think the opposite.

Some of the art was also an uncomfortable reminder of “a different time-“ I saw a couple paintings and sculptures featuring a man and a “woman-“ where the woman was actually just a girl. One sculpture, you could tell distinctly by proportion that it was an adult man lying next to a young girl. In a portrait, I saw an old, greying man next to a complacent wide-eyed wife who just had the quality of adolescence to her. Again, not a comfortable experience to be seeing these things as a woman who has lived past all of her teenage years. It’s horrifying to me, as a 21-year-old who still often feels like a child, that we live in a world where girls as young as 13 were forced to bear children for disgusting older men as soon as they were able. And that we live in a world where certain states (not naming names…) are trying to lower the age of marriage… yuck.

Anyways, ramble aside, I was also uncomfortable not just as a woman, but as a fat person. Again, I understand art historical conventions and deep, deep-rooted beauty standards all the way back, but the fact that I didn’t see a single body that looks like mine… am I not worthy of seeing myself in art? Has society’s distaste of fat bodies gone on for that long? Fat people have always existed alongside “normal” bodied people. Were we not beautiful enough to be immortalized in stone? I wasn’t the only one. I won’t say who I talked to, out of respect for privacy, but another one of the women on the trip conveyed to me that she had a similar feeling. And that’s sad. I think I’m going to, when I get home, start some sort of support group for women to talk about these things. I don’t know.

Obviously, nobody can re-write history or change the fact that thinner women have always been seen (for some reason) as the pinnacle of beauty, but I really thought maybe the fact that plumpness was, at some point, associated with wealth/health would at least get a couple fat people into the art there. I think I just have to accept that I live in a world that is unkind to people based on how they were born. Most likely, no matter how I eat or work out I am stuck in a body that is genetically wired to hold on to fat, and there are always going to be people who see me as less beautiful for that. But, tying back to my point- art and design- this has left me enraged and inspired to pump out more art into the world where bigger-bodied people can be seen as attractive.

Anyways. Wow. I got way, way, way off on a ramble there. I apologize to anyone who reads this, if you sat through all of that. Big feelings just seemed to have tumbled out (I don’t do any sort of blogging or journaling often, so that’s probably why). Despite my different reactions to certain things, I really did enjoy myself at this museum. I think my favorite part really was seeing work by the artists I’ve thoroughly learned about in my various art history courses. There is such a difference to seeing their work in person versus on a screen. I think the only thing I was even remotely disappointed by was a piece by Theodore Gericault, where he faithfully rendered an image of an adorable cat, and forgot the best part of the cat…. The toe beans! What a crime. Sorry, I’m letting my crazy cat lady show through here too, I guess. Can’t fight who I am.

Again, I’m sorry about the rambling that has taken place in this blog. I am too tired to edit it out, so it is what it is. (Hi mom, I’m sure you’ve read all of this and are going to text me about it later, love you!)

Anyways, after the museum came a visit to a company formerly known as Krukow (unfortunately I’ve forgotten their new name, which, I mean no offense by this, is a lot more generic). We got a thrilling presentation about behavioral design that left me wishing that I had learned more about it from my other design classes! Essentially, behavioral design works with the part of your brain that is subconscious (“System 1,” they called is) which is what we naturally make decisions with 90% of the time- “System 2” thinking is the other 10% where you are focusing, not merely relying on instincts and natural behaviors, and actively putting mental energy into a task requiring a higher level of thought. A lot of the design I’ve thought about and even made thus far has been appealing to that, as I’ve, more or less, been taught. On some level, I’ve learned to utilize subconscious tools (like shape language- sharp shapes being aggressive, smooth ones being approachable- and color psychology), but it was so cool to see a style of design that was all about the subconscious mind.

This is the kind of design we all kind of take for granted, but it’s genius! One example they showed was, in part of their hospital redesign, they took a self check-in kiosk that was plain, unassuming, and completely unlabeled (That literally nobody used) and increased its usage rare by 100% simply by putting underneath it a big yellow circle with footprint graphics (indicating that it is a place to stand/approach) and a big sign relying on a lot of visual cues indicating that, essentially, it was a place to check in. If I wasn’t so into making art and design that’s visually flashy and eye-catching, I would so explore doing behavioral design. It’s so much deeper than I had assumed. I really admired how they emphasized the universal quality of using visuals over text- indicating actions/directions with mere icons rather than a paragraph of words.

Again, this is something I’ve certainly taken for granted as I’ve interacted with similar signage/icon use. It was also pretty humorous how they were playing mind tricks on us, in a way (not in a bad way)- when we arrived, they had soda, fruit, and candy awaiting us, which we all gratefully took and munched down on after a bike ride in the rain. Later on, they revealed that using “System 2” thinking (like that required to pay attention to a presentation and learn) is draining to the body, so they had encouraged our attention by, essentially, raising our blood sugar with all the sugary options available.

Given all that we got up to today, I feel like I’ve learned so much! I’m ready to apply what I’ve learned, too, as I had my second meeting for the project I’m currently working on with a team. The rest of the day after Krukow went as follows: I followed my friend to meet Travis, Michelle, and Noreen at an amazing burger place where I had yet another of the best chicken sandwiches I’ve ever had in my life. I rushed back with just enough time to make the meeting, started working on a game plan for the project’s upcoming deadlines (some of which occur while I’m still abroad!), Then proceeded to use the rest of the night to catch up on blogs and journals, run to the market for snacks and sushi, then chatted with Beia and Tessa about a variety of things until we were all tired and settled down for bed.

I’m finding, as fun as going out and partying is, that having nights in, especially whilst tired, is just good for the soul. I may or may not be going out with the extroverts in some of the upcoming nights, so it’s good to rest and save that energy for another day.

May 30th, 2022

Today, after some much-needed rest, we went back to adventuring. Now that we’ve been in the city for over a week, Travis and Michelle trusted us to get to today’s design firm on our own terms. Everyone else wanted to meet up and walk (a 30 minute walk, btw) for some bloody reason. I thought that was total nonsense, but maybe I’m biased because, heellllOOO, foot pain! Anyways, Beia and I biked over, the more rational decision, because the bike ride was a mere 10 minutes. (all of us over here have bikes, I don’t know why they would chose the longer option? Boggles my mind)

Anyways, first up was Hvass & Hannibal, this adorable design firm tucked away in an inconspicuous building. I was so excited to see this one, having seen their work before coming here, and knowing a lot of their design was, at some point, more illustration-oriented. However, when we walked in, all eyes went to their beautiful tapestries and visual language. Laid out on the table before us was a sample of their work- some magazine and children’s book illustrations, some package design, some tapestry designs, and quite a few album cover designs. So beautiful. Their designs and illustrations were so varied across projects- one of their album covers was even hand-made out of origami and photographed in the woods, another a photograph of tapestries. I really was inspired by how every piece was so different, but so connected by their underlying, consistent use of shape, color, etc- their visual language, again.

From there, we were sent off with two hours to kill and a destination to reach. One treacherous bike ride later up Copenhagen’s only hill, those of us who chose to ride bikes had soon made it near the Carlsberg factory, where we were supposed to get a tour of some sort. However, all over the area was construction, and the tour was apparently supposed to be outside across multiple buildings, so Travis and Michelle decided against us going. We were already there, so we quickly hunted for a bite to eat and found this place called the Burger Shack, where I had the best chicken sandwich I’ve ever had- so crunchy and crispy- and the best fries I’ve ever had! They were covered in truffle salt, oil, and a herb, Rosemary I believe. So gooodddddd. Gods, I’m such a foodie.

By then, the new plan was to meet back at the station (Norreport) to head off, instead, to the Aquarium, which we were supposed to do later on in the trip. We headed to the Metro, which was more like the light rail than the trains we had been on thus far, and set off for the Aquarium.

