Better Late Than Never? Not in Denmark!

Hej from Denmark! I've spent the past 6 weeks articulating that first sentence, so needless to say the creative juices are a-flowin' over here.. Hej is the standard Danish greeting, pronounced almost the same as "hi" in English. Like me, you're probably thinking "wow how convenient!", but I assure you that is a dangerous illusion my friend.

On a daily basis, my "hi"'s have been mistaken for "hej"'s and often mislead poor Danish strangers into thinking I can guide them somehow, or that I even have the slightest clue as to where I am. They say "hej" and I say "hi" and then when they begin their long-winded tangents I politely wait until they pause, because honestly this is my fault and I should know better by now, and then I reveal myself as the colossal American disappointment that I am with the usual "I'm sorry, I don't speak Danish", which has actually now become "I'm sorry, I only speak English" after an unfortunate encounter where I pointlessly told a man speaking German that I don't speak Danish, because that is really a look you don't want to get twice. *inhale*

Moving on; my fall semester here in Copenhagen has been very eventful and tumultuous in the best way thus far, and despite their briefness the past 6 weeks have been quite impactful! I'm living in a cute town called Kongen's Lyngby, which is about a 25 minute train ride north of Copenhagen, in an apartment with a 22 year old Dane named Mia.

Mia is amazing, she's extremely kind and she probably loves ice cream as much as I do which makes her a rare catch if you ask me! She also patiently tells me what I'm eating when I bring home random groceries, and she good-humoredly says "I think it's really funny that you keep buying things without knowing what they are" (this was after she told me I had been taking vitamins for children age 3-10 for about 2 weeks. I am still taking them). I love living in Lyngby, and while at first it was a little unsettling being separate from other students, now I greatly appreciate having my own little world within Denmark.

So let's get down to the dirty details. I arrived in Denmark on my 20th birthday (huzzah!) and it was my first solo flight/flying experience (not counting a childhood trip to Disney that I remember in fragments). I flew out of BWI and because of some bad thunderstorms my flight was delayed about an hour and there was a good bit of turbulence. If you know me then you know I have a concerning obsession with storms, so I was actually delighted to have the chance to see some lightning from the sky, and the bumpy ride only made it all the more thrilling!

I flew in the evening so once the city lights faded and we outran Thor (hehe), there wasn't much to do but sleep. A large (drunk?) man in the row in front of me tried his best to soil my experience by turning around and informing me "I saw you in the airport", without any context or point to be made, but I played it off with a nod and smile and very intentional avoidance of eye contact for the next several hours.

We landed in Reykjavik, Iceland about 10 minutes before my connecting flight was scheduled to depart. By the time I got off of the plane, onto a bus and to the right part of the terminal I essentially had to run, show a lady my passport, jog on some more to my flight, hop on and sit down and we were off down the runway. I pride myself very much on this accomplishment, but just like when I take tests unprepared I also kind of blacked out, don't remember much and can't take a whole lot of credit for my own success. But I plane'd!

All you have to do is look at a map to know that Iceland is small, but my god is Iceland small! The topography was amazing though, a very unique and almost extraterrestrial landscape of rock and barren land and mini volcano thingys. I'd love to go back sometime to get a closer look.

When we arrived in Copenhagen I was relieved, it felt nice to not have to worry about the process of getting on another plane. I unsurely navigated my way to the baggage claim, and even more unsurely stood and looked around when only one of my suitcases emerged and about 15 minutes had passed. I had spotted the help desk and was preparing to break out of my trance and head in that direction when I heard "Sawyer?" from behind me. Confused as hell and wondering what the odds were of my name being a popular Danish word, I turned around and saw my friend Maddy from Loyola peering up at me from under her infamous pink baseball hat. Turns out we had been on the same plane but Maddy's height (or lack thereof) and my tardiness kept us in the dark. We got our bags and found our way to the rendezvous point and the rest is history!

While we were crossing the street just outside of the airport, I once again heard "Sawyer?", but this time I turned and saw a total stranger. "Hi I'm Mia!" she said, and while I was wondering how she could have possibly read my luggage tag from so far away, she informed me that DIS (the Danish Institute of Scandinavia, my university in Denmark) had sent her a picture of me for reference. So despite my little run in Reykjavik, my arrival in Copenhagen went off suspiciously without a hitch!

And that's usually how it works; the calm before the storm. I spent the first weekend in Lyngby while Mia had to work, and the isolation slowly crept in. I liked the town immediately, but it seemed like everyone else was in the city together figuring it all out in the comfort of groups. Mia was very helpful, but there was a lot of information to take in on my own, especially when for the first few days all I had seen of Copenhagen was the airport. It felt like I was very far away.

When orientation started up and I finally had to get myself to Copenhagen, I managed to get on the right train but I also managed to put a completely wrong address into my GPS. I realized this when I showed up to a construction site at a small music school in a part of Copenhagen I still can't pinpoint instead of the Royal Music Academy of Denmark. I walked around for about an hour and a half before I finally got to the real academy, thanks to a fellow Loyola-ite who was kind enough to send me his location (cue Khalid song). I arrived super late and endured the looks of pity as the staff waited for me to break down, but I really hadn't been scared or worried the whole time, it was kind of an adrenaline rush and I was a little disappointed to have found the group (sorry Mom).

The rest of orientation went really well and it felt nice to be in the city and around other students. I got to see the dorm-style housing most of them were living in, and I didn't want to go home. The first week consisted of me harassing the poor housing lady and trying to convince her to let me move into the city and be less independent, but by the time I had the meeting with her I had already decided my apartment was the perfect fit. I was going to have a very different experience than everyone else, but that's what I wanted, to be outside of my comfort zone. That being said, I'll be honest with you now and tell you that despite all of my adventurousness, I still fell asleep to Friends playing in my headphones for about a week.

Perhaps the most surprising thing so far is just how excited I was to finally start classes. (and trust me, it's worn off a bit). I had come to the realization that my housing was perfect for me, as even in a foreign country I would rather be alone than in connection-less company derived of convenience. I've met many amazing people and made a handful of good friends, exercising quality over quantity, and I like having the luxury of being able to balance my time with them and time to myself. That being said, I guess we really are social beings because I was shockingly ready to go to class and have some good ole' awkward meet and greet ice warmers (this too wore off quite rapidly). Overall my classes are really interesting and I'm in love with the European style of hands-on education and all of the field studies that entails.

Well, speaking of being in love... Just kidding, I'm still a romance void noodle. However, I am hopelessly devoted to my daily $2 coffee and croissant combo, and I wish I had thought to pick it up as an extra credit research project on the effects of said combo on the human body. Besides my unhealthy habit, the details of the architecture and the phenomenal feeling of being surrounded by strangers and seeing the vastitude of life is truly breathtaking. I'm in love with watching people go about their lives in this one city in this one country on this one continent, and struggling to fathom how many lives are constantly unfolding in other corners of the world. Knowing that at any given time, I'm just a small dot on a very zoomed in map is somehow more emancipatory than constraining.

In summary, I am more aware than ever of my own microscopic size, and somehow I've never felt more free and significant.