Half-Way Point

Abbie
Mar 26, 2018
4 min read

Off the main road - on a cute brick street lined with colorful homes and small cafes - I sit with a blanket draped over the back of my chair and a candle lit on the small table I've claimed with half the wax already melted. Around me languages spill over each other. Although it has been many weeks since arriving, the melody of the Danish language still sounds of a completely foreign mixture of sounds and quick inflections.

Outside there are people streaming by refusing to be hindered by the lack of sunlight and slight mist falling from the grey sky. I've seen pockets of spring since arriving here - moments where it seems the red and yellow buildings and glowing in the late afternoon sun, the people pouring out of the shops to sit and eat outdoors while still wrapped in coats, and smelt the flower vendors in every square. But the cold still lingers and the people are still bundled in scarves and making the last moments of hygge count.

It's quieter here than back home, slower too. Thriving on the hustle and bustle of american life is something I am accustomed to - and even enjoy. Walking slowly on the streets, walking without a direction, and having hours of time with little to do is as foreign to me as the new country I'm living in. Initially I thought to fill my time. I thought the way to experience abroad and danish life was by packing every day with sight-seeing, activities and obligations that would put me in the spheres as others, and in living for the next travel and photo worthy moment. But as it is with the sunlight, the truth about Denmark isn't found in my activities and photos uploaded to Facebook of the main tourist sights. It is found in these quiet moments hidden away off a side street.

Danish culture isn't loud or brash, but rather is beautiful in a soft spoken kind of way. And it is here, in this quiet and cute cafe that I have begun to cherish this moment in my life - that I can spend reading for fun, with people I've come to care about, and simply observing the world around me.

Copenhagen was described by someone somewhere as the "sightless paradise" and a paradise it is. Big enough to be a city but small enough not to be overrun by tourists and marked by trash filled streets - Copenhagen is the retreat I didn't know I needed and the space I'm already dreading having to leave. Not only have I been taught to cherish the time spent still, but also the people who fill that time - with easy conversations, background Netflix noise, and bursts of laughter.

Being abroad is a weird concept in and of itself - leaving a place that already feels so temporary and holds so much importance as my college, to travel to a new city and new culture for a short period, aware that the whole time it's passing all too quickly. Everyone is in the same boat here - basically back in that awkward first week of freshman year that we all thought we forgot but lapsed back into without a second thought.

Despite coming from different places and backgrounds the common thread of Copenhagen knit us all together in a tight weave. There are places and experiences I've shared with the people I've met here that will never be recreated or replaced, travel alone where the whole time was spent wishing for one of my new friends to share it with, and the gift of having a visiting host family showing me a home away from home.

I came here looking for the idea of hygge - imagining it happening in the perfectly planned scenarios with the right number of candles and the fanciest coffee Copenhagen could provide. And while there have been those perfect moments where I've felt the peace and joy of this famous Scandinavian term, I've also felt it in the most unexpected moments and ways. Hygge isn't a place or an event - hygge is a choice and it's a feeling. For me, this means it's happened sitting around a cluttered dinner table, riding a train exhausted after a day of exploring, and right now sitting cross-legged on a comfy chair spending time doing something I haven't done in years - writing. There is no secret equation or formula to find these moments. Rather, it is a mindset that I didn't even know was buried somewhere deep inside me.

While I am the same girl who left North Dakota a few months ago I have also learned and grown. With the new place I've become a new version of myself and that is something I want to hold on to. This new version is marked by attempts to enjoy slow lazy days, the knowledge of a welfare system that supports citizens and enables greater gender equality and home and at work, and daily doses of gratitude and humility for being able to experience another small piece of the planet during my short time here. It is these things that I want to bring back with me - at least until I can make another temporary-but-longish-term adventure happen again.

2 months down & 2 to go. Still confused how that has happened.