I love traveling. Not just seeing new places and meeting new people, but everything that goes into each travelling experience as well. I love carefully packing my bags as lightly as I possibly can, and I love waking up early to leave home before the sun goes up. I love how accomplished I feel every step of the way because I really am surprised and proud of myself every time I end up on the right bus or train or at the right airport. I have always loved being in airports, even just to pick people up or drop people off, but I have learned to love even the stress of waiting in the line for security and hoping nothing goes wrong. It sounds crazy, but I love a lot of things about travelling that seem to annoy the grand majority of people, but sometimes I feel like maybe that’s what we are here for; to each love weird little things about life a little too much even when nobody else does.
When airports are involved in my adventures, which they usually have been recently, I have a huge appreciation for the moment I look out the window and find myself in the clouds. You know how sometimes you find yourself thinking the same thing whenever you’re in a partiular place? Like maybe you think of a certain song every time you pass a certain street corner because that’s where you heard it for the first time. For me, finding myself in the clouds always brings along the same string of thoughts. It reminds me of being a child and watching Disney’s Aladin and wishing I could touch the clouds like Princess Jasmin does while riding the magic carpet. Then it reminds me of the first time I took a plane alone, when I was 11 and on my way to Canada. I remember feeling so independent and excited that I could spend the entire duration of the plane ride staring at the windows. I remember not understanding why nobody else was as excited as I was that we were in the SKY. After that, I remember traveling to Chile, the second super independent thing I did in my young life, and looking at the clouds and feeling something even stronger. I remember feeling gratitude, in the purest sense of the word. I was grateful to be in the sky and going somewhere and for all the lovely people who had made it possible for me to get there. Now, when I find myself in the clouds, no matter where I am going or who is watching, I take a couple minutes to stare in wonder at the clouds. I think about how cool it would be to touch the clouds, and allow my grown-up self to get excited about the fact that I am in the SKY! And then I spend quite awhile feeling grateful for getting to be up in the sky, travelling, always, from places I have been shown love by amazing people to new places that will soon have their own homes in my heart. I love traveling for so many reasons, but this is one that I have never fully said aloud, I don’t think.
Anyways, I felt all these things on Saturday as my plane rose up out of Orly Airport, just outside of Paris. I had had a bit of trouble finding my way there, and had actually meant to book my tickets for CDG Airport but messed up. Along the way to the airport, I asked a lot of questions to a lot of different people using all three of my languages and I ended up arriving their succesfully and on time for my flight! Yay! While waiting in line to board the plane, an announcement came on in French saying our flight had changed gates, so I picked up my bag and began to move in the direction of the right gate, when a girl who looked to be about my age came up to me and said something like “I’m sorry. Hi. I saw you have an American passport so I am assuming you speak English. My French is horrible, what did they just say?” I smiled and told her about the gate change, and that it wasn’t a huge deal. She seemed relieved, and we began to walk towards the correct gate together. I asked her where she was from, and when she started off with “…well that’s sort of a complicated question for me to answer” I knew we would have a good conversation. Throughout the half hour that we waited to board the plane, she explained to me about how her mom works for a bunch of different embassies, so essentially they move every year. This began a long conversation about how difficult it is to not feel lonely when you move around a lot. It wasn’t a sad conversation, though. I had had a very different childhood than she did, but I told her about my last few years of moving around a lot, and that I couldn’t imagine how difficult moving around all the time could be, even after getting used to the idea of it. She told me she appreciated talking to me, because other people would just tell her she was lucky to get to travel all the time. It was a hilariously deep conversation to have with someone you had just met in public, but it was such an interesting one! We looked at our tickets and saw we were seated very far away from each other, so we wrapped up our conversation as we got closer to the plane. I saw that her ticket had a weird mark on it and asked her what it meant, and she told me it was to show the flight attendent she was under 15 so they would watch out for her. DENICE IS 14 YEARS OLD. I was shocked hahah this girl seemed at least my age. We went to take a picture together as we boarded the plane and a flight attendent saw us and decided to jump on in, which made me laugh. It was a great start to my trip to Denmark!
When I arrived in Copenhagen, Michelle was waiting for me at the airport. We ran up and hugged each other, and then caught a train to the city where the bikes she had borrowed for us for the weekend were waiting for us. That train ride was the begginning of what ended up being two full days of non-stop discussion. I realize it is normal for friends to talk, but I have never talked about so much for so long in my life. Michelle and I didn’t know each other that well when she lived in the US, so it was honestly a little shocking to realize how profoundly we could discuss all the things we had to say. We started off talking about what our lives had been like since we last saw each other at Charlie and Joan’s house in the summer when she visited, and we discovered that we had found ourselves facing very similar difficulties and feeling very similar feelings. To be honest, I find it difficult to blog about all the things we discussed and all the different ways they made me feel and all the things I learned from hearing Michelle say things I had felt but in different words than I, myself, had analyzed them in, because we really didn’t stop all weekend. We spent the two days riding bikes and eating delicious vegan foods (because Michelle is very into healthy, raw-vegan eating) and seeing beautiful buildings, but the entire time we didn’t stop conversing and because of that, a lot of things we could have done in a half hour, we ended up doing for two hours because we were lost in conversation hahah. It was soooooooo weird to talk to someone who thinks as much as I do, or maybe even more, about life and love and happiness. Because of this, even though I felt so lucky to get to experience part of Denmark’s culture and see such a lovely city, this weekend felt more about reflection and connecting with an old friend in a strange but beautiful way.