The aquarium was super cool, it was divided into three sections, I forget specifically which was which, but in one room was an indoor shallow touch pool with a deck where, if you were quick enough, you could touch some stingrays. Another room was a huge, humid indoor jungle with tiny frogs, lizards, bugs (I saw a millipede!), birds, and butterflies there for anyone to catch a glimpse of. It was super cool, other than being super sweaty. This other section, I really enjoyed. Not only was there a huge comfy couch in front of some big, cool fish (which I came back to multiple times because of foot pain), but in the same room was a tank that was almost easy to miss, with a few holes on the top to stick your hand through. I was expecting, at best, to touch some of the small fish inside, but boy oh boy what I did not know is that these fish wanted to touch me, in fact! Immediately a swarm of tiny doctorfish surrounded my hand, quickly getting to work eating dead skin/cuticles and stuff. In theory, it is disturbing that I was getting partially eaten alive by a swarm of tiny fish. On the other hand, it felt like hundreds of tiny gentle kisses all over my hand. Others freaked out upon putting their hand in the tank, but I was so fascinated by the sensation. It was unlike anything else I had ever felt before! I went back a couple of times, it really felt like getting a manicure. And the fish were super cute. With my ever-vivid imagination, I immediately pictured an eco-punk (like steampunk/cyberpunk) future where people could have spa days in a pool of these fish. It would be cool, my hands feel so soft and clean after the experience.

Anyways, the rest of the time I spent exploring the tunnel through their “sea” tank, then sitting in silent wonder with my trip mate, Alice, as we sat in silence (While children screamed deafeningly loudly in my ears) looking up from our seats on the stairs at the huge tank in front of us. It was a really meditative experience, sitting, wondering how the fish feel being in captivity- wondering what life is like through their eyes, why they choose to swim in one direction versus enother- how the tinier fish and the larger hammerhead sharks could co-exist…. I got lost down a rabbit hole of thoughts. It was really cool, I don’t think I’ve gotten to just sit and ponder like that before at an aquarium.

Anywho, once we got back to town from the aquarium I was so physically tired and so, so happy I had parked my bike near the station. It turned a painful 15-minute walk back to the BaseCamp into a pleasant 5-minute bike ride. Side note, it is CRAZY how much bicycling around is like driving a car here- we have to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, we have our own roads, our own (Tiny) lights next to the bigger traffic lights, our own turn lanes, our own “turn signals” (hand gestures, like pointing the direction we’re turning)…. It was hard to adjust to, at first, because I was used to biking the way I do at home (usually on sidewalks), but I switched my brain into driving mode and it really is cool how similar it is. It’s something I think if we had at home, I would do often to go everywhere, and would be in so, so, so much better shape. Side side note, we can even get ticketed ~$100 if we break biking laws, like getting a driving ticket. So neat. Kinda anxiety inducing. Infinitely better than beating my already broken feet into a pulp.

I didn’t feel much like going out. For dinner, I biked to the local grocery store and grabbed some pre-made meals- one for now, one for later. I then joined a huge group of us in the basement lounge, all of us finally sitting and getting caught up on our blogs and journals (I was mostly caught up on blogs, but my journal was getting woefully behind). It was really nice to sit and listen to the extroverts converse while focusing and getting my work done. It strangely helped. Also, someone had left free pastries sitting downstairs, so I was more than happy to chow down on one. As the night went on, focus turned into conversation, gossiping about group drama, discussing Star Wars and all the ways that Martin was absolutely incorrect about the new series (he actually believes that they are good films. Dude, I could barely get through one without sleeping, and I dare not watch the others because I’ve heard that they are trash and that Rey is an embarrassment to all powerful women everywhere). Anyways. We talked, enjoyed each other’s company, and before the night came to a close, Martin started singing Lord of the Rings songs. As he got to Misty Mountain, Dane and Brandon joined in. Eventually it evolved into sea shanties, and Preston joined in. Then, with willpower, the song “Wellerman,” and a lot of peer pressure, every single one of us down there crowded around an iPad for lyrics, attempted a slow shanty (That one that got popular on TikTok- hoist the flags, maybe?). We butchered it. But Martin started belting out “Randy Dandy” (I think?) which he knew by heart and we had all heard him sing at least once. So, with lyrics to guide us, we all sang and closed off our night feeling a sense of kinship that can only be felt by singing- especially by singing sea shanties- with other people. I bet our dorm loovvvvves us.

It was a perfect sort of night. I got to socialize to the extent that I was comfortable with, enjoy the company of others in a delightful yet educationally productive manner, and I got to sing freakin sea shanties! I like the balance of nights like these with the nights where we’ve been out late at bars or just partying. It’s nice.

May 29th, 2022

After a non-stop adventure of 6 days, we finally were given a rest day to spend as we pleased. This was a blessing, considering I was out being a party animal until 3AM, and am a total baby if I am running on anything less than 7-8 hours of sleep. There was an optional journey to a fishing island with Travis and Michelle, but accompanying them meant waking up early. So I slept in and rested up as needed.

I woke up enjoying the peace of not having somewhere to be for one morning, finally. Getting to enjoy my time here at my own pace. I had some brunch plans with the girls of the group, and waited to hear from them. Only two other girls, Kayleen and Alice, went out for brunch (lunch, really). We went to this cool Smorrebrod place- a shop specializing in fancy open-faced sandwiches- in the rain, only a pleasant 6 minute walk away to a part of the city we hadn’t yet been in. $10 later, I had an open faced sandwich with sprouts, potatoes, some interesting crunchy things, and some red onions. Really, really good, but for the $10 I spent, I was not sated. We also went to the cafe built in to the BaseCamp dorms, “Jack’s Hole in the Wall,” where I got a delicious chocolate pastry and a chai latte (both combined being cheaper than the smorrebrod). Everything was so delicious. I sat chatting in the basement lounge with the gals as we ate and enjoyed our food.

Eventually we dispersed, and, still tired from the other 6 days I’ve been up and at it, I went to go work on blogs, sketches, and scroll social media for the first time in over a week. So refreshing. Even better, I got to re-charge my social battery, as my roommate was out for the day (having gone to the fishing town). From there, the plan was to eventually perhaps hit Tivoli Gardens while we still had access to our Copenhagen Cards (which get us into most of the museums and things in the city for free). I wasn’t sure if this was gonna happen today, and it ultimately didn’t.

Instead, I went with a group (Dane, Alice, and Bryan) to the (very) nearby Botanical Gardens- which were, surprisingly, free to enter. It was gorgeous. I had no idea it was there, so close to our dorm building! Here, we spent some time roaming, photographing, and sketching the nature and cool plants. I intended to sit in sketch, but, instead, got in my feels just walking around on my own. My brain started throwing poetry, song lyrics, and deep existential thoughts at me for the first time in a long while- guess that’s what happens when I let my thoughts clear! I appreciated the plants, sat for a long while to rest my poor feet, and eventually used my Copenhagen card to get in to the palm greenhouse and the butterfly room- both full of amazing plants that, honestly, started to look like alien life. I really enjoyed it, and even more enjoyed getting to see everything without having to talk to anyone.

We wound up staying in the gardens a lot longer than I thought we would have, which was okay- gave me more time to walk around, appreciate things, and collect my thoughts/brain vomit in a few notes on my phone. By now, I’d walked another 10,000 steps or so and began feeling the pain and hunger set in again, so I quickly made plans for us to meet up with Tessa and Beia, who had just gotten back from the day trip, and go grab sushi. And grab sushi we did! We found the nearest sushi, settled in, and ordered so much sushiiiii, I got two different rolls, and we all kinda shared our food. The fish here is so fresh.

Anyways, by the time we finished eating, we found out we would be getting new Copenhagen cards next week, so we decided we were all too tired to hit the Tivoli. Instead, Dane proposed an evening of video games and casual drinks in the basement gaming room, and I was so down. Dane, I, Riley, and Bryan (coincidentally the more introverted ones of the group) played multiple rounds of Mario Kart and, eventually, Smash Bros. In both games, I sucked at first and quickly got better- I think I may have even done better in Smash here than when Mason has tried to teach me back home! Maybe it’s because I was playing with other people who suck at Smash, and not a bunch of people who are experts in the game. It was actually kind of fun, and I got close to winning a couple of times!

Anyways, the day and night was so chill and refreshing. It was definitely what I needed to re-energize myself. Off to more adventuring tomorrow!

May 28th, 2022

We started off today with another train ride to the end of its line- this time to Helsingør, a town home to the castle that Hamlet is set in and that is a small ferry ride away from Helsingborg in Sweden.

