My friend Lexi celebrated her birthday in April while we are all on different trips, so we wanted to do something in Copenhagen to celebrate. We booked an escape room located in the city center for Sophie, Lexi, Gretchen and I. The theme of it was a vampire’s cocktail party, and it was the first escape room I have ever done. We had a lot of fun and ended up escaping with 8 minutes to spare. When we finished we were able to sign the wall of the lobby since we completed it successfully.
Then we went to a bar in Nørrebro where we met up with a lot of Gretchen’s friends from Cal Poly. It was a cool bar that also brews their own beer.
Later that night we decided to stop at a speakeasy called Curfew that we had all seen all over TikTok. From the outside all you can see is a wall of books, but then the door opens and you enter a beautiful bar.
Sophie’s drink was served in a little glass pepper! She said it was really spicy but still good. I had the Ruby Queen which had gin, beetroot, walnut liquor, raspberry, lemon, vanilla, and orange bitters.
The next day Gretchen and I went to Vintage Cafe to work on some homework assignments. The whole semester we had relatively little workload but the last few weeks everything was catching up to us and every class was assigning final essays and projects. Vintage cafe was one of our favorite study spots throughout the semester and they had amazing cakes that we had never tried. So halfway through a five hour study session we decided to split a chocolate cake. It was amazing!
Gretchen and I both have visiting host parents, which means that we have a Danish family that we meet up with throughout the semester. We thought it would be great to invite the two families over to meet each other and see our apartment. On Sunday, Gretchen and I hosted our visiting host parents for dinner at our apartment. We spent the day food shopping, cleaning the apartment, and then eating dinner with them. We made two lasagnes, a traditional meat and cheese and a vegan spinach one because my host parents are vegan. I made a recipe that my family used to make on holidays while my sister and I were vegan. Gretchen also made a batch of vegan cookies!
It was a nice meal and it was fun getting to host everyone. They all enjoyed the lasagne, even though the traditional one was a little too cheesy (see picture.)
On Monday my urban livability class took a biking tour around the harbor and it was a beautiful day for it.
Then I met Sophie and Lexi for dinner at Illum Rooftop. We sat outside on the balcony at an Italian restaurant and enjoyed some pasta.
On Tuesday I went on a run through Frederiksberg Gardens, a beautiful park down the street from my apartment. It was my favorite place to run/walk through the semester because it is pretty big and had so any paths to follow. In spring everything finally bloomed and the geese had their babies. There is also an area that backs up against the zoo where you are able to see the elephants outside.
Then I biked to the city center and met Sophie for lunch. We got sandwiches from Sandwich Pigen and sat by the fountain to eat them. Then we went shopping.
On Wednesday my core course had a field study at my teacher’s houseboat. We got a tour of the boat her family lives on, and then sat in their community boat since it was larger and there were a lot of us. A Danish rapper met us there and he gave us a lesson on the history of rap and the basic components of creating it. We learned about the timing of it and how to use rhymes. Then we had to create a rap about sustainable food production, which was… interesting. Then we had to stand in a circle and go around the room presenting our raps to a beat! It was honestly really funny and everyone got really into it by the end.
Then we had Caribbean food that my teacher picked up from a local sustainable restaurant. The corn bread mini muffins were the best part.
That night I met a bunch of people from my class at an event called Eat Wasted. They take bread waste from restaurants and turn it into pasta to serve at their event! They hold is about once a month and for 10 dollars you fill up two bowls. I brought a tupperware container so I could take my seconds home. It was a beautiful spot right on the water and the sunset was amazing. The pasta had a broccoli rabe sauce and they had a friend with a hot sauce company in Barcelona come so you can add any of his hot sauces to your pasta.
I biked to the event so I enjoyed a 30 minute ride home at the end of the sunset.
The next day I had my Danish Oral exam where I had to speak in Danish for four minutes with a partner. We practiced so much so it went really well and we were relived it was over.
Then Gretchen and I met up and went to Gasoline Grill for lunch. It is a really popular burger joint in Copenhagen that is said to have the best burgers. We are both vegetarian so we got tempeh veggie burgers and ate them on a bench outside. They were delicious but really, really messy! They even gave us wipes in our bag.
On Saturday my host parents brought Sophie and I on a little road trip to the Stevens Klint cliffs. We met them at the train station near their house and went with them to their nearest bike shop so my host mom could pick out a new bike because hers was stolen the day before. Then we got in the car and headed to the cliffs, which was about an hour drive. It was super windy once we arrived but beautiful.
There was a church on the cliff that partially fell with the erosion of the rock. We were still able to go inside and the front of it now has a little balcony where the front of the church used to be.
My host parents were so sweet and packed us a little picnic, so we found a table and had lunch. They made veggie sandwiches with greens, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants, sun dried tomatoes, and hummus. The bread was so good that I went to the grocery store as soon as I got home and got it!
Then we headed to a cafe in a really small town that was really cute. All of the furniture, decor, and dishes were thrifted so nothing matched yet it all worked well together. The owner was a sweet woman who sat down for a while and talked to us. She was from Estonia but lived in Denmark now. Per her recommendation, we got hot chocolates with pea milk (which I had never had before!) and they were delicious. Then we played backgammon and talked for a while.
Next we went to find two of the wooden trolls that were built around Denmark and the world. They were created by the Danish artist Thomas Dambo and built using recycled wood. My host parents said there were two nearby their house so we went to see them.
The second one was a little walk away within a park, but it was my favorite one I had seen online! Sophie was really hoping to see it before leaving Denmark so she was so happy.
Then we found a little raft with ropes that you could pull to make the raft cross the river. On the other side we found some goats on our walk to the car. They were really friendly and let us feed them some grass.