I have a lot of pictures to show you from my trip but I don’t feel like taking you step-by-step through every moment of my trip, so instead I will post the pictures and give descriptions. Before I do that though, I want to say how thankful I am that I was able to see Michelle again. It was so nice of her Unlce to let us stay at his flat and I loved learning so many random things about Denmark. I didn’t know what I was expecting Danish culture to be like, but these are some things I learned about Denmark that I think are pretty interesting:
- Denmark is really cold in the winter. I wasn’t prepared for how cold it was, and somehow people were still all stylish and beautiful and not complaining about the weather.
- Denmark has a Queen, and people think of her as a very strong symbol of national pride.
- Denmark feels very safe, and while people are not super smiley in the streets, they are polite and respectful and helpful with holding doors open for others.
- There are bikes EVERYWHERE. Bike lanes and bike traffic lights and bikes and bikes and bikes and it is soooo cool.
- It can get dark as early as 15:00 in the winter and as late as 23:00 in the summer.
- The darkness in the winter sends about 60% of the Danish population into a “winter depression"
- They do not use the Euro, which I feel like I should have known but didn’t.
- Rye bread is extremely Danish and a common breakfast staple.
- It is super popular in Denmark to be vegan and eat a lot of fresh vegetables or go paleo and stuff.
- Everything is very clean.
- A lot of places are decorated using white as the main color.
- Hello in Danish sounds like a very cheerful “HI!” and that made me giggle every time someone said it.
Michelle’s Uncle’s beautiful flat!
We embraced Danish culture by biking. Everywhere. :)
And everything was gorgeous.
And people who weren’t biking were walking.
Denmark= bikes and pretty buildings and prettier people.
We took this picture in honor of Charlie and Joan who would want to see our faces together. We are at the top of a really cool tower that overlooks the city.
View from tower. Wowwww, am I right?
Although we had to climb to get there...
Escaped the cold and got a coffee in this indoor market.
Healthy Danish people selling healthy Danish things.
Just pretty, ya know?
We ate dinner here! I love how European buildings go underground.
What a cuuuutie!
Michelle explained that in restaurants, a lot more effort has to be put in to make vegetarian options taste good, so they almost always turn out better. I believe her now hahaha. This was AMAZING.
Night bikeride back home after dinner.
We shared some wine and stayed up way too late talking hahaha.
Some typical Danish rye bread for breakfast!
Stroll thought the King’s Garden. I was bummed because we also got to explore a castle in this garden for a bit but my iPhone actually got too cold and ended up shutting off because it couldn’t operate due to the temperature. Yes, we were cold too hahaha.
If you look closely, you can see a group of boys dressed up in military uniforms. They volunteer like this to “protect the Queen.” It isn’t really like she is in danger but its more of something they do for the experience. They were practicing.
A sandwich.
More bike rides by frozen lakes.
I was there, too!
Michelle’s uncle owns a matcha bar downtown so we got to go there and get free warm drinks!
It was soooo tasty.
Everything in Denmark looks like a trending instagram picture hahah.
It rained on us as Michelle walked me to the train station.
My grateful selfie because she didn’t abandon me in the rain even though we were lost and freezing.
Paris from above. <3
Soooo that whole experience was amazing.
I also wanted to not forget to blog about getting to meet Chip in Paris! I got a message from Chip, an rebound exchange student from our district in California who I have a lot of mutual friends with but had never actually met in person, saying that he was in Paris and wanted to meet up for a coffee! So he got up early to meet me for a cup of coffee before my first day of my new French class and OH GOSH I need to tell you all about that too! Well, Chip is really cool. He was hilarious and very sweet and easy to talk to, and I am so glad I will get to see him again in the US because we don’t live too far away from each other there at all hahah. We talked and drank coffee, and we had such a good time that I told him he should meet up with my friends and I after my French class to get lunch. Then, I went to my new French class and OH MY GOODNESS I LOVED THAT CLASS SO MUCH! My new French teacher is so funny and the class was so complicated and too hard for me and that is exactly what I wanted. Like I could understand everything, but only if I payed really close attention and I learned so much just the first day! After class, I met up with Maira, Jess, Olivia, and Chip to get japanese food. My friends thought Chip was super cool too! It was so nice to see everyone together again since I hadn’t been around all my close friends at the same time for well over a month, and Chip was a happy little addition to that!
I am so tired and this blog is being so rushed. It is hard when I have so many happy things to write about hahaha and I love how that is my biggest problem today!
I am going to go to bed soon, but I wanted to end this blog saying that Prune is also doing well hahah. Gosh, 2016 is such a nice place to be.
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