Our first stop after the train ride was to grab a bite to eat in the culture center in the town- a very cool structure that appears to be a building inside of a building. As we walked, we passed a delightful port full of a variety of ships. Upon reaching the cafe in the culture center, we all ordered food and drink and settled down in the cafe. We chatted, and one of my trip mates, Hayley (who is very good at braiding hair) started going around and braiding the hair of anyone with long hair who was willing to have their hair braided (including a few of the men on the trip). As an introvert, I wasn’t really included in this festivity yet had fun observing the shenanigans. While all of this went down, I snacked on the best (maybe the only?) Macchiato I’ve ever had, and what I can only presume was a hazelnut tart (nød means nut in Danish, and it was called a “Hasselnød Tart”).

After taking care of our hunger and caffeine needs, we walked to the Maritime Museum. While I didn’t really have any sort of interest in sailing and maritime history going in to the museum, the history and information really was compelling and drew me in as I went along. The exhibit started with a cool, immersive room with the ocean projected on the wall and a large buoy in the center, along with some attention-grabbing quotes (in a font designed by one of the firms we will be visiting later!). From there, it was just such a well-designed museum and really did well for itself in keeping me engaged in a subject I, again, didn’t have a lot of prior interest about. It was easily one of the coolest-looking and best formatted museums I’d ever been to, touching on life at sea, the history of trading by sea, sailor tattoos, boat signals, and a bit of modern history about the importance of modern cargo transportation to our everyday needs as consumers, and the people that get things from their point of origin to our stores and doors.

Side note, in the section about trade and exotic luxury goods for the rich, what caught my eye was a massive display that had sections that would light up indicating elements within a painting that were traded luxury goods. What stood out to me even more was that the overlay was of a painting that had caught my eye at yesterday’s castle! A reminder, the castle had literally hundreds and hundreds of individual pieces of art, and the painting in question was small and practically hidden in a corner. But, of the hundreds, it was one of the ones that had stood out to me enough to photograph it- and there I was, seeing a copy of it blown up in a museum the next day! What are the odds.

Anyways, after that, our next stop was the castle. As excited as I am to see castles, being from somewhere that has essentially no castles (not any as old as the ones in Europe, anyways), a quote from an old man my parents once did a tour of Europe with before they had me rings in my head - “Once you’ve seen one castle, you’ve seen ‘em all.” Not to be ungrateful, that is. But having been to other castles now, in my life, I have to say that he’s not entirely incorrect in that regard. This castle was super cool- had the standard courtyard with cobblestone, filled with intricate decorative elements and sculpture. However, my time in it was a lot shorter and left me less awe-struck than yesterday’s castle. Man, talk about first world problems.

What I did like is that this one had a lot more information about the history of the items/rooms I was seeing, which the other castle certainly lacked. There were some cool paintings and tapestries, and a lot more art in general featuring Greco-Roman deities (which I am admittedly quite a bit of a nerd about). The coolest art was that of (I believe) 15 tapestries they had recording the lineage of Danish royalty. Apparently the full collection was as much as 100 complete, large, elaborate tapestries- some of which were lost/destroyed, and 25 of which are still partially in tact, but not well-preserved or complete enough to be displayed. Some of the original tapestries were actually housed in the castle that our dorm is right next to! (Still realllly need to get in there to see the museum in that one, seeing as it is literally right there- maybe something for my free day if my feet keep doing better). Anyways, the plaques and videos they showed helped give me some more context on the art and castles I’ve been seeing thus far- seeing connections between symbols/crests I’ve seen in other buildings in other towns and now knowing a bit about what specific king/part of the royal lineage the symbols are associated with.

One part of the castle I almost missed was that of the casements. Luckily, Tessa (who had been roaming the castle with me) and I had caught up to Travis and Michelle, who had known about the casements. We followed them down steps so old they had grooves in them from years of walked, down into the depths of these basement-y caverns and tunnels beneath the building. We passed by a really cool sculpture that is supposedly a “Sleeping guardian” of the town, intended to awake were the town to ever be under attack, and soon after were fumbling around in an eerie darkness. The ground was uneven, random things and stones jutted out of the earthy floor in the complete darkness (it’s a miracle none of us fell or broke an ankle). Some parts of it went on in complete darkness, open for us to explore. Apparently soldiers lived in there. Wouldn’t want to have been them!

As we exited, we were greeted by a display of canons and a cool deck to view the sea from, and passed by more art of Greco-Roman deities. We made our way back, then, to our pre-determined meeting spot near the cultural center, where I finally was included and got my hair braided :D (yay). Our next stop? Sweden! (For a couple of hours). We walked over to a ferry that only ran every hour on the 0:30 mark, received tickets, and sat waiting.

Now, disclaimer, at this part I start to get a little witchy-woo-woo-spiritual-reincarnation-y. So, if you don’t believe in that sort of stuff and don’t feel like rolling your eyes for a paragraph or two, hop past this.

Anyways. The boat ride from Denmark to Sweden was spectacular. I stood on the back of the ship, looking out at the coast we were leaving and the trail of waves behind us. However, it began evoking within me a strange flavor of nostalgia. Okay, for context for this next bit, I read tarot cards (not as often as I used to, but still). One day, my friends and I back home decided to try out some past life readings. I happen to very loosely (mostly for entertainment) believe in the concept of reincarnation. Anyways, we read cards, we meditated on past lives, they got vivid flashbacks of theirs, and I got bits and pieces. As I walked through the meditation, I got glimpses of the life of this man- he was usually wearing some sort of blue coat/uniform. The most vivid image I got was of him walking through a poorly-paved port town on a grey, wet day, the ocean raging off the coast just behind some buildings (If I really had to guess, most likely from the early-mid 1800s??). I also got an image of him on his deathbed (probably only in his 50s) in an (1800s-looking) bedroom, surrounded by his daughter, son, and wife. Anyways, got off topic, just wanted to let you know I’m not (Fully) crazy and I did actually see something.

Annnnnyways. Being on the boat, weird nostalgia, dead white guy presumably from the 1800s that may or may not have been a past life. I wasn’t remotely thinking of anything close to that tarot session, but out of nowhere I got something deeper and more eerie than de ja vu- standing on the back of a large boat started feeling familiar, I started getting images of, instead of being where I actually was on a modern boat, being on the deck of a huge wooden boat with old sails and flags everywhere, as that man, in the same blue uniform, looking out fondly over the ocean as we (entered?) a port. Again, maybe I’m crazy- maybe I have an over-active imagination- but none of that explains how this came literally out of nowhere, and the strange sense of knowing I had. I don’t know. Reincarnation probably isn’t real. But I sure saw memories through this guy’s eyes! At one point they kind of interpolated back and forth between my own view of the boat I was on, and I felt like a different person. It was so fucking strange (pardon my French). I had to remind myself that I was not, in fact, a middle-aged white sailor with a (fabulous) bushy mustache on a large wooden vessel. Had to look at my hands and body and be like- yep, definitely an overweight American woman in my 20’s! I don’t know. Real or not, I like to imagine that at some point, somewhere, the man I saw in these memories? Visions? Was a real human who had been in the same waters that I was in, seeing the same coast, from a different time. I feel haunted by that mental experience I went through in the span of a mere 20 minutes. I (partially) drew what he (I?) looked like. (The hair is supposed to be lighter, I just don’t have time to finish it right now).

——WITCHY WOO-WOO SPIRITUAL STUFF ENDS HERE——

We got to Sweden surprisingly quickly, after a strange boat ride for me and a pleasant boat ride for my tripmates. Immediately I loved how similar but different the town seemed to be from the towns I’ve experienced thus far in Denmark. Like, yep, this is still definitely Scandinavian. But certainly a different flavor. Lol.

We were given a few hours to explore, but most of us were starving and wanted lunch. Travis and Michelle had said they knew of a place with good Mussels, so I, Tessa, Beia, Brandon, and Riley followed. This place didn’t wind up having mussels, but maaaaannn what I got was delicioussss, I got some buttered cod in this rich creamy dressing, with some potatoes. They also had an amazing salad bar (Where I tried pickled red onions- SUPER GOOD) and I finally had olives that I didn’t hate the taste of for the first time in my life! Also had this tasty pear cider. So goood. We chatted, had a good time, and enjoyed our food- surprisingly cheap for how fancy it looked, btw ($20 for the meal, the salad bar, and the cider, not too shabby!)