We drove to their house so Sophie could see it and they gave us a tour of their garden where they had lots of flowers, tomatoes, spring onions, and other vegetables growing. Then my host dad played us a song on his guitar that he has been practicing for his band with his friends, and Sophie played them some songs on their piano.
Then we said goodbye and my host dad dropped us off at the train station. It was sad to say goodbye to them but I was really lucky to have such great host parents this semester! It was great to get exposure to Danish culture and spend time with them.
The next dad I went with Sophie and Lexi to Aarhus, the second biggest city in Denmark after Copenhagen. Sophie has a Danish friend who grew up in Aarhus so he was meeting us to show us around. To get there it was a pretty long trip. We boarded a bus from the city center and the bus went on a ferry boat for an hour and a half before continuing the drive on the other side. The whole trip was about 3.5 hours each direction.
When we arrived we found a place to eat brunch and Sophie’s friend Maltha met us. We ate and then explored the inner city for a bit and walked to his car. First we drove to another one of the trolls that was nearby.
Then we walked through an international market and went to a huge park. Within the park the Queen of Denmark has a summer home with a beautiful yard and a pond. We walked around for a while and explored the park.
Then Maltha dropped us off at the ARoS Museum we planned on going to and we had salads at the museum’s restaurant. We didn’t realize that the museum closed at 5pm because it was a Sunday, so we only had 45 minutes to see the 10 floors of the museum! So we walked through all of it pretty quickly, but we enjoyed each floor. They all had different themes and the top floor was a panoramic rainbow glass circle you could walk through.
When we finished and the museum closed we headed outside and enjoyed the sun in the park until our bus came at 6:40 to bring us back to Copenhagen.
On Monday I had my last Danish Language class and my teacher brought us smørrebrød to eat. Then we played a kahoot which is an online quiz game that was really popular in classes when we were all younger. The quiz was all about danish culture and my partner and I won the game so we got the prize which was a box of candy licorice pipes. They were really gross.
On Tuesday I went to the city center to attend Gretchen’s exhibition. Her core course was furniture design so they spent the semester designing and eventually building a real chair. Since it was the end of the semester they had an exhibition so everyone could see their work.
That night was the last Tuesday night of the semester so we all decided to go to Proud Mary’s, where Americans go out every Tuesday.
On Wednesday we started by renting a Go Boat to cruise around the harbor. They are small boats with small engines that go slowly through the canals. We rented it for an hour and took turns driving but Gretchen was the best driver. It was a beautiful day on the water and it was a fun way to see the different parts of the harbor one last time. The only issue was that the route they tell you to take is the same route that the huge canal cruise boats take so multiple times we had to maneuver out of the way to let them pass by.
Then we headed to Reffen, the outdoor food market with food stands from all over the world. We went there a lot throughout the semester so we wanted to go one last time. I got a gyro with falafel and some parmesan fries.
Then we wanted to see the Little Mermaid statue again so we took a water taxi across the harbor. The statue is in the middle of a park that is kind of far from the inner city so we decided to rent bikes using an app we had on our phones so we could get back faster than taking the bus. Lexi and Sophie also hadn’t ridden bikes in Copenhagen this semester and wanted to try it, especially since they could just follow me since I was used to biking in the city. We rode them to Nyhavn, and then to the city center.
That night I had dinner with my friends from my core course class. We went to Cantina, a really popular Italian restaurant. I had amazing goat cheese raviolis. It was really great seeing everyone one last time and recapping everything our class did on our trip to Barcelona a few weeks before.
My friend Charlie and I live in the same apartment complex so we went home from the dinner together. We realized that the metro was closed for maintenance and the bus was 20 minutes away so we rented electric scooters and rode them home.
The next morning Lexi, Sophie, and I made a french toast brunch together. Then Lexi and I decided to go to the soccer stadium to get t-shirts for the FC Copenhagen team. We had gone to a game earlier in the semester but the shop was closed during the game. It was a beautiful day outside so I took my bike and Lexi rented one again. It was a 20 minute bike ride through Frederiksberg and Nørrebro and it went through some pretty parks. We picked up shirts and started our ride back. I directed us to an urban park in Nørrebro that I had been to with my class. Nørrebro is a very diverse area and the park honors that by including sculptures and play structures from all over the world. We biked through it and then headed home.
Then Lexi and I headed to Tivoli, a beautiful amusement park in the middle of the city. It opened April 1st but I hadn’t gone yet because it is pretty expensive and I wanted to go on a warm day. We bought ride passes and went on all of the big rides. There was a massive drop tower that was terrifying but the view from the top was an amazing view of the whole city. Sophie was finishing up an essay she had due but she met us later and we got Gasoline Grill for dinner and walked around the beautiful park.
The next day was Friday, my last full day in Copenhagen. Gretchen was working on some water colors she was painting of her teacher’s summer home as a personal project/favor so she spent the morning working on them. I made us breakfast and got us chai lattes from the cafe downstairs.
When she finished her water colors Gretchen, Kira, and I got on our bikes and went to deliver them to her teacher’s house. Then we went to the city center and turned in our bikes since we were renting them for the semester. It was a 9 mile trip and a great last bike ride through the city. Gretchen and I stopped at Joe and the Juice for one last smoothie and avocado sandwich.
That night our apartment hosted a party because it was our last night and the next day was our flatmate Signe’s birthday. Gretchen and I picked up a cake for her earlier that day, and we all invited some friends over. It was a really fun last night.
The next morning Sophie came by to say goodbye before heading to the airport, and I left around 10 to go to the train station to go to Germany. Gretchen’s flight was canceled so she was flying home on Sunday instead. We have a big map of the US on our apartment wall and we got to put our pins in it before we left.
I headed to the train station and dragged all my bags onto the train. It was sad leaving Copenhagen but it was an amazing semester and I have so many great memories and friends from the past four months.
