I honestly don't think I've ever fit in somewhere better in my life. Tall, blonde, blue eyed people were EVERYWHERE, and as a result I am now convinced that I must be part Danish somehow (dad??). Coming from France, where I get stared at on the reg and stick out an incredible amount among a sea of dark-haired, dark-clothed, average-height people, this was a welcome change for me and for my two fellow blondes who I was traveling with (Katie & Madeline).

Our weekend in Copenhagen was definitely a fast trip and had its ups and downs but we all left Copenhagen unwillingly, wishing we could have spent more time there and trying to figure out when we could come back.

So, where to start? Oh yeah, maybe with that time we all thought we were going to have to spend the night on the street. It was around 8pm and we had just arrived in Cope and were walking from the train station to our hotel when it started to drizzle - expected and not too bad, what's a little rain, we thought? Key word: little. In a matter of legitimately 60 seconds it went from a drizzle to a full-on diagonal sheets-of-hail hurricane. HOW???

Not prepared in the least, we were instantly soaked down to every garment of clothing we had on and looked like rabid raccoons as we - no joke - attempted some sort of hunched-over-crawling, hands clawing through the sheets of rain, faces down to prevent the hail from cutting our corneas open, hands clutching our suitcases, all while laughing so hard we were all basically peeing our pants, fitting considering we looked like newborns learning how to walk. We all seriously considered just laying down on the road and waiting for it to pass, I mean I couldn't have been any more soaked so it wouldn't have made a difference. I'd say it probably took us a solid 10 minutes (felt like an hour) of straight up resistance training against the wind to make it the 100 feet to our hotel. Oh, also we couldn't see anything so we thought we were on the sidewalk but we were actually in the middle of the road #safetyfirst. Nothing like a true Nordic welcome into Cope. We got inside, looked mentally deranged, spent another 5 minutes catching our breath, checked-in/soaked the entire lobby, made our way to our shoebox room and had to peel our clothes off of us and completely change outfits. By the time we resembled normal human beings again it was already 9:30.

Note to future visitors to Copenhagen: eat dinner early. We literally could not find a single place to serve us dinner. Finally, around 10pm we somehow stumbled upon a dim sum place and gratefully devoured plates of mysterious/semi recognizable Asian food.

Content with our food comas, we went back to our hotel, and back to wifi, only to discover the atrocities that were happening in Paris, and many messages sent from concerned friends and family. Thankful that we were in another country, but fearful of returning, we stayed up quite late contacting friends, family, and our professors, trying to get a better sense of the terrible situation. Paris definitely weighed heavy on our minds throughout our trip, and especially on our return home through Paris, but we were thankful of the fact that we were safe and sound and tried to make the best of our time remaining in Copenhagen.

Saturday morning we made sure to be up and going pretty early as that was really our only day to see all that Copenhagen had to offer. First stop? The glass market: two huge glass buildings that house a ton of different food stands, from freshly caught seafood to cute little dessert places, you can find anything and everything. But, we knew we wanted grød, aka porridge/oatmeal. It sounds bad in theory but grød is gooooood. And they had gluten free grød so that was a welcome sight. I had apples, peanut butter (!!!), and cocoa in mine and it was delish minus the fact that cocoa does not taste like chocolate...news to me. We devoured our grød then I dragged us to the Coffee Collective stand, rated one of the best coffee places in the world, and it did not disappoint.

glass market in English, Tllvvkekens or something in Danish

güd

so instagrammable

After we were in yet another food coma, we headed through the Botanical Gardens, stopped at the SMK Museum for a bit (it was free), saw some weird modern art and more typical art from the 1700s-1900s, then headed over to the Design Museum. Luckily for me, they were having a fashion exhibit, which was really cool to look at as it had items from famous houses such as Gucci and YSL, and also items from lesser-known Danish designers. However, the main focus of the museum, weirdly enough, was a chair exhibit. Sounds boring but it was actually super cool. There were chairs made from cardboard and newspaper, super ugly retro chairs, a Dr. Evil chair, etc. etc. Plus, the gift shop was so trendy and cool so we spent a while in there.

art?

hellooooooo

~mirr0r picz~

comfy

After the museum, we went to Nyhavn, the area on the water with the brightly colored houses, strolled around under the Christmas decorations (not sure how I felt about that considering it's over a month away, but not my country,) got some Glogg (mulled wine I think) and sat and enjoyed the scenery, then went to find the famous Copenhagen trampolines where we watched old British men eat it time after time while trying to jump from one trampoline to the other.

touristy but so pretty

gløggin'

soarin' flyin'

By this time our food comas had worn off, so we went in search of more treats, and we ended up stumbling across a Christmas Market, guess these people need something to look forward to considering the sun sets at 4pm there in the winter. It was cute and oh so jolly, but we were getting hangry. We found a pedestrian street and a street vendor selling some of Cope's infamous hot dog/sausage things (with chicken ones for me, the world's pickiest eater). We got our 'dogs, sat down on a bench and basically inhaled them. Then, after wandering around more, I split off to go meet my family friend, Maddy, who lives in Copenhagen with her boyfriend, and her mom and other family friend who were visiting her.

ask me about my weiner

so early but so jolly

I met Maddy and everyone back at the glass market where they were buying food to cook for dinner. Even after not having seen each other for months, it was like no time had passed, and I couldn't believe I was actually in another country just hangin with my family friend who I've known since I was born...it's a long cry from the days when we played Mario Kart in VT and I infamously said that "Peachy needs to go to driving school," when Peach was my character...a genius from a young age, some may say.

didn't move the entire time

katté latté

catpuccino

missing Hannah and Janet :(

After splitting up and going our separate ways, I met back up with my friends, and our friend Courtney, from Bucknell, who is spending the semester in Cope. She brought us to Copenhagen Street Food, basically what food dreams are made of. It was a giant warehouse full of different food trucks, and basically any type of food you could ever want. It was so trendy and so un-French that I was kind of in awe and want to go back asap. To give you an idea of the variety: Madeline got a duck burger, Katie got fish & chips, Courtney got pad thai, and I got tacos. We devoured our food, hung out in the picnic-bench style seating for a while, and waited for Kelsey, another one of our friends from Bucknell to come meet us! Then the five of us stayed and chatted for a while until Katie, Madeline, and I could not longer keep our eyes open (aka at 10pm). Then it was back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

AVOOOOOO

reunited <3

The next morning we had to leave pretty early but we managed to fit in a quick breakfast with Kelsey and Avid, another one of our friends from Bucknell who is in Cope for the semester. It was kind of unreal to be in another country with them and not, you know, in the library slaving over MIDE work. I'm so happy I was able to see so many of my friends this past weekend, thanks so much to everyone for showing us around!! I know Katie, Madeline, and I all can't wait to make another trip to Copenhagen and be with our people again...except maybe in the summer when it's not hailing, windy, and dark.

go to Cope just for the food

MIDE reunion on the left

@marisa @alex @katy