As we left the restaurant, we heard some interesting rhythm from afar. Ever curious, I followed the professors as we went to peek at the source- someone was having a hell of a wedding party on the shore! Really cool drums, the music sounded sort of rave-y. After sating our curiosity, we turned back to go wait and get ready for the ferry back over to Denmark.

Boy did that not happen as scheduled!

When boarding time came, we rushed to line in a waiting room packed with people. About 2/3 of the group made it on. Me and a handful of people, however did not. These ships run once an hour, just a reminder. So, yeah, we were stranded from the rest of the group for a full hour. An hour I used to draw the drawing above, listen to music, and chat with my friend, Beia. Only once we boarded our boat, an hour later, did we realize the boat was too full for us originally because a band was playing on the ship, and about 50 people were staying to drink and listen, rather than deboard, back and forth and back and forth on the ship all day. I was a little mad, but it’s understandable. We listened to the rock below as we sat back on the top deck and, looking out as the town got smaller and the Swedish flag waved goodbye, it honestly felt like a scene straight out of a movie. I’m glad the music was there, it was a cool boat ride. Anyways, we made it to the coast, then made it to the train, then made it back to the city.

Next on the agenda? A very thorough half-hour internal debate on whether I should be introverted, get quiet dinner, and go to bed early versus go to a night club. For those who know me on any level whatsoever, the answer may shock you-

I went clubbing! I wasn’t going to- I really wasnt. I thought I’d be lame on the dance floor- mind you, my experience thus far of a dance floor was the lame excuse of a club at the student bar. But it was so different. With a sizable group of trip mates, we went out, hopped on a train, and got off at a station back in the meat-packing district (literally right next to where Khora is). We pre-gamed a beer, and went in… at 7:30PM. So early that it was a ghost town. I started feeling my anxieties may have been correct, perhaps. But we settled in, got some drinks (I was drinking water the whole time, being careful, I promise I was okay, Mom), and, essentially, were the ones to start the party. People definitely gave us some looks for partying so early, but it was honestly a vibe (those people can F off). I thought the club was pretty cool, getting to see it both as a ghost town and later when it was fully packed. There were cat stickers all over the wall :3. It was also surprisingly small- literally just a room for sitting and then a dance floor connected to a bar area. Pretty small (the other club I’ve been to in my life is a lot bigger than this). The bathrooms were also a lot less sketchy than I anticipated. In typical Danish style, instead of stalls, they had rooms. Felt like a really safe place to drink and get my boogie on, especially with such a large group of us.

As the night went on, more and more people filed in. The DJ got better and better- there were some songs I recognized (like “Can’t get you out of my head”), and others I vibed so hard with because they were super disco/funky with some FAT bass. I honestly just let my body, the booze, and the years of Zumba classes take over from there. The lights flashed and changed colors to the beat, the dancefloor got packed- some people were there alone just to dance- it was cool to see- and they started pumping fog into the dance floor so, at times, you couldn’t see the person next to you. I honestly kind of got lost in my own world for most of the time, only stopping to take breaks when my feet hurt. It was really special. I think I’d go to clubs more often if I had friends who were actually in to that kind of thing. Even better, not once did I feel unsafe! Even stumbling to the bathrooms. Oh, and funnily enough, earlier on in the night there were a few occasions when some of the people in our large circle broke away to take a breather, and at least twice, all of the extroverted people in our group were resting and relaxing while all of the more closed off, introverted types stayed out on the floor getting down to the beat (lol I sound like a lame dad but idk it just, for lack of a less dorky word, felt groovy)

I got so lost in time on the dance floor, however, that 1-2AM came sooner than I realized. I wasn’t the only one starting to get tuckered out, so I let everyone know that a good handful of us were ready to dip. A half-hour of dealing with coat check later, we were on our way across town to the train (Which I was surprised to find out that it runs so late, considering the same cannot be said for the light rail)

Also I think the people in this city are nocturnal (my kinda people ngl), because the entire walk home, even once we were past all the bars/clubs, was just filled with people out and about, with 7/11s and food places open and crowded- the train station bustling with life as if it were a normal time to be awake. It was strange to see. We quickly became some of the people at such food places upon reaching a 24/7 McDonalds- all of us having just burned easily 1000+ calories dancing and walking- piling in to eat. God was I ravenous. It’s crazy, I got a chicken sandwich and some nuggets, and the ingredients were unlike anything at home. The lettuce was fresh, the chicken tasted real, the bun was made of a whole different (less plastic looking) kind of bread- the sauces tasted less sweet and more rich in flavors. It really made me wish American food/ingredient regulations were stricter, because eating REAL, fresh ingredients at a freakin’ McDonalds, of all places, was a culture shock for sure. Anyways, I was well sober before this point, scarfed down food and water, and proceeded to stumble home in foot pain more than in drunkenness and hit the bed like a bag of bricks. What a night.

May 27th, 2022

Today was kind of a rough one. Not because of anything we did, but because my foot pain is becoming debilitating. I can’t tell if it’s normal to be in this much pain because my body simply isn’t used to walking 5-10 miles a day, or if something is genuinely wrong. Either way, it’s really taking away from my enjoyment and I hope it stops.

Anyways, we met at the station again this morning, and I finally tried this popular chain, “Joe and the Juice-“ it was alright. It’s basically their version of Starbucks (there are zero Starbucks downtown as far as I can tell, by the way!). I probably just didn’t order the best thing- Idk I got some sort of “Energizer” drink, it had ginger and some sort of omega-3 ingredient that left a fishy aftertaste for a long while. Definitely gonna try something else if I go back to another one of those.

Anyways, we met up with the group in some light rain at the train station this time, rather than the courtyard. Our destination today was Hillerod, to see the castle and explore the town. We hopped on our train and rode it to the end of the line. I don’t know what it is about train rides (it could still be jet lag) but they make me oh so sleepy. It went by relatively quickly, as I spent most of the ride editing photos for the May 26th blog post. Once we got there, we set off on a lovely walk through the town and surrounding nature. Slowly, the castle in the distance grew closer.

Surrounding the castle is this gorgeous, scenic lake- full of lush greenery and friendly birds, ducks, and swans (and baby swans). We established a later meeting point, and set off to the castle with 4 hours to explore whatever we wanted to explore in the town. The castle interior was gorgeous. In hindsight, now that my feet aren’t eating me alive, it was so, so rich with Art- hidden decor or paintings in every corner. We entered into this gorgeous room/hall with walls covered in deer motifs (With presumably real antlers) and one cat (sorry, I will always notice cat themed things wherever I go). There were also some funky decorations that didn’t really have an explanation- they were just… bits of taxidermied birds jutting out of fake cake? Bizarre, but interesting nonetheless.

The first part of the exhibit was an incredibly ornate chapel- again, art on literally every possible surface. On the walls, 10 or so ginormous Christian paintings in a gorgeous art style. On the pillars, paintings of saints- the ceiling, elaborate ornamentation and extremely pink, fleshy relief sculptures. It was a maximalist delight for the eyes that I really, really, really wish I could have been fully present and engaged with (frowny face). (Guess I need to learn how to cope with my pain… or go buy stupidly expensive comfort shoes that may or may not work. Shrug). Anyways- absolutely gorgeous. I also noticed I keep seeing this symbol of a C with a number inside of it everywhere- This chapel had one with “IX” inside of a C- I’ll have to look into what that means, as a similar symbol is on our dorm BaseCamp building.

The next room after the chapel had gorgeous windows with tiny paintings adorning it around the borders. So, so cool. From there, we walked through room after room after room of elaborate art and portraiture of royal families and important historical figures- I really regret not having done historical research prior to coming here. Maybe I’ll research up some of the other places we’ll be going to. But, anyways, there was so, so, so much art that I saw that was either as good as or better than the art I’ve learned about in my art history courses, all of it just sitting there crowded on walls together, within touching distance- some of the paintings sitting right next to open windows (hello, preservation, anyone? The windows had a nasty glare that ruined so many of my photos, too :P)

Of the rooms I paced through, my favorite was of some ceiling art. This entire ceiling was covered in monochromatic portraits of the different Greek deities, and in the center was a raised dome in bold blue and gold, featuring constellations and zodiac signs. Looking back on some of my photos of this room now, I realize they are blurry and I didn’t take enough. Man does that make me die inside a little. Whoops.

