Autumn in Copenhagen
Copenhagen, November of 2021. Or as the Danish spell it: København. But I still don’t really know how to pronounce that, so we’re sticking with the English spelling. What a city. I took a direct flight from Amsterdam. When I arrived it was already dark, because in Europe during the colder months the sun goes down at like 5 pm. But that only meant that I could see the Christmas lights that were all over the city even better.
That first glimpse I got of the city as I was ascending from the escalator was astounding. Not because it was so beautiful or fairytale-like, but because it meant that I had actually arrived. It was as if I was being lifted into a new world. Which of course, was kind of the case. Even though the city was only an hour or two away from my hometown I was convinced that I was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere I could be anything or anyone I wanted to be.
But when the escalator ended abruptly (as they always do) I landed with both feet on the ground again. Literally. I still had to drag my suitcase along with me over the inconsistent pavement and find my hostel while having no idea what it looked like. Thank God for Google Maps. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my place to sleep for the next few nights was completely covered in Christmas lights. If there is anything I love more than life itself, it’s fairy lights.
This trip was not only my first solo trip, but also my first time ever sleeping in a hostel. I heard from so many friends that it is an amazing experience, and you meet all kinds of people. Even so, I could not imagine liking it. I usually really enjoy my own private space. Somewhere where I can be alone without some unknown person coming into my room at any time. It sounded awful to me. But don’t knock something ‘till you try it, right? So I put on my big girl pants and booked a hostel for the first couple of nights in Copenhagen.
Every website I visited said that Copenhagen is one of the most expensive cities in Europe. And let me tell you, if it comes to hotel rooms - where you have an actual private room with a bathroom - that’s definitely the case. Seeing those prices I suddenly was much more lenient towards discovering hostels. I could afford a private room, but I’d rather not.. I’m still a semi-broke, just-graduated student after all.
I thought back to when I decided to travel on my own. I had graduated only a week or two before. As soon as covid-restrictions allowed it I booked the first flight out of Amsterdam. I had waited years to actually be able to spontaneously travel. Even though the circumstances are quite different from how I imagined them, I’ll take anything as long as it involves a plane and a new place. I did decide to stay in Europe however, seeing as it’s quite close to home and relatively safe. Besides, there are some amazing cities that not many people know of. There is so much to explore and so many people to meet without having to travel thousands of kilometres (or miles, for those Americans reading).
So I booked a flight from a sketchy (but cheap!) travel agency and packed my bags. Little tip, always check the reviews of the travel agency before buying. I didn’t until afterwards and I never would have trusted them had I read some of the comments beforehand. Luckily they actually delivered on their promises and I got my ticket with no problems. I used Skyscanner to find the cheapest flights, and there are many. But not all of the agency’s are trustworthy just because they offer plane tickets.
With the trip just around the corner I dusted off my suitcase and started gathering stuff. I have always had a huge problem with packing way too many clothes and this time was no different. I mean, is it really a trip if your luggage isn’t overflowing? Maybe some normal people out there don’t struggle with this, but for me it’s a recurring problem. I’m kind of like a holiday hoarder of sorts. I pack everything ‘just in case’. The sad result of this behaviour is that in the end, nothing actually fits in the case. The only benefit is that I am pretty much prepared for anything.
But I managed to make a decent selection of stuff and I was surprised to see my suitcase close. Not without difficulty, but that was to be expected. I didn’t feel any butterflies up until my arrival at the airport. No tensity or nervousness. But when I walked through the enormous doors of Schiphol in Amsterdam it dawned on me what I was actually doing. I was about to enter a big adventure. All on my own. The only things I had planned were my first two nights and my flight dates (and even those could change). Everyone I told that I wasn’t going with anyone looked at me incredibly weirdly.
Apparently it’s not a normal thing to travel solo in Dutch culture. Nobody even goes out to dinner or to a bar alone. But I’ve always loved being in my own company. Mainly because that’s one of the only occasions that no other human can annoy the shit out of me, but also because I just don’t want to take anyone’s wants or needs into account. I could just spend the entire week in my room if I felt like it. It was entirely up to me. And I liked the idea of that.
