Going Back to Copenhagen

Visiting somewhere you used to live is a bizarre experience. After four years away from Copenhagen, we were all struck both by how much and how little had changed since we left.  Taking everything in from the perspective of an adult (who has spent two years living and working in the real world) was also vastly, vastly different than experiencing the city as a 19 year old student.

First of all, we reconfirmed that our study abroad experience was WEIRD. Char, Alix and I hadn't been together as a threesome in three years, and reminiscing with the two of them about all of the stuff we did while we lived in Copenhagen made us all realize how absolutely bizarre everything we did was. Living in a tenement house with 30-year-old Danish men and a broken kitchen table, washing machine and shower? Not normal. Staying up until 6am every night to make cookie dough in said broken kitchen? Not Normal. Traveling through Russia with a 4'8" Danish teacher as your tour guide, and watching someone on your trip throw up on him? Not normal. Going on a field trip to Western Denmark with your Communications class to play paint ball? Just... No. All SO amazing- but seriously. NOT. Normal.

Standard 4am in Vendersgade

The second, most shocking thing we realized when we got back to Denmark was that we were not nearly as poor as we thought we were when we studied abroad. While Copenhagen is expensive, it's not nearly as bad as we used to think. We used to shop at a grocery store that accepted the equivalent of food stamps (and sold exclusively frozen and freeze dried produce) and refused to even set foot in the real grocery store that sold ACTUAL fruits and vegetables for like, a 40 cents more. The more time I spent there this week, the more I realized that I simply didn't understand the conversion rate for the 6 months I lived there (and, let's be honest, still don't even after this trip). We used to fish Kroner* out of the gutters to be able to afford a pint of Ben and Jerry's at 7/11, but somehow justified buying new "going out tops" every other day at H+M because "It's cheaper in Europe!" (It's not.). Not to say that this realization stopped us from eating $3 street hotdogs and 7/11 Croissants for every meal– but that was out of choice, not out of supposed necessity.

This is what sheer joy looks like.

Thirdly, we realized that between the three of us we saw mayyyyyybe half of all of the tourist attractions we should have while we lived in Copenhagen. Instead, we went out until 6am, got home and made cookie dough in our janky kitchen and slept until 3pm. We also didn't do a whole lot of homework– Alix took an entire class about the Carlsberg Brewery, and I wrote a final paper about Russian Vodka. It was nice to go back and see some of the touristy stuff we missed the first time around, but truthfully we really spent our few days in CPH doing a whole lot of the same stuff we did when we lived there. I will definitely, definitely remember this when my future child asks me to fund a study abroad program in Europe.

We have the EXACT same picture from 2011.

Most importantly, though, we realized that all the bars we used to go to when we were 20 are still REALLY fun four years later. We didn't make it to Kulor bar (where we used to pay $5 to drink unlimited beer and dance in cages every Tuesday night). We were buying $1 shots (seriously, the city is CHEAP these days) and listening to Top 40 hits from 2008 everywhere we went. It. Was. Heavenly.

#TBT

*Danish Currency