Anyways, I eventually got separated from everyone and was, essentially, walking alone through these large rooms filled with fancy portraits and furniture (so many chairs, none of them could I sit on….. my poor feet. Sorry, I’ll shut up about the pain now haha). After seeing most of the portraits, I meandered up to the next floor to the modern/contemporary art collection they had- saw some cool portraits of contemporary figures, some funny portraits of contemporary Danish culture, some sad (like one about the realities of war), and I saw a Warhol piece that I never knew existed!

After roaming the castle’s collections to the extent I desired, I limped out and slowly made my way back around the path of the lake, stopping to photograph friendly birds, to go find a bite to eat. I made it back to the Main Street area with only an hour left to kill. I didn’t want to risk going to a sit-down place, so I popped over to a hotdog shack. Only after I ordered did I realize that they didn’t take card and I was down to the last of my cash before I hit the ATM some time in the next few days. Luckily, I had just enough coinage to cover the 30 DKK cost. It was a DAMN good hotdog- especially after hours of being starving and in pain. A damn good hotdog. I ate it like I hadn’t eaten in days. It had bread and butter pickles, standard ketchup/mustard, and some sort of yummy crunchy breading. So. Good.

After that, I tried to shop, but things seemed pricey. I went into a shoe store feeling hopeful, then less hopeful after seeing 1,000 DKK price tags ($150). It’s really hard to put a price on my comfort, not going to lie. But I don’t feel comfortable dropping that much on shoes that 1) I won’t use for anything when I get home, 2) might not even help the pain. I tried a couple other stores, but they were mostly either home goods, full of clothes for teeny tiny skinny human beings (most only went up to a size L at most- and definitely not an American style size L. Could maybe fit one arm in those shirts, and that’s being generous). Yet, I wound up with about 45 minutes to kill. So, luckily, I found a delicious looking gelato store. I walked in, saw this cool pistachio ginger flavor that my family would probably call me weird for ordering, and asked for a large scoop of it, happily chowing down while I walked back to our meeting place.

I was first, others joined. I saw a guy eating a sandwich get attacked by this bird that looked like a crow but with a silver chest (cool birds here ngl), so that was funny. I’m pretty sure the bird only attacked him because they were getting too close before and he did some jerk move to scare them off, so it was funny watching them get their justice. Smart birds. Eventually some of my trip mates and I ducked into a store to get shelter from the cold, cold wind. Not long after, the rest of the group met up and we went back to the train. By now, the pain had me exhausted so the moment we hit the train, I popped an earbud in (I’d gone almost a whole week without listening to my music- isn’t that strange?) and passed out. So sleepy. I was barely sentient when the train ride ended and we all walked back up to street level, got tomorrow’s meeting time, and walked home. Obviously, I wasn’t done resting, so I took an hour long nap back at the dorms. Wasn’t enough sleep- and I’m yawning as I type (even after drinking a red bull a few hours ago. What a scam) so I am so looking forward to bed tonight.

The original plan was to go to a club tonight in a different part of town with a big group. But most of the girls went out to do more shopping (I had some good finds) after I got up from my nap. We spent some time going in and out of a few different stores, but, same problem as earlier, they were not plus-size friendly so I really was only looking. But that was okay, because some of the clothes were strange- like a trench coat that looked like it was made of tin foil, a leather vest straight out of How to Train Your Dragon, and several bold green and neon orange statement pieces that were easily 1000-3000 DKK (again, 1000 is $150). Even at the two affordable stores we visited, there wasn’t really any particular style I was vibing with. I just got a tote bag and a mug. Not easy being a big gal in Copenhagen if you want fancy clothes, I guess. (Which is so bizarre to me- there are definitely plus size people here, I’ve seen many, but not a single store I went to today had literally anything over XL… at BEST. Makes me angry).

Oh, anyways, the clubbing. We collectively decided (pardon my French) fuck that. None of the gals had the spirit to go- it was so, so cold, pretty rainy, and none of us had time to get ready after we’d get back because the guys wanted to go immediately after the club opened. So we grabbed a nice 7/11 dinner (and, listen, I know 7/11 food in the states is scary, but here it is honestly just as good if not better than cafe food. And cheaper) and walked back to BaseCamp through the park. It was nice having a break from the testosterone- we just sat in the basement lounge, eating and discussing our lives and our time in college. Eventually Kelsey wanted to leave to dye her hair, so we split ways- which I’m not mad about. These blog posts take an hour, I honestly want to go to sleep right now, and it gives me enough time to do both. Gods am I exhausted.

Well, I hope tomorrow is easier on me! We go to Sweden for the day!!! So, so, excited.

May 26th, 2022

Today, we took a break from the bikes. Rather, activating our “Copenhagen Cards,” (that allow us to travel freely within certain train zones for a few days) we were meeting in the courtyard and preparing to set off to our destination by train! Today’s first stop was the Viking Museum in Roskilde.

Before descending into the train station, we were given 8 quick minutes to disperse, find pastries and caffeine, and meet back up- seeking the caffeine that was desperately needed after nursing the remnants of my sleep-deprived hangover. I also got literally the best pastry I’ve ever had in my life- it had almond and sugar- had wafer-y, crunchy layers interspersed with rich, sweet, moist layers underneath. The espresso I got with it was alright. Didn’t stop me from nearly passing out on the 45-minute train ride despite the gorgeous scenery of nature and scenic Danish neighborhoods.

After a long-ish train ride in a fancy train cart, we arrived. Today was a national Danish holiday of some sort, and this was apparent from all of the people in Roskilde seemingly preparing for some sort of festival. We walked through the city, passing by their busy preparations, a gorgeous church (that we later toured), heading towards the Viking museum. Once we arrived, we were given 2 hours to sort of explore the museum, the pier, the surrounding gift shops, and the workshops there. However, being the foodie that I am, I and friends went straight to the Viking cafe after arrival. I ordered a delicious Viking-ingredient-inspired charcuterie-type platter of deliciousness. In it was red cabbage salad, smoked halibut with mustard dressing, veal/pork meatballs, ox sausage, Nordic cheese and compote, and some delicious grainy bread.

After eating, I checked out their museum- full of partially-reconstructed Viking ships found after being sunk on purpose as a defense tactic. Some of the ruins were estimated to be as old as from 1000 CE. It was amazing seeing how they reconstructed roughly what the ships would look like from about 25% of the original materials.

After perusing the museum, I hit the gift shop, and sleepily waited in our meeting place for what I thought was going to be an experience where we would actually go out and row a boat together as a group. However, they were booked up, so we didn’t get to do this. Instead, we headed to the Roskilde Cathedral, and were given an hour to explore inside. I didn’t expect it to be much, but I was proven wrong- there were several tombs inside and every tomb had a different style of mural/art/decor surrounding it- from walls of murals resembling sculptural 3D forms, to a more medieval sort of style. Truly, every where I looked, there was some sort of hidden art or element of decor. It was kind of funny, thinking about how Scandinavia nowadays is known for its famously influential minimalistic style, and how different that is from its origins as, similarly to other countries, a culture that explored more maximalistic decoration.

Sadly, however, I was getting really cranky at this point- because the inside muscles of my feet seemed to not have gotten the memo that I wanted to explore, and were lighting themselves on fire. Every step slowly became torture, and, even though we had to keep moving, I wanted nothing more than to lay down for a couple hours.

And that is when my teacher stated that everyone had agreed that our next destination would be a Rock museum about a 30-minute walk away.

Hilarious, right?

I swallowed my pain and followed. I obviously fell to the back of the group, and spent the entire walk grimacing. I luckily wound up with some ibuprofen. On the walk, I also saw and pet a cat. Literally made everything better- the cat started posing for the camera and basking in the attention. That really lifted my spirits. I’m honestly surprised that I wasn’t excited for the Rock museum, but I think being in pain is a pretty good reason not to be excited about more walking.