When I arrived at the airport in Copenhagen I was overwhelmed with excitement. Everything was new, I couldn’t understand a word and I had no idea where to go. I had read somewhere online that the city centre is easy to reach by subway. So I was betting on that. It actually was as simple as they said it would be. The ticket machines were easy to find and the subway stations were very clear. It was already dark when I made my way up from the station to the surface.
When I saw the dark sky filled with Christmas lights and the lit up streets it was like a moment from a movie. I couldn’t believe I was actually here. Where ‘here’ was I had no idea. I hadn't done much research before I arrived. The movie moment ended abruptly when I had to pull my way too heavy suitcase over the different kinds of pavement. All of them were unsuitable for rolling a suitcase, might I add. The streets were filled with construction scaffoldings, giving the streets a little less magical vibe.
But I wasn’t going to let a few setbacks ruin my mood. Even when I walked in the wrong direction, I didn’t lose any of my initial excitement. Okay, maybe a little, but when I saw the building that I would call home (or at least my place to sleep) for the next few days I couldn’t have been happier. The building was completely decorated in fairy lights. The halls and the stairs were super clean and the lady who welcomed me in the common room was incredibly warm and nice.
She asked me if I wanted a towel, which I completely forgot to pack, so I happily took her up on that offer. Apparently I wasn’t prepared for every situation. She showed me around the common room and the tents. No, they weren’t actual tents, they were just cabins with three walls and two flaps as entrance points. The hostel I was staying in was called Urban Campers and the tents were their whole thing. It was actually really nicely done. The quality of everything was amazing. Everything was clean, the beds were super private and the lockers felt incredibly safe.
But most of all I was amazed by the thought and the time that was put into the decoration of the place. I always had this specific idea of hostels. I thought they were kind of scrubby and not very hygienic. This one was nothing like that. Little did I know that I would experience that exact hostel only three days later.
The first night I wanted to just huddle up in my room, but I forced myself to go sit in the common room. I have a tendency to shy away from people when I am in an unfamiliar place, and I went on this trip to get out of my comfort zone. So I ordered a beer and went to sit on a couch set next to another girl. In just an hour or two I had searched the entire internet for sightseeing spots around the city and had roughly made a plan of things I wanted to do. I hadn’t talked to anyone really, but I felt incredibly accomplished.
When I went to bed that night I admit I felt a little lonely. It dawned on me that I had to do everything by myself. I had to constantly undertake things that I maybe wasn’t really comfortable with. It was scary. Very scary. But I knew that getting out of my comfort zone would be a good thing for me. A great thing even. And so every time that I thought of something I wanted to do, which I found scary, I forced myself to just get up and get on with it.
If I’m being completely honest, I don’t know if it actually helped me or not. I don’t feel any different after doing it for a couple of days. But maybe that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Maybe it’s a gradual process. One I don’t notice right away. Maybe in a month or in a year it will dawn on me that I used to be afraid to do something that I then have no problem with. Something I don’t even think is scary or unknown anymore. Maybe that’s the tricky thing about going out of your comfort zone. There is no immediate gratification.
The next morning I went into the common room to get breakfast just 15 minutes before it closed. I was just in time. I know, I’m a rebel. After that I got ready and just went on a walk through the city. The sun was shining and I had my sneakers on. I could walk all day. And I did. I didn’t really know where I was going. I just walked through streets that seemed fun. And I actually came across a lot of places that I had seen online the night before. I went to this market called ‘Torvehallerne’. It was filled with all kinds of little fruit places and plants. Everything they sold was fresh produce and it smelled amazing.
There also were these glass buildings that were housing all kinds of little stores. There was a bonbon store, which I of course had to check out up close. And also a baking shop and little restaurants. Everything looked really high quality and fresh. There even was a fresh fish market.
