Can you believe that it has been just over a month since I have been a college student and (more importantly) just over a month since I have moved to Copenhagen, Denmark? On this little corner of the internet we believe in honesty - and the lessons of my yoga teachers of being 100% really real - so let me preface my first blog post in a while that this past month has been amazing. I love waking up to the sounds of the city, hearing different languages everywhere I go, biking to class, finding my love for veggie burgers, studying what I love, meeting so many new people and the anticipation that I have from booking several flights for weekend trips all across Europe. However, like anything else there is a a dark side to every ray of light. This past month has been the hardest month of my entire existence. Homesickness comes in waves - actually more like a combination of waves and tsunamis. For the most part I can keep these wild emotions at bay (lol no pun intended); however, there comes times like yesterday where I can't help but leave during the middle of class and go to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror through tears and think to myself "What the actual f*ck did I get myself into???". The thing is I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. Sometimes I miss my bed, my house, my friends back at home, my parents, even the freaking traffic in sunny Charleston, South Carolina that on days like yesterday it physically hurts. Everything here still feels so new and cultural shocks still hit me like bricks: sometimes i just want to be able to read a street sign not in Danish or not have to ask if someone speaks English in order to help me at the grocery store or not have to drip sweat first thing in the morning as I speed bike from Amager to Vestergade and walk up four flights of steep stairs every day to get to class.
Whenever I feel myself thinking about what my life used to look like I have to remind myself why the heck I wanted to be here in the first place: I want to be here so that I could experience life in a completely new way. I am here to learn, to grow, connect, and, of course, to have fun being a college kid in a major European capital city. With that in mind, when I have down time I have been pushing myself to explore something new in the city, especially since everything in Copenhagen is in very close proximity. Some place I keep coming back to is Torvehallerne, an indoor and outdoor gourmet food market. The fruit and veggie scene here is unreal, and for a newly converted vegetarian this makes my heart so happy. My favorite things to do here include oogling at all the bakery stands and their artisan breads and pastries. In addition to gourmet household staples like breads, cheeses, fancy wines and chocolates, Torvehallerne also is a social space rooted in having a hygge dining atmosphere. There are coffee stands, a banh mi pop up restaurant as well as tacos, Danish hotdogs, and even acai bowls and juices (!!!). My favorite pop up restaurant a one dedicated to oatmeal and porridge called Grød. I have gotten the blueberry chia pudding with vegan skyr (Icelandic yogurt) several times.
But on this particular night after a long day of classes and a long night of studying ahead of me I stopped at Torvehallerne for one of my favorite treats: Blood Orange sorbet. One pattern from high school I wanted to break here in Copenhagen was my tendency to do the same thing every day (ie come home, snack, scroll through Instagram, yoga, homework until midnight). In college, I have noted that I have more time to fill in my day since my classes each day take up to a maximum of 4 hours. The sun has started to set sooner and sooner here in Scandinavia so this day I got some sorbet and my readings for Sociology and my headphones and sat in the park across from Torvehallerne to watch the sun inch behind the architectural horizon. The white buildings became washed with peachy shades of orange and pink. In between the turn of a page I moved my eyes from the text to the horizon and to the people sitting around me drinking beers with friends who also had the same idea of watching the sunset and in a little moment like this it hit me of how truly happy deep down I am to be here. Happiness really is at the root of my time in Copenhagen and all it takes to remind myself of this seed that I planted long ago is a sorbet and a sunset. This night was definitely one of my favorites that I have had here in Copenhagen and the feeling of peachy contentment is one that I have kept pocketed with me ever since.
Vi ses. See you later.
* ps I started using Google photos to save the memory of my photos during the summer, but for some reason I am just now discovering the photo editing tools on Google photos and I am in love :)
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