The Rock museum was pretty cool, but we only had an hour to explore it, and I spent most of the time sitting and watching the video components of the exhibition. Until I walk into a room and see a bunch of my trip mates laying down on something- a gigantic, oversized spinning record. I thought- say no more- and laid down for the next 15 minutes listening to a variety of background jams while relaxing on the record. Leaving that thing was so sad. That aside, I’m hoping the pictures I took of the Rock Museum (Titled “Ragna Rock” btw) will be enough for me to return to and reflect on later on.

In addition to the pain, I started getting nervous- I had an important zoom meeting at 5:00, and it was 4:30 with a 20 minute walk to the train station. It would up alright, though it certainly wasn’t ideal to be attending a job meeting on a train (I didn’t even get to appreciate the scenery I was too tired for earlier this morning! So sad). It was really exciting though- I’m so thrilled to finally have a real design job and not some part-time contract work where, theoretically, I Waaasss supposed to be a graphic designer (no shade to my current/past job). I wrapped up the meeting and listened to directions for tomorrow’s adventure simultaneously.

After all the excitement, I was so burnt out. Between being tired, slightly hungover, and in constant, throbbing pain, I wanted to pass out. But no, my day was not yet done. I spent some time with my friends, Tessa and Kayleen in the city, winding up eating at Tivoli Gardens due to a stranger Tessa was friends with getting us in for free with some sort of golden pass. After a while, we decided we were done there and got word of other friends’ plans to go to a drag show- so we got our move on and made our way to this cool bar/study space meant for students.

What was supposed to be a Drag Show was a disappointment. They had one really fanciful drag queen to take selfies with, and two MC’ing on the stage. They played three songs, did a Zumba-like thing where they guided the dance floor’s dance moves, and went away. So did, like, all of the people in the bar. The music and vibes kinda sucked, and my feet still hurt, so I obviously left early. RIP my feet- we walked 10 miles total today, and probably will be walking more tomorrow. Wish me luck.

May 25th, 2022

We started the day off (after another quick morning of getting ready with barely enough time) with a long bike to/near the meat-packing district of Copenhagen to meet with one of the studios here, Khorra. Inside, awaiting us, was a wonderful variety of virtual reality (VR) experiences- headsets with interesting immersive stories just waiting for us to experience- among them were experiences about having a medically necessary abortion in Texas, where the abortion limit is at 21 weeks and doctors are allowed to lie to pregnant mothers about fetal abnormalities (This is one of the VR experiences I chose to view), one about how easy it is to become homeless and what experiences the homeless face, one about war, another about the missile alert in Hawaii, and a few other equally interesting experiences.

As mentioned, I chose to experience a 30min long VR story about one woman’s experience with a 21-week abortion that was required to save her life. The way the VR was set up was so that it felt as though I was sat in front of her, having a conversation with her (dialogue options and all). It honestly, in light of recent news, had me tearing up- to think that in today’s (most likely) future society, this woman would have had to die due to fetal abnormalities on a baby she very much so wanted due to bans on abortion (and encountered multiple doctors who were legally permitted to lie to her about the nature of her baby’s abnormalities in order to prevent abortion). The VR experience was arranged so as to provoke empathy and, even as a woman, the experience made me empathasize more than ever with aspiring mothers facing life or death situations due to embryonic conditions entirely out of their control.

The other experiences I chose in my time at Khora were equally intriguing. One featured a set of 3-4 situations that a homeless person must deal with- from selling off essentials to make rent, to living in a car and getting arrested for doing so, to having to sleep on the bus just to keep out of the cold. It was so upsetting to experience these scenarios in a VR setting- I can’t imagine how terrifying it is to experience it for real- especially considering anyone can become homeless at any time due to any circumstance. The other VR experience I had was focused around the effect of VR on the human brain- and the ways in which, in under 4 minutes, the human brain will recognize a VR body (even one with extra limbs) as its own body.

Afterwards, we were given an exciting presentation and brief tour of the studio above the main level at Khora. It was all so fascinating.

From there, we were given 1-2.5 hours of free time in the area, so most of us headed to grab lunch at a fantastic taco place. I got a combo of three different types of tacos- one beef, one pork, and one roasted cabbage with an interesting jalapeño salsa. Along with it I had a delicious pineapple kombucha (Tapache, I believe it was called?) Sooo good. After eating, a smaller group of us went to grab coffee (I had a delicious oat milk latte) and walk around, while others biked off early to our next design studio destination, Thank You.

After a lovely stroll with friends, we met back up with Travis and Michelle by the bikes and took off to meet the others at Thank You. After a harrowing bike ride that involved getting separated from the group multiple times and biking in the pouring rain (while my contacts blurred my vision), we eventually made it to Thank You, sopping wet. As we walked in, I was blown away by their building- an awesome warehouse space arranged like a venue, with a distillery and bar. They, very kindly, poured us a complementary (DELICIOUS) cocktail of their in-house Aquavit mixed with Grapefruit juice (It kinda tasted like a popsicle, not gonna lie).

We were then guided upstairs for a very inspiring presentation- some ideas that stood out to me most were the following: “Making people want things VERSUS Making things people want,” “Something beats nothing- words mean nothing because everyone can talk,” “If you know your tools, you could sell sand in the Sahara,” and “Everything can be learned, it just takes time.”

I walked away from the presentation being inspired by Thank You Studios’ capability to accomplish many things at once- functioning as a design studio, a distillery, a community center, a concert venue, a cultural center, and much more. It was interesting to see the way in which they expanded upon their brand as something more than a tool to sell a product, rather, as a multi-faceted culture.

After the presentation, everyone hung out, chatted, and connected for a while. I bought some of their Mulberry Rose Aquavit for home, and spent the time chatting with Noreen and Beia about Noreen’s life experiences as someone from Norway who moved to and lived in the US for a long while, and then about the loneliness of being a student in a commuter school and ways to deal with/fix it.

We then soon headed out. Kayleen was having problems with her bike, and sought help from Travis and Michelle in terms of fixing it- it turns out her seat had sunk over the course of her day, and it was entirely too low for her to safely navigate. After returning to the main portion of Copenhagen from Thank You studios (which was presumably near Chrisitania), I, Noreen, and Kayleen split off from the group to get bike adjustments (due to my weight, the seat was tilting back/forth depending on where I put my weight).

We quickly got our adjustments and rode back to BaseCamp. However, tomorrow is apparently a national holiday in Denmark, so all restaurants will be closed- so I headed out, then, with a group to fetch some groceries and pre-made meals to survive the restaurant closures. I grabbed some delicious meals (it’s INSANE how easy it is to eat healthy out here and to eat healthy food that’s actually enjoyable) and headed back with the group to BaseCamp, where I proceeded to spend the next 1-2 hours trying (and failing) to work on blogs/assignments while chatting in the Rooftop lounge with Beia, Tessa, and Kayleen, really getting to know everyone better.

We decided after that, in theory, we wanted to roam the city- get lost for a bit- then find our way back later, however, it started drizzling. The plan quickly changed to sitting in a bar for a long while to get out of the rainy cold. However, as we headed into the city to a bar called Dubliner, it quickly turned into bar hopping. We settled in at Dubliners, where, for some reason, I, Kayleen, Kelsey, Beia, and I got ID’d by the security guard not once, but twice! (Like seriously, c’mon, do we look under 18?! And how many Colorado ID’s does this guy even see!!!) We wound up with some yummy drinks, I and Kayleen trying a Tequila Sunrise while Beia got a crisp apple cider. While our group of 11 enjoyed the drinks/food here, it was so loud we couldn’t conversate- so on we hopped to another bar shortly after.

The next bar, I think, is titled - “The Bar.” Its neon sign proclaimed “COCKTAILS - 2 FOR 100!” (100 DKK equaling about $15). In a town where most of the drinks at most of the bars seemed to be $10 a pop, this seemed promising. We settled in to some seating with chairs so fancy they looked suited for (minor) royalty. We all went straight for cocktails. There was a, rather unfortunately named, DELICIOUS cocktail called the “Passionfruit Pornstar.” Martin was the first to get the drink, and, after offering us all a taste, we shortly decided it was delicious and most of us wanted some. Jacob was so kind so as to buy me and Kayleen one (so, so generous).