That day I also went to Nyhavn. The most well-known place in Copenhagen. You can find a photo of the colored houses on practically every tourist website. It was crowded and incredibly cosy. There were all kinds of booths selling (mostly touristy) products and drinks. There was one guy that was selling these signature cookies that used to be shipped across the seas. To prevent them from getting wet they invented aluminium boxes to transport them in. They have improved a bit since those days, but the material is still the same. It was so much fun to walk the coast and look out over the water. There are also all kinds of restaurants on that street, but I suspected that everything on the menu there would be grossly overpriced.
That night I returned back to the hostel a little lonely, but incredibly grateful for all of the things that I got to do that day. I have been on holidays before where I was with a group and there is always someone who doesn’t feel like doing things or who gets annoyed by someone. And like any normal human being just trying to enjoy their holiday, I don’t want to get in the middle of that. I was the only voice I had to take into account and I liked it. It may sound a little egotistical, but I just put myself first. And I was in a position where I could do that.
The next day I got into a conversation with a Mexican guy that shared my dormitory. He had just gotten a job in Copenhagen and had the weekend off. We had such a fun conversation that I invited him to come with me to a park in Frederiksberg that I had planned to see that day. It was a big park with a beautiful castle, called Frederiksberg slot, lying next to it. We walked through the fallen leaves, along the different paths going nowhere in particular. The park itself was huge. There were parts where trees obscured the view, but also a very large green where you could see all the way across.
Afterwards we walked through Frederiksberg (so many original names!), a residential area within the municipality of Copenhagen. I was incredibly hungry. We picked out a cute looking restaurant and browsed through the menu. I looked the place up on TripAdvisor and found out that it was actually a pretty fancy place. The food was good, but it wasn’t anything special.
We walked all the way back to our hostel and not once did we run out of topics to talk about. That night we stayed up talking until about 2 am. When I finally laid down in bed I couldn’t believe that I had made a friend on the second day that I was there. And to think that a mere 24 hours ago I thought I was going to be alone my entire trip. Boy, was I wrong.
The next day I invited him to join me again. There were two museums that I really wanted to see. The first one was Christiansborg Palace. There was an exhibition of chambers that the Royal family used and some art, but I actually was only interested in the ruins underneath the castle. And so we lowered ourselves beneath the surface to discover the centuries old rock formations from earlier renditions of the castle. The palace apparently had to be rebuilt four times. On different occasions fires had burnt the entire castle to the ground.
Next on the agenda was a museum called Glyptotek. It looked amazing already on the website, but I have to say that it was even more magnificent in real life. When you walk in you think you’ve entered a tropical forest within a greenhouse. There is this enormous room with all kinds of plants, trees and fountains. The ceiling is way up high and the greenery reaches all the way to the top. The exhibited art is in chambers that wrap around the greenhouse. All kinds of paintings and sculptures are on display. If you get the chance, this is definitely a museum I would recommend. The art was beautiful and diverse, and the decoration of the building made the entire experience really special.
Afterwards I checked into my new hostel. This one was a bit more in the city centre. This hostel was very, very, different from the last one, but charming in its own way. There was a bar downstairs and the entire place gave me the idea that I was really sleeping above one. The ground was a bit sticky and the interior dated. But the people that I met there were really nice. Everyone was super friendly and open. The hostel is called ‘Downtown Hostel’. The thing that sets this hostel apart from others is that a lot of locals regularly come to the bar downstairs. So you can meet them along with fellow travellers.
I was finishing up some work and a guy that was staying in my room asked if I had eaten yet. I hadn’t. He asked if I wanted to go for a bite with him. I was just contemplating whether that was a good idea or not when I heard myself saying ‘yes’ already. We went for burgers because I was craving that. The place we found was super old and had a decor of wooden beams and dimmed lights. They had one burger on the menu. But it looked like a good one.
