Although I’ve been to Copenhagen before, I by no means consider myself a local. However, I do believe that I have travelled enough and am independent enough to perform basic functions in a city. Furthermore, I expected to be somewhat familiar with locations around Copenhagen. Apparently not.
Shortly after arriving, I made a quick trip to the grocery store, Fakta, to pick up some toiletries and snacks. Walking into the shop reminded me of my first experience at Walmart in the US, where I felt so lost and intimidated. I ended up pay much more for a plastic bag, because I grabbed the thermal ones. I thought I was copying the actions of the Dane in front of my, but I was clearly wrong. However, the most embarrassing part was at checkout, where I held up the check out line not once, but twice. The first time was because my debit card kept being rejected and the cashier kept telling me to try again. The second time, I returned to explain that I had come back to pay for the groceries I couldn’t pay for earlier. This was a completely unexpected sequence of events that led me to feel somewhat frustrated. How could I be so unprepared? I would expect this on my first visit to a city, but definitely not on a second extended visit!
Another aspect that surprised me was how unfamiliar I am with the city. Of course, there are landmarks that I remember, such as Danhostel, Tivoli, Andersen Bakery and Strøget. However, locations like Paper Island are new and I could not remember the way to Nyhavn. Luckily, as we walked around Copenhagen today, I began recalling some of the familiar locations and random facts I remembered about the city. This included the rediscovery of the trampolines on the sidewalk (one of my favorite things about the city) and the location of a company we visited two years ago.
While I hope to begin recalling how to get places and the addresses or names of locations, I am finding myself coming to new realizations about the city. An early morning run took us to Fisketorvet Copenhagen Mall, which is definitely closer than I remembered from last time. We also travelled to Humlebæk today and I never realized that the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art was in that area. Furthermore, there is certainly more of Copenhagen and its surrounding region to discover. While travelling for class earlier today to Humlebæk, we ventured quite far outside of Copenhagen by train and bus. The scenery looked so different to the clustered city center that I was used to and there were definitely places to explore between our ‘homebase’ in Danhostel, the area of Humlebæk and beyond. I know that we will be busy with our project work, but I am excited to get to know Copenhagen and its surrounding areas better and hopefully permanently!