Feeling adventurous after another 45 minutes, we decided it was time for some shots. Martin approached the bartender, asking him what their hardest shot was. Confidently, the bartender pulled out a bottle, proclaiming “This is too intense for all you Americans.” Taking that as a challenge, Martin decided to go with that liquor and promptly got a discount for 10 shots (which, luckily, there were 10 of us). I tensed, expecting the rubbing alcohol taste I’ve come to expect from the few shots I’ve had in my life, but it tasted good!!! The others really didn’t think so. It tasted of Anise/Licorice- it was really good and refreshing, I liked it a lot (wish I had gotten the name of the liquor honestly). Effect-wise, it wasn’t too bad either. I was definitely enjoying listening to the pop-club songs the bar played while chatting with everyone. However, we eventually decided we wanted to hit one more bar before the night was through.

This lead us to The Moose, which, according to Yelp reviews, offered “The cheapest beer in Copenhagen,” at around 22 DKK ($3 or so). Not going to lie, my first impression of the bar was that it was SUPER sketchy- literally as I walked in, not one, but two, grown-ass men were tripping down the set of 3 stairs in the bar, practically collapsing into our group (I have never ever been to a dive bar before. This was a first!) However, as we got our beers and settled in to the back room seating, it truly grew on me. The interior was covered in really cool graffiti and art, the music was AMAZING, and as we talked to each other, eventually a couple of gentlemen in town from Iceland were intrigued by our group and got into a hearty conversation with everyone. (One of the men shook my hand for some reason?).

The people in the bar were so friendly, as well! When I was holding a beer in one hand, a water in the other, some guy made a funny gesture of drinking one and the other back and forth (Which was, basically, what I was doing lol- gotta stay hydrated and hangover-free!) Another guy came up to me, said my hair was beautiful, and initiated a super intricate fist-bump. He seemed cool and I was tempted to have a conversation, but his English was not super duper comprehensible (and the music was too loud). I’m not sure why, but these interactions along with light conversation with strangers really touched me. Back home, I’m usually much too cowardly to socialize with classmates and do things like bar-hop (plus my friends aren’t super down for such things). So getting out, experiencing the atmosphere of not one but three different, entirely new bars in one evening was so interesting!! Despite the sketchiness, nothing bad happened (other than Martin spilling a beer, lol), and it really was an entirely new experience for me.

Day 2 - May 24, 2022

The day started out with some rough sleep. Despite being determined to sleep a full eight hours, I woke up at six and couldn’t fall back asleep. After giving up, I watched the latest episode of Owl House and waited for my 8AM alarm. I then proceeded to get ready in a quick half hour to meet in the lobby to take off and figure out the bike rental situation for those of us students who hadn’t chosen the D.I.S. Bike option.

After a long, rainy walk through the Rosenberg gardens (With a fancy bike in one hand and an inverted umbrella in the other), I followed the group the bike rental shop, where those of us with bikes waited out the pouring rain in a damp street tunnel. I felt quite foolish, being the only student without any sort of water-resistant or water-proof rain jacket- and the umbrella was an inconvenience, to say the least.

After everyone got their bike, we headed off to the courtyard near DIS to park our bikes and meet with the leader of our tour (whose lecture we attended yesterday), Thomas Dickson. He proceeded to take us through the city, pointing out interesting points of architecture nearby and taking us into multiple furniture showrooms, where we saw in person the work of Danish designers that he had discussed the day prior. It was quite fascinating, despite not being a furniture person, myself, to see the technical skill and artistic differnces between different furniture designers. One interesting chair was that of the Spanish chair, which I admired for its amazingly clean leather and how it was connected by buckles. He also took us to an amazing view of the city.

After his tour was done, we separated for lunch. Kayleen and I went to get delicious sandwiches from this amazing shop, Sandwich Pigen. I got this scrumptious sandwich with sprouts, tomatoes and lettuce, salmon, and pesto dressing. I love pesto and salmon so, so much. After grabbing food, we sat in the courtyard, got to know each other better, and bonded over our love of pigeons (and animals in general) as we tossed sandwich scraps to dumb pigeons and aggressive seagulls in the square.

Afterwards, we explored the city in search of the rest of the group, checking on a nerdy store with amazing comic and art books and a huge, gorgeous LEGO store. We eventually grabbed boba and met back with the rest of the group, then heading to our next event- a bike tour lead by the Danish Architecture Center (DAC). The bike tour was amazing- I felt so confident navigating the roads as a bicyclist, and enjoyed seeing the rich diversity of architecture in Copenhagen. It was even cooler hearing from our tour guide the specific histories of certain structures/areas.

After the tour we were given an admission the the DAC museum, which had an amazing exhibition about a lunar pod designed to be human-friendly (including custom perfumes based on seasons and lighting based on circadian rhythms) and another exhibition about female Danish architects- where I discovered and briefly read from a rather interesting book by Virginia Woolf.

That aside, because I’m a child at heart, I had to squeeze in between Danish high schoolers to ride the DAC’s multi-level swirly slide back to the base floor. After doing so, I met up with my friends, Tessa and Beia to go find me a rain coat (which others, including Beia, had gone out to find earlier). After 3 different stores with $70-$100 price tags, I found a reasonable water-resistant jacket for $35.

We then headed back to the rooms, where I made plans to head to the grocery store (Fotex) to get drinks and snacks and hang with some of the other classmates for the evening in the lounge in the basement of our dorms. We followed through on the plans and had a lovely evening of wine, conversations about whether a shake is a dessert and/or a hotdog a sandwich, and made plans for tomorrow.

Day 1 - May 23rd 2022

Today was also packed with fun and adventure.

I woke up around 8 AM (briefly waking up at 5 due to jet lag and because that’s just when the sun rises here lol) and showered, barely had time to ate, then ran out to the courtyard to meet the group. DIS had arranged for us a tour of the canal! On our way, we strolled through the beautiful park surrounding the Rosenberg castle- surrounded by lush greenery and lovely trimmed trees. We walked with the group (I sticking around Beia, Kayleen, and Tessa) in the slower half of the cluster for about 25 minutes until we made it to near the canal. We waited on some lovely wooden steps until a cool boat showed up and we piled in.

The canal tour was amazing. Even though I’ve visited Europe in the past, Copenhagen is unlike anything I had seen in other countries- so beautiful- and so clean that you could swim in the harbors if you wanted to! With some amazingly unique architecture. The guide took us through several tight canals to view the beauty of the city from the waters- seeing sights like the Queen’s yacht and palace, some unique architecture at the DAC, and several unique and historic sights along the way. I got to hear further insight from Michelle- and, luckily, my friends and I sat opposite of the rest of the group on the right side of the boat- where most of the coolest sights were!

After the tour, we all piled in to the DAC building to use the restroom (which the workers weren’t too happy about) and check out the amazing gift shop filled with oh-so tempting books about design. The building also had a huge, tempting slide that half of the group wanted to explore. However, we quickly left to get within proximity of our next event, a lecture from Thomas Dickson. Before that, however, we were set free to get lunch. I so desperately wanted to eat at this lovely shop called Sandwich Pigen, however, due to social anxiety, I didn’t wind up ordering (because the workers were just so busy I felt bad bothering them with my touristyness!). My friends Beia and Kayleen, luckily, got their orders though. Seemed delicious. Surprisingly enough, I got a full scrumptious meal at a nearby 7-11 of all places! It’s unlike anything in the states- imagine gas station food actually being edible! I ate this delicious cold pesto pasta salad (using coffee stirring sticks as chopsticks) and actually enjoyed eating olives for the first time in my life! We sat and ate in front of a beautiful fountain, all the while, poor Tessa was staving off these aggressive (weird looking and weird sounding) seagulls from eating her fries. Apparently it is seagull season. Their seagulls really do look and sound weird. Their cries sound like humans. Anyways-

I scarfed down this amazing pasta then we went to the lecture. It was so cool to hear an expert discuss Danish design/architecture, and apparently tomorrow (Despite the rain) we will be going on a walking tour to see some of it! He also talked a bit about Danish life and politics, it was interesting to hear the ways in which it was similar and different to our own politics. I appreciated his lecture, it was quite fascinating- I learned that a Danish person invented the first electric windmill! And about how co-ops fund such projects as their windmill bay. I wish America was that cooperative and coordinated (or cared about anything other than individualism, lol).

