It is with a heavy heart that I am leaving Copenhagen right now. I’ve visited other cities in Europe so far but none can compare to my time in Copenhagen, which did not consist of much. My friend from high school housed me, despite the fact we may have only hung out once or twice outside of school or football. His apartment, shared with 7 other people is located minutes from the city center and ocean. His 7 other flatmates are wonderful people from France, Spain, Poland, Holland, and the states. Everyone was so hospitable and welcoming I couldn’t have asked for a nicer group of people to hang with for 4 days. I felt at home on his floor, and after the first day, in his neighborhood. If the weather had been nicer I don’t think I would have left CPH but with rain forecasted for the next few days I figured I should get back to Prague and get things figured out for France. With most of that said, here’s what happened.
Hamburg: a let down. Save for some awesome shops and nice parks Hamburg wasn’t anything to write home about, so don’t expect any postcards. The people were nice and it’s always fun trying out my German but I got lost so much and was so hungry most of the time I just wound up disgruntled and disheartened. I’m sure the city would have been fun if I had some friends with me but I didn’t so I was left to my own devices.
I left for Copenhagen Thursday afternoon with no idea of what to expect. I had no impressions of the city, no idea what it looked like, only that it was expensive and that the women should be beautiful.
The train ride was pretty chill. I knew we had to cross one massive body of water so I was stoked to cross some gnarly bridge defying architectural standards but much to my pleasure the train wound up on a boat and me on top of the boat, and the sea before my eyes. What better way to get up and stretch your legs than on a boat? There was this rad Palestinian dude on the train so me and him chatted it up while sailing away. It’s always great meeting middle eastern people who are just so stoked on life and really want there to be peace. We didn’t delve into the whole Israeli conflict because I could tell it would get pretty intense if we did, so we kept it light and enjoyed the ride.
An hour or so later we were in CPH and I was on my own. Pat said he couldn’t grab me at the train station but gave me metro directions to his place. I decided to forgo the public transportation and hoof it, no map, no money, no idea. I felt comfortable enough in the city that I walked up to the first guy I saw and asked him for directions. He spoke perfect English and was one of the most ruggedly handsome men I’ve seen in my whole life. He was stoked that I wanted to walk and he even referred to it as a “pleasant stroll”. Well 45 minutes and one pleasant stroll later I was where I needed to be. Pat rolled up on his bike soon after and we headed to his place.
Word on the street for the night was poker then some big party so I set in for the long haul. Headed to the market and grabbed some 2 dollar New Castle tall boys and chips and after a short meal of watermelon and chicken sandwiches poker started.
I hadn’t played poker since Fawell’s basement circa 2004 but I knew I still had skillz. The game was fun and friendly with lots of joking around and big betting. I eventually lost but it was fun regardless. The sun had finally set around 1030 so everyone got dressed up and we went to this party. Pretty fun time and just so many beautiful women I was fine people watching with some dancing intermixed. When I finally hit the dance floor to cut some rug this short girl came running over to me pulling on my tie and blazer yelling “you’re so tall! You’re sooo tall! Why are you sooo tall?!” I mean I know I’m tall but it was Scandinavia, the land of Vikings. However, I was the tallest person there. She seemed nice but very drunk so to Pat’s chagrin I just left it and got another beer. The party finally ended around 3 and everyone was quickly ushered outside. Outside I made friends with a Danish guy who was more than happy to talk about Danish culture and Danish people, I don’t remember much of what we talked about, but he was a super nice dude. After hanging out side for 45 min we took the Metro home, made some food, watched the sun rise (4:00am) and hit the hay.
The next morning, pretty hungover, I killed time waiting for Pat to wake up by talking to his lovely French flat mates who were busy cooking and cleaning. I’ll make it short. Big dinner planned that night, everyone contribute, so I went to the bakery got a nice loaf of bred and some danishes hoping they’d wake Pat up, they did and he showed me around the city. The city center was very humble and relaxed, nothing like Prague where it’s super busy with tons of tourists and people peddling things. We came back home, Pat worked out, I went and read in the park and then everyone started cooking. The French girls had desert, me and pat made chicken pesto pasta, Enrique and Elliot made crazy Spanish dumplings and Slawek and Jerome made awesome cabbage wrapped sausage things.
The dinner was lovely and chill, everyone stoked on the food and atmosphere. Everyone’s contributions were amazing, especially E&E’s dumplings and the French desert. Once dinner was over it was party time.
A huge party was planned in the apartment with over 70 people to attend. We had returned all the bottles/cans from the last party they had and were able to get two more 30 beer crates. The party was a blast with tons of dancing and chilling but I was incapable of getting past buzzed because of all the food in my belly. I called it quits and walked out to the pier to watch the sunrise, came home and went to bed.
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