This guy spoke practically fluent Danish. He had just told me that he was Swedish, so I was a little surprised. The mystery solved itself when he told me that he’d lived in Copenhagen for three years. Besides, Danish is apparently really similar to Swedish, so he was cheating a little. The staff was really friendly, albeit a little slow. The burger was absolutely delicious, but inedible. They used sliced meat instead of minced so with every bite the entire burger came out of the bun. We made a complete mess of our plates, not to mention our faces. I had been a little nervous before, but this turned out to be the perfect ice breaker. You can’t take each other seriously when you have sauce all over your faces.
Afterwards he told me about this costume party that he was going to and that he had an idea for a last minute costume. He asked if I could help him with that. I think I thought about it for one split second before answering with a big fat ‘yes’. If I had ever doubted how spontaneous a solo travel could be, I would never again. There I was, with a stranger in a city I didn’t know at 10pm, randomly applying sports tape and glitter all over his upper body. It was the most spontaneous I’d felt in a very long time. And I loved every second of it.
That night I went to a little bar with the guy I met in the first hostel. A band was playing live jazz music. There are a lot of bars in Copenhagen that play live music, even on weekdays. You can find most of them on TripAdvisor, but even if you’re just walking through the city you’ll find them. You can hear the music from the streets. At three in the morning I rolled into bed. Happy, yet exhausted. Which is a really good combination.
The next day I walked through Strøget, the biggest shopping street in the city. I visited Copenhagen just in time to see all the Christmas markets come to life. And I made good use of that fact. There are Christmas markets all over the city and they all have a different array of things to sell. In the afternoon I even went to visit The Little Mermaid statue. One of Copenhagen’s most popular tourist sites. But if I’m being honest, the statue wasn’t very impressive. When we got there it was cloudy and cold, which didn’t help. It was a pretty statue, and it’s just one of those things you have to visit when you’re in the city. But the surroundings weren’t very special and there was a line of tourists wanting to take a picture with it.
That night I went to another jazz bar in Copenhagen called La Fontaine. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Speechless. The musicians in the other bar were okay, but in this bar they were incredible. We met a Scottish guy who was studying music and he told us that only two musicians were paid. Everyone else who got on stage was just improvising. It might have been my favourite night there. Afterwards the three of us went to a few different clubs, but none of them were super crowded or appealing. We ended up in a place called ‘The Tequila Bar’. The music was okay and there were quite some people there so we had a couple of drinks.
The next day was my last full day. I decided to explore the city on my own for a while. In the afternoon I went to the Free City Christiania. Everyone was talking about the art and - of course - the marijuana that they sell there in droves. At Nyhavn I talked to the guy selling cookies and he told me that the city was much more than just a place to get semi-legal soft drugs.
Years ago people actually settled down in that part of town out of protest towards the government. They decorated the entire town with art and graffiti. Every house looked different and artistic in it’s own way. Rebels with a cause. After they succeeded in their ‘revolution’ the people decided to stay there. Getting a house in that part of town is very in demand now. And I get that completely. Who wouldn’t want to live in a place where all the houses are colourful and you can proudly call yourself a modern day hippie? Maybe that’s just me romanticising artistic life.
My trip was coming to an end. I am definitely planning on coming back to Copenhagen, because I have yet to see the Tivoli Gardens and the Cisternerne exhibition. The Cisterns is an underground exhibition space where you get to experience art while in a rowboat. It looks amazing, but I wasn’t able to get tickets anymore. So now it’s just a good excuse to come back.
The next morning I took the train to the airport. Leaving a place is always a kind of sentimental thing for me. I start reflecting on who I was during the days I spend there and how I will never get to come back. At least not as the person I was then. There is always this melancholy thing about realising who you are in this very moment. You are only getting older, but this particular time you’ve spent in this particular place will forever be the same memory. Even if you grow older to become a completely different person. Who I was those six days in Copenhagen will always stay the same. And I can never go back to that. It’s both exciting and scary. But that’s one thing that’s given in this life. Everything beautiful we do is always both.
