DenMARK My Word…

Wednesday June 7

Unfortunately, this Wednesday did not involve a day-long adventure. The day was spent doing homework as midterm papers and work seemed to come out of nowhere. We all decided it would be best to spend the day getting homework done before traveling for the weekend.

We decided to treat ourselves after a long day by going out to eat at Gourmet Burger Kitchen. I got a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake, both of which were delicious, although I think I prefer Byron Burger over GBK.

Thursday June 8

Thursday was a boring day. I spent almost the entire day writing an 1,800 word paper about British Media and Politics. This was incredibly time consuming since I had to research a ton and teach myself a lot about British politics. I successfully finished the paper late that night so I was able to sleep for a few hours before heading to the airport.

Friday June 9

A car picked us up at 5:00 in the morning to take us to Stansted Airport to get on our flight to Copenhagen. We were all pretty exhausted, but our flight and train ride to our hostel went extremely smoothly. (Shoutout to Mallory for the coolest passport holder, from an incredible company called Fashionable!)

After arriving at our hostel we all got settled and rested a little bit before heading out to explore Copenhagen. Our hostel was located in the middle of everything and our room along with the common rooms were really nice (I would highly recommend Urban House if you ever find yourself traveling to Copenhagen!). The first place we decided to checkout was Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park that actually inspired Walt Disney to create Disney World. There were tons of rides at the park but we just opted to walk around and eat dinner there. We had German bratwurst and beer at the super cute Biergarten before roasting s’mores at bonfires at another restaurant in the park. Then it started to rain, so we decided to head back to the hostel and sleep so we could get up early the next day.

Saturday June 10

Our first destination on Saturday was Nyhavn, the picturesque street with all of the brightly colored houses. In Copenhagen there were 7-11’s on every single corner, and all the food looked of much higher quality than what you would ever expect from a 7-11.  So we decided to go there to grab a quick breakfast and I got a cinnamon roll that was absolutely delicious. When we first turned the corner and saw the rainbow row of houses all of us gasped. The beautiful canal going down the street was filled with tour boats and the sun was shining so we got in line to buy tickets to get on one. The hour long boat tour was my absolute favorite part of the trip. The boat took us all around the city and showed us many of the major tourist spots from the water. We all became obsessed with our adorable tour guide (shoutout to Clément). I’m so glad we did the tour that morning because the rest of the trip we all just wandered around the city and ended up stumbling across all of the incredible sights we had learned about, as well as other places we hadn’t even truly intended to visit. After the boat tour we got lunch at Paper Island, a big warehouse with tons of food-stalls. Then we just started walking in a random direction with no exact destination in mind. We ended up right at the entrance to Christiania, the most famous neighborhood in Copenhagen, a hippie and very pro-weed town. Just walking around this area was an experience in itself that I can’t really describe. After an incredible day of exploring we headed back to our hostel. On our way back we looked up and saw bubbles drifting down the street. As we walked by a young boy eagerly waved down to the group of us from his window as we all walked through staring in awe at the whimsical sight. Our first day in Copenhagen was by far one the happiest days ever.

Sunday June 11

Our last day in Copenhagen came far too quickly. We headed back to Nyhavn to eat brunch along the water, but stopped to pose in some classic Danish viking helmets on the way there.

Once again we had no set plans for the day, so we just began walking. This lack of planning made for a totally stress-free day. We decided to just walk towards the Little Mermaid statue and stop to look at anything that caught our attention on the way there. We came across beautiful churches, palaces, and Kastellet (one of the best preserved star fortresses in Northern Europe).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVTEIJ8F4I8/?hl=en&taken-by=_paigef_

The weather was perfect and just taking in the sights as we came across them made for a completely relaxing day.  As we headed back to the hostel we stopped for some delicious ice cream (a frequent occurrence during my time abroad).

That evening we had to get on a plane to head back to London. We were all extremely sad that our weekend adventure had come to an end so quickly, but we all agreed that our days in Copenhagen were some of the happiest we’ve ever had. I’m so incredibly thankful for the five people I went on this trip for making our time in Copenhagen absolutely amazing. I can’t believe I met most of them only 4 weeks ago and I now have memories with them that I will treasure for the rest of my life. As we went through security we saw this sign and I was once again reminded just how blessed I am to have the opportunity to travel the world this summer.

Monday June 12

Monday was another exhausting day. Our flight landed around 11:30 and I wasn’t actually in bed until 2am. Pro tip: don’t try to edit a 1,800 word essay 7 hours before it’s due (especially while simultaneously reading all the #TonyAwards2017 tweets to stay updated and crying over the play Dear Evan Hansen for the millionth time). I attended the play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with my theatre class that night and despite running on 6 hours of sleep was wide eyed on the edge of my seat the entire show. The theatre was set up like to resemble a bar, with seats on the second level looking down at an open area and tables on the perimeter of the first floor where audience members sat. This allowed the cast to directly interact with them and incorporate some audience members into the show for multiple scenes. The show was written as a satire of Hitler’s rise to power, but the production made it directly applicable to current political events and made the audience truly consider what will happen if we do not take action to stop political leaders who are doing corrupt or unjust things (despite claiming that they just want to make their country great again).

Tuesday June 13

My first class on Tuesday included a trip to a cafe for brunch and a walking tour around SoHo. We stopped at a few different sites, including the house where this sign was posted. We learned about the history of SoHo and the types of activities that went on in the area decades ago that warranted this sign.

The outing for my afternoon class was to the “Leake Street Graffiti Gallery” (that fancy title is just reserved for when our professor was putting it on our calendar, so his boss wouldn’t know he was taking us to a somewhat sketchy looking underground tunnel to look at art comprised of gang signs). This was one of my favorite class outings so far as we were free to wander around take in all of the unique art around us. There were some really beautiful pieces and our professor was telling us that even the most incredible works are painted over almost daily as people leave their own marks on the walls and ceilings. Definitely a cool side of London that I hadn’t seen before.