After the lecture, we went to get bikes. Mine was a bit too tall for me (hoping to get it adjusted tomorrow) and, riding back, I didn’t realize the bikes had their own traffic lights so I almost got hit by a (extremely slow-moving) car. Hopefully I’ll get my bike re-adjusted and get used to it. It’s crazy how people bike out here! They basically treat biking like driving. I’m scared to be that slow, bumbling, stupid American tourist stereotype. Hopefully the Danes don’t get too annoyed with my learning curve, lol. We got back and locked up our bikes at the Base Camp without trouble, luckily.

We then gathered back together for a walk to this amazing marble church, the Queen’s palace, and, eventually, to Nyhavn (the iconic street/port with all the gorgeous colorful houses). I didn’t get the selfie of my dreams there but even just walking there was pretty amazing. It’s so different from merely seeing photos. From there we split off. A pretty big group of us (Alice, Martin, Preston, Dane, Kayleen, Jacob, Hayley, Kelsey, and I) split off in search of coffee and food. We made it to a cafe, got drinks (I got some matcha). We were maybe going to go to a sit-down place, but Michelle warned us previously that sit-down restaurants are multiple-hour ordeals (Which I learned after spending the entire 2 hours I was given to explore Slovakia in 2017 sitting in a restaurant waiting for food that never came :P ). The big group gave up on our goal of a fancy restaurant and split off to get some street food. Some got burgers, some got falafels, I (and Beia and Jacob) got food from a fancy bagel place! My bagel was so, so, so good. So much food here has pesto- my bagel was no exception. Had this delicious pesto cream cheese, pesto dressing, some veggies (tomato, onion, cucumber), prosciutto, cheese-mmmmmm so good. Drooling just remembering it.

We took our food to go, and went back to the parks around Rosenberg to eat. It was a total culture shock moment to see citizens just resting, laying down, playing, and vibing in the park! Back home, if you sit in a Denver park for too long, a cop might accuse you of being homeless and yell at you to move along. It was like a painting. People were just sunbathing, eating, chatting, or otherwise enjoying the nature. It was so nice. Most of the group (some got held up at the burger joint) sat in a circle, ate, and chatted. I can’t believe how social I’ve been! We sat and relaxed for about an hour, trying a disgusting salty-sweet candy that had a vomiting rat on the packaging, and enjoyed our time.

We then headed back to Base Camp to rejuvenate before the next stage of the night. I sat in the courtyard freezing before Dane showed up and waited with me. Some of the group from before had been planning to go out to drink, and I wanted to join (to get well out of my comfort zone). We waited for a while before realizing most of the group was already at the bar, Bootleggers. We promptly sped over and joined the table for drinks. I tried a couple things- a cider, an interesting ale that tasted like coffee, and a German lager. All of it was good! Usually I despise beer, but this stuff was sweet!! We chatted and had some really deep conversations, really getting to know each other. I learned so much about classmates I’ve had for 4 years but never had the guts to talk to. I’m so, so glad I went instead of going back to my room. We stayed and talked and got along for so long that the bartenders gave us free popcorn. They were so nice.

Eventually, we meandered back. Some of the fellas wanted to get cigarettes so we stopped by a 7-11. I wanted no part in the smoking, but they smoked as we walked on back to the rooms. Which leaves me where I am now- coming down from being drunk, excessively drinking water, and looking forward to the rest of my time here!

Day 0(ish) - May 21st and (some of) the 22nd

Okay I’m admittedly posting about this a day late, but things have been busy, so forgive me. Day 1/0 was a complicated chain of airports and flights. The overall flow of flights was from Denver to Munich to Copenhagen. The first flight (Denver to Munich) consisted of watching some classics (namely Wayne’s World and Chicago). It would have been smart of me to actually attempt to sleep on the 9 hour flight, however, I didn’t. Surrounding me in various seats were a screaming baby (somewhere ahead of me), a disgruntled old man who kept making noises (in front of me), and a younger man who kept turning and tossing in his sleep- so even if I wanted to try to sleep, it just didn’t seem to be in the cards for me. So, extremely sleep deprived, I sat through the 9 hour flight with an assortment of movies and snacks, being served some tasty airline pasta and white wine and enjoying my time in an aisle seat (despite having to get up so the poor lady in the window seat could use the restroom).

As much as I regret staying up late watching movies, it was nice to finally get to watch the Chicago movie- the soundtrack has a lot of personal meaning to me, as my grandma Joan and I (and usually my sister Elizabeth, too) would have days out together and enjoy the soundtrack thoroughly- I’ve practically memorized all of the songs. It was really meaningful to finally understand the plot behind songs I’ve long cherished. That aside, the flight went by swimmingly other than my failed attempts at rest. Once we reached our connection in Munich, however, chaos broke out. The layover was initially supposed to be about 40 minutes, however, deboarding the massive plane took forever with the amount of people onboard, and, of course, I was basically the last person in our group out of the plane. The moment we got out we started running. Not good news for someone out of shape! If I had asthma, I would’ve been screwed. The flight from Munich to Copenhagen boarded around 10:00-10:15 in local time- we arrived around 10:40. But 6 flights of stairs and many winding hallways later, we made it. It was strange rushing through that airport, as I had been in it for my other trip to Europe back in 2017. Brought back memories I didn’t know I had (I think we rushed through the airport last time as well.)

Anyways, I planned on resting on the final flight, but that didn’t happen either. Instead, I watched a bunch of pre-downloaded episodes of “Love, Death, & Robots” (an AMAZING Netflix series, by the way) and ate the delicious chocolates they handed out to us. Before I knew it, this 90min flight was over and we arrived in the prettiest airport I’ve ever been in in my life. The Copenhagen airport was so delightful- it smelled of delicious food, looked like an upscale shopping center, and had fake plants all over. My first taste of Denmark’s food was a delicious croissant. Truly a gorgeous airport, I’m sad that the next time I see it, I’ll be leaving. Anyways, we waited in line for Passport control only to find out we didn’t need to wait (we got checked in in Germany). We then (surprisingly) got our baggage quite quickly. However, because others flying on different airlines came in later, we had to sit (or, rather, stand) around for 1-2 hours in the airport, getting daggers glared at us from the security guards.

Eventually, we left to go to a brief orientation where we received ID cards for DIS. We then were given luggage stickers and shuffled to a bus. I don’t remember much of the ride because I was in/out of consciousness. All I know is that some Aussie kid (Also there with DIS) said, loudly, “I’ve had enough of these Americans!” And promptly stepped off of the bus (in an all-white suit) for a long smoke at the first stop. Luckily, we were the next stop. Our housing is old military barracks, which I find so cool. We walked in through the huge re-purposed military gate and my jaw dropped at the lovely courtyard and MASSIVE trees I was greeted with. We were quickly given keys and told to drop off our stuff. I wanted to sleep so, so, so bad. However, we quickly received keys for our dorm rooms and were told to shove our stuff in there then return for a quick tour, so I listened. We were then given a tour by a very unenthusiastic (or underpaid) tour guide. This place is cool- It has a game room, a room to plug in a Switch, and multiple lounge and gym spaces. I, however, was so tired and not excited in the moment.

Luckily, after the tour, announcements and pizza awaited us. The pizza was interesting- had thin slices of potato on it- there was one pizza for everyone and it was pretty good! We ate, then my roommate Beia and I (and a group of other friends) went to the Fotex store to get some basic groceries. It was quite interesting not recognizing most brands in a store. Afterwards, a group of friends and I went out for a drink at a beer garden (Preston, Dane, Martin, Beia, Tessa, someone whose name I unfortunately have forgotten/failed to ask, and I). Despite running on literally 0 hours of sleep, I drank a delicious Mikkeler IPA and felt fine. We sat at a skate park, talked, and people-watched for the evening and I got quite tipsy off of one IPA.

However, because I- again- was running on literally 0 sleep, turned in around 9:30 after Tessa needed to return home (instead of staying out later with the rest of the gang) and promptly passed out without writing a journal (thus here we are).

What a first day!