Finding Hygge in Copenhagen

Hej from Copenhagen!

Copenhagen has both worn me out and energized me at the same time. This city has kept me busy, but allowed me to relax and enjoy the Danish way of life. I’ve done a ton of stuff and feel like I’ve been here for over a week, but really it’s only been four days since I left London.

My London exit was definitely super sad. I made some incredible friends there who I hope to see again, but it was difficult to say goodbye. I’ve taken so many short trips this semester that it feels like I’ll just be going back to London tomorrow morning as usual. It really hurts that I don’t know when I’ll get back there, and when I do, it won’t be the same at all. That city has shaped me in unexplainable ways.  

But onward to new adventures. I’ve been blown away by Copenhagen; the change of pace from busy London life is startling but refreshing. Denmark is a warm, trusting, relaxed society that values good design, comfortable atmospheres, and picking others up when they’re down.

Biking is the preferred method of transportation, with kids piled into carts on the front. Babies will be left in strollers on the street while mothers run inside to grab coffee — something I’ve witnessed several times that, although shocking, is completely normal in a society built on a foundation of trust and community. There are 7/11 convenient stores everywhere…but step inside one and you may as well be in Whole Foods because it’s so organic and clean and fancy. Every Dane speaks English better than native English-speakers. Many Danes are actually tall, blonde, and beautiful, riding by on their bikes in head-to-toe black like they just stepped off the runway. Danes value “hygge” — a word that generally translates to “the quality of coziness and comfort.” Spaces can be hygge, and so can people. As an introvert who has always connected with cozy, intimate spaces, conversations, and environments, I feel like hygge is a concept I’ve been reaching for my whole life without having the right word to explain it. Denmark is remarkable.

My first day here, Thursday, I did a lot of walking around alone. I visited the Botanical Gardens, the King’s Garden, and Rosenborg Castle where the Danish crown jewels are held. An irritating realization while I was walking through the castle was that I don’t know ANYTHING about the Danish royal family!! I could tell you everything you’d want to know, going back thousands of years, about British royalty, but I am clueless about the Danes. I still haven’t really had time to research anything except for several random facts:

1) For like a thousand years, every other Danish king has been named either Christian or Frederick. It’s still that way today. 2) If the Queen of England and the Queen of Denmark are in a room together, Queen Elizabeth must bow to Queen Margrethe of Denmark, because the Danish royal family is the oldest in Europe. Margrethe can trace her lineage back a thousand years, while Elizabeth can only trace hers about 300 years. 3) The current Danish Royal family is pretty “average.” They walk their dogs out in the city, travel without security, and the Queen even designs and sews costumes for the Danish theater. To be royal AND normal? What a life! 4) Speaking of normal, Crown Prince Frederick met his wife at a bar in Australia during the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She is a completely average Australian woman who unknowingly fell in love with a freaking prince. There is hope for us all. Ok, those are all the facts I have.

ACTUALLY, though, when I was taking a walking tour around the royal family’s palace, Amalienborg, our guide was casually like “oh hey there’s the queen.” She was coming out of her garage and waved at us as she drove by. At that point I had been in Copenhagen for less than 24 hours and already saw the Queen, and yet I lived in London for 4 months and never saw Elizabeth?? Okay, okay. It’s fine.

I met up with my friend Anna a couple times, and it was fun to see Copenhagen from her point of view. We’re in the same a cappella group at OSU and she’s studying here for the semester. We walked all around Copenhagen, through a food market called Torvehallerne, through the Royal Library, down by the harbor, and even jumped on the random trampolines on the sidewalk in Nyhavn. Nyhavn is the area with all the colorful houses you see in pictures of Copenhagen. Although it’s only a tiny part of the city, I walked by there or sat on the canal there a couple times a day and just people-watched, ate waffles, or soaked in the rare sunshine I got all weekend.

Anna and I also walked around the famous Tivoli Gardens. I don’t know how an amusement park can be hygge, but I think it was. We went on friday night when they were holding a free concert. As one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, the park is a beautiful example of Victorian architecture, fair rides, and thousands of colorful bulb lights. I definitely should have also gone during the day to actually maybe ride a ride, but the park was magical at night just to wander through.

I also met a few really great people at my hostel from Portland, San Diego, and Morocco. On Saturday, the four of us took a day trip to Malmo, Sweden, 45 minutes away by a train that traveled over the spectacular Oresund Bridge and overlooked hundreds of wind turbines out in the straight. Unfortunately, I didn’t see an IKEA or eat Swedish meatballs in Sweden, but we hung out in a beautiful park and randomly came across a type of Iron Man competition where thousands of Swedes were competing and watching. That was actually super cool, and we hung out on the beach where it was happening and had a charcuterie and wine picnic. Fun fact, but Malmo has the tallest building in Scandinavia, called the “Turning Torso” because it twists in a sort of spiral. It’s only about 586 feet tall, but looks absolutely massive compared to the four-story buildings surrounding it, and a bit like Isengard from across the water in Copenhagen.

Our Malmo day was incredibly relaxing, so I spent Sunday doing all the things I hadn’t done yet such as taking a canal tour, walking through the Design Museum, seeing the Little Mermaid statue (since Hans Christian Andersen, the writer, lived in Copenhagen), and walking around the freetown of Christiania. Christiania was established in the 70s as an “autonomous anarchist” town, and today still remains so, with a “tolerated” weed trade from booths on the streets. Although it looks like a graffitied and derelict commune, it’s actually the safest part of Copenhagen and attracts half a million visitors annually. I’m kind of obsessed with it. I might retire there.

 

Although Copenhagen is often passed off as a sort of perfect society, there are still many things the city and the country can improve on. As I’ve heard from Anna and also read and witnessed, some of Copenhagen’s “tolerance” is actually indifference toward issues that tend to get swept under the rug. At a bar, a Dane was clearly uncomfortable by the fact that my friend was gay, and I know someone who witnessed a black man get kicked out of a coffee shop a few months ago. Denmark also didn’t take a single Syrian refugee, and instead implemented border controls between Sweden to keep them out. Although incidents of homophobia, racism, and xenophobia can and do happen anywhere, Copenhagen’s insistence on diversity and inclusion sometimes makes these hidden prejudices surprising and disappointing. Tolerance is easy when everyone looks and acts like you. I hope Denmark can work to do better.

Overall, though, I really did love Copenhagen and would come back in a heartbeat. At first, I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough to do in four whole days, but now there are a ton of things I still want to do here. If you’re ever in Copenhagen, here are some recommendations, many of them recommended to me by Anna:

Culture

• Rosenborg Slot (Crown Jewels)
• Amalienborg Slot (Changing of the Guard)
• Christianborg Slot (Parliament and views from the tower)
• Design Museum
• National Museum of Denmark
• FREE walking tours

Sites/Urban Spaces

• Botanical Gardens
• King’s Garden
• Black Diamond/Royal Danish Library
• The Little Mermaid Statue
• Nyhavn trampolines
• Architecture of Bjarke Ingles Group

Day Trips

• Malmo, Sweden
• Museum for Sofart (Maritime Museum)
• Kronborg Castle (Hamlet’s Castle)

Neighborhoods

• Christiania (freetown)
• Strogert (shopping district)
• Nyhavn (street of famous colorful houses)

Food

• Momo Wok Box (wok street food)
• Paludan (library cafe/restaurant)
• Torvehallerne (food stall market)

